[Guvante]

> Successful/great people rise above all kinds of adversity and come from all sorts of backgrounds.

Bullshit, almost every rags to riches story has a "And I got lucky and _____" it isn't someone overcoming adversity, it is luck that got their talent noticed. I am not saying those who face hardship don't have talent, just saying it rarely gets noticed due to biases.

> Criminals likewise span every demographic in the U.S.

The poor are extremely more likely to commit crimes. You have to exclude economic factors or you cannot compare anything about crime, it is that large of an impact. Heck the "black problem" you list is 90% due to being poor much more often than other groups.

> The "poor" in our country live an order of magnitude better than many in the world

Pointless argument. Let me turn it around on you. The poor don't have to worry about starving to death nearly as much as elsewhere, but because of this they have a ton of spare time. How many things can you do that are illegal and are entertaining + cheap? I bet you can make a long list. This could just as easily be used to explain why being poor is a bigger problem in the US when using the level of logic this thread is using.

> I just get so tired of hearing everyone blame everyone else except themselves for the directions of their lives.

Are we talking about one singular person? Take the OP, he never claims he shouldn't have been treated as a criminal, his only complaints are that he should have been able to see his family, and he shouldn't have gotten 3 years parole for a non-violent offense.

Are we talking about a group, like poor blacks? You can't blame individual things like this for an entire population, it doesn't make sense. We aren't saying Johnny didn't go to college because he is poor, we are saying the poor on average go to college this much less, which for these reasons is because they are poor.

[encoderer]

Regarding only your first point... I can't agree with that.

Aside from the lotto and other truly marginal edge cases, I'd say that hard work is not sufficient for success but it is required.

That is, if you take 100 successful people, you'll have 100 who needed some luck to get where they are. And of those, you'll have 99 who also had to work their ass off.

[ThomPete]

Many people work hard and never make it.

Many people build great products and never make it.

Many people build a great business but it doesn't last.

Luck doesn't determine whether you are able to make it but it does often have a lot to do with whether you get the chance.

[WalterBright]

If you don't work hard, don't build great products, and don't build a great business, you aren't giving luck much of a chance to help you.

[ThomPete]

If you have a great business you are by definition successful so that makes no sense.

With regards to the other sure but none of them will guarantee you a great business.

[Guvante]

My apologies, I did not at all mean to imply the opposite of that. Hard work is certainly required to succeed.

However most people talking about the American dream are talking about it being sufficient, which is what I was talking against.

Statistically you don't get lucky and get rich (guess what happens to lottery winners a year after they win most the time?) and you rarely work hard and get rich. You can get a little lucky and live a good life working hard, and you can get really lucky, work really hard, and get rich.