unfairness

I didn't vote for Jimmy Carter, I couldn't forgive him his comment that "Life is unfair." (I've learned from that experience to hold my nose and vote for the least worst candidate; there isn't much other choice in South Carolina).

But I'm thinking today not about politics but about fairness. As a child I believed I deserved the mistreatment I got. I've heard it said that children tend to believe that because that gives them some sense of control when it is too unbearable to feel powerless. At the moment, though, it seems to me that what is unbearable is not being powerless but injustice. If life is that unfair then how can we live it?