[jmull]

Dodging the question.

People want “merit” to be the determining factor… but they don’t want to express or discuss what merit actually is.

As someone has plenty of the characteristics commonly associated with merit, but who also has a strong sense of fairness, I’m awfully skeptical of the faith (and I used that word deliberately) people put in the concept. Why the hell do the talents I was born with or advantages I was given make me any more deserving of material wealth than anyone else?

That’s all I see anyone doing with “merit”… it’s used as a “drop the mic” concept that to justify self-serving criteria for conferring material advantages.

Personally, I think ability should confer obligations more than advantages. (A wildly radical concept, I know, in the morally retarded era we live in.)