[Skybird]

Typed a reply, and deleted it. So now this.

You ignore major ingredients of what forms man's reality, Neal. And that leads you to conclusions that are part of america's mythology, which I do not mean metaphorically, but factual. To assume that life is what you make of it, and you can make anything because everybody has the same chance and opportunity, simply is foolish nonsens and shows that the insight into the wide diversity of ways man's life can unfold on for the worse or the better, is extremely limited. Why isn'T everybody a millionaire, then, why are the few on top live at the cost of the many at the bottom, and why are there so many slums and underprivileged juveniles turning criminal? Social extremes collide here, like two supernovas. And the wealth of those at the top - needs the weakness and poverty of those at the bottom. Damn, the whole world is made up of this principle. "Seines eigenen Glückes Schmied sein", we say in german. that works only within the set of chaces life provides you with, and not beyond, and many of them come later, and cannot be forseen, and even come without a link to your earlier efforts or laziness. And the intial starting coditions are different for everybody. Social systems formed differing ways and levels of how to compensate for these differences later on, and call that a form of social justice, which it is, at least by ambitions of estabolishing a more general basis of fairness. But again, this works only so far, and not beyond. we all are subject to the social environment in which we grow up. Skin colour, religion. Antipathy and sympathy between two people meeting. Accident and disease. Wrong and right assessmements, and different preparations because of that. Different interests. Different possibilities of the family you grew up in, regarding money, education, interest of the parents. that just one single follish mistake you made, because you were young. The list is ENDLESS.

Same opportunity for everybody? Not even in paradise. It has been one of the modern American myths that made america attractive for many people going there, it was an attractive dream. But today, more and more it serves exclusively as a self-justification and excuse not to self-reflect, while very many people's dreams for a better life have turned into pragmatism of just surviving the next forseeable future - and that covers the wide range from "opportunities" (that all of a sudden for many are not so much equal anymore), and reaches even as far as crime. Same opportunities for everyone is also a basic precondition for this literal world-famous american optimism, that can only be maintained by either assuming there is a deity meaning it well with you (God's own country), or by assuming that everthing is possible for you. If both are missing, optimism falls back in favour of realism. And if you think of it, in politics, this simple link is something that explains a lot of america's foreign-political adventures, this optimism versus realism thing. And by that record we see that optimism eventually can grow to overestimation of one'S abilities.

Your neat and tidy views work on paper only, like those of socialists as well, you both are utopians. But dirty, unsorted, chaotic reality - neither world, nor "fate" nor man's nature - does not match. You could as well try to trim a big park with nail scissors.

And finally I am wondering: has a little luck never made that decisive difference in your life, when your life's path splitted...?