That's why from the start it was only going to be one month. My kidneys are healthy, and can work overtime for a few weeks. With the right precaution, this isn't a problem.
Also, I had a doctor appointment already set for the first week of February, with lab tests (urine and blood) done the last week of January. So I had that as a function check. When I saw the doctor, I told him about the diet, and he checked my lab results. He said he could tell I wasn't lying, as many do about diets, because my ketone level was very high. But he wasn't worried about my health, especially since I was done with the diet by then.
But, yes, dark urine isn't something to aim for. As for lack of hydration, I wasn't any thirstier for that month than I usually am either. By body really did make use of the water in those fat cells. Of course, January in Florida isn't very hot, nor bone dry from being frozen, so I didn't have the same liquid requirements I would now that summer is here. If I started the diet this month, I would certainly need more water intake.
Looking over my posts, I see I phrased it badly. I meant that I read the Wikipedia entry, and then several other pages from a Google search. In those other pages, I read more details such as what cryptolemur referenced. I should have explained more in my original rant.:^)
My brother always said his friend's family would make several pots of coffee per day, but not empty the old grounds until night. Just put a new scoopful on top. So the coffee got progressively more robust throughout the day.
What fantasy land are you living in? The guy working 2 jobs to barely afford the crappy neighborhood he is in doesn't have the resources to move and isn't likely to have relatives living in a better neighborhood.
So you completely ignore that fact that I managed to do it, as do many others every day. Also, you are assuming a lot about that guy's life and family, beyond his employment or cash-flow.
As to your presumptive assertion that I can't possibly understand the situation, I moved my family from a place with no good job prospects to someplace better, and made sure my daughter got into a decent public school.
It's good that you had that option.
No, you don't ignore it, you just dismiss it for no reason other than it doesn't fit your narrative.
How would you feel if you didn't and had to send your daughter to a school where the best outcome you could see is that she manages to not join a gang?
I'm fortunate that I didn't have to go to that sort of school either but I have enough empathy to understand that others get genuinely stuck in that situation.
I see very well how you tell yourself little stereotypical stories about how it must be that the poor people are making bad decisions so you don't have to consider the possibility that perhaps you got out of it through lucky breaks and that they are working just as hard as you did.
I see very well how you make just as many stereotypical stories. Did I say all poor people are lazy, drunk, and stupid, or that they all waste money on junk? No, I did not say that. But I will at least look at each person and ask those questions, because I don't group them all together as you have repeatedly done. You want to make them all into one representative sample that can't take care of themselves.
And actually, I didn't suspect that you are in the 1% (which is actually more like the 0.1%), I presumed you are one of the many who believe themselves to be a temporarily embarrassed millionaire and drank the cool aid.
I quite honestly don't know what a " temporarily embarrassed millionaire" is, but I'm sure I'm not one.
It's interesting that while I have been suggesting that people should have a hand up and an opportunity to better themselves, all you can hear (read) is tearing others down. The funny thing is, we wouldn't even have to raise taxes to improve education. Just quit spending so much on subsidizing the 0.1%.
You are tearing them down. "Oh, look at that poor man. He can't possibly better himself or take proper care of his children. I have to be the white knight and rescue him, and especially his innocent children, from the evil temporarily embarrassed millionaires of the world."
You give them no inkling of self-respect, self-determination, self-sufficiency, or any other self-category that humans have had since we climbed out of the trees. I would much rather tell them they have all the power they need to better themselves, even if in the short term they are further disadvantaged because they had to quit their crappy jobs and move to someplace else with better schools for their future generations.
Quite honestly, if we had an immortal overlord with your attitude 8000 years ago, humankind would still be sleeping with farm animals for warmth and wiping its collective ass with leaves. You would simply want to provide softer leaves.
Let me tell you the long version of my one month diet. The short version is I lost 30 pounds in 31 days, and never felt any different.
On January 1st, I started a month-long diet plan. I had scrambled eggs in the morning, with mushrooms, onions, red bell peppers, and breakfast sausage mixed in them. I sauted the vegetables first in butter, added the sausage, and then the eggs, with some salt and seasoning. I made four days worth at a time, using eight eggs and half a package of sausage. So on average I had two eggs and two ounces of sausage. The calorie count was about 600 calories.
