Talk with any Leftist who actually understands his own belief system <insert your own joke here> and you’ll soon find out that a key value on the Left is “Equality”. But dig a little deeper and you’ll learn that they’re not referring to Equality of Opportunity but rather Equality of End Results.
Meritocracy is an anathema to Leftists. They absolutely abhor the idea that the smartest, strongest, or hardest working person should prevail. This is why, for example, that in a pure union shop everyone of a given “class” gets paid the same. Sure, there are different classifications of employees but one’s ability to move up through that structure is solely based on time worked and “official” educational certification. This gives the illusion that pay is based on experience & competency but does not allow for the possibility of better/smarter/faster work affecting pay.
Affirmative Action first came into being in the United States in 1965. Here in Canada it’s called Employment Equity. The impetus for this idea was a good one: end discrimination and provide equal opportunity for everyone. But as is almost always the case with Stage One Thinking of the Left, it was soon realized that Affirmative Action was penalizing some individuals while artificially promoting others. The hilarious TV show, Modern Family, recently illustrated how absolutely absurd this has become.
A new article by Eileen Toplansky explains that Affirmative Action may soon be on its way into the dustbin of history. Long overdue in my humble opinion!
This is what puzzles me; I don’t think that the left is really all about ‘equality of outcome’ or end results.
The latte crowd, the academics and civil service crowd, they are the most adamant leftists. They don’t seem to be interested in equality of outcome. They seem to be interested in clear and distinct class differentiation – and homogeneity within the classes.
They view themselves as ‘the educated class’ and consider that their lifestyle and their authority over the ‘unwashed’ ought to be maintained and guaranteed by the government.
This includes their lifestyle of unaccountability, where no-one in the public service gets fired, where a large portion of their well-being is untaxable (benefits, pensions, medical care for families, equipment such as computers, phones, travel expenses etc). Their authority is deemed to be unchallengeable, for they alone are the ‘experts’ and ‘the wise’. They consider that they, not the hoi polloi, ought to regulate and rule.
Do they want the homeless to move in next door to their expensive homes – with that move and mortgage paid for by the taxpayer while they pay their own way? Do they want their children to attend the same schools? heh – the latte crowd send their children to private schools.
Their ‘equality of outcome’ is that the masses will be confined to ‘their class’ and NOT seek to better themselves and move into the sacred realm of the elite. So, the masses must not seek high office or political power.
After all, that is a key aspect of the left’s hatred of Sarah Pallin. They view her as ‘lower class’. Why? Because she has several children, including an ‘unacceptable’ one (which the elite would have aborted); she is against abortion (which they consider a right); she is not an Ivy League graduate; she hunts and fishes; she’s not ‘elite’…and yet, she dares, she dares to speak out in public about ‘government issues’ – which the elite consider their sole arena.
The comparison of the left to the 18th landed gentry, is obvious. The landed gentry looked with disdain on members of the merchant class, who rejected their attempts to be in government, who considered that only the ‘low class’ worked.
So, I don’t see equality of outcome. I see instead a clear agenda to set up distinct and inviolate classes, with individuals born into a class and confined to that class. The agenda is to keep the low class homogeneous and confined and above all, not daring to aspire to greater rule and power. That belongs only to the elite.
ET you may have just explained why Prince Charles is such a leftist, a fact which has always surprised me.
ET, you have an excellent knack of analysis and summarizing.
In the leftist world some are more equal than others.
I hope that goof Prince Charlie never gets close to the throne.
Heh.
IIRC, two elections ago in Michigan, there was something on the ballot about turfing affirmative action-type stuff.
HIDE THE DECLINE!
A few comments.
First, to ET’s point, a pithy way to say it is “equal outcomes for thee, but not for me”.
It’s my view that the ‘elites’ ET refers to are attempting to redefine what the American Dream is; at the very root. MLK’s ‘dream’ has been reached, so it is necessary to re-draw the battle-lines to ensure the continuation of the Civil Rights Industry. The same can be said for the entire Victim-hood Industry, the Anti-Smoking Industry and all the other industries that I’m too lazy to mention. They are of course, first and foremost, in the business of staying in business.
