Toward Fairness — Some Modest Proposals
Lately, President Obama has been talking a lot about “fairness.” He wants to make our society more “fair.” I was raised a bit differently than the president, so I’ve been struggling with this concept. My parents always told me that in life, as in poker, I had to play the cards I was dealt. Whenever I complained that something was unfair, my parents would respond, “Whoever said life was fair?” This concept — that life itself was unfair — was even part of my religious upbringing. The 10th Commandment says, “Thou shalt not covet anything that is thy neighbor’s.” Obviously, if everyone had exactly the same stuff, there would be no reason to covet anything, and thus no point in having such a commandment. So even God recognized that life was unfair.
But here’s the president saying he wants to make life more fair. So I, as a patriotic American, would like to offer some suggestions toward attaining that goal.
I know the president is a big basketball fan, so let’s look at that. NBA players make millions of dollars, but in order to excel in the game, you basically have to be tall. Really tall. Like 6′ 6″ tall. Is it fair that some people are born so tall they have this incredible advantage? I mean, seriously, it’s not my fault that I’m only 5’9,” is it? Sure, God says I’m not supposed to covet my neighbor’s height, and I wouldn’t do that, except that a guy who’s 6’10″ can make jillions of dollars playing basketball, and I can’t. Is that fair? Is it fair to actually have an institution that discriminates against short people, completely shutting them out of a potential career? Of course not. Now, certainly we could make basketball illegal, and that would solve the problem immediately, but the president likes basketball so he’s not going to do that. So I suggest a plan whereby NBA players aren’t allowed to make more than $50k a year. Then shorter folks wouldn’t feel discriminated against in having a high-paying job market denied to us. Surely, that would be fair.
The president went to Harvard. That’s a very elite school. A degree from Harvard opens a lot of doors that aren’t available to people who haven’t gone there. Is that fair? I don’t think so. A lot of perfectly intelligent people would like to go there, but either they can’t afford it, or they can’t get in, so they become very disappointed when they’re rejected. That doesn’t sound fair to me. I say we should abolish Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford and all the elite universities. After all, if no one could go there, then no one would ever be disappointed that they couldn’t go there. Sure, it’d be sad to close those revered institutions, but I’m sure their employees would understand that losing their jobs was a noble sacrifice to ensure a fair society. Then again, with unemployment skyrocketing, maybe that’s not a good idea. Maybe a better solution would be to simply rename every college and university in America “Harvard.” Then everyone could go there! Only in America, right? How’s that for fairness?
Barack Obama making everything Fair…. to poor.
Hah! This is funny. We’ve become so stupid and over-refined since the days of Thomas Jefferson we need to have the nature of reality explained to us. Our system of gov’t was founded on the idea of fairness: those forefathers as we like to call them, thought life could and should be more fair – fairer than the divine rights of kings and their attendant landed aristocracy could or would deliver.
But as you say, there was no wholesale turning away from reality – simply an emphasis that if you could do a thing, you’d have a better chance to do it, without bowing and scraping to someone born to a higher station than you. The new aristocracy would be the usual suspects but with enough Horatio Algers mixed in to keep the rich in their place, and to sometimes exchange places with them – a cyclic, peaceful revolution based on talent and ability, will and discipline.
Obama has taken this concept much further, too far. Obama and his ilk deny reality itself. Sand can be wet, water dry and fire cold in their world. Mayan Indians become unlucky and exploited people who would otherwise be rocket scientists living on mountain tops in high-tech domes. Coulda, woulda, shoulda replaces what is and so our very eyes and judgments come to be considered boorish, even immoral.
Imagine if the Aztecs had possessed the tech to overwhelm the Spanish but refused to do so because they made laws that said that, according to their own principles, they must allow themselves to be overwhelmed. This is Obama and the Dem Party, a place where fairness is not what is desired, but a wholesale agreement that success is failure and failure success. The Dems won’t be happy til some fat, lazy, layabout is sitting on a throne with a crown askew on their head and a scepter in their hand ordering technicians to make them a space station.
Obama and the Dems ask for bowing and scraping once again, but this time by people who are mere baggage handlers in an airport they built, not by birth, but by very real industry and vision. In our country a man who might have been a starving peasant can attain to great heights and have. But now they have to drag 10 people with them to those heights and that is a lot to ask of reality. I may be my brother’s keeper but only if I’m asked. If ordered, it’s the big F U.