For dinner I had a salad. For a good salad, start with a big bowl. The ones I used hold a quart or more. Shred four leaves of iceberg lettuce, add a couple leaves of romaine, throw out the stalk part (or eat a couple as I'm making the salad). Add half a large tomato, diced, handful of chopped onion, sliced hard-boiled egg, shredded cheese, halved black olives, a few croutons, and small amount of ranch dressing. I prefer Thousand Island, but would have used too much, so went with Ranch, which I don't actually like. If the wife had made chicken the previous night, add a piece of chicken, sliced or pulled. Calories without the egg or chicken was about 100 calories, and is what I had half the time. With an egg add another 80, and with chicken add 300.
So for a month, Jan 1st to 31st, with only a couple exceptions, I had 1000 calories or less a day. The biggest exception was because I was out of town with my wife for a doctor visit one day. I ate a healthy dinner, but a few more calories than a salad. The other exception was a salad at Wendy's for lunch, also out of town, and a salad for dinner at home. Also, for a snack during the day, I would have eight to ten black olives, or a banana. I ate a banana on five or six days, and the black olives on fifteen to twenty days. The other days, I had nothing more than scrambled eggs and a salad.
To round that out, I drank at the most, a quart of water a day. One glass in the morning after breakfast, small sips during the day when my mouth was dry, and one glass after dinner. Again, the two exception days, I had diet soda or tea with the meals. With the salad of course, I got some more liquid, but the water my body used was simply provided by breaking down the fat cells. And I broke down a lot of fat cells. When I got up in the morning and used the toilet, my urine was a very dark orange. That was from the debris, solids and liquids, of unneeded cells.
During that month, I never felt tired, worn out, or light headed. I went from 230 pounds to 200 pounds. I did the same work I do all the time, fixing computers, crawling under desks, carrying them out to the car and back, installing network printers, etc. I didn't go to the gym at my apartment complex, or do any other workout.
As for hunger, I am always hungry anyway. I usually snack whenever I have the chance between jobs, tv shows, slashdot flamewars, and am still always hungry. So going a month being slightly more hungry wasn't really noticeable. Really, it's more boredom than hunger to begin with anyways.
Of course in the five months since I went off the diet, I regained some of the weight. Eight pounds in the first two weeks, as the depleted-but-surviving fat cells refilled with water. But that means I managed to destroy twenty-two pounds of them in one month. I want to go back on the diet, and get well below 200 pounds, but just haven't yet. Maybe now that my daughter's finished school, I can plan my life a bit more again.
I never said the child doesn't deserve a "good education". But that isn't what you are saying either. Your posts are saying other children don't deserve a "better education", which their parents worked hard to afford, because poor children are stuck with bad schools.
There are thousands of factors that influence what education a child can get. Trying to tie it to some mystical "lucky choice of parents" doesn't make sense to me. You might as well bring on "Brave New World" to solve your perceived problem.
As to your question of what decision is the parent supposed to make, people move so their kids can attend a better school. People send their kids to live with relatives in another county so they can attend a better school.
As to your presumptive assertion that I can't possibly understand the situation, I moved my family from a place with no good job prospects to someplace better, and made sure my daughter got into a decent public school. And by "moved my family", I'm talking thousands of miles, not simply to the other side of a city, or the next county. And that event is a relative bright spot in my life history. But, no, you know exactly how ignorant I am of the less fortunate.
If you want to get deeper into an explanation how's this one? If the person had worked harder while in school themselves, they would probably have a better job that lets them live better today. If they made better life choices as a young adult, they wouldn't be in their current situation of having a family they can't afford to take proper care of. Does this person spend more on cigarettes and beer than they do on their child's education? Does the family spend more on toys and gadgets then on education? If they won $100,000 in a lottery, would they be in the exact same situation as now, a year down the road?
You want to act like I'm in the 1%, and was born with money flowing out my ears. And as such I don't know what "poor" means. I can practically guarantee I grew up poorer than you did, with more hard knocks than you've ever faced. I still don't get consumed with envy for the people whose parents and grandparents worked hard to provide a better life for their family.
That is exactly how I am reading your post. I'm just trying to nail down if that is what you mean.
If it is, great, I figured out what you mean. If it is not what you mean, I would like to find out what you do mean.
You say: "It's not the parents, it's the children I care about." But your statements are saying parents making sound decisions for the sake of their own children is unfair to all the other children. The logical result of that is parents should not work hard and make fiscal decisions that benefit themselves and their children, unless they can equally benefit all children.
I always say, everyone is entitled to their own beliefs. So if that is what you believe, more power to you. If it isn't, I would love to hear a more complete explanation of what you think parents should do for their own children, as well as other children.
I'm not at all concerned with the parents. I am concerned with the CHILDREN who have not yet had the opportunity to work at all.