This is why Al Sharpton said that (paraphrasing) “MLK’s dream has not been reached. The dream is that everyone has the same stuff”. Regardless of the fact that at Glenn Beck’s rally, his main speaker was MLK’s niece did not stop Al Sharpton from trying to redefine what MLKs ‘dream’ was.
The facts are, that our kids, black and white are being indoctrinated in the schools with respect to a false version of the American Dream. It is In Your Face Revisionist History. If Al and company keep repeating the same lies over and over again, they will eventually become the truth.
PS…unfortunately I was unable to find a link to the aforementioned Sharpton quote. I believe it has been linked at SDA before, and I recommend it being re-linked because of it’s strong evidence based connection to this thread.
This is what puzzles me; I don’t think that the left is really all about ‘equality of outcome’ or end results.
If you’re talking about the Leftist Elite, I agree.
The Leftist useful idiots, however, definitely believe in equality of outcome.
That’s why the rank and file Leftists vote for the cynical Leftist Elite who push equality of outcome but don’t actually believe in it.
As Indiana Homez remarks, the victimhood industry is a business; a very lucrative business – as people like J. Jackson and Al Sharpton can attest. It has no intention of disappearing.
Furthermore, the large proportion of the nation’s population who rely for their income on their victim status, is a basic economic reality: various ethnic groups, various religious groups, various ‘racial’ groups and of course, the usual amorphous definition of ‘the poor’…That’s not going to stop.
So, I’m not sure that I see affirmative action ending very soon. Will a different type of ‘group-identity’ replace it?
We can acknowledge that the disastrous statistics on the results of this era of ‘no evaluation’ are becoming public. So, what’s next? Will the victim groups choose to reject being a victim and attempt to make it on their own? Or, will the ease of life-as-a-victim override such a choice?
Will the backlash against this two-tiered societal system be strong enough to reduce the social power of Being A Victim?
And the elites – they want the Victim class to remain because they function as not only dependents but as supporters of the Elite. They keep the elites in power with their votes and their support.
The independents – people like Sarah Palin, and the Tea Partiers, who work their own way up – they aren’t dependent on the elites. The elites hate and despise them for their independence.
My question is: given that I’m claiming that the left want a two-tiered class structure with themselves as the elite and the rest of the population as dependent hoi polloi…and that this lower class is best kept in control by being split up into dependent identity groups (Obama is great at doing this!)..can affirmative action end?
Or will it transform into something more insidious, where identity groups will become power blocs aligned to government agencies? We’ve seen that already…will it increase? I suspect it will. The left does not believe in equality; it believes in its own power.
Yup. The left needs a class of poor and downtrodden upon whose backs they can stand while they shout about equality and racism and blah, blah, blah. And if they can make money out of it, so much the better. That describes the Indian Industry to a T.
The impetus for this idea was a good one: end discrimination and provide equal opportunity for everyone.
Not quite. If there was a good impetus for the idea, it was to end prejudice, the pre-judgement of individuals based on race, etc.
Ending discrimination means ending the practice of distinguishing talent from the lack of it, or hard work from laziness. It means an end to the merit principle. Discrimination, rational and logical, is not only a good thing, it is essential.
Word have meanings. The perversion of the language and the re-definition of words has always been a primary tactic in the lefty attack on the culture – we should always be on guard and never go along with it.
“I sit on a man’s back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means — except by getting off his back.” Tolstoy.
And never forget that a lot of people on the left just like to push people around.
The left does not like meritocracy, purporting to prefer a “mediocracy”. But only for some. George Orwell read the left correctly:
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
You must have had a summer job with a municipality to know this stuff. Good post.
Ive always called it affirmative Bigotry with a license to kill.