“I may be my brother’s keeper but only if I’m asked.”
A part of liberal mythology is the “fact” that the Holy Bible states that you are your brother’s keeper. But alas, it does not. The only reference in the bible to the brother’s keeper notion is to be found in Genesis 4:9.…”And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel your brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?” (King James version, Cambridge ed.).
The next time a sneering liberal thinks that he/she is making a great point, so as to justify some welfare-state ideal, that will take advantage of your Christian values by stating that “it’s in the Holy Bible” you may simply ask “where?” with full assurance that the correct answer is “nowhere”.
Government welfare programs and charity as defined in the Bible – apples and oranges. I think we can all agree that Christianity and Judaism – most religions, in fact – assert that taking care of the poor is a good thing. In a religious context, however, charity is as much a spiritual exercise as it is a practical one. But I think that in order to have any spiritual benefit, the act of giving must be free. The giver shouldn’t feel like something has been taken away against his or her will. There’s a big difference between dropping some change in a beggar’s bowl and paying your taxes. The former is spiritual giving; the latter is “giving” under duress.
The moment “charity” becomes mandatory, with appropriate penalties for failure to fork over, it’s no longer charity – it’s taxes, plain and simple. That’s why it’s wrong to use the “What would Jesus do?” argument when discussing government social programs. Jesus would certainly advocate giving to the poor. Jesus would not advocate confiscating people’s assets or locking them in jail if they failed to give.
In the “less on the widow’s mite,” Jesus says a poor woman who gives her last two coins is better than the rich people who give large sums but with plenty left over for themselves. Again, this is a lesson in spiritual charity, not “fairness” or “equality.” Jesus doesn’t say that to make things fair for the widow, the temple guards should go to the rich people’s houses and take THEIR last coins.
If Jesus had succumbed, in the wilderness, to the Devil’s offer to make him King of Everything, he could have used his worldly power to force people to be charitable – to kick the Romans out of Jerusalem, redistribute wealth, eliminate poverty, establish social justice, etc., etc. That he did not tells me he had something else in mind.
Sorry, that should say “lesson of the widow’s mite.” You know the one. It comes right before the “parable of the Saducee’s aphid.”
thou art to be smited about the neck and shoulders with a dictionary, yeah a webster’s red dictionary. Mite- a tiny thing, including tiny little, itty bitty penny coins.
Thanks. I was wondering how a brace of tiny arthropods was meant to have improved the lot of an impecunious Judean.
A better response is to point out that the only person in the Bible to use that phrase was the guy who had just *murdered* his brother. And then point out that Barack Obama claims to be his brother’s keeper, but hasn’t lifted a finger to help his, you know, *actual brother* living in squalor in Nairobi or wherever it is.
I wrote about the fairness meme here, and pointed out that for the current administration, Might Makes Right, which is an awful idea. Nothing outside the will of the State. Here is my link: http://clarespark.com/2012/04/12/the-donkey-serenade-and-buffetts-rule/.
Let’s imagine that they get their way, that life for everyone in America becomes “fair” (according to the Big Government definition, of course), and we all end up living in those endless apartment complexes that the Communist countries are so famous for (boy — can’t wait!). I wonder who’s gonna get that suddenly-vacant big house on the hill, or that big cabin on the lake? (“Hey,” the Big Government politician will say when he takes possession of said real estate, “it’s only fair. I won.”)
By the way, that Big Government politician who takes possession of the Big House? He’s a “former” CEO of a government-seized corporation that he still runs. How does that old The Who song go? “Met the new boss . . . “
Actually, the answer is Michael Moore. See:
http://www.thevileplutocrat.com/bile/articles/michael-moore-occupies-a-giant-lake-house/
D
Why is it that liberals always seem to define “fairness” as bringing down the rich rather than raising up the poor. Wouldn’t fairness be better if everyone was successful instead of having everyone wallowing in equally distributed failure?
Because they see CEOs, business leaders, owners — anyone who calls him- or herself a capitalist — as “evil” and “greedy” and “uncaring” (not human) who have made their wealth off the backs of the poor and “oppressed.” Therefore, Big Government must step in and make things “fair.” But, of course, then you need a Department of Fairness, with office space and supplies, utilities, salaries, pensions, benefits . . . . to make sure “fairness” is “fair” (fairly speaking).
