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An economic schadenfreude, if you will.

No, it's more like watching the VP of Sales children go off to a top tier University (admission to which they deserve, based on their efforts and accomplishments) on their parents dime, while you own children (who deserve as good an education, and the doors it opens, based on their efforts and accomplishments) end up at a second tier state college, and tens of thousands of dollars in debt for the privilege, because that's all you can afford.

Or, having to decide if you want to lose your house and savings, or forgo radiation treatment and take a chance the the lumpectamy alone has cured your breast cancer - while the woman who used to sit next to you at work before the last layoff still has a PPO.

Americans will put you with a good deal of this sort of inequality, but for the majority this requires the conviction that there is a sort of rough logic and justice involved.

IMO it's that conviction that's being eroded, and that erosion is only going to accelerate as (for example) outsourcing moves up the economic and vocational ladder.

And IMO conservatives who want to elect candidates who will shape a future to their liking ignore this reality at their own risk.

No, it's more like watching the VP of Sales children go off to a top tier University (admission to which they deserve, based on their efforts and accomplishments) on their parents dime, while you own children (who deserve as good an education, and the doors it opens, based on their efforts and accomplishments) end up at a second tier state college, and tens of thousands of dollars in debt for the privilege, because that's all you can afford.

Is your complaint that the VP of sales is paying for too good of school out of his/her own pocket, or that the school he/she is paying for out of his/her tax dollars for your children is not good enough?

There are other options out there:
Coast Guard Academy
Naval Academy
Air Force Academy
USMA
USMA

In fact, believe it or not, they all have great economics departments.

That Sales VP is more likely to NOT be able to afford Harvard or Duke, or even The University of Michigan, as an out of stater, than the bottom level of the middle class, who has a brilliant child. Why? One word.......SCHOLARSHIPS. That upper middle class VP earns far too much for his kid to get a scholarship, but NOT as much as to be able to really afford tuition, room&board, books, travel, and other expenses for his child, without feeling really pinched.

Life isn't "fair" and it never has been.

Anyone in America can become a millionare. It's been proven time and time again. They have to wish it, focus on it, learn everything about it, and accomplish it.

Whining over one's decisions is pathetic. Obviously in your post you are carefully dancing around the socialistic brick of, discrimination, without being direct about it.

The smartest thing a person can do is teach their children about savings and investments.

The problem is, people get caught up in the "magazine" world, as in... to live like the "tv people" do, one must buy that car, that couch, etc. And so it becomes a mantra of "I can only feel good if I have the perfectly presentable "image".

Really, it comes down to self-discipline.

In re your hardluck stories. Hard-hearted Hannah here says: Welcome to Life! What do you suggest for children born with disabilities through no one's fault but of genetics? Sue God?

You posit that in order to be a more "caring" nation, everyone should always focus upon "victims". In so doing, you create more victims. MSM and Democrats has been doing this for so long -- and because it "sells" advertising and political agendas. And creates a whole new minefield for the "victim ideologues" to create a larger and fouler industry -- that of encouraging a nation of adults to... just submit to anything life tosses at them.

I grew up in "utopia" -- the San Francisco Bay Area. And I learned what hell, first hand created under this type of "caring" programs and ideologies. It's a freakin war zone out in the west. Everyone vying with each other for who has it worst in life. Who's the bigger or more important victim?

Then you get to read the transcripts of panels wherein the victim groups get together and prioritize which victim is the victim for this season, and who gets the second spot afterwards.

It's one huge AA meeting, or tent revivalist meeting perfectly parodied in Monty Python's "I was born in a rolled-up newspaper".

I just recently got cable. I haven't had cable since 1993. I'm a genuine Rip Van Winkle. And what have I learned? I've missed absolutely nothing by not having cable all these years. (I do like the weather channel, at moment, however.)

I watched a show this past weekend. Plastic surgery. A woman in Los Angeles, divorced, two small children, was getting the "whole" do-over. Cost $35,000. She works full-time while working to get a degree in Accounting.

This woman also fits inside your script about "what appeals" to voters. Who do you think will be paying the costs for her possible bankrupty?

How important do you think it is that she "feel good" about herself, and what types of government programs do you think she'd demand to see enacted into congress?

Why wait? She can move to CA where many types of cosmetic surgeries ARE being covered. Including sex changes.

This woman also fits inside your script about "what appeals" to voters. Who do you think will be paying the costs for her possible bankrupty?

How important do you think it is that she "feel good" about herself, and what types of government programs do you think she'd demand to see enacted into congress?

Why wait? She can move to CA where many types of cosmetic surgeries ARE being covered. Including sex changes.