What ET said @12:53, in spades. I’ve concluded that most elitist leftists often don’t even believe they’re right, necessarily and exactly, and so arguing economic or moral facts with them is sort of missing the point. They believe that they’re upper-class. You might as well remonstrate with Louis XIV’s mistress about fashions in wigs as with a leftist academic about whether Mao was a monster or whether low taxes are actually good for the ecomony.
And it’s cynical, although perhaps not conciously so. Leftists seem committed to destroying the public education system, thus ensuring that those pesky poor kids never learn to read fluently, count to ten, speak English or remember in what century WWII occurred (I barely exaggerate). So no competition from them for the well-connected leftists’ own brats. Meanwhile, poor people who favour a voucher system or some equivalent thereof are the modern-day Kulaks, i.e. uppity peasants. Good little peasants trust the nomenklatura to decide what’s best for them.
I am reminded of a Simpsons episode in which an extremely hard worker is at his wits’ end with Homer, who has coasted by on sloth and foolishness.
I get the feeling many of us are that hard worker stunned by the success of the idle.
Mamaba
Bin-fing-go
black mamba – yes, their opinions are beyond dispute. Facts are totally irrelevant. That’s why I consider that the elite live in a virtual world, a fictional world entirely unto themselves. Protected from reality by their academic, civil service, bureaucratic jobs.
But above all, insisting that the masses remain dependent and governed. By them.
The effect of their policy of cut-and-slice a population into isolated identity groups (aka multiculturalism) and maintaining the old, unintegrated cultural beliefs and behaviour by funding – keeps the masses powerless. At each other’s throats rather than focused on the larger issues of a nation and their individual careers.
That’s exactly what the elite want: a set of isolate groups, each adversarial, but, dependent on the Elite.
Affirmative action keeps them in groups rather than defining people as individuals.
Again, it’s quite something to watch what happens when a member of the masses tries to move into the realm of the elite. The vicious hatred for Sarah Palin is one such example – the attacks on her intelligence, looks, words..everything. Meanwhile, a member of their elite, Obama, can suggest that there are 57 states, that people in Austria speak ‘Austrian’ and that a ‘corpse-man’ actually exists. Not a whisper against him. That’s because he’s been accepted as ‘one of them’ via his parent’s leftist status.
And the left is very passive-aggressive. Prove your right-wing case, by all means, but don’t expect an argument; you’re just not nice. In fact, you’re probably a racist, for some reason. NQOCD.
ET, this is exactly what Thomas Sowell in his book “Intellectuals and Society” dwells on. His “intellectuals” deal only with ideas, they are cloud dwellers in academia, government or politics that never actually do anything like a doctor or engineer. Like a McGuinty, Trudeau or a Rae that destroy the life of whatever they touch yet just move on totally unconcerned about the damage they have done and rarely personally affected by it.
I believe their time is ending as the economic impact that they and their ilk have wrought is facing the reality of public debt such that there will be no more money to support them.
An example I posted earlier: The US Treasury set the debt ceiling on October 1, 1917 at $8 billion dollars ($8,000,000,000) in February, 2010 this debt ceiling was signed by Obama at $14,294 TRILLION dollars ($14,294,000,000,000). They will raise it to over 16 trillion this year and there is simply no way the US can pay this debt
Can someone explain to me why the most naturally talented should get the rewards of cooperation? IE. Why should the smartest among us get the most compensation? Have the smartest really done anything themselves to cause their being smart? I am not here talking about one person who has worked hard at cultivating his talents vs another person who has been lazy, and therefore one person deserves more compensation for their efforts. I am talking about a situation where two hard working people have different degrees of talent, and one person through hard work can become a walmart employee and the other through an equal level of hard work can become the CEO of google. What differentiates these two people morally? These people did nothing to deserve their natural talents, why should the advantaged reap more rewards from social cooperation than the disadvantaged?
As an aside, I think Liberals are interested in what has been coined “Fair Equality of Opportunity” and not “Equality of Outcomes”. The principle behind fair equality of opportunity is that opportunity should be given to individuals who deserve it, morally speaking, and in a way that eliminates luck from the equation (also called luck-egalitarianism). Brute bad luck, like being born with a physical disability, should be compensated, and should not remove ones opportunity to live a fulfilling life.
