Except On The West Coast

Thomas Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence for those unfamiliar with history, and the beginning of the second paragraph of this monumental document goes as follows: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” All men are created equal, to what extent? This has been debated ever since the beginning of this nation. As we explore equality, we see that the intent Jefferson made was that every man is born with an opportunity to pursue his own self-interests without government interference in those interests. I’m sure there are people with opposing views to mine or say I’m flat wrong. Our government has made the effort to extend this equality to mean much more than its original intent. It has passed laws that make it illegal to discriminate based on race, religion, national origin, creed, gender, etc. This was done through the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It must be noted, gender was put into the Act in the hopes that introducing this clause would defeat it. This was not the case and it passed. The government cannot legislate equality, although their intentions are noble, the result is they have caused more problems than they have solved. Affirmative action laws are basically reverse discrimination based upon the same inequalities that prompted lawmakers to enact such laws. These laws have divided this country since their inception. People are denied promotions based on their race. A recent case in point in 2009 is that of the Connecticut firefighters that had their test scores thrown out by the city, because not enough minority candidates receive high enough scores to qualify for the promotion. Now Supreme Court judge, Sonia Sotamayor, ruled that the city acted correctly to throw out the tests. This prompted the white firefighters to take their case to the Supreme Court, which eventually overruled Sotamayor’s decision; this happened during her Senate confirmation hearings and must have been quite embarrassing to her, since there isn’t any judge that likes to be overturned on appeal, let alone someone that is in the process of being confirmed by the Senate for the Supreme Court. Equality in opportunity is the only thing government can actually have an effect upon, and they should, by providing opportunities to individuals that would not otherwise have such opportunities. However, discriminating against a particular race or gender to further the advancement of another race or gender is should not be the role of government. Provide the same opportunities to the individual and it is his job to take the advantage of such opportunities. If one fails or succeeds, it should be solely upon the individual without the interference of government, because if the government intervenes then they are no longer playing the referee. Being the referee is government’s only role. Being an active participant allows for strange things to happen and can introduce nepotism. Let me give a simple example of this thought I have introduced. Say, for instance, during a football game the referee realizes that one team is stronger, faster, better coached. So, to make the playing field more equal, the referee changes the rules for the other team. Say instead of having to gain 10 yards for a first down, the weaker team only has to gain 5 yards. Additionally, the referee penalizes the stronger team for scoring too many points in the form of taking away points. This is all in the guise of making the game more even. If this were done, people would be up in arms about the referee’s interference with the rules of the game.