>>I wholeheartedly agree that we are all entitled to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. The problem that many liberals have is that they believe that this refers to equal outcomes. It does not. It means that everyone has the same chance to achieve these goals.

Wanting even the poor to have access to healthcare and education is not the same as expecting equal outcomes. Where do you come across these awful "liberals" saying that?

>>Just take a look at Dr. Ben Carson. He came from very humble beginnings. Starting out poor is not an excuse for underachievement.

The one most often quoted to me these days is Gabby Douglas. But lets go with Carson.

He attended public school paid for by the taxpayer. Then he was offered a full West Point ride but decided he wanted to be a doctor and took the Yale free ride. Although he worked in his holidays (like you) and was lucky to be in tertiary education before the cost hockey stick in the 1980-1990s (also like you,) the fact is that without the taxpayer and the Yale bequest program, he could not be where he is today.

In addition: he freely admits that at school he almost went off the rails twice in classical poor boy style. The first time was poor grades, the second was violence and lashings out. It was his mother's insistence on reading that helped him move past the shocking grades at primary school. He says it was the Bible that helped when he almost went off the rails again in high school. It was only when he made it all the way to Johns Hopkins that an honest person would say he was now self-reliant. Before then he was highly reliant on the taxpayer and other donors. A useful question would be: where would Dr Carson be today if there was no school for him to go to and if his mother was arrested when he was 7 because she sold some pot to get medicine for the sick baby.