<HTML><BODY STYLE="font:10pt verdana; border:none;"><DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Tsk, tsk, indeed, Jeff. Looks like you've been smoking Ayn Rand again.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>"Your ideas have been tried and have failed - and failed at the cost of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of lives. There is no place for that kind of thinking or that kind of policy in a society that values private property rights, free enterprise and individual liberties. The invisible hand of competition assures a fair opportunity for all to prosper. No guarantees - but life has no guarantees - except of course, death and taxes. Successful efforts are rewarded - unsuccessful efforts are not - and they shouldn't be - those costs are always passed on to everyone else."</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Is it the invisible hand of competition which has created the vast and growing gap between rich and poor in this country? It would be nice to think so, wouldn't it? Everything *we*'ve got, *we* earned, and screw the poor--they wouldn't be poor if they tried harder Let them eat cake, if they can't get bread. It works for me!</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Forget the invisible hand. Let's talk about the invisible hand-out. Choosing the right parents is the most important decision a person can make in this fabulous free market society of ours. If unsuccessful efforts weren't rewarded, we wouldn't have a president with a trail of bankrupt businesses behind him. As long as we continue to pretend that inherited wealth and privilege don't rule this country, we can continue to blame poor people for their "failures." Millions of people have worked themselves down to the grave without much option for prosperity in this nation--starting with the slaves who worked the cotton fields which created so much of the wealth of the white U.S. population when cotton was king, and winding down through the mines and oil fields and slaughterhouses and railroads of the 1890s to the women greeters and cashiers of Walmart, hustling like mad for less than a living wage and fighting a corporate culture that systematically discriminates against women. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The pretty dream that we deserve our prosperity and the poor deserve their suffering is just that--a dream. The privilege that many of us experience is entirely unearned, and it comes at the cost of other people's limitations. It's not too surprising that we'd rather look the other way: John Galt's a more enticing role than Mr. Gradgrind.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Melynda Huskey</DIV></BODY></HTML><br clear=all><hr>Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : <a href='http://explorer.msn.com'>http://explorer.msn.com</a><br></p>