Democrats think they have the issue of the 2016 election: income inequality. The theory is that so few Americans control so much of the wealth in the country that the rest of us, the “99 percent,” will rise up and demand “fairness.” It’s jealously, plain and simple. And its success, as much as there has been, is based on ignorance.
Bill Gates is worth more than you or I ever will be. Actually, he’s worth more than you, me, and pretty much everyone we know ever will be. But he’s not rich because we’re poor. In fact, we’re not poor at all.
Gates made his money, created it. Before Microsoft existed the value of Microsoft didn’t exist. It was created and grew from nothing, or a relatively small investment. It also grew from hard work and a risk. Gates left Harvard to start the company; he didn’t rob a bank, he bet on himself, his vision and ability. And he won.
Unless someone literally stole from someone else, no one is poor because someone else got rich. That appears to be a difficult concept for many to understand, particularly the “social justice warriors” who obstruct traffic demanding their slice of other people’s pie.
But they do understand it; they just hope others don’t. The chanters against the “1 percent” play on the ignorance of their misguided flock. That ignorance runs deep.
That it is fiction that you have less because someone else has more is but one basic concept people should have learned in school. Thanks to the Democratic Party’s indentured servitude to teachers unions, such basic concepts have been replaced with sensitivity conditioning and diversity training.
Recommended
The idea that Mark Zuckerberg being worth $34 billion means you were denied your slice of that pie is absurd (unless your last name is Winklevoss or Saverin). That a political party, or any decent human being, would perpetuate that lie is worse.
It’s not often I’ll quote an actor to make a political point, at least the actual actor and not the character he played. But I recently heard something I think captures the American spirit, or what it used to be, so perfectly that it is worth repeating.
The actor is Terry Crews, star of “Brooklyn 99,” and while talking on Adam Carolla’s “Take A Knee” podcast, Crews talked about how he became the successful man he is today. Crews told Carolla, “Everybody says they’re trying to get their piece of the pie. They don’t understand that the world is a kitchen. You can make your own pie.”
That is true, to one degree or another, in most corners of the world. But it is truer in the United States than anywhere else. Yet one political party, aided by the media, is committed to convincing millions of their fellow Americans that they can’t get ahead, that “the deck is stacked against them,” or “the game is rigged.” Nothing could be more un-American.
Democrats and the media obsess on “income inequality,” but outcome inequality is the real plague of America’s poor.
Everyone has access to an education – Equality.
Wealthy Democrats deny Americans the ability to choose which school their kids attend, but they can and do afford excellent private schools for their kids – Inequality.
The greatest barrier to economic mobility is education malpractice, and those screaming “inequality” are the ones building and reinforcing that barrier.
No one should want income equality, or anything close to it. The only societies where income was anything close to equal were the most despotic in history. The Soviet Union, communist China, Cuba, etc., all enforced the concept of “equality” down to the income level. It quashed the human spirit and the entrepreneurial spirit – and the only people who achieved upward mobility, the only people who got rich, were those who imposed the income equality.
Everyone is equal…under a boot.
The fact is the “rich” today won’t necessarily be the rich tomorrow, and the same goes for the poor. The discussion is always framed as the rich vs. the poor, but it’s never mentioned that neither group is stagnant. Whether someone moves up or down that scale is up to them. The chances they take, the effort they exert, the work they do are all bigger factors in someone’s economic future than anything a politician can implement. Unless, of course, that politician implements a program designed to alleviate “income inequality.”
North Korea has the lowest income inequality on the planet – one man has everything, millions of others have nothing. In this country, similarly situated individuals are making the case we should be more like North Korea. OK, them first. If these millionaire progressives are really interested in “spreading the wealth around,” then write me a check. If the check clears, we can discuss the concept further.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member