Kurt Vonnegut on "Equality"

[Article 15]

No literate person who has read much Vonnegut is going to come away thinking he's a devotee of Ayn Rand's philosphy of selfishness.

I've read a shit ton of Vonnegut so I got real kick out of the OP.

 

[Dorkazoid_Jones]

I just dont understand why all this pretending that caring for your neighbor is a crime.

Who said you shouldn't care for your neighbor? The left's idea of caring for their neighbor is to be jealous and enjoy your jealousy thru progressive taxes. How caring is that? What the HELL does that have to do with the safety net? Obama talks a lot more about the one percenters than he does about helping the poor. We can certainly take care of the poor without demonizing the producers -- correct??

 

[Katzndogz]

About four or five months ago I was in an art show. Some of the works won prizes, some sold for very little money some sold for a lot of money. After the show a woman wrote to the City and the organization that put on the show complaining that the show promoted inequality and made several suggestions for making it more equal and inclusive. It was unfair that only some artists get an award. Awards should be given to every work. It was unfair that some paintings should sell and others not. Unfair that one painting should sell for $4,000 while another painting the same size should be left behind. The money made off the sales should be pooled, divided and distributed among all the artists whether their work sold or not.

That's how the left would deal with inequality especially income inequality.

 

[Erand7899]

Today's left encourages those who aren't living a healthy lifestyle to change their diet and to exercise regularly.

Harrison Bergeron is physically weighted down because of his great physique.

Today's left encourages making education more accessible and affordable to everyone.

Harrison Bergeron is a super intelligent person who constantly gets his ears severely rung to keep him from thinking.

There may be a few people in any society that do not advocate a healthy lifestyle, or making education more accessible and affordable to everyone, but they are not the norm, on either the left or the right.

The left/right difference on such issues, involves the bright line between encouragement and forced compliance. Anyone who believes that all people are born equal, is an idiot. They differ in appearance, talent, intelligence, and physical ability. Some are born rich and others are born poor. Some are born healthy and some are not. No one can level that playing field, and attempting to do so, requires pulling the winners down to the level of the losers in the genetic pool. A race to the bottom.

 

[PoliticalChic]

1. Interesting because it represents the fulcrum between Liberal and Conservative viewponts, is the term “equality.” Here is misunderstanding writ large:
“I guess the Declaration of Independence was wrong then,
when it said that All men were created Equal, and All were endowed with the inalienable right of Liberty.
...the two can't exist together?”

Actually.....no.....they can't.

a. For the Left, equality extends beyond the view of the Founders, which is equality before the law. The concept has been modified with the growth of modern liberalism, and the ‘egalitarian’ impulse that fuels it. Here we witness the constant expansion into areas in which equality of sorts is seen as desirable and/or mandatory.

b. Dewey noted in 1936 that liberalism’s “philosophy has rarely been clear cut,” but “that government should regularly intervene to help equalize conditions between the wealthy and the poor, between the overprivileged and the underprivileged.”
Jo Ann Boydston, “John Dewey: The Later Works, 1925-1953,” p. 284-285.





2. . By the 20th century, the new ‘equality’ became a threat to freedom. FDR’s New Deal and Truman’s Fair Deal claimed the rectification of inequalities as within the purview of government. LBJ’s Great Society championed the redistribution of wealth and status in the name of equality. Realize that the concomitant movement toward collectivism meant a decline in the freedoms of business, private associations, families, and individuals.

a. It seems to me, self-evident that immobilizing the producers with regulations and confiscatory taxation proves that a nation can have prosperity or equality in all aspects of living- but not both.