The progressives have tried for seventy years to raise up the poor and have failed. At best, they’ve managed to maintain the poor in a state of government-subsidized poverty. The poor haven’t budged. So you’re right, the only chance they have to make things “equal” and “fair” is to bring down the rich.
Actually, the poor today live a lot better than they did 70 years ago. According to census statistics, they’re likely to have 2 or more TVs, computers, at least one car, cell phones and a host of other things that didn’t exist 70 years ago. They got the money to buy those things from the government, but the fact that those things exist at all is due to the “evil” corporations and “the rich.”
But they’re still “poor” – i.e., don’t have jobs, live in the ghetto or the trailer park or the rez, take more drugs and commit more crimes than non-poor people do, are victims of more crimes than non-poor people are, do worse in school than non-poor people do, etc. Poverty isn’t just a lack of material things. It’s a situation, a mindset, a lifestyle, a culture. That’s what government programs have failed to eliminate. Have they made any progress since, say, 1968? I don’t know.
Government programs can’t end poverty and that isn’t their goal. Their goal is to establish dependency to create a reliable voting block. I remember seeing on CSPAN many years ago that about 80% of the federal money allocated to the various welfare programs went to government overhead to pay for bureaucrats and social workers.
Back in the late 1980s, I was talking to some friends of mine who were teachers in a poor part of Alabama. They mentioned they’d just enrolled their first “5th generation welfare dependent” child in their school. Think of that for a moment – 5 generations of a family dependent on welfare. By now, there’s almost certainly a 6th and even a 7th generation. They aren’t living well, but they’re living well enough without having to do anything (and by working for cash under the table). If you add up all of the various welfare benefits they receive (housing, food stamps, WIC, Medicaid, etc.), they’d have to get a job that paid at least $15-20 an hour to break even with welfare. Given the poor area and their lack of job skills, that isn’t going to happen so welfare is good enough for them. What can we do to break that cycle of dependency?
When poverty becomes an abstract or relative notion, subject to perception, it’s not poverty.
Larry,
You cut them off. (but you knew that already)
Regards.
Because if the needy were “raised up” they wouldn’t vote democrat no more?
Yeah, it’s about fairness. What pisses me off is the way Obama turns fairness upside down.
It’s not fair that 10% of taxpayers pay 70% of the federal income tax\
It’s not fair that 41% pay nothing.
It’s not fair that many who pay nothing get a tax ‘refund’, i.e. income tax credit.
It’s not fair that some earn a living making babies that entitle them to more freebies.
It’s not fair that the slackers in the OWS mob be permitted to disrupt the lives of those who actually work.
It’s not fair that schmucks like Michael Moore can villify the very corporations that he has invested his millions in, and go unchallenged.
It’s not fair that the MSM, in a colossal act of journalistic malfeasance, can ignore, obfuscate, distort, and pander to the propaganda, lies and incompetence of the Obama adminstration.
If life was fair, the biologic mother of Hillary Rosens’ twins would have had access to free contraception, and Rosen would still be childless.
This is what happens when you let other people decide what’s fair for you (your last point was a zinger).
Roger that, Carla. Very well put.
http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html
HARRISON BERGERON
by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.
And all of the men were named Bruce, and all of the women were named Sheila, and everybody lived happily ever after. The end.
Wow! That’s pretty far seeing considering the decade in which it was written. It was the handwriting on the wall. And now here we are, rearranging success until we put every last member of the U.N. in space and make it look like they did it. We have become sad magicians dedicated to suicide and I’m not even sure for what. What I am sure of is that we’re headed for the whole world being the Third World.
Harrison Bergeron is from a collection of short stories titled “Welcome to the Monkey House”. Not your typical Vonnegut stories. More to the point. Overall a good book, with a libertarian bent.
kudos, you beat me to it… I was just going to post the name of the story and let people figure it out on their own (surely access to wikipedia helps make doing that more fair)
Parabellum, I read that story in my teens and it has been with me ever since (30 years +) I was looking for an appropriate quote and then you hit it. Great story and maybe an indicator for what lies in store..!
Obviously, Obama never played baseball. There’s no crying in baseball, Obama.
Just as obviously, life is what you make of it in this country; there’s no guarantee of fairness in American life.
Nope, not a word of fairness in the Constitution, though there’s lots of protestations of fairness in Communist writings and Constitutions
In fact, under Communism, perverted claims of fairness are as basic an element of the barbed wire system of government as freedom and liberty (to succeed and screw up) are basic tenants of our the American way of life, with our Constitution being the foundation of our laws.
