All Men Are Created Equal But We Don’t Stay That Way

As a former bleeding heart liberal and current Republican, I’m confident when I say that both liberals and conservatives are big fans of equality. However, the equality that a Republican believes in differs drastically from that of your average Democrat. To a Democrat, equality is the government paying for past wrongs via tax dollars and special programs to benefit the disadvantaged while to a Republican, equality means judging a person not by their background and not by their sob story of lack thereof, but by their character.

Leftist equality is very similar in its philosophy to that of Robinhood; and it expands far beyond terms of money and taxes and works as a general allegory of the haves and the have nots. Take from the haves because they have and give to the have nots because they have not.

This train of thought opens the floodgates for the “everyone getting a trophy for showing up” mentality so popular in our country today. When everyone that participates is given some sort of award, incompetence is made acceptable and recognition loses its meaning, as do hard work and talent. In the words of Incredibles villain Syndrome, “when everyone is super, no one will be.”

All men may have been created equally, but we sure as hell don’t stay that way. By insisting that we all are as beautiful or intelligent or disciplined as one another, or that we all deserve the same things, we not only create a dangerous sense of entitlement but incentivize mediocrity.

While I do believe that everything is subjective and that success should be determined at a personal level, some of us are indisputably better than others. Instead of demanding lowered standards or that the world cater to our inadequacies, we should rise to the occasion or accept the consequences of unexceptional effort.