3. Perhaps the best way to reveal the inanity of the Left’s campaign for their view of equality is to revisit the satirical exposition of equality, written in 1961 by Kurt Vonnegut….
"Harrison Bergeron" is a satirical and dystopian science-fiction short story written by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and first published in October 1961…The satire raises a serious question concerning desirability of social equality and the extent to which society is prepared to go to achieve it.”
Harrison Bergeron - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

a. "All men are not created equal. It is the purpose of the Government to make them so." This is the premise of the Showtime film adaption of Kurt Vonnegut's futuristic short story Harrison Bergeron. The film centers around a young man (Harrison) who is smarter than his peers, and is not affected by the usual "Handicapping" which is used to train all Americans so everyone is of equal intelligence.”
Harrison Bergeron (TV 1995) - IMDb

b. “Kurt Vonnegut begins Harrison Bergeron this way: The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal in every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was quicker or stronger 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.”
Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut


c. The government forced each individual to wear “handicaps” to offset any advantage they had, so that everyone could be truly and fully equal. Beautiful people had to wear ugly masks, the strong had to wear weights, the graceful had to wear bags of birdshot, and those with above-average intelligence had to wear government transmitters in their ears that would emit sharp noises every twenty seconds “to keep them from taking unfair advantage of their brains.”
Kurt Vonnegut, “Harrison Bergeron.”



4. So…is this view of “equality” funny? Perhaps…but it reminds me more of Lord Byron’s words: “And if I laugh at any mortal thing, 'Tis that I may not weep.”

The Great Society had nothing to do with redistribution of wealth.

No doubt about it: you're as dumb as asphalt.
A perfect representative of the 'reliable Democrat voter.'



So.....exactly where does the money the government wastes in LBJ's multifarious programs come from?



Our Trillion-Dollar War, by Edgar K. Browning of The Independent Institute:
When Lyndon Johnson inaugurated the War on Poverty in 1964, he assured the public that “. . . this investment [of tax dollars] will return its cost many fold to our entire economy.” Now that this “investment” has reached a trillion dollars a year we should evaluate whether the returns have, in fact, been large. Some questions to consider:

Is the low-income population more independent and self-supporting than before the War on Poverty?

If a trillion dollars were simply given to those counted as poor by the federal government (37 million in 2005), it would amount to $27,000 per person. That’s $81,000 for a family of three, higher than the median income of all American families, and far greater than the poverty threshold of $15,577.
Right Truth: War on Poverty, the high costs and the depressing results

 

[PoliticalChic]

DANCE monkeys DANCE - YouTube

Hey....I like your new avi!

 

[Erand7899]

I just dont understand why all this pretending that caring for your neighbor is a crime.

Caring for your neighbor is a virtue. Expecting others to shoulder the burdon of your caring for your neighbor is not a virtue.

Lefties do a lot of caring on a lot of subjects, as long as they don't have to dig into their own pockets to do so.

 

[DiamondDave]

Today's left encourages those who aren't living a healthy lifestyle to change their diet and to exercise regularly.

Harrison Bergeron is physically weighted down because of his great physique.

Today's left encourages making education more accessible and affordable to everyone.

Harrison Bergeron is a super intelligent person who constantly gets his ears severely rung to keep him from thinking.

Not quite true. The left mandates diet without regard to individual needs and requirements. The allotment is the same for the weightlifter as it is for the chess player.

The education is the lowest and basest form of instruction formed out of a need for mediocrity.

Nowhere is Kurt Vonnegut's vision more true than in schools where everyone gets the same award, there are no winners or losers. Birthdays are forbidden because not everyone was born on the same day. Holidays are discouraged because no day is any better than any other.

We're closer to Vonnegut's satire now than at any other time.

where has anyone mandated what someone can eat?



You people are just insane

Large sodas.. raw milk...

Yeah... you and your political ilk love those getting sold for consumption

Go fuck yourself, twatwaffle

 

[DiamondDave]

I just dont understand why all this pretending that caring for your neighbor is a crime.

Caring voluntarily for your neighbor is great

Being forced to pay for, subsidize, provide, or handle completely their personal responsibilities is indeed criminal

 

[PoliticalChic]

No literate person who has read much Vonnegut is going to come away thinking he's a devotee of Ayn Rand's philosphy of selfishness.

Good thing you're here to put everyone on the right track!

 

[NYcarbineer]

Simply more evidence that Conservatism does in fact support economic policies that make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

 

[Freemason9]

The original framers of the Constitution--the "founding fathers"--believed that black men were less than equal to men. They believed that women had no voice in government at all.

