There's a wonderful moment in The Aviator where Katharine Hepburn's family tell Howard Hughes that they do not think money is important. He turns and says; "That's because you've always had it." I love it when the lucky smugly claim its all their own work and tell the unlucky its all their own fault.
The basis of compassion is in understanding that much of your good fortune is blind good luck, and therefore being able to imagine what life might have been like if you hadn't been so fortunate.
I do not make personal excuses, Col, being one of the most fortunate people in the world, but I am also perfectly aware that I do not "deserve" my good fortune any more than others "deserve" their lack of it.

enjai,good fortune is not blind good luck.Someone has done the hard yards in the past for us to lasiviate in this present moment.If we don't maintain the discipline,creativity and hard work,we will become just another "Banana Republic" in the South Pacific;and the rest of the world wouldn't give two hoots.

Col Rouge, you should consider writing a book; your turn of phrase and larconic humour would sell well.

Enaj,

Feel free to give away your wealth through acts of compassion any time now. Nobody will stop you. Nobody is proposing that it should be illegal for you to feel compassion.

Regards,
Terje

Playing poker and the game of life well require skill as well as good fortune. Where do you suppose children learn the skills to play well?

They get them only if they are lucky enough to be born into a family that knows how to play well, a family that has been lucky enough not to have encountered problems that interfere with their abililty to teach these skills to their children.

Also, the rules of modern life change quite drastically and what allowed some familes to play the game reasonably well a generation or two ago, are not adequate anymore (eg manufacturing and rural workers).

Regarding Col's humour. There are heaps of books out there with this sort of humour, but it is called 'satire'. Nobody really believes that people have that simplistic a view of the world any more surely?

Why does the notion of self reliance scare so many on this sight so much?Are their bank accounts so welded to the "Public Nipple" that it is impossible to see the virtues of courage and risk involved in chancing the private enterprise way of life?You see private enterprise runs on the smell of an oily rag and provides the taxes for Govt to help the less fortunate and a lot of able people who have an aversion to hard work.If you really want to help the less fortunate,show them how to work and don't give them excuses not to achieve.
Mollydukes,of course there are no simplistic answers,but your mentality and many like you, seek to equalise everyone to mediocrity.None of us are born equal but that does not give the less able the right to do almost nothing and demand to be kept.Everyone must contribute a useful service/commodity or otherwise our economy will collapse.Stop living denial and face the reality that is fast approaching us.

Arjay: Society must demand a great degree of self reliance and no one here has denied that. No one has so much as implied that they want to "equalise everyone to mediocrity." No one has said that able people have "the right to do almost nothing and demand to be kept." Many substantial points have been raised against the article that are not being countered.

Even though society must demand it, society will hurt itself if it assumes everyone will meet that level, or will achieve enough that they will be able to provide well for both themselves and for the next generation.