Isn’t it curious that generations of people have tried to escape the Communistic version of fairness while generations have looked to America as a wonderful world of unguaranteed fairness to escape to? Generally, people here, playing the hand their dealt, get as far as their work ethic, drive and determination takes them.
The more time I spend with Obama as President, the more convinced I am that not only does Obama hate America, but that Obama has no idea what makes America tick.
Perverted definitions of fairness and and Obama’s obvious attraction to the barbed wire systems of government don’t take root and grow on American soil. Obama reminds me more like a skinny weed that needs to be pulled out. Outweighing Obama by at least 80 pounds, Michelle is more than a thick, fat stump that might need a bulldozer to remove.
Every time I see the Obamas they appear to me to be more and more anti-un-American. Like they don’t belong here. Maybe that’s why they’re always vacationing in other countries. The more Communist they are, the more comfortable they seem to feel.
It may not seem like a big thing to some, but a President who pronounces the word, “corpsman” incorrectly,(corpsman) over and over again shouldn’t be President. He should be a Russian type just learning the language.
If he did it intentionally, that would make him ignorant. If he did it because he didn’t know better, that would make him an alien who better have a green card or somebody like Ted Nugent is liable to escort him out of this country by hook or crook.
How Obama got here is now almost insignificant. How he’ll be run out of town is the question.
One thing is fairly certain,though. Before President Obama does any more damage to this nation, he has to go. I thought perhaps the Orkin Man might be able to help, but he’s just another pest control person who’s heard if you see something as butt ugly as Obama’s wife, Michelle, you’re liable to turn to stone.
Maybe I’ll look in the yellow pages under radioactive waste disposal.
Considering how much damage Obama does every day, his culture of corruption having already reached the incorruptible Secret Service, waiting till November 6 to rid ourselves of this cancer on the Presidency seems like an eternity.
Maybe some of have some ideas how to get rid of him.
A friend of mine who actually recently visited the White House says it has a funny smell, not exactly cat pee, but an annoyingly putrid smell. They say the light of a belief in freedom and liberty is a great disinfectant. But apparently the miscreants who occupy 1600 Pennsylvania have banned it from the White House.
The way I’ve tried to explain the president’s tax code to my kids is this way: You go out on Halloween and go trick-or-treating. After you work at it for a few hours, you come back with a bag full of candy. I then take that full bag of candy and take away exactly have of what the kids collected. I then say to my kids that I’m giving all of that candy to kids who did absolutely no work and no trick-or-treating. I say, that would be fair, wouldn’t it? The kids then scream at me and say that it would NOT be fair of me to do that. And I reply, “Oh really now, it wouldn’t? It wouldn’t be fair to take half of what you earned and give it to people who did nothing to earn it? Congratulations, kids, you now understand the President’s tax policy. Have a nice day.”
Good analogy, Liberty, one I will be using with several soon-to-be young adults who simply don’t get it.
Making a joke about physical attractiveness falls a little flat because they actually do have government paid cosmetic surgery clinics in Brazil. See, there is no limit to creative spending of taxpayer dollars to the progressive mind (remember a pol in France proposed having a vacation trip is a right?). Also, being tall isn’t that great when it comes to buying clothes…
The basketball analogy is good, but let’s not forget another shameful aspect of the NBA: It clearly discriminates against whites based on the standard of “disparate impact,” which the government is attempting to apply in many other cases. 90-95% black? It MUST be discriminating against whites (not to mention Asians, Hispanics, etc.) Shouldn’t the attorney general be looking into some kind of case against the NBA? If not, why not?
Look, I can’t resist. There is another way for the government to mandate fairness for all that does not involve body mutilation and the abolition of all competitive activity. The government could instead mandate that everyone swap official identities as often as necessary to ensure that we all get, say, a short time being Bill Gates, a short time being middle class, a short time being lower class, a criminal, etc., etc. You could call this the time-sharing video game solution. To handle problems of greater personal beauty, athletic ability, etc. — as well as making time-sharing of identities easier — we could make everyone play out their adult life interacting remotely using avatars, similar to the setup described in E. M. Forster’s short story “The Machine Stops”. You could even, after having learned your lesson and become sick of absolute fairness, leave the system and live a real life (which is more or less the way Forster’s story ends)
How come PJM does not have any articles on Allen West and his accurate statement about members of the Progressive Caucus being Communists. It is time to have this debate. We have seen our president surround himself with the biggest bunch of radicals in history and no one will call these bums out. Van Jones is a communist radical, Anita Dunn is a communist who also said Mao was here hero. Our president surrouns himself with this scum and members of congress walk around supporting communist policies and supporting dictatorships of the same stripes. I want these rats exposed and driven off.