So parents shouldn't work hard to provide for their children? I shouldn't want to help my child have more opportunities than I had, unless I agree to provide that for every child in the country?
For gods sake, look up the origination of the term, you fucking lazy moron.
For myself, I didn't know the source of it up until a few years ago. I wondered why someone said something that didn't make sense to me. I read its Wikipedia entry. Today, I know exactly what cryptolemur is saying.
With the whole world of information at your fingertips, it would have been easier to google for "luddites" than to type your response.
I was just reviewing my posts of the last few days, and see that you have responded. Thank you for your time.
As for the lack of science in the responses, that is what led me to make this thread. I may or may not agree with you on how life started, or how life changed, or even the possibility of any of the specific points. To me, it doesn't matter if I agree with you. It matters that I give you the respect any guest deserves. You may speak your mind, and be allowed to defend your thoughts, without being insulted and ridiculed.
As I said above, I do believe a large part of the animosity is from you falling just short of their template of an "educated scientist", and they can't stand it.
Starting with differing opportunity is practically the definition of unfair.
Let's just stop right there.
Are you saying it is unfair if a person works really hard, has a great idea for a business/product, uses their brain to be successful in their career? After all their hard work, their children should start at the same level of poverty as all the children of parents who ignored education, wasted their money on junk, or never bothered to show up for work.
Because that is how I read your statement: It is unfair that some parents work hard to give their children a better life, when there are poor children who don't have a better life.
Why the need to water it down? President Obama campaigned on closing it immediately, and he won the election. He could have issued an order as Commander in Chief to move all prisoners currently at Gitmo to any other military prison in the world.
Since he did indeed just release five of those prisoners with no one else even knowing about it until it happened, violating a law he signed just a few months ago, he obviously feels he has the authority to do so. He wouldn't even have had to worry about legal aspects back in 2009. He could have done exactly what he just did, issue an executive order.
In February of 2009, if he went to Congress, and met with the Democrats in office, he could have done what he's done repeatedly. Tell them what's going to happen, and they can either support him or lose their influence over future policy. He would have even managed to coerce a few Republicans into helping, because we were still in the afterglow of a historic election. The only real issue would be what military prison would the inmates be sent to.
And as I said earlier, citing Obamacare was simply showing the Democrats do vote in lockstep when it suits them, same as the Republicans. They also have members vote "for the other team" at times.
Please enlighten me on how showing Republicans don't have a lockstep mentality, as evidenced by there being Republicans who consistently vote with the Democrats, shows that indeed the Republicans do have a lockstep mentality, and that all Republicans always vote the same way.
. PS. You don't think too clearly when you have the crutch of high school debate team terms clouding your mind.
I've made that argument a time or two. It just gets ignored. I guess it isn't fancy enough for deep discussion.
PS. I joined the Marines in 1992, a year after the scandal that shares your nickname. I explain it to people nowadays when they ask how tough boot camp was. Between sensitivity training and using plastic plugs in our rifle chambers to show they were unloaded (a byproduct of accidental discharges during the first gulf war), boot camp was almost a joke.
> The kids didn't. Their parents worked hard enough to make sure they could put their kids in a nice school.
That is just a way to sidestep the important issue that the system is inherently unfair because most people start off with massively different levels of opportunity.
This doesn't make it unfair. This just doesn't make it ideal. Ideally we all would have everything we need to succeed. Realistically, that won't happen.
As for starting off with massively different levels of opportunity, most of the people on the Forbes list of 100 richest Americans started out in working class families. Of the few that are "from wealth", it usually only goes back a couple generations, meaning young adults whose grandparents or parents built a corporation. Those grandparents usually grew up poor.
I don't take issue with your view of opportunity. You have every right to view it how you wish. I just hear this line used as if all rich people in the world are from the aristocracy, and no else can join the club.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think that's true, you asshole.
And the lack of 501c3s would eliminate a massive tax dodge used by everyone and their brother to reduce their taxable income.
You do realize they give far more money than they reduce their tax bill by, don't you?
Let's say someone makes $1,000,000, and pays $200,000 in taxes. They give $50,000 to charity, and now only pay $190,000 in taxes.
They are not somehow "making money" by lowering their taxable income, because the amount they lower it by is what they gave away.
That's why from the start it was only going to be one month. My kidneys are healthy, and can work overtime for a few weeks. With the right precaution, this isn't a problem.
