Posted on 01/24/2011 7:10:40 PM PST by callisto
Speaking at Guilford College in Greensboro, North Carolina former Green Czar Van Jones defined “social justice” as opposed to legal justice.
“Here’s how you know if you live in a society where there’s social justice: Would you be willing to take your life . . . write it on a card, throw it in a big pot with everybody else . . . reach in at random and pull out another life with total confidence that it would be a good life?
“Well, then you got some work to do.
“In other words, not to say that you would wind up exactly where you were before, but that you’d be able to have a good life . . . that you would be able to put it together . . . figure it out. If you don’t have that confidence then you don’t live in a country where there’s social justice. Because in a socially just, as opposed to a legally just . . . in a socially just world, since we’re all pretty much born equally ignorant we should have roughly equal chances to have good lives.
“You didn’t do anything particularly spectacular at the point of birth, such that you deserve all this. [He] That’s a high standard. What it means in a country like ours is we will constantly be striving. We won’t ever arrive there in all likelyhood. We’ll have a more perfect union, we won’t have a perfect union, but it can be more perfect and every generation has to figure out a way to move us closer to the reality of liberty and justice for all and not just the rhetoric.”
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_-vgtYkJdA
Wow, what a wasted mind... shallow speaks unto shallow...
““Here’s how you know if you live in a society where there’s social justice: Would you be willing to take your life . . . write it on a card, throw it in a big pot with everybody else . . . reach in at random and pull out another life with total confidence that it would be a good life?”
Geez, why not just demand the government buy everyone a puppy already?
My transcription doesn’t pick up the inflections, etc. you hear on the video, but his laugh - the [He] - was very telling. I’m trying to get more video footage from the speech. :)
..... Of course, Mr Jones omits to mention that the socialist hat is filled exclusively with lives carefully circumscribed, proscribed, and pre-ordained by micro-managing socio-economic arbiters and ideological autocrats.
There is no limit to stupidity.
The Nobel Laureate Ken Arrow made the same argument 30 years ago.
Before you were born, if you knew there was a 10% of being wealthy or a 90% chance of being poor, would you rely on probabilities? Or choose all wealth divided equally?
Bogus argument, but there you have it.
This is a particularly popular idea with slackers.
It's hard to believe this pinhead was actually a part of a U.S. president's admin.
“Here’s how you know if you live in a society where there’s social justice: Would you be willing to take your life . . . write it on a card, throw it in a big pot with everybody else . . . reach in at random and pull out another life with total confidence that it would be a good life?”
********************************************************
That doesn’t make sense to me—doesn’t that assume everyone has the same idea of what a ‘good life’ is.
I wouldn’t want the life of a very rich person, even if some would call it better.
I would rather live in a shack in the woods than in the fanciest penthouse in NYC.
I like having choice in life more than sameness of life.
Success in life isn’t a random draw lottery. It is a
reward for lots of hard work and self discipline.
Jones is a bone head.
If Van Jones had the power to make everyone the same and spread all the wealth out evenly, he might be surprised that in no time at all some people would work harder, run faster, want more success, invent more things and exercise more creativity than others thus ending up with more power to acquire and trade.
“Each according to their ability to each according to their need” Same old BS in a different wrapper.
NC has become a very liberal state with taxes that rival the big blue states.No wonder so many homes are for sale in the wealthiest areas in the past 10 years.
Why this is so hard for such a large chunk of the populace is beyond me. Worse, the more you give people, the fewer of these traits they learn and adopt.
Those are a great set of rules. I may have to post on the ‘fridge as reminders to the little one.
This is Rawls’ “veil of ignorance” idea. It’s stupid on many levels. However, I’m pretty certain that had I been born differently than I was, black, hispanic, whatever, and my parents were the decent, thoughtful, honest, and hard-working people that they were, that I’d be just about where I am now.
“Social Justice vs. Legal Justice”.
Look around the 3rd world Van. It works for the top .001% of the population quite well. The rest die of torture, murder and starvation while you “convince” them you’re right.. It’s why the Founding Fathers put gave free people the 2nd amendment. There has always been power starved losers and we must be vigilant in rooting them out.
That’s exactly what the Left chooses to ignore....a little hard work goes a long way towards success. Of course, the Left purposely ignores this fact with the goal of stoking class warfare to facilitate their ‘divide and conquer’ wet dream of ruling the nation.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.