There are many problems facing the world these days, but one of those problems is a silent one--one that few people actually probably don't think very much of, but hell, I have a lot of time on my hands, so I think of things like this.
There might be many shades of grey in this comment, but the fact is, some people are just plain lucky, and some who aren't as lucky.
For some reason, some of these "lucky" people think that they are, in some way, better than everyone else. So when these people get power, they tend to bend all the rules to their own liking, whether that's for the good, or not. When they do this, they make hell for the rest of us.
Like monarchs. In olden days, some monarchies believed that their blood was a different color. So when one of their "own" was a tad mentally challenged--and a lot of them were, considering how much inbreeding there was in some royal circles--it didn't matter--blue blood was blue blood. So if an imbecile ruled a tony country, it didn't matter if he/she drooled out of the corner of their mouth, the people were still obligated to clear the spittle away from his/slack jaw. Talk about luck!
In US history, we all think pretty highly of our Founding Fathers. They planned and launched a rebellion to extricate this budding nation from the steel grip of a monarch--one of those crazies mentioned above. But the truth is, we might have never heard of Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, John Adams or Thomas Paine. They weren't the only ones fighting for the colonies, but who remembers Adam Pierce, John Smith or even Michael Brown? Hardly anyone! And why? Because they were unlucky enough to die before the revolution actually begun! (Actually, the names are make-believe, so you don't need to go check them out at Wiki)
Nowadays, there are essentially, as always, two different kinds of rich people: those who made their money, working damned hard for it, and those who got their money from their families. We've seen people like GWB, as with many monarchs as imbecilic as they come, who not only lucked into being born in a well-to-do family, but lucky enough to be bailed out constantly by that rich family. We've seen some lucky people who are actually quite beneficent, and we've seen lucky people who are full-on vampires, who suck the life out of everyone around them, and who don't think that ordinary rules apply to them. (The Koch brothers, Karl Rove and Dick Cheney come to mind)
Now, good guys also have good luck as well, so it's not just the assholes who think this country owes them a living. Because good guys often share their good fortune with those around them, we can have an affinity for them and what they have brought to us. People like George Clooney, Keith Olbermann, Warren Buffett, Barack Obama, the Clintons, Jon Stewart.... In most of these cases, their good fortune benefited a lot of us.
The truth is, most of us don't really notice luck, except for not being the one to win the Superlotto, Mega Millions or some other high payout game of chance. Someone once said that luck is what you make it to be, but that really doesn't explain such things as who gets born into a rich family or a poor one, who ends up with brains and who doesn't, who ends up successful and who doesn't. Yes, there are other reasons to be pointed out in the case of some people, like drive, persistence, risk-takers, and others who work harder than most people they know. But if two equally matched people met on a corner, with the same chances at getting a particular job, one is going to have a smidge better luck than the other and thus get the job.
Some people call what eventually happens to them fate, destiny, karma, whatever. I'm betting on it being just born lucky. However, with my propensity for continuously losing at almost everything, I could be wrong. It won't be the first time.
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