Also, I had a doctor appointment already set for the first week of February, with lab tests (urine and blood) done the last week of January. So I had that as a function check. When I saw the doctor, I told him about the diet, and he checked my lab results. He said he could tell I wasn't lying, as many do about diets, because my ketone level was very high. But he wasn't worried about my health, especially since I was done with the diet by then.
But, yes, dark urine isn't something to aim for. As for lack of hydration, I wasn't any thirstier for that month than I usually am either. By body really did make use of the water in those fat cells. Of course, January in Florida isn't very hot, nor bone dry from being frozen, so I didn't have the same liquid requirements I would now that summer is here. If I started the diet this month, I would certainly need more water intake.
Thanks for the anonymous concern. :^)
Do you think Creationists should be denied universal healthcare if they claim the right to bear arms?
Based on past interviews, this should be the most discussed question when he answers.
Looking over my posts, I see I phrased it badly. I meant that I read the Wikipedia entry, and then several other pages from a Google search. In those other pages, I read more details such as what cryptolemur referenced. I should have explained more in my original rant. :^)
My brother always said his friend's family would make several pots of coffee per day, but not empty the old grounds until night. Just put a new scoopful on top. So the coffee got progressively more robust throughout the day.
No need. They only send REAL men and worn into space.
What the hell's a "worn"?
Yes, I just read that one as well, after my above post.
I read something similar a few years ago. Thanks for the link.
What fantasy land are you living in? The guy working 2 jobs to barely afford the crappy neighborhood he is in doesn't have the resources to move and isn't likely to have relatives living in a better neighborhood.
So you completely ignore that fact that I managed to do it, as do many others every day. Also, you are assuming a lot about that guy's life and family, beyond his employment or cash-flow.
As to your presumptive assertion that I can't possibly understand the situation, I moved my family from a place with no good job prospects to someplace better, and made sure my daughter got into a decent public school.
It's good that you had that option.
No, you don't ignore it, you just dismiss it for no reason other than it doesn't fit your narrative.
How would you feel if you didn't and had to send your daughter to a school where the best outcome you could see is that she manages to not join a gang?
I'm fortunate that I didn't have to go to that sort of school either but I have enough empathy to understand that others get genuinely stuck in that situation.
I see very well how you tell yourself little stereotypical stories about how it must be that the poor people are making bad decisions so you don't have to consider the possibility that perhaps you got out of it through lucky breaks and that they are working just as hard as you did.
I see very well how you make just as many stereotypical stories. Did I say all poor people are lazy, drunk, and stupid, or that they all waste money on junk? No, I did not say that. But I will at least look at each person and ask those questions, because I don't group them all together as you have repeatedly done. You want to make them all into one representative sample that can't take care of themselves.
And actually, I didn't suspect that you are in the 1% (which is actually more like the 0.1%), I presumed you are one of the many who believe themselves to be a temporarily embarrassed millionaire and drank the cool aid.
I quite honestly don't know what a " temporarily embarrassed millionaire" is, but I'm sure I'm not one.
It's interesting that while I have been suggesting that people should have a hand up and an opportunity to better themselves, all you can hear (read) is tearing others down. The funny thing is, we wouldn't even have to raise taxes to improve education. Just quit spending so much on subsidizing the 0.1%.
You are tearing them down. "Oh, look at that poor man. He can't possibly better himself or take proper care of his children. I have to be the white knight and rescue him, and especially his innocent children, from the evil temporarily embarrassed millionaires of the world."
You give them no inkling of self-respect, self-determination, self-sufficiency, or any other self-category that humans have had since we climbed out of the trees. I would much rather tell them they have all the power they need to better themselves, even if in the short term they are further disadvantaged because they had to quit their crappy jobs and move to someplace else with better schools for their future generations.
Quite honestly, if we had an immortal overlord with your attitude 8000 years ago, humankind would still be sleeping with farm animals for warmth and wiping its collective ass with leaves. You would simply want to provide softer leaves.
Let me tell you the long version of my one month diet. The short version is I lost 30 pounds in 31 days, and never felt any different.
On January 1st, I started a month-long diet plan. I had scrambled eggs in the morning, with mushrooms, onions, red bell peppers, and breakfast sausage mixed in them. I sauted the vegetables first in butter, added the sausage, and then the eggs, with some salt and seasoning. I made four days worth at a time, using eight eggs and half a package of sausage. So on average I had two eggs and two ounces of sausage. The calorie count was about 600 calories.
