Thursday, September 04, 2008
Opportunity
Mitt Romney, at the RNC:
We strengthen our people and our economy when we preserve and promote opportunity. Opportunity is what lets hope become reality.
Bullseye. There are, however, questions that cloud the matter. People are born with different opportunities, and by this I mean more than the wealth of their parents. Some people, whether born with great opportunity or not, are simply terrible at recognizing opportunity or acting on the recognition. It is often the people born with the most opportunity who do not recognize their good fortune or build on it. That is why so many people dissipate the wealth and education conferred by their parents. Distinguishing the people who are unlucky in all the circumstances of their birth from the people who are blind to opportunity or incompetent at capitalizing on it is very difficult. It is this difficulty that charges the political argument over paternalism with so much emotion.
1 Comments:
By 
, at
Fri Sep 05, 12:41:00 AM:
One might ask whether we should be subsidizing incompetence in the first place. It is just as wrong to steal for benificent reasons as selfish ones, and proclaimed altruism is frequently a cloak for less savory motives.
