“I’m sure the Left would have seized on something else to subvert our culture, but that phrase made it terribly easy on them.”
It definitely gives the left cover for their agenda, but whether it was there or not, the left’s congenital attraction to equality would remain.
It is their lode star. I truly believe it is a genetic trait or should I say defect. They’re physically tormented at the sight of inequalities. To them fairness is synonymous with equality, not with the idea that fairness is being proportionately rewarded for the effort you put in.
To them rewards should have nothing to do with effort.
They have what Tocqueville called “a depraved taste for equality”.
“There is a passion for equality that spurs all men to wish to be strong and esteemed. This passion tends to elevate the lesser to the rank of the greater. But one also finds in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to want to bring the strong down to their level [Class Warfare], and which reduces men to preferring equality in servitude to inequality in freedom.”
My only quibble with Tocqueville is that it isn’t the weak or the poor that have this depraved taste for equality but reasonably well to do, and relatively few in number, elites that have this congenital guilt at seeing inequality. And they agitate the poor by picking at the scab of envy that afflicts most of us and rile them up into protest and riots. Most poor people understand why they’re poor. They realize that they may not be as capable or talented as those that are better off, or if they do have the abilities but fate has them starting at a lower rung on the ladder, know that if they strive they can improve their lot.
Besides picking at the scab of the poor, they also have another powerful weapon to subdue the rest of us - guilting. They will turn the poor into victims and us the oppressors and guilt the rest of us into accepting their agenda of endless redistribution, appeasement and self flagellation.
All this to relieve their own sense of guilt,which of course will never happen because things will never be equal enough.
Exactly. Because the "elites" are snobs. (Differentiating here between the so-called elites and the successful people who stay down-to-earth.)
Snobs look down their noses at certain jobs, for example. They cannot accept that most people are content living and working where they do. That worker earning an hourly wage might have a lot of money squirrelled away, and maybe his house is paid off. He's probably satisfied with the choices he's made. But many Democrats are such snobs that they cannot accept that. Many protesters claim to have college degrees, or they're college students. Notice how they heckle the police officers. They call the police "dumb." Among those arrested for committing violence were lawyers and a software engineer. All of these snobbish people felt entitled to riot in the neighborhoods they look down upon.
>>>"Most poor people understand why they’re poor. They realize that they may not be as capable or talented as those that are better off, or if they do have the abilities but fate has them starting at a lower rung on the ladder, know that if they strive they can improve their lot."<<<
It's mostly about hard work and choices. Opportunities abound for everyone in this country. Good old fashioned common sense pays off.
About 30 years ago, a Mexican family would come in and clean the offices where I worked. They'd vacuum, clean the toilets, and so on. Got to talking with them and found out they owned a big house in the wealthiest section of town. Later, I worked with a Mensa member who had a lot of personal problems.