For dinner I had a salad. For a good salad, start with a big bowl. The ones I used hold a quart or more. Shred four leaves of iceberg lettuce, add a couple leaves of romaine, throw out the stalk part (or eat a couple as I'm making the salad). Add half a large tomato, diced, handful of chopped onion, sliced hard-boiled egg, shredded cheese, halved black olives, a few croutons, and small amount of ranch dressing. I prefer Thousand Island, but would have used too much, so went with Ranch, which I don't actually like. If the wife had made chicken the previous night, add a piece of chicken, sliced or pulled. Calories without the egg or chicken was about 100 calories, and is what I had half the time. With an egg add another 80, and with chicken add 300.
So for a month, Jan 1st to 31st, with only a couple exceptions, I had 1000 calories or less a day. The biggest exception was because I was out of town with my wife for a doctor visit one day. I ate a healthy dinner, but a few more calories than a salad. The other exception was a salad at Wendy's for lunch, also out of town, and a salad for dinner at home. Also, for a snack during the day, I would have eight to ten black olives, or a banana. I ate a banana on five or six days, and the black olives on fifteen to twenty days. The other days, I had nothing more than scrambled eggs and a salad.
To round that out, I drank at the most, a quart of water a day. One glass in the morning after breakfast, small sips during the day when my mouth was dry, and one glass after dinner. Again, the two exception days, I had diet soda or tea with the meals. With the salad of course, I got some more liquid, but the water my body used was simply provided by breaking down the fat cells. And I broke down a lot of fat cells. When I got up in the morning and used the toilet, my urine was a very dark orange. That was from the debris, solids and liquids, of unneeded cells.
During that month, I never felt tired, worn out, or light headed. I went from 230 pounds to 200 pounds. I did the same work I do all the time, fixing computers, crawling under desks, carrying them out to the car and back, installing network printers, etc. I didn't go to the gym at my apartment complex, or do any other workout.
As for hunger, I am always hungry anyway. I usually snack whenever I have the chance between jobs, tv shows, slashdot flamewars, and am still always hungry. So going a month being slightly more hungry wasn't really noticeable. Really, it's more boredom than hunger to begin with anyways.
Of course in the five months since I went off the diet, I regained some of the weight. Eight pounds in the first two weeks, as the depleted-but-surviving fat cells refilled with water. But that means I managed to destroy twenty-two pounds of them in one month. I want to go back on the diet, and get well below 200 pounds, but just haven't yet. Maybe now that my daughter's finished school, I can plan my life a bit more again.
I never said the child doesn't deserve a "good education". But that isn't what you are saying either. Your posts are saying other children don't deserve a "better education", which their parents worked hard to afford, because poor children are stuck with bad schools.
There are thousands of factors that influence what education a child can get. Trying to tie it to some mystical "lucky choice of parents" doesn't make sense to me. You might as well bring on "Brave New World" to solve your perceived problem.
As to your question of what decision is the parent supposed to make, people move so their kids can attend a better school. People send their kids to live with relatives in another county so they can attend a better school.
As to your presumptive assertion that I can't possibly understand the situation, I moved my family from a place with no good job prospects to someplace better, and made sure my daughter got into a decent public school. And by "moved my family", I'm talking thousands of miles, not simply to the other side of a city, or the next county. And that event is a relative bright spot in my life history. But, no, you know exactly how ignorant I am of the less fortunate.
If you want to get deeper into an explanation how's this one? If the person had worked harder while in school themselves, they would probably have a better job that lets them live better today. If they made better life choices as a young adult, they wouldn't be in their current situation of having a family they can't afford to take proper care of. Does this person spend more on cigarettes and beer than they do on their child's education? Does the family spend more on toys and gadgets then on education? If they won $100,000 in a lottery, would they be in the exact same situation as now, a year down the road?
You want to act like I'm in the 1%, and was born with money flowing out my ears. And as such I don't know what "poor" means. I can practically guarantee I grew up poorer than you did, with more hard knocks than you've ever faced. I still don't get consumed with envy for the people whose parents and grandparents worked hard to provide a better life for their family.
Neither, actually.
That is exactly how I am reading your post. I'm just trying to nail down if that is what you mean.
If it is, great, I figured out what you mean. If it is not what you mean, I would like to find out what you do mean.
You say: "It's not the parents, it's the children I care about." But your statements are saying parents making sound decisions for the sake of their own children is unfair to all the other children. The logical result of that is parents should not work hard and make fiscal decisions that benefit themselves and their children, unless they can equally benefit all children.
I always say, everyone is entitled to their own beliefs. So if that is what you believe, more power to you. If it isn't, I would love to hear a more complete explanation of what you think parents should do for their own children, as well as other children.
