I believe America will emerge from our age of insanity. We've overcome autocrats, fascists, communists, and jihadis. We'll overcome the woke fools who dominate social media.
Yes, "equity" is simply the destruction of excellence. You can't mandate that everyone is excellent. All you can do is make sure everyone is equal in their condition (tip to Instapundit):
Once upon a time, the idea was equality, meaning we would treat everyone the same. This is a good thing, of course, and we have laws that demand we do just that. There’s no room for discrimination based on things like race, religion, sex, or any other trait like that.
Personally, I think that kind of discrimination is idiotic anyway.
However, recently, there’s been more and more of a push toward equity, rather than equality. What this means isn’t just everyone being treated the same, but that everyone gets the exact same, regardless of any other factor.
Now, this may sound good in theory. In practice, though it means that people aren’t allowed to excel. If they do, someone else is going to get left behind and that simply can’t be allowed.
Which means that everyone travels at the speed of the slowest. Hence, the end of standards for college, professions, and everything else.
Enjoy crossing a bridge designed and built by the products of such thinking. Enjoy flying on a plane built and flown by the products of such thinking. Enjoy being treated (for "free!") by doctors who are the product of such a system.
Only the
ruling class will have advantage, of course. To overcome resistance to
that insanity. The vanguard of equity, I suppose. That's how communism
(and its little brother socialism, regardless of whether you modify it
with "democratic") ends. The irony of making so much progress on our Constitution's ideal of equality that the left wants to pivot to equity in order to elevate themselves is not lost on me.
To repeat, "equity" is way different than
"equality." Equality means the law treats us the same. As it should be.
As our ideal used to be. Equity is the brutal suppression by government
force of the freedom to excel.
I'm actually pretty confident that we aren't on the road to ruin as a country. Oh, we're on that road and the left has their directions to Hell. But the country will lawfully resist the insanity before we reach the left's destination. And the path we follow will be changed. It won't take extreme measures. Just the mobilization of political power in areas the left doesn't control and in regaining control of some of what was lost. The arguments have to be made to the people about what is happening and who is causing the problem.
Perhaps the reaction will ultimately leave us a little worse off. But perhaps the reaction will go beyond undoing damage and make us better.
The problem is enduring the time it takes for our large country
to address what the Twitter-addled vanguard of equity is doing to make
things worse right now. That is pretty bad. Creating inflation will
destroy the efforts of decades in our middle class. Freedom of speech and association are under assault. Voting itself is mistrusted. And yes, that is both parties. Democrats thought the 2020 election would be rigged by Trump. You do remember the charge that he was stealing mail boxes, right? It was only in Biden's victory that it became verboten to wonder about election integrity.
And I do worry enemies abroad will take advantage of our self-inflicted wounds before we come to our senses. Two wide oceans aren't the protection they once were, but they do buy us time.
So chin up. Work the problem. Don't despair even though the victory of sanity will be slow and nearly imperceptible--just as the retreat into insanity has been slow.
