The reason that EQUALITY is so horrible is because it empowers envy. Envy is the hatred of the good because it is good. If Michael Jordan plays basketball better than anyone else, an envious person feels hatred and wants to cut off his legs or hurt his ability to be that good. He is not drawn to maximize his capacities and compete with Michael Jordan. In fact, he recoils (shrivels?) at the thought of that. Rather, he upholds the idea that people should be EQUAL, not under the law, but in wealth, property of various kinds, talents, grades, salaries --- you name it. This neutralizes the moral threat that a Jordan or any authentic life-serving value represents.
And it is a moral threat, not an existential threat, that he fears. Jordan, or any authentic good, is not going to hurt you. The fact that you drive by a rich man's house does not produce an existential threat to your life. The idea of EQUALITY is the attempt to find an existential solution for a moral threat. For the envious, the good reminds them how wretched, by their own standard, they are and so they feel compelled to block that out.
This is the evil that sources and fuels every war - that justifies one country attacking another rather than work out ways of trading values. It is the evil that fuels people hating rich people and it is this evil that Obama seeks to ride to his continued dominance of this country.
I think for this reason, Obama is the most effective spokesman for evil in our time. His oratorical skills, mild manner and good looks give the impression that he is not to be worried about - that he is to be invited into your home. History and literature is filled with the mild-mannered, reasonable-sounding person causing the descent of man to hell. "Paul M. Warburg is probably the mildest-mannered man that ever personally conducted a revolution. It was a bloodless revolution: he did not attempt to rouse the populace to arms. He stepped forth armed simply with an idea. And he conquered. That's the amazing thing. A shy, sensitive man, he imposed his idea on a nation of a hundred million people. (Harold Kellock, "Warburg, the Revolutionist," The Century Magazine, May 1915, p. 79)
What was the idea he foisted onto the American people? That the Federal Reserve Bank was an idea whose time had come - that it would be a benefit to the American public. What was the essence of the purpose of the cabal of banks that constituted the Federal Reserve? That they would hold interest artificially low so that people would be attracted to borrowing. People borrowing is how banks make money - big money. The Federal Reserve Bank sired America, the nation, and Americans, the individuals, to become debtors - i.e., beholden to someone else. It sourced the materialism (having stuff not because it serves your values, but as an end in itself)that people blame capitalism for by making it easy to obtain goods via cheap loans rather than go through the longer process of earning and saving the money to buy those goods. If there is anything that is true of America and Americans generally, it is that they owe somebody. Our personal and national conversations are constantly about how to keep the debt persisting. Bail out this and bail out that; refinance this, refinance that. The men who formed the Federal Reserve Bank and the mild-mannered Frank Warburg are at the root of this American disease. (See The Creature of Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffin, 2002, American Media for more information on the formation of the Federal Reserve Bank.) (Damning materialism is a fine line. I don't damn spending because you have the money and want to enjoy it. I do damn spending when it is done at the expense of one's larger values related to an essential serenity for your life.)
(The big banks had to do something. Businessmen were doing well enough at the time that they could finance their expansion from their savings out of profit and this was hurting the big banks ability to sell loans. So what they did was have it make sense to borrow rather than save by artificially lowering the interest rate. Whatever they thought they had to do, to use government force to accomplish it was not the moral way to do it. In other words, they refused to create value that people would be attracted to because it was a value. They had to use government force to make themselves valuable. This is always the way of an evil person. They can never show you why something works and is good. They have to force you, against the logic of your own mind, to accept it/them.)
In The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand, 1943, Bobbs-Merrill Co, Inc.) we see Ellsworth Toohey, the mild-mannered intellectual who constantly speaks for the value of the group and the lowest common denominator of every profession as examples