I attempted to stay out of this one, but I failed.

I don't mean to be offensive, if indeed what I'm going to say could be considered such, but this thread makes me sick. It happily indulges in a mentality that, with another target, today's society would go overboard denouncing, yet it remains sociably acceptable to poo-poo the rich. Were that same rant targeted at a racial group, its author would be upbraided and ostracized. Yet somehow it's ok to discriminate against the rich, lump them all together into one evil yet enviable group. It's easy to denounce those in possession of something you don't have. "Sour grapes" is the expression I believe that is used. It's easy to ignore the charities that many of the rich regularly generously support in order to condemn the whole bunch on the grounds that some don't. It's easy to resent control others have that you don't. And it's easier still to pretend all rich people inherited their wealth than acknowledge the revealing fact that far more millionaires than not earned their fortunes by contributing hard work and ingenuity to the benefit of our society and economy.

It is naive and prejudicial to label all people with money as unscrupulous selfish puppeteers, and it's offensively lazy to deal with the issue by venting resentment about it at random. We do still live in a democracy, and single individuals, even poor ones, have the ability to make a difference. Sure, the rich generally have more influence than the poor, but there isn't a soul on this earth that doesn't have the chance to start making small differences and work upward and outward from there. You probably won't become the next President, and you probably won't become the next Bill Gates, but you'll be a lot farther along than those content to sit and rave about alleged injustices.

I don't intend anyone here to take this rant of my own personally, even the originator of this thread. (After all, what can I tell about someone based on a solitary message forum post?) But I would be remiss to dilute the strength of my argument in favor of tact. My apologies if anyone took offense.