Why are you mentioning this here?
My suggestion: Send them a pitch about this and volunteer to write it yourself!
Obama Lawyer Admits Forgery but disregards “image” as Indication of Obama’s Ineligibility Damage Control http://www.teapartytribune.com/2012/04/13/obama-lawyer-admits-forgery-but-disregards-image-as-indication-of-obamas-ineligibility-damage-control/
Washington76, It’s such a poor forgery it can’t be taken seriously? Uhh, what about the poor guys that photocopy $10.00 bills. Can they use that defense when they go up on forgery charges?
As to the fairness thing and charity, a friend lost her job awhile back and I sent her a little bit to help her out until she could get back on her feet. She emailed me saying I didn’t have to do that and I replied If I had to do it I wouldn’t have. As someone else said up above, it’s one thing to be charitable, it’s something totally different to be forced to give.
There’s a great short story by Kurt Vonnegut – “Harrison Bergeron” – which makes such great points along these lines. (kudos to John Hawkins for bringing it up first). Well worth a quick read!
http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html
Oops – just saw that Parabellum beat me to the punch. Oh well, great minds think alike.
This article concedes that fairness and equality are synonyms, thus despite the irony ends up doing a disservice to the cause of freedom and *actual* fairness – which is having what you earn (and not being all the same).
The article does a creditable job of satirizing the egalitarian view of “fairness”. But I wonder (a) if the is the president’s view and (b) if the situation for the last few decades has an element of socialism for the rich. Maybe Warren Buffet is wrong in saying that the rich should pay a higher tax rate. But should they pay a lower rate? Maybe it is wrong to give handouts to the lazy. But is it right to bail out the banks (and other mismanaged large enterprises) thereby assuring incompetent managers that they can always count on such bailouts when they take their clients’/creditors money to the casino and lose.
And is it right that senior decision-makers in private business should be allowed to make decisions that destroy the enterprises that they control and then walk away with their personal fortunes intact, while the victims of their incompetence (or dishonesty) are left out of pocket – sometimes with major losses? Should the fictio juris of limited liability be allowed to gloss over the fact that businesses are run by decision makers?
The decision-makers in the private sector are quick to claim the credit (and pocket the bonuses) in the good years? Should they not be held jointly and severally liable for the losses in the bad years? (At least if those losses threaten the integrity and survival of the enterprise – and the capacity of creditors to obtain what is owed to them?) If not, then you will never have fairness – merely privilege for the most cunning.
“…create National Disfigurement Clinics.”
Anyone familiar with the TWILIGHT ZONE episode that took up this issue? It’s a very famous episode called “Eye of the Beholder.” Look it up on the Web. Serling was ahead of his time. Wonder if he’d still be a liberal were he alive today.
‘Course, that episode aired originally back in the late 50s/early 60s, and the show WAS only in black & white. I’ll bet Mr. Gale has seen it though!
None of this will be taken seriously by the Obamacrats. The underpinning of their fairness doctrine is their belief that our capitalist system is rigged in favor of certain people, i.e. white, born into comfort or wealth, living in the right enclaves and in control of most of our capital resources.
There is a certain truth to this although it is way overblown and certainly not true enough to justify marching us all down the path to socialism where everyone (except the politicians and their friends) share the same level of misery.
But once again, we see a political movement wherein the leaders engage in a diabolical form of misdirection where their own policies cause the problems but in order to retain power, they blame them on someone else and propose to the common man that they are the party that can fix things. If there is a problem with our capitalism it is that it is not free enough. Government imposes regulations that make competition all but impossible in many segments of the economy. Ever wonder why the highest incomes are found in the most regulated segments, i.e. financial, medical and pharmaceutical. Opportunity and upward mobility for the average person is severely stunted both by the tyranny or hyper-regulation and by heavy taxation.
So, rather than only sevens in a deck of cards, a better metaphor would be creation by Obama of a poker czar and bureaucracy which would limit places where poker can be played, requires unionization of all dealers and drink servers, demands ethnic and gender diversity at every table, imposes a 60% sin tax, requires OSHA monitoring of noise levels, orthopedic stools and many other things in a 2700 page set of regulations. Come to think of it, we are already pretty close to that.
