We need to quit punishing ourselves (#2087)

No one is harder on us than we are on ourselves. Well most of us with a conscious that is, which is still the vast majority of us. Our current political and economic systems are flawed in offering equality of opportunity as a given. Which makes many of us frustrated that we cannot seem to fix the problems that make it so. Understanding what the problems are is even more difficult given some of the absurd definitions our freedom of speech allow. But if we all just boil down to what we know is the difference between right and wrong, we can work backwards from there. All of us should be able to achieve the same opportunities that all others have. Some will excel from that starting point and others will choose not to. As long as we all have the opportunity to start from the same place, we will have achieved the beginning of fairness. Regardless of our choice of what to do with our lives we must have a quality of life that is reasonable and respectable. No one should be forced into poverty for not being successful. We all deserve a quality of life that has a minimum standard that reflects the care we share for ourselves and our families. Otherwise what is the point of civilization and society? Why bother being part of a community if we are discarded based upon the current factors that weigh more heavily toward success for those with many resources and far less toward those who have few resources. It is like agreeing to live a nonsensical controlled chaos that fails most all who cannot afford it. Republicans offer society a survival of the fittest philosophy which allows the markets to determine the value of our lives. This is why I fight so hard against the current conservative Republicans who cannot for the life of any of us see that not only are the markets rigged by the wealthy to their favor but life is not quantifiable through economic principles. We can live within a better society but we must first replace the old ideas of survival of the fittest with the new idea of equality of opportunity.