Some Thoughts On Equality

The notion of generalized human equality is a staple – a mantra – of collectivists. Like so many of the ideas floated by the left, it sounds good, it rings with noble sentiment, but it is bereft of intellect and its meaning is corrupt. The applied, functional meaning is rather more like human leveling. The equality of persons, correctly and narrowly defined, exists only in the sight of God and the blindness of justice.
As history suggests and science makes clear, no two persons are identical, i.e., equal; at a minimum they will have physical, emotional and mental characteristics that will distinguish them from one another and from everyone else.
We are told that government (God help us!) must establish Equality of Opportunity among its citizens. But what can that mean? If persons are not equal, their opportunities cannot be equal. Some will say, “it ain’t fair”, and they will be correct. It is the way of the world. The concept of fairness is, after all, a human construction, and when prudentially applied – voluntarily and by free men – it may well benefit society.
But when we set out to impose “fairness” we are acting contrary to fact, reason and human nature. But that is precisely what the left is determined to do.
In socialist Western Europe, people become extremely disturbed about wide disparities in income, and we now see a similar uneasiness here in the emerging rhetoric of class warfare and in the eagerness of the political left to redistribute wealth.
When government uses its powers of armed, coercive force to impose a regimen of fairness on the polity there is little reason to hope for restraint, the preservation of individual liberty or helpful outcomes.
For a century and more we have seen the ruinous consequences to society of collectivist governments, but we seem to have learned not a thing.