Quotes from ‘The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure: The “Good Parts” Version, Abridged’by William Goldman
“Who says life is fair, where is that written?”
“Life isn’t fair, it’s just fairer than death, that’s all.”
“Life is pain, highness. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something.”
In Chicago, no less…..http://www.infosports.com/halepark/files/2011_fall_mens_sunday_schedule_revised.pdf
Kudos, Bob Gale! Great essay.
There is no inherent meaning to the concept of “fairness.” There is no absolute standard that measures fairness, nor is there any sort of consensus about what constitutes fairness.
When applied to social relationships, fairness must always be defined by an external observer who has the power and authority to impose a particular conception of it. Typically, the term is a weapon that collectivities use to appropriate desiderata from others.
Fairness should be anathema to those who value individual liberty and limited government. Once fairness is elevated as a societal and political value, the state becomes its “legitimate” arbiter. Obama and his ilk love the elevation of fairness as a value because it requires the subordination of society and individuality to the state.
I think I can make my own fairness, even in opposition to their collectivist schemes.
The way I dealt with this issue with my kids was to tell them ” The world doesn’t love you like Mommy loves you, you have to learn to be self sufficeint because I won’t always be there to catch you when you fall.” . My eldest paid her own way thru college with scholarships, and the youngest graduates HS this year. Because I set my expectations for them high, they learned to deal with both triumph and disappointment, and how to motivate themselves to try again rather than whine “It’s not fair for you to expect so much!”.
Whining always earned them “The Look”, and they learned by the age of 4 that tantrums were verboten.
Fair was they got their allowance for doing all of their chores, and also got docked .25 for cussing. They knew up front what to expect, I never blindsided them with unreasonable or conflicting rules, therefore I was fair.
turns out that “fairness” translates into more wealth and power for the marxists.
strange that, eh?
Jealousy and greed. Socialism doesn’t work. Having tax payers pay to support others peoples children just to buy votes is morally and ethically wrong. Demorats!!
Another way to make basketball “fairer”: set the basket at 48″ above the floor. Oh – we tried that already – that “soft bigotry of lowered expectations” bit. Oh well…
Very reminiscent of the solutions in “Harrison Bergeron” http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html
The idea, that it is right and fair for everyone to be equal is tyrannical from the get go.
Free men are not equal. Men made equal are not free. The only place we should be equal is in the eyes of the law. We should succeed or fail on our own merits.
What you really get is social coercion, so it is political. The Romans had panem et circenses, which was just a way to buy social peace and they knew it. There was no concept of social justice involved.
When the means went so did the people living there: it is sort of like pigeons, you feed them and they come. If illegal immigrants couldn’t work they would be gone too, without any need for enforced transport.
Hey Mr. Gale I have a question.
In Back to the Future 3 how come the Doc left the Deloreon in the cave for Marty to find 100 years later? If it was functioning, why didn’t he just use it to go in the future, rescue Marty, bring him back and then settle in the Wild West? Leaving it in a cave…..hoping that no one else stumbles on it or it gets destroyed in a cave-in….and relying on the Western Union guys to deliver a letter 100 years later is a tall order and kind of out of character for the Doc. What’s the deal with that?
It wasn’t functioning. The time circuits blew a transistor during the lightning strike, and Doc Brown couldn’t build replacement parts with what was available in 1885. 1955 Doc Brown could procure replacement parts and follow his own instructions in order to restore it to operating condition.
Ok but when Marty went back to the west there were technically 2 deloreons there. The one in the cave and the one Marty brought. Why didn’t they use the gas from the one in the mine to escape instead of using the train?
The time circuits were indeed blown, as explained in Doc’s letter. Doc planned for the Delorean to be stored in the cave for 70 years, so he drained all the fluids out of the car — gas and oil. (If you were to put a car in storage for a year or more, you’d find out this is standard operating procedure.) That’s why at the Drive-In, Doc specifically says he put gas in the tank.
Great.
The USA is 223 years old and we’ve only had 44 presidents. How unfair!
Obama should let more people have a turn by not running for reelection.
I think this writer hit the nail on the head. I love his use of sarcasm to make the point. I’d just like to point out one thing though. Our President, and others of whom think as he does, may not view this in the sarcastic way intended. I admit my fear that this could sound good to them. I can all but see the legislation proposed to correct those inequitites.
