Equality or Privilege?

Equality is not anyone's goal -- everyone thinks "fair" means I get more than others. If you reward good and evil equally, you reward evil unjustly. If you reward laziness and hard work equally, you get laziness. If you reward intelligence and stupidity equally, you get politicians.

Do some of us have greater opportunity than others? Do some of us have privileges that others do not have? Are these opportunities merited or not? Are these privileges deserved or not?

We are never equal. For each role in life, we should have an equal opportunity to show our suitability. To know we cannot play in the NFL, the NBA, or major league baseball, to know we cannot easily learn to speak in public or do differential equations, to know we lack the skill to build a house or repair a car, to know we are not qualified to teach a college course -- this knoweldge helps us find our place in society.

Each day I am becoming less sympathetic to "liberal" causes. Those espousing these causes seem more and more to demand that the productive people in society be forced to enrich the unproductive. They treat honest, hard-working people as if they must be slaves to serve the needs of the dishonest, the lazy, the ignorant, the incompetent.

In a democracy, of course, politicians have long recognized this way to power. Politicians either promise to protect the successful or they promise to protect failures -- and there are always large numbers of people who see themselves as failures because they have less than the rich, the powerful, the admired. Perceived failures easily become a voting majority.

These days, liberal whites feel guilt at their success. They recognize that they have not worked for what they have. They inherited it or obtained it through their wealthy family, friends, and connections. Their work often consists of little that benefits anyone -- they are political hacks and hangers-on, bureaucrats, corporate paper shufflers. They do not build the roads, the homes, the airplanes, the cars, the furniture, the clothes, they do not raise the food we eat, they heal no illnesses, they do no necessary and important research. For many of them, guilt seems the reasonable response.

However, to working people, pride in their accomplishments seems more sensible. So when they are told their achievements are due to "white privilege," it must be extremely annoying.

In 1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson issued E.O. 11246, requiring all government contractors and subcontractors to take affirmative action to expand job opportunities for minorities. For 55 years, "black privilege" has been endorsed and commanded at every level. In colleges, in hiring, in protection against firing -- black privilege applies.

Whites are, in this, "underprivileged." They must do much more and much better to get admitted to colleges or to get or keep jobs, which are sometimes only available to blacks because government and the established powers have demanded that more of these be filled by minorities (which means blacks and Hispanics, but not necessarily Pakistanis or Arabs or Chinese).

Equality of opportunity benefits everyone. Equality of outcomes benefits no one. If we reward without regard to ability and effort, we abuse those who do their best and benefit those who do not.