Those guys were real Men of Genius.

Regarding the concept of "equality," you cannot define it in broad terms. To illustrate, PoliticalChic, answer this with a simple yes/no response: Do you believe in equality?

 

[NYcarbineer]

I just dont understand why all this pretending that caring for your neighbor is a crime.

Caring voluntarily for your neighbor is great

Being forced to pay for, subsidize, provide, or handle completely their personal responsibilities is indeed criminal

Everything is 'forced' to the people who lose the elections. boohoo.

We have democratically decided to help the poor in this country. If you want a system of government that does not allow us to democratically decide to help the poor,

then you should get enough votes together to democratically implement such a system.

 

[NYcarbineer]

The original framers of the Constitution--the "founding fathers"--believed that black men were less than equal to men. They believed that women had no voice in government at all.

Those guys were real Men of Genius.

Regarding the concept of "equality," you cannot define it in broad terms. To illustrate, PoliticalChic, answer this with a simple yes/no response: Do you believe in equality?

Conservatives' problem is that they tend to believe that 'liberty' includes the liberty to do harm to others.

 

[arie2l]

Harrison Bergeron is a fantastic science fiction short story that does a great job of mocking what equality for all could mean. That said, it doesn't reflect the cartoon version of what right wing nuts think the left believe.

That's the ticket! It has always seemed to me that the right's black/white, either/or version of the world turns everything into a cartoon.

Actually, they seem to get the satire, but not Vonnegut's irony behind the satire.
Also, I dug a bit further into the Wiki cite & discovered that the story had been used as justification in a court case regarding school funding. Apparently, they missed a point in the story--which Vonnegut attempted to clarify: ""It's about intelligence and talent, and wealth is not a demonstration of either one," said Vonnegut, 82, of New York. He said he wouldn't want schoolchildren deprived of a quality education because they were poor.

"Kansas is apparently handicapping schoolchildren, no matter how gifted and talented, with lousy educations if their parents are poor," he said."


This thread might have been better served with a reference to Lake Woebegone than Vonnegut.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Simply more evidence that Conservatism does in fact support economic policies that make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

Hey, buddy.....you should visit the United States.....it sure isn't like that here!



The greatness of America: no permanent unerclasss.

1. More than three-quarters of those working Americans whose incomes were in the bottom 20 percent in 1975 were also in the top 40 percent of income earners at some point by 1991, says Sowell.
Source: Thomas Sowell, "How Media Misuse Income Data To Match Their Preconceptions," Investor's Business Daily, January 12, 2010.
For text:
How Media Misuse Income Data To Match Their Preconceptions - Investors.com


2. When all sources of income are included -- wages, salaries, realized capital gains, dividends, business income and government benefits -- and taxes paid are deducted, households in the lowest income quintile saw a roughly 25% increase in their living standards from 1983 to 2005. ( data is from the Congressional Budget Office's "Comprehensive Household Income.) This fact alone refutes the notion that the poor are getting poorer. They are not.

 

[boilermaker55]

Sad to say but when you studied your history about the founding of this country and all the elements to which it was founded you lost the Principle of the idea.
And it is senseless to try and make those like you learn the true idea so let's just leave it at that, and have a good life.

"And all you wishing well fools
With your fortunes
Someone should send you a rose with
Love from a friend, "

I just dont understand why all this pretending that caring for your neighbor is a crime.

Who said you shouldn't care for your neighbor? The left's idea of caring for their neighbor is to be jealous and enjoy your jealousy thru progressive taxes. How caring is that? What the HELL does that have to do with the safety net? Obama talks a lot more about the one percenters than he does about helping the poor. We can certainly take care of the poor without demonizing the producers -- correct??

 

[Truthmatters]

the right wants to waste the talent in this country so their OWN kids have a better chance.


They jsut dont get anything about life

 

[Truthmatters]

Hate filled chicken hearts with no talent so thy dont want to see talent in poor kids

 

[Truthmatters]

They have gone so insane they dont kn ow what a fact is.

they cant even function anymore so they want the whole world arround them to shut down too.


Time to kick these idiots to the curb.