I want to congratulate the writer for starting this discussion. It’s long overdue.
I think there are some assumptions made that might omit actual speedbumps in the road.
The ‘success’ of feminism can’t be accurately gauged unless – alas – we factor in the influence of a government-driven and government-heavy push to impose affirmative action in the service of gender. This is a problem that has always existed at the core of the AffAct approach, and was somewhat openly discussed in the immediate post-1965 era in the matter of Race, but never really got much attention in the later extension of AffAct to Gender: how can you really gauge the actually-achieved accomplishments and actually-demonstrated talents of the favored group, since its progress has been so thoroughly entwined with ‘help’ extraneous to such talents and achievements? There is no easy solution to this now – nor was there half a century ago; unless you presume-the-problem-away in some fashion.
Early in the 1970s the whole matter became grossly not-Correct to discuss.
I didn’t know that women constitute the majority of managers in the workplace. Does that mean everything around here works right now? It doesn’t seem that way. And that in the days of the patriarchy nothing worked and nothing was produced and it’s only now that everything works much better?
I have a more difficult idea: the Beltway wanted to pander to the supposed feminist demographic, but realized there would be productivity problems (‘efficiency’ was considered so masculine that it was considered an acceptable loss by some feminist advocates) for Business, and so a deal was struck: Business made a great show of accepting gender-diversity domestically, while – with the Beltway’s indulgence – began off-shoring and out-sourcing jobs and facilities just as fast as they could manage it.
The radical-feminists (I think of Catharine MacKinnon, perhaps in her 1989 summa “Toward a Feminist Theory of the State”, working ideas she said she had been working on since 1971) kicked moderate and “liberal” feminisms to the curb early on (MacKinnon baldly asserts the fact) and proceeded to wage culture war (after the vision of Antonio Gramsci, though without attribution for having lifted so much of their theory from a DWEM) against the foundations of American culture.
Worse, their approach was incompatible with the American political universe: if most of the people ‘just don’t get it’, then why have a democracy and why listen to them in the first place? Chantal Mouffe asserted as much when she said her new “radical democracy” had little if any room for “deliberative democratic politics” (since, again, there’s no use talking to, or respecting the opinions of, the many who ‘just don’t’ get it’).
MacKinnon also had little use for the “rule of law” (since it was really only the “rule of patriarchy”) – a maxim which Bush/Cheney took to heart. Funny how the political revolutionary night moves.
And Family, Marriage, Productivity, Objectivity, and Mastery (even of Self) were all taken under fire.
I don’t know precisely where early feminism (socialist but democratic, I infer) leaves off and radical-feminism begins, but somehow, and to the detriment of the former, the two have become fused in the public mind and experience, especially since MacKinnon et al pretty much knocked all the other eggs out of the feminist nest, leaving only their own to hatch and fly.
Hey Bob,
I love the BTTF films but there was something in the 2nd one that’s been killing me for years and maybe you can comment on this. In the alternate reality, we know that there are at least two Martys there: our marty, and the one in Switzerland. But there is three. The third one is the one that just arrived back from 1955 at 1:24 that morning. You may say that Marty never went back in time becuase there is no way he could in that reality. Yet when our Marty goes back to 1955 we see the earlier Marty. If we see him, then he must have made the trip from normal history. In the alternate 1955, Marty would have left 1955 and ended up in the alternate 1985. Yet we never see him. Anyway, my head hurts. Comments?
This is why Doc wanted to destroy the time machine: the consequences of time travel can be disastrous!
We should quit dancing around and call these liberal class warriors out for what they are.
Most of them are too stupid and too lazy to succeed in anything requiring actual competition. They despise successful business people for the same reason they despised the jocks and cheerleaders in high school and the reason they’ve despised everyone of success since — envy and hate, straight-up, pure, and simple.
Bob Gale wrote a terrific though provoking piece. But his scathing sarcasm missed one very real element of Obama’s conception of fairness.
Rules.
In Gale’s basketball analogy he proposes to implement “fairness” by simply banning tall people. But the more accurate analogy to what Obama wants is just change the rules of the game to handicap the “best”. For example under Obama Rules, there are two sets of hoops. One set of hoops is set at 20 feet. The formerly “best” players can only score on the 20 foot high hoops and their shots count for only one point. They only get four players. Everybody else gets to shoot on a six foot high basket. Their points count for three no matter where they are scored from.
