George Rebane

‘When you promise to rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on the full support of Paul.’

In response to ‘Are you a Peter or a Paul?’, a correspondent sent me a copy of a recent article – ‘A Nation of Thieves’ – by syndicated columnist Walter Williams.  Dr. Williams is an economics professor at George Mason University and one of the rare clear thinkers of our age; he also happens to be black.  He summarizes in this short piece a deep, profound, and, for our country, crucially important notion of ‘equal opportunity vs. equal outcome’. 

I had the pleasure and honor of teaching on the same subject in a university course on critical thinking that was required for journalists and media producers.  The students’ (mostly working journalists’) ideologies ranged the spectrum of American political thought.  But in a free give and take classroom environment all reached a common consensus wherein they came to view enforced ‘equal outcome’ policies as inimical to a free and benevolent society.

Walter Williams writes “Equality under the law and, within reason, equality of opportunity is consistent with a free society. Equality of results is an anathema to a free society and within it lie the seeds of tyranny.”

Almost everyone graduated from our public schools now believes that liberty and equality are two superlative attributes of a just society that can be mutually increased without bound.  Sadly, they are wrong because liberty and equality are social qualities that sit on opposite ends of the see-saw.  The sheep never see that increasing the one, necessarily reduces the other.  And in their blindness they continue to celebrate and vote for politicians, perhaps equally ignorant, who promise to deliver both in abundant measure. 

There is no issue more crucial to the survival of our republic than how we address the state’s involvement in the ability of its citizens to generate wealth, and the subsequent (re)distribution of that wealth.  The study of history and human nature should guide us.  Please read Williams’ short article and then puzzle on it in some quiet place.