Dec. 6th, 2006

velvetpage: (outraged)
Comment in a debate community: Tell me again why it's fair for me, childless, to pay for your kids? Do I get to have a say in how they're raised, or do I just get to pick up the tab for all their food, medical needs, education, transportation, and housing. You liberals are some selfish pricks.

My answer: Because when you're elderly and needing medical attention, my kids will be your doctors. They'll be the medical imagery specialists who are reading your MRIs. They'll be your pharmacists. And above all else, they'll be paying the taxes that keeps your roads, your sewers, your dog-catchers, your social security cheques, etc, etc, all in decent repair and coming on time. My kids ensure your future, because kids are the future.

The selfish ones are the ones who care so little about the things they are not personally participating in, that they abdicate any and all responsibility for any future but their own. In so doing, they make the future less bright for everyone - including themselves, though they're generally too selfish to realize it.

What I could have added, but didn't: I'm not asking you to feed, clothe or house them. I can do that myself. I am asking you to feed, clothe and house the children of those who can't do it for themselves, on the premise of preventing those kids from either starving to death or becoming the next generation of criminals who make your elderly life hell. You have a vested interest in seeing that the next generation grows up educated and healthy. It is you who are selfish, not I, by making the choice not to give to the next generation, not to build society for the future.
velvetpage: (Default)

The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less
"The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less" on Google Video
Barry Schwartz is a sociology professor at Swarthmore College and author of The Paradox of Choice. In this talk, he persuasively explains how and why the abundance of choice in modern society is actually making us miserable.

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