Saturday, October 3, 2015

Inequality

MIT Technology Review's “Inequality” seems to have built a house of straw on a footing of sand. It's an airish construct with two instinct-drawn human emotions propping it up, envy and resentment. My observation is that certain principles of mathematics and economics are frightfully missing from this MTR advocacy essay. There are baseless assumptions upon which in fact, a regressive look at most recent poverty/inequality articles say to the serious psychologist that there's an epidemic of J-type neurosis threatening members of MIT's Advocacy Authors' Club. Missing is a basis for the author's assumption that $16 per hour is insufficient to support a family. At first, I thought the author might be assuming the Federal Government's definition of “poverty level” ($12,500 per year for an individual and $24,850 for a family of four), but then he added Santa Clara County's higher cost of living, implying that there's a higher threshold of the poverty level in the Silicon Valley.

Had this inequality thinker looked into the mirror on a blustery Monday, he could have noticed the storm clouds and the mouth wrinkles around his logic deprived lips, and then he could have predicted a lesson from my sixth grade neighbor about manning up for a serious game of personal responsibility on Tuesday. The higher cost of living in Santa Clara County has no trump card in this social philosopher's bid to convince responsibility thinkers there's a sterling conclusion here. The lite-pursed citizens of Santa Clara County are luckily endowed with the freedom to bag up and bug out.

Don't presume to auto pilot the idea that three hundred thousand citizens in Los Angeles County don't live in two stall homes where cars used to sleep. Don't discount the utility and the ingenuity of our modern pioneers who find a way to have their home grown vegetables and fresh laid eggs and eat them, too. Don't sail too far west so that you can no longer imagine which way survival's compass bears, because one direct route is right here just a few feet from the benchmark forged by people who cared.

If your obsession is to judge others lest they figure you out first, judge this: It is the simple motive of the men and women who died for you. They gave every ounce on your behalf. Consider how you could earn each ounce. Pull off your mask of twisted disgust for the message of responsibility and step back out of the haunted house where your make believe rant against inequality is threatening, because the chain saw has no blade. The revving screech I hear is your First Amendment larceny attempt to fill a cerebral chink where envy has volunteered to grow inside your mind.

The respectors of freedom made their sacrifices for you. Have the decency to try to earn their gifts. Analyze what their sacrifices must have meant to the millions of other Americans at home who shrank at the sight of the one bicycled Western Union messenger and who then had to open the telegram.


Shame on you hiding under that sour mow crying “inequality”. Now, crawl out of there. Shake off your envy and resentment. Shoulder your share of the load so your loved ones know you're on the job...show them your love. The mask is off.

6 comments:

Sly said...

Excellent!
But I fear those who engage in class envy and inequality-obsession are too deaf, blind and closed minded to recognize logic and common sense. They are too busy relishing in victimization since that is easier than taking responsibility.
And besides, they have allies in a president and half the elected government who both share their worldview as well as enjoy the political power that results from wealth redistribution getting out the vote.

Anonymouth said...

Lifestyle. Gotta talk about lifestyle. If you cannot re-engineer your lifestyle to fit within your income, you're not remembering what you found out in middle school. It's never too late to learn. Apparently Rotman and MIT Tech Review ought to re-do the eighth grade.

The Milton said...

This is a good guess. I could have used stuff like this as a sharp stick in interviews with the one-eyed fool economists who were on the Jones for notoriety (and Nobel medals).

Whitman Melville Society (GVD) said...

Whew! This left me hyperventilating. GVD

Veck said...

Exhausting me.

Tay Moon Quarter said...

Occupy this...it's churning up a lot of resentment when you say it's envy. I am me. Judging me is the poison that will take you down. What you said is evil.