How long does that game go on before the formerly best players just give up and find something else to do with their effort.
It’s not about fairness. The real issue is about who gets to decide what is fair.
In a free society, we all get to decide what is fair for ourselves. But we can’t force our notion of fairness on others.
In a “managed” society, it’s the managers – those in power – who decide what is fair and who seek to impose their standard of fairness on others by force.
Can anyone tell me the name of that science fiction story about a utopian, totally fair society, where strong people were forced to wear heavy chains and intelligent people had ear phones piping loud noises into their heads all day to make it harder to think?
Everyone was equal: On your 18th. birthday you were given an academic degree.
Everyone was lowered to the lowest common denominator, because that is so much easier than helping people rise.
It is not fair to work to support yourself and collect W2/1099-MISC when non-working people don’t get a #1099-GOV for their income(redistributed).
Oh, please. Angelina Jolie?
If she weren’t famous she wouldn’t get a second look walking down any sidewalk in America. She’s not just not pretty, she’s HOMELY!
It’s a serious mistake to concede the egalitarians’ definition of fairness and then argue against fairness. Instead, we should challenge their definition of fairness with a better definition and then argue FOR fairness.
How about following the Ayn Rand definition of fairness: that fairness inheres in people being free to succeed or fail by any means EXCEPT the initiation of force and/or fraud.
Question: If a businessman who mismanages a corporation (i.e. a “legal person”) badly and it goes bankrupt with unpaid debts, is that fraud? Is it unfair? Should he/she be punished or at least compelled to pay those debts out of his/her personal wealth?
ABOUT OBAMA’S “FAIRNESS”
OBAMA IS OFFERING “FAIRNESS”… BUT IS “FAIRNESS” GOOD???
Obama is offering FAIRNESS FOR EVERYONE! A FAIR SHARE; A FAIR CHANCE. Do your FAIR share and you will get your FAIR share. Everyone will share in FAIRNESS.
Is FAIR what’s right for you?? Fair implies the treating of all sides alike without reference to one’s own feelings or interests. Everyone will be treated fairly, justly, equitably, moderately.
Fair is neither very bad nor very good. Fair is lacking exceptional quality or ability. A Fair grade; a Fair performance. Fair is just Fair… it’s just average!
Are you just average? Is FAIR what you want in life? Fair is not particularly GOOD; Fair is not BETTER; Fair is certainly not BEST. Fair is not GREAT; Fair is not Going For The GUSTO; Fair is not Being All That You Can Be! Do you want just a Fair living, a Fair job, a Fair amount of money? Fair provides no opportunity. Fair is no chance to do GOOD, BETTER or BEST. Fair provides no advancement. Fair is no chance to Strive for Your Highest and Best. Fair is no chance to Strive for Success or Get Rich.
Obama’s Plan for America is that everything will be FAIR and everyone will be treated FAIRLY and with FAIRNESS. Everyone will be average, alike, equal… and also, in reality, probably poor.
BUT NOT THE RICH PROGRESSIVE ELITES! Fairness doesn’t apply to them! Obama and the Progressive Leftist ELITES… well, they will be VERY, VERY RICH and IN CONTROL while YOU will just be treated Fairly! There will still be rich people, there always will be rich people… but the RICH ELITES don’t want YOU to make decisions for yourself or have you get that chance! You’ll just get your Fair share if you do your Fair share of work to earn it. YOU wouldn’t ever have the chance or the opportunity to become rich… only average. You would have no choice.
That’s Obama’s Socialist / Marxist Plan!! There are rich and poor now, and there will be rich and poor under Obama’s Plan. Under Obama’s Plan there would be TWO CLASSES: The Rich Elites In Power and The Poor. THAT’S IT! THAT’S NOT FREEDOM! …AND IT REALLY ISN’T FAIR!!!
In America, with Capitalism and the Free-Market System and a Free America, ALL OF YOU HAVE A CHANCE TO BE THE BEST THAT YOU CAN BE! Free to choose what you want to do in your life!
IN NOVEMBER 2012, YOU WILL HAVE TO CHOOSE between these two systems of Government: CAPITALISM and the FREE MARKET SYSTEM… OR… OBAMA’S SOCIALIST / MARXIST PLAN (Communism).
CHOOSE WISELY, AMERICA!
Dotti Toumanian 4.13.2012