American Dream
Best Left a Dream
Last Thursday, the appeals court overturned U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's June 2000 order that Microsoft break up into two separate companies in order to ease its chokehold on the American computer operating system market.
It also sent the case to a judge other than Jackson for review, excoriating him for his apparent bias against Microsoft and CEO Bill Gates during the nine-month trial.
However, the justices stopped short of overturning Jackson's finding that Microsoft was a monopoly and had illegally tried to maintain that position.
Well, well, well. No surprise there.
After all, we can't just let Bill Gates get off scot-free, now, can we?
I mean, the man actually had the gall to hunker down in his garage and develop a product that became a blazing success in the marketplace and made him billions and billions of dollars.
What nerve! Imagine, seeing a desperate need -- in this case, for computers you and I don't need a doctorate from M.I.T. to use -- and filling it. And then (gasp!) PROFITING from it!
Why, that's downright un-Amurrican. Somebody git a rope!
... Okay, folks, time out on the field for a reality check.
You know, and I know, and the whole world knows, that this case really has nothing to do with whether Microsoft's Windows was such a hit that it virtually took over the industry, triggering an archaic anti-monopoly act dating from the turn of the last century.
It's all about Bill Gates, the geek America loves to hate. The nerdy kid we all knew in 10th grade with the squeaky voice and Coke-bottle glasses gets his revenge by becoming richer than Croesus, and all the ex-jocks now slaving away in anonymous middle-management cube farms can't handle it. So they use the federal court system to deal Gates one more Atomic Wedgie.
What is wrong with us?
The Evil Communist Empire crumbles, and we crow about the victory of the Noble American Dream over the Fatally Flawed Marxist Myth. We posit ourselves as a shining city on a hill where any Joe Sixpack with a shoeshine and a good idea can go for the gold -- then turn around and prosecute him when he actually makes it, because he had to be doing SOMETHING wrong to get so rich!
Just when did it become a sin to succeed in the Land of Opportunity?
Wait, let me answer: It's not a sin. We're just all jealous.
Heck, I'm at the head of that line. I am nauseous with envy that Bill Gates could buy a brand-new, maxed-out Lexus every morning for the rest of his natural life with what he loses between his sofa cushions, that he makes $377,662.85 just in the time it takes to watch a one-hour "Law and Order" rerun. (This last, gleaned from an interesting little website called "Bill Gates' Net Worth Page.")
Bill Gates is worth $58 billion and I'm not. The lawyers and the courts can debate unto the final trump whether Microsoft is or isn't a monopoly, but the real nub of The United States of America v. Microsoft is that Ma Gates' little boy done good for hisself -- and we can't stand it!
But friends, that's how it works here in America. Build a better mousetrap -- or computer program -- and the world will beat a path to your door. You wanna get filthy rich? Harness cold fusion in your icebox. Build a car that gets 100 miles per gallon on stale beer. Come up with tomorrow's Beanie Baby.
Or invent the next Windows.
Bill Gates is the richest man in America. Live with it.
There's nothing evil in wealth. The evil lies in pillorying the wealthy merely for being the wealthy.
When we turn on our own who happened to benefit from the American Dream, we tarnish that Dream -- and diminish ourselves.