I'm not at all concerned with the parents. I am concerned with the CHILDREN who have not yet had the opportunity to work at all.
So parents shouldn't work hard to provide for their children? I shouldn't want to help my child have more opportunities than I had, unless I agree to provide that for every child in the country?
Is that what you are saying.
For gods sake, look up the origination of the term, you fucking lazy moron.
For myself, I didn't know the source of it up until a few years ago. I wondered why someone said something that didn't make sense to me. I read its Wikipedia entry. Today, I know exactly what cryptolemur is saying.
With the whole world of information at your fingertips, it would have been easier to google for "luddites" than to type your response.
Yeah. Slashdot loves to fuck up white space.
Hello Mr. Mims.
I was just reviewing my posts of the last few days, and see that you have responded. Thank you for your time.
As for the lack of science in the responses, that is what led me to make this thread. I may or may not agree with you on how life started, or how life changed, or even the possibility of any of the specific points. To me, it doesn't matter if I agree with you. It matters that I give you the respect any guest deserves. You may speak your mind, and be allowed to defend your thoughts, without being insulted and ridiculed.
As I said above, I do believe a large part of the animosity is from you falling just short of their template of an "educated scientist", and they can't stand it.
Have a nice weekend.
INAH
Starting with differing opportunity is practically the definition of unfair.
Let's just stop right there.
Are you saying it is unfair if a person works really hard, has a great idea for a business/product, uses their brain to be successful in their career? After all their hard work, their children should start at the same level of poverty as all the children of parents who ignored education, wasted their money on junk, or never bothered to show up for work.
Because that is how I read your statement: It is unfair that some parents work hard to give their children a better life, when there are poor children who don't have a better life.
Why the need to water it down? President Obama campaigned on closing it immediately, and he won the election. He could have issued an order as Commander in Chief to move all prisoners currently at Gitmo to any other military prison in the world.
Since he did indeed just release five of those prisoners with no one else even knowing about it until it happened, violating a law he signed just a few months ago, he obviously feels he has the authority to do so. He wouldn't even have had to worry about legal aspects back in 2009. He could have done exactly what he just did, issue an executive order.
In February of 2009, if he went to Congress, and met with the Democrats in office, he could have done what he's done repeatedly. Tell them what's going to happen, and they can either support him or lose their influence over future policy. He would have even managed to coerce a few Republicans into helping, because we were still in the afterglow of a historic election. The only real issue would be what military prison would the inmates be sent to.
And as I said earlier, citing Obamacare was simply showing the Democrats do vote in lockstep when it suits them, same as the Republicans. They also have members vote "for the other team" at times.
I've managed to stay at "Excellent Karma" since I stopped saying the truth of how stupid the metric system is.
Fucking metric groupies are the worst, most vindictive, and ignorant modders on /..
Please enlighten me on how showing Republicans don't have a lockstep mentality, as evidenced by there being Republicans who consistently vote with the Democrats, shows that indeed the Republicans do have a lockstep mentality, and that all Republicans always vote the same way.
.
PS. You don't think too clearly when you have the crutch of high school debate team terms clouding your mind.
I've made that argument a time or two. It just gets ignored. I guess it isn't fancy enough for deep discussion.
PS. I joined the Marines in 1992, a year after the scandal that shares your nickname. I explain it to people nowadays when they ask how tough boot camp was. Between sensitivity training and using plastic plugs in our rifle chambers to show they were unloaded (a byproduct of accidental discharges during the first gulf war), boot camp was almost a joke.
If you've ever watched Maury Povich, you would know you are wrong.
Fine. Take all children away from poor families, and give them to rich people to raise to be bankers and corporate lawyers.
You have a great revolutionary idea there comrade-in-alms.
Yes, the rich are all the Rothchilds. No one else is allowed to join the club.
> The kids didn't. Their parents worked hard enough to make sure they could put their kids in a nice school.
That is just a way to sidestep the important issue that the system is inherently unfair because most people start off with massively different levels of opportunity.
This doesn't make it unfair. This just doesn't make it ideal. Ideally we all would have everything we need to succeed. Realistically, that won't happen.
As for starting off with massively different levels of opportunity, most of the people on the Forbes list of 100 richest Americans started out in working class families. Of the few that are "from wealth", it usually only goes back a couple generations, meaning young adults whose grandparents or parents built a corporation. Those grandparents usually grew up poor.
I don't take issue with your view of opportunity. You have every right to view it how you wish. I just hear this line used as if all rich people in the world are from the aristocracy, and no else can join the club.