Can someone explain to me why, in a full out meritocracy, we should help those with physical disabilities? I think this is where meritocracy fails, I can’t for the life of me think of any reason that a person with Cerebral Palsy should be helped in meritocracy. In a meritocracy, if you can’t perform tasks that have value to your society, you do not merit compensation, and yet I think people who are born with Cerebral Palsy should be given the help they need to have a fulfilling life.
I suppose one could respond that in a meritocracy, people would be free to give to charities of their choice, and could choose to support people with Cerebral Palsy without an official state policy or bureaucracy. As much as I respect charitable organizations, and I do try to volunteer when I can, I think there might be a difference between state support in this case, and charitable support. State support, especially in a democracy, brings with it the authority of all citizens of a nation, and when the state decides to compensate brute bad luck in society, it does so without judgement of the individual person. Charity differs in that it is not the voice of the society at large, and is therefore not a response to brute bad luck. Instead, charity is simply some people who care about the brute bad luck of others. Brute luck should not be compensated because people decide that it is a noble cause, it should be compensated because it is unjust.
Anyway, I am probably not making any sense. Please don’t be offended or anything, I am not trying to get under anyone’s skin, I am just stating a question that has troubled me.
A good way to cripple someone is to insist they walk with a crutch.
My wife and I laughed so freakin’ hard at that episode of Modern Family.
Love the show.
And the best line for that episode?
“Disabled inter-racial lesbians with an African kicker?”
LOLOLOLOLOLOL!
Then Cam tried to pretend he was 1/16 Cherokee and spoke in a type of pigeon english.
BEA-freakin’-UTIFUL!
So damned funny and my wife, who’s native laughed as hard as I did.
FYI. We’re raising our kids that nobody is going to hand them their life. They have to work for it. And they’re not always going to succeed but it matters that they give it their all.
Meritocracy all the way!
DaWG
A resident of America’s Hat.©
james – your error is to assume that all people are and must be equal and that since, according to you, they are born equal, then if ‘hard work’ is the only variable – and both work equally hard – then the outcome ought to be the same. This is an invalid supposition on your part.
People are not equal. One person is born with a capacity for mathematics; another with a capacity for linguistics; another with a capacity for art. Then, people do not work equally; you cannot consider that the work of becoming a neurosurgeon is equivalent to the work at Wal-Mart. Or the work of being a CEO is equivalent to Wal-Mart.
This has nothing to do with morality; it has nothing to do with ‘being advantaged’ vs ‘disadvantaged’.
Are you seriously stating that the checkout clerk at the store COULD have been born with the intellectual capacity to be a Nobel winning physicist, but since she was not, this means that she is a victim of birth and thus, disadvantaged and that the taxpayer should provide her with compensation? Do you seriously think this?
It’s a fact of reality. We do not, despite your tendency to want to do so – live in a fictional world. We live in reality where different intellects and capabilities are real. Society can do nothing about this, and neither should society feel obliged to do so.
A ‘full-out meritocracy’ also exists within a ‘full-out compassion’. That’s because striving to be the best (meritocracy) is as human as the act of compassion and charity. Indeed, the two go together.
No, state support doesn’t bring with it the ‘authority of all citizens’ because ‘all citizens’ haven’t been asked if they authorize such state support. However, charity DOES bring with it the authority of those citizens who contributed to the charity, for they gave because they could do so (the results of merit) and because they wanted to do so (charity and compassion).
State support doesn’t require the emotions of charity and compassion from its citizens; state support just requires your tax return.
Brute luck isn’t unjust; it’s luck, the freedom embedded with chance events. There’s nothing just or unjust about it and don’t tangle issues or events up in areas that don’t belong to those things.
