On the role of luck in success, and why I'm a Democrat
I was born into a poor white family,. to parents who were Democrats in the Solid South of the Fifties, but who changed their party preference just as soon as LBJ flipped the switch on civil rights.
So, as a child I would go to school and see better-dressed and better-fed fellow students.... and if you've never been in that situation I'm here to tell you that it affects just about every aspect of your growing life. Your educational opportunities are fewer because you can't advance beyond public schools. Your economic opportunities are fewer because your exposure to business practices and income methods are limited. Even your relationship opportunities are affected, because children can be really petty about the clothes you wear, the car you don't have, the snacks you can't afford, the proms you can't attend. I'm ambivalent about the free lunches I received in public school because of our income level, but I was mortified on a daily basis when the teachers came around the room handing out those tokens that allowed me to eat.
Now, through all of that I never resented anybody for their fortune... never felt jealous.... only felt unlucky.
And as I grew older I became more and more convinced that society should try to take better care of people born into unfortunate circumstances, and that government should be the director of that care. And at the same time I grew more and more befuddled, and, quite frankly, disappointed in my own parents for being Republicans... for constantly voting against their own financial well-being for what I saw was a simple matter of race.... i.e. no matter how low they were on the white ladder of income, no matter how many meals their children missed, no matter that we didn't have hot running water to bathe, they felt themselves superior to black people. And, by golly, they wished to keep it that way.
So, I'm a Democrat. And that's because while I don't agree with every last policy procedure or bit of legislation, and while I see that Democratic politicians are at times just as greedy as their Republican counterparts, I also see that the Democratic Party mostly functions to mitigate the circumstances of social misfortune by providing safety nets and equalizing opportunities. The Republican Party, on the other hand, exists to magnify the causes of social and economic differences.
Well, this has gotten a bit more long winded than I planned. All of that, I confess, was my intro into a very interesting YouTube bit, that I hope you'll watch, about the role of luck vs. hard work as the reason for personal success. Republicans will have you believe that you are what you make yourself to be, and while I find myself in old age financially secure through a bit of determination, study, craftiness, I couldn't have achieved this security without educational grants. This video shows how wrong Republicans are... in a pure mathematical sense:
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