Letter to the editor: Not America's fault

In his letter “Cosmic luck” (Jan. 18, TribLIVE), Thomas C. Spallone claims that “If you were born in America, you didn’t earn your citizenship” because your good fortune came from “random cosmic luck,” and therefore we are no better than immigrants trying to cross our borders.

To understand why his cleverly twisted logic is so wrong, let’s look at an individual example. Two men each have a son. One man is a hard-working provider who spends time teaching his child. The second man is a drug user without a job and does not spend time with his son. The first son does well in school and gets a great job. The second son follows in his father’s footsteps, becoming a drug user and unproductive.

So who is to blame for this tragedy? Isn’t it the second father, who by his irresponsible behavior and neglect denied his son the opportunity to succeed?

Likewise, our nation founded on freedom provided us with pathways to success which illegal immigrants didn’t get. But it’s not America’s fault that children from other countries weren’t provided opportunities. Like the second father, the leadership in those countries is to blame.

This distorted reasoning advocated by socialists that capitalism is responsible for poverty threatens to destroy our great civilization.

Steve Schlauch

Plum