Affirmature Action is alive and well in Ontario in the work place and schools…..heck they brought one grade eight student out of jail so he could graduate…..it was just his time to graduate and be with his peer’s…..which he didn’t know as he was a way quite some time….no he wrote no tests same as the wheel chair girl…tests are just for third world countries I guess…grade eight diploma…bathroon tissue.;;;;
Affirmative action is the reason so many rightwingers went on to become successful, denying white men access to the Snivel Service might of benifited the elastic waist band crowd but it’s also the reason our Snivel Service provides such poor service. I hope it dies, but the Snivel Service is infested with leftwing affirmative action placements who’ll protect the next generation of leftwing activists who feel entitled to those jobs.
Thanks for the lesson ET.
I know that people are unequal, in fact my entire argument relies on that fact. Now, some people have different talents, and I am not advocating that someone with a mathematical talent for accounting should compensate a person with artistic talents. I am saying that, through the arbitrary luck of the draw, people get a hand dealt to them. People only get one shot in life, and if life deals you Down Syndrome, you are stuck with it.
I’m lucky; I am lucky to possess a mind that is capable of understanding how lucky I have been.
Now, Individual and autonomous choosers, through the act of choosing, confer value on the object of their choice. In the context of charity, autonomous individuals choose to confer value to the concept of ‘charity’, and specifcally choose to confer value to the object of their charitable contributions.
But, individual humans beings are good in themselves. They are not something that become good because they have a value that is conferred by others, they possess an inalienable autonomy, a free will, a liberty, all of which are good in themselves.
Do human beings deserve to suffer arbitrarily from severe disability, when we possess the means to improve their quality of life? No!
Do these same human beings deserve to depend, for their value as human beings, on the value that is conferred upon them through charity? No.
Remember, I am not talking about surfer bums and accountants. I am talking about brute bad luck. Do you deserve to die if you are born with a physical disability and noone cares about you? Don’t think so…
I used to be an IBEW e3lectrician and every year at contract negotiations you would here the complaint that the electricians used to make twice as much money as any of the other construction trades, and now we make less than the plumbers and only slightly more than the labourers. I can’t verify this but it goes to the same mentality. I work in a different field now in a unionized environment as an “instrumentation and electrical technician” I make similar money to people on the street who do that kind of work, but everyone else at the company make way more than they would make on the outside. Our group always gets screwed at negotiation time because we are relatively small. The other workers are making out like bandits, so they vote for the contract, we could do better but in the name of solidarity we get outvoted.
I do very well, but the cleaners and unskilled people make out like bandits. I understand that in the past we have tried to start a separate bargaining unit for our trade, but without any luck.
Do I like being in a union and support what they do? not really but you play the hand your dealt.
James – it isn’t fair. Take it up with God, who mocks the labour theory of value. (I don’t mean to be too flippant.)
As for meritocracy angle, well, technically you could argue that the state shouldn’t care for the disabled. The Spartans – they were very butch – had a council which examined all newborns; those deemed defective were exposed on a hillside (BTW Spartan society was rather the opposite of libertarian). The original Death Panels, really. But, you know, that was pretty extreme even by ancient Greek standards, and we have all these centuries of Judaio-Christian yadda yadda. Actually, though, family and community/charity based care for the disabled is usually preferable to the state model. To paraphrase P.J. O’Rourke, when you hear “public somethingorother” think “public toilet”.
Is a public toilet as nice as your bathroom? No. No it isn’t.
Remember as well the brutal reality that only a rich society can care for the profoundly disabled. If we bankrupt ourselves through socialism we won’t be able to afford the luxury of cheap compassion. Ironic, sort of.
james – your comments are so amorphous and ambiguous and general – that they can’t be argued or debated! I’m beginning to feel that you don’t have a clear point – or – you are unwilling to say what you really mean.
Furthermore, your comments have nothing to do with the topic of a society based on achievement by merit rather than ‘equality of outcome’.
What does ‘do you deserve to die if you are born with a physical disability and no-one cares about you’ have to do with a society’s focus on a meritocracy? What does having a ‘severe disability’ have to do with a society that acknowledges that one’s achievements are due to one’s own commitment and work?
