Equality for everyone should pertain to opportunity, not outcome.
Equality is one of these tenets that also spills over into the realm of other tenets, like freedom and humanity.
People are not equal. It really is just that simple. If we really were truly equal and worked together in a society for the betterment of all, we would be ants. Life is also inherently unfair. Get over it.
People have individual talents, however talents are not the be-all and end-all. A personal example:
My eldest nephew, Mike, decided he wanted to play the saxophone in his high school band. My sister got him the instrument. Mike took lessons and practiced until my sisters ears bled. Once band started, he competed with the other saxophone players and after a lot of hard work, won first chair in that section. Two years later when my #2 nephew Eric got to high school, he also wanted to play in the band. Eric got a trumpet, learned how to play it on his own, he practiced a fraction of the time Mike needed to practice and took zero lessons. When band started, Eric won first chair handily.
My story shows two things about equality.
First, everybody cannot be equal. How can I say that? They both got first chair, they should be equal! Maybe, what about the other 4-6 people in those sections who they were competing against? They didn’t get first chair, did they? Now, if we were concerned about hurting their self-esteem, we would either do away with the “first chair” or make them all first chair. Which, of course destroys any reason to put in the effort to become a leader and hold that coveted position. Instead of having your best musician being a leader who is helping the others improve their skills, you have everyone sink to the bottom and no one is any good and the section (if not the whole orchestra) sucks.
Second, talent helps but effort is more valuable. Eric may have had a lot less competition than Mike did, but I don’t think so. For anything in life, you have to want “it”. The “it” you want is unimportant to everyone but you. How much you want it is what separates those who achieve from those who don’t. Evidently, the other kids in those sections did not want to put in the necessary time or effort into that aspect of their lives to make first chair. Who is to say that one of the other players in their sections wasn’t better than my nephews in other areas? Angie was probably way better at Calculus than Mike, while Ralph could run rings around Eric in learning other languages.
In this case, yes there is only one first chair in each section. In the general scheme of things, just because Robert achieved what he wanted does not exclude Mary, Bill or Sally from achieving what they want. We all want something different and the only person standing in our way is ourselves.
Stephen Hawking won the Albert Einstein Award when he was 36 years old. If my life’s path had taken me down into the subject of theoretical physics, could my name have been on the same list? I don’t see any reason why not. I don’t see any reason why I can’t be the recipient of that prize in 5-10 years’ time from right now. All I would have to do is go back to school and achieve a Ph.D. in Physics, then discover something that wasn’t realized before. In all reality, I won’t achieve that goal because I choose to devote my time, attention and energies into other things, such as providing for my family, maintaining my home and generating content like this for this website. I don’t have the time, resources or interest to be a theoretical physicist of Hawking’s caliber. If I did, I could probably get into at least his league, but the effort to do so would be astronomical (excuse the pun) compared to Hawking’s efforts.
The point is, anyone can do anything, what separates those who have done a particular thing from those who didn’t is only the amount of effort each was willing to put into it.
This is called Equality of Opportunity. Everyone has the same starting point. How far, how fast and where they cross the finish line is up to them.
Look at Lashanda, an 8-year-old Black girl, living in Section 8 housing in Cleveland, Ohio who has a chance to be called “The Next Stephen Hawking.” The only question is, is that little girl willing to do what is necessary? She will have to spend the time to acquire the knowledge, then spend the time and effort to think about these subjects and a hundred things more to get there. Does Chad, an 8-year-old White boy living in a $3 Million mansion in New York have the same chance to be called “The Next Stephen Hawking” as Lashanda? Yes. Does he have more resources to get him what he needs to get there? Yes. Does he have the same or more drive, the desire, the need to acquire that title as Lashanda? We’ll know in about 30 years, won’t we?
Liberals, however, want Equality of Outcome. This is where everyone gets the same prize, no matter how much or little effort each person puts into the competition.
The problem for this is everyone has to be forced down to the lowest common denominator. In order to “leave no one behind,” we must all travel at the speed of the slowest of us. No one is allowed to rush on ahead, get to the destination and bring back reinforcements to help the slow ones. My example for this is an 100 yard dash. Except the poor runners only have to go 10 feet, while the Olympic class runners might have to run 200 yards, with the sole purpose of both of them crossing the finish line at the same time.
Ask yourself this very, very serious question:
Would you rather have a society that have some people excel and those who don’t can profit from those who excel,
-or-
A society where achievement is punished, therefore no one tries and everyone is equal at the bottom?
Before you scoff and ignore my question, especially the first part, consider this:
Henry Ford "raced on ahead." So did Thomas Edison. And every other entrepreneur who took the chance and succeeded in the lottery we call Life. The poor, the slowest of us, would they have automobiles, electric lighting, air conditioning, indoor plumbing, cell phones and fresh strawberries in wintertime if those men and others like them had not "raced on ahead"? I don't think so. If these inventions had not come about because the inventors never had the incentive to invent them, if they hadn't been produced in enough numbers to bring the prices does to an affordable level, the poor would not have these things and be considerably worse off than they are now.
Be very choosy about what kind of "equality" you want.