A Quote by George Kaiser
America's 'social contract' is equal opportunity... yet we have failed in achieving that seminal goal.
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This is what America is about when it comes to understanding that it is equal opportunity versus equal achievement. Each and every one of us has the opportunity for greatness in this country.
Economic policy and foreign policy in Europe have been too liberal. We have failed when it comes to maintaining the social contract, which is the very foundation of the social-democratic social model.
For Americans the contradiction between national ideal and social fact required explanation and correction. Ultimately this contradiction did not lead to the abandonment of the ideal of equal opportunity but rather to its postponement: to the notion of achieving for the next generation what could not be achieved for the current one. And the chief means to this end was a brilliant American invention: universal, free, compulsory public education. This "solution" was especially important for children and families because it gave children a central role in achieving the national ideal.
The United States exists as a sovereign nation. 'America,' in contrast, exists as a myth of democracy and equal opportunity to live by, or as an ideal goal to reach.
In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors, for, from the time of Jefferson onward, the doctrine that all men are equal applies only upwards, not downwards.
You have a very precisely defined goal and you build a machine that's superhuman in its capabilities for achieving goals. If it turns out that the subsequent behavior of the robot in achieving that goal was not what you want, you have a real problem.
America guarantees equal opportunity, not equal outcome.
This [Barack Obama] administration has failed America's inner cities. Remember, it has failed America's inner cities. It's failed them on education. It's failed them on jobs. It's failed them on crime. It's failed them in every way and on every single level. When I am president, I will work to ensure that all of our kids are treated equally and protected equally.
However, however, if the goal is to abandon America's free enterprise economy, if the goal is to convert America into a submissive member of the international community, if the goal is not to fix America, but to change America, then they want leaders that are going to come up here and fight it every step of the way.
For so many in the UK, the social contract is broken - the idea that if you work hard and play by the rules, you'll reap the rewards. Advances in robotics, artificial intelligence and other technologies are just as capable of fixing the social contract as they are to weaken it further.
America is more than just a place...it's an idea. It's the only country founded on an idea. Our rights come from nature and God, not government. We promise equal opportunity, not equal outcomes.
Hubert Humphrey with kids"Be clear where America stands. Human brotherhood and equal opportunity for every man, woman, and child, we are committed to it, in America and around the world."
Conservatives or better, pro-corporate apologists hijacked the vocabulary of Jeffersonian liberalism and turned words like "progress," "opportunity," and "individualism" into tools for making the plunder of America sound like divine right. This "degenerate and unlovely age," as one historian calls it, exists in the mind of Karl Rove the reputed brain of George W. Bush as the seminal age of inspiration for politics and governance of America today.
The end goal of all of this striving is to live joyfully, and that there are often more direct ways of achieving this than conforming to rigid standards set by social custom.
The paradox of American democracy has been that its slogan of equal opportunity has meant, often, equal opportunity to get power over your fellows.
We live in America where each and every person has the equal opportunity to take their iPhone or a smartphone and create something and put it online and have the equal ability to blow up and be successful. It's a tool I hope we inspire tons of people to pick up and go after their dreams.
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