Disability is a fact in any and all societies. The focus then has to be on: which society best deals with this reality?
I certainly don’t feel that the state deals best with people who are ‘born with a severe disability’; I think that charity works best – it is based within the fact that people who-can, care about people-who-cannot.
You are mixing things up; you say that because individuals are good in themselves, then, they should not depend on charity.Your assumption is that when a charity gives, then this act of giving only gives value to the person giving the charity…and not to the recipient..That’s an invalid conclusion on your part. The recipient knows that they are valued for themselves as themselves -because another person wanted to give to that specific charity.
When the govt takes the taxpayer’s money and donates it to all and sundry who filed a request for it – that certainly doesn’t show that the state values those recipients; it just shows that the state doesn’t know what to do with them and is just ‘maintaining’ them.
Sorry- I don’t think we’ve got much to debate.
“I certainly don’t feel that the state deals best with people who are ‘born with a severe disability’; I think that charity works best – it is based within the fact that people who-can, care about people-who-cannot.”
I like that, I am actually pretty damn right wing. I agree with you that a good justification against state programs is their tendancy to be wholly ineffective.
“Your assumption is that when a charity gives, then this act of giving only gives value to the person giving the charity…and not to the recipient..That’s an invalid conclusion on your part.”
My assumption is the exact opposite. The idea is not that value is conferred by society on the person who gives. The idea is that value is conferred by the giver to the person who receives it.
I understand that for many people, this can be a beautiful relationship. For some people, this might be a degrading position to be in.
Now, you will point out that it is also degrading to be on the government dole. I agree wholeheartedly. I think the degradation that comes with being on the government dole has more to do with a corrupted government apparatus than something inherent about the relationship between the state and the individual. If the government were not in the business of supporting people who are in unfortunate circumstances out of choice, it might do a better job helping those who are disadvantaged by the natural lottery. There is a place for government participation here for the disabled.
I take meritocracy here to mean a social system that heaps the rewards of social cooperation on those who contribute most to the actual production of those rewards. The problem is that the severely disabled will not contribute to this social system, and will not be given the resources they need to live a relatively fullfilling life.
What I am trying to explain is that I think it an unfortunate tragedy that some people are, through no autonomous choice of their own, severely disadvantaged. Prince William, for example, did nothing to merit his position and wealth as Prince. I did nothing to merit a gift for mathematics.
Crucially, there is a significant difference between equality of outcomes and fair equality of opportunity. Equality of outcomes steals from us our freedom as autonomous individuals. When we make a decision, we must own the consequences of that decision. When we are born with Cerebral Palsy, in a world where home care is something that can be provided, should we just do like the Spartans?
James, I don’t think that rational people would argue that disabled people serve no purpose in society as a whole given their impediments and therefore do not deserve rights and respect. However, is it fair- for example- to give someone a place in the Bolshoi ballet company if they are confined to a wheelchair? Denying them such a place (one would hope, anyway) is not a reflection of ill will but the plain fact that a person so impaired cannot do what is expected of them. Granted, I cannot join the Bolshoi ballet company either as my ballet skills are lacking. This no more diminishes my worth as a human person or even a productive member of society as there are other ways I can contribute. A disabled person, through no fault of his own, is not equally endowed as an able-bodied person but is not necessarily considered a burden by those who embrace a capitalist or merit-based model of an economy.
I’d like to start hiring BLACK people, they might be fun to have around. But as it is, I wouldn’t want the potential liabilities, regardless of any comedic benifits.
Sorry, but black people are too risky from a legal standpoint to readily hire. As are lefties, that’s why any sensible employeer has a few “odd sounding” skill testing questions for potential applicants.
Osumashi, that is a good comment. I agree that we cannot give the disabled positions in society that they are simply not capable of performing.
While we do not owe people in wheelchairs a spot in the ballet, might we owe them a wheelchair ramp so they can watch the ballet?
Helen Keller did quite well, with a real $hitty hand!
No argument here, James.