CAR, there aren’t that many people who have some talent, have applied themselves for 15 hours a day to their education for over 10 years, choosing subjects that are “hard” (like physics, chemistry, math, biochem, medicine etc) and likely to lead to lucrative careers, and then worked 100 hours a week for years in jobs that have the best opportunity for long-term financial rewards, in the places that offer the best opportunity, regardless of family preferences.
You can’t point to people who have made only some of these hard choices and say that a significant % of them have not been successful, as proof that making the right hard choices isn’t a pretty reliable way of getting ahead. And we all have to accept that naturally untalented people exist, and aren’t going to float to the top, regardless of effort.
Even luck is not always what it seems. Last year, I made some financial bets that turned out nicely. I almost made bets 20 times larger, that would have set me up very comfortably for life. But if I had made those bets and they turned out poorly, I would have been set back. If someone takes risks and it turns out well, then are they just lucky, or are they also reaping the fair rewards for putting their asses on the line?
As for hard-working illegal immingrants, their situation should be compared to how they would do if they stayed in their country of origin. Since they are almost always free to go back, we get our answer by just looking at how many return to their country of origin because they cannot do better here than there. Very few do. If Mexico were educating all its children to high levels in science and law etc, and when they came here they were unable to break out of a life of grinding poverty, then I’d say that we had a real problem of fairness. Bit that ain’t happening.
