Originally Posted by gekkogecko

Merely cut and paste the individual quotes and on/off html commands individually.



Actually this, would be second-hand, but tha's a very minor quibble. Not anywhere near as important as:



Yeah, yeah, Ive heard this all before. "I/my father/my friend/my cultural hero, worked his/her/their assess off, and never exploited anyone", blah, blah, blah.

Hey, if that response seems dismissive, it's because it is.

The problem with this line of argument is that it totally ignores the vast majority of people who did exactly the same amount of work, worked exactly as hard as whomeever you're aggrandizing, and yet ended up with nothing to show for it.

The line of argument you're pursuing, (and I am attacking the argument, not you personally), is not much more than a continuance of the "blame the victim" mentality.

The social paradigm is that "In America, anyone can succeed. Therefore, if you don't succeed, there*must* be soemthing wrong with you."

...as opposed to the idea that we have something wrong with a system that encourages people to do whatever it takes (and "whatever" means "whatever": there can be found numerous examples of people who do succeed in socially acceptable ways that aren't as nasty as other, equally socially acceptable ways) to succeed. Indeed, "success" under this system is largely defined as being "better" than the majority of people, in whatever aspect you, the individual choose to emphasize.