"You ever hear of the saying "Life's not fair?"

[TheMightyFavog]

I had this thrown at me in a thread in which I proposed a Student loan forgiveness program.

[jwirr]

1. Well it is not fair BUT a student laon forgiveness program is good for our nation. we need a younger

generation that can get on their feet and help us recover. When we do not see their needs we are only hurting ourselves.

[TheMightyFavog]

2. This was coming from one of those folks who

"Sat down with paper and pencil, and did the math, worked all through college and graduated with $11,000 in debt which I paid off in a few years. If I can do it, anybody can! I made the right decision, why should I have to pay for the ones who made poor decisions" types.

[jwirr]

8. Maybe because it would work better than bailing out the rich?

[rug]

3. The guillotine isn't fair either.

[TheMightyFavog]

4. And then you get the people who say

"If we make education free, we're going to end up like Europe!"

[Liberal Veteran]

5. A cultured happy society? Heaven forbid!

That sounds awful!

[surrealAmerican]

6. It isn't, but ...

... that doesn't mean that unfairness should be our goal.

[Odin2005]

7. I hate when people say that.

That usually indicates that the person is a simpleton who sees anything that comes from outside their local day-to-day existence as if it were an unchangeable natural force like tornadoes and earthquakes.

[Solly Mack]

14. +1

[gratuitous]

9. Life is indeed not fair

So, why not tilt the playing field a little bit back in favor of people trying to better their lot in life and against large corporate concerns that seem to be doing just fine with the current state of unfairness?

[coalition_unwilling]

10. President Carter said something to this effect at some point, altho I cannot

find a definitive source for the quote.

I think it was "Nobody ever said life was fair" or "Sometimes life isn't fair."

[Populist_Prole]

11. I despise that canard as well. Very misused.

Misused by high-handed jerks who try to make sure life is unfair rather than parental-like advice to remind us that things might not work out despite our best efforts.

The people I hear that throw this term around are the ones that ended up "making it" despite a few obstacles, and now want to pull up the drawbridge over the moat.

[bigbrother05]

12. Those are the same folks that walked 5 miles to school in 6 feet of snow uphill both ways

I was lucky (and old enough) to have gotten through college with less than $1000 in related debt, but had help from my parents to go to a state school. It also took 10 years and I had a wife and son by the time I finished, after an employer let me rearrange my schedule to get my last class done.

So obviously I'm a self made man, if you don't count WIC for my son or food stamps to supplement what we made delivering pizzas.

While not 1% rich, my taxes have more than paid back everything including some periods of unemployment checks. It's a crying shame people want to deny help for others because they feel didn't get any "breaks".

[Zalatix]

13. "Life isn't fair" is the motto of an uncivilized society.

[Brigid]

17. You definitely have . . .

A t-shirt and bumper sticker here -- and this statement is far more profound than most I've seen.

[DenverDad]

15. By nature, life isn't fair.

But that shouldn't give people the excuse to add to, or exploit inequities.

[ck4829]

16. 'Not fair' is not what these students are experiencing

Vicious cycles of unemployment and poverty are failures of our system at best, malicious at worst. Nothing to do with fairness or unfairness.

Be sure to say that.