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February 20, 2012
"1. ALL MEN ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL."
"Equality is a concept which nearly everyone believes but no one has bothered to prove.The unassailable notion of blank-slate cognitive and physical equality, despite all contrary evidence, is the fat stump rooted deep in the soil from which all the other modern taboo branches sprout. The sweetest fairy tale ever told is the one where God made everyone equal. -- Seven Ideas You Can Never Discuss on Television
Posted by gerardvanderleun at February 20, 2012 11:48 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.
Your Say
but the detached, ironic smarm so endemic along the Left Bank is only a thin crust atop a molten core of inviolably sacred assumptions and risk-free sanctimony. There is a new prudery afoot, and it’s based entirely on a faulty, illogical, and unsustainable myth of universal human equality.
By gawd, I have a new writer-crush!
Posted by: Joan of Argghh at February 21, 2012 3:53 AM
Ack! didn't close the tag!
Posted by: Joan of Argghh at February 21, 2012 3:54 AM
What's missing is that all men are created equal.....in the sight of God. God loves us all equally. Think about it. Unconditional love. Does it get any better than that? We are all equal in our Creator's affections.
Of course that has nothing to do with the talents, abilities, and interests we may have been gifted with. Our life mission, if we choose to accept it, is to discover those talents and abilities, then make the most of them. He who has a talent for cleaning and maintenance and does his work to the utmost of his abilities is accomplishing his life's mission. He who has great intellectual or athletic talent but fails to optimize it is not.
Diversity of talents and abilities provides us with all the wide range of different people that are needed to make a modern economy function. It also provides us with incentives. Talents can almost always be improved upon. Proper practice coupled with the desire to improve leads to better performance in almost all cases. And mostly leads to better pay. Janitors, garbagemen, welders, tool and die makers, secretaries, computer programmers, sales clerks, teachers, pilots, and oh so many more specialities are needed to keep modern society functioning. Thank God for inequality of talents, abilities, and interests.
Posted by: Jimmy J. at February 21, 2012 11:25 AM
I get the quote's point, but it sounds like he's picking on the Founders. Those men were spare of words, and Jimmy J. seems to get the gist of it.
The quote also reminds me of other misinterpratations:
"Thou Shalt Not Kill" actually meant "you shall not commit murder," and "Coveting Thy neighbot's wife," was an admonishment against rape.
Posted by: Don Rodrigo at February 21, 2012 12:56 PM
The quote is not picking on the founders. The Declaration of Independence merely stated that all men were created with equal rights to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
The Constitution set standards and qualifications before any man could become a Congressman, Senator, or President, and limited their options to do certain things.
The Bill of Rights limited Congress' ability to act in certain areas and restricted the federal government from doing certain things,
The problems came after the Civil War in Amendments to the Constitution. Section 1 of the XIV Amendment forbid states from denying "to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." That Amendment was ratified on July 9, 1868, long after the founders were gone, and even though the XV Amendment forbid limitations on voting only to race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The US supreme court didn't change those qualifications until the 20th Century when it declared, in essence, that the only requirement to vote was citizenship.
It wasn't the founders who screwed things up, it was Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, the US Congress and states after the civil war, and the US Supreme Court 100 years later.
Posted by: St Thor at February 22, 2012 8:10 AM
"Coveting Thy neighbot's wife," was an admonishment against rape.
It was also an admonishment to appreciate what a blessing your own wife is.
Covetousness is envy which sickens the heart by preventing you from enjoying your own blessings.
Posted by: Oz at February 22, 2012 3:52 PM