borderline socialist.

i was walking into salvatori hall a while ago for my anthro class and i saw something that must be normal to usc, seeing as nobody else really seemed to notice. i saw a hispanic man surrounded by 3 of our DPS (on campus security) officers, getting ticketed or interrogated or something. no big deal right? curious, i stuck around, rubbernecked a little, and was struck by how sad the man in question looked. he sat, hunched over and small, with his hat crumpled in his hands and he looked SO bewildered by what was going on. i think he had tried to steal like.. a bike, and gotten caught.

its always in those moments that i wonder what overcame a person to decide to steal something. it seems that a lot of them just needed money. maybe to support their family, pay their bills. i feel like it'd be a really last ditch effort for money. nobody would just steal... just for fun or because they want something right? i might be totally off, but i feel like innately, humans fear being "caught" or getting in trouble so stealing, especially in an open place, is probably really hard to get yourself to do.

it made me really sad though because the man, probably just from around this neighborhood, most likely needed money and was desperate enough to muster up the courage to try to steal something from the richkids' school. i mean, isn't it unfair that there are such big differences? i've sat through/ participated in many debates in high school discussing the idea of whether its fair that someone born into poverty has to have a harder time growing up/ earning his own money than the kid from pv, whose parents made enough money to support them. people always argue "well, the people that are poor are probably poor because they didn't work hard and get a good job... etc" or... "rich people worked their way into their wealth, they deserve the money they have". though both arguments are legitimate, it's not ALWAYS true. kids born into a poor family, or a broken family, dont have the opportunities or chances that other kids have. they're influenced by the environment they grow up in, they might not have the means to get a good education, and they grow up with a different mentality. on the other side, a lot of wealthy people were born into a good family. families that loved and doted on them, families that could afford an education in a nice neighborhood, families that could pay for a prestigious university. they could either foster in an environment like that, or just grow up spoiled and believing that with daddy's money, anything is possible.

the funny this is, i bet if you let the kid that grew up in the slums, working for his life, if you let him into the life of a rich teen, where education was available, resources, love, etc. that kid would become a GENIUS. hardworking ethics+ resources= match made in heaven.

but this is besides the point, and irrelevant most of the time..

wouldn't it be nice to have a world where everyone just got to start from the same point when they were born. that way, the true geniuses would be recognized and those that dont deserve what they have now (i.e; paris hilton? wtf) can just be normal.

this is borderline socialism.. so i will stop before anyone accuses me of anything haha.

sometimes, i just wish we'd let those people steal things, let those people have a chance you know? i mean, this is all assuming that person really did need the money for a good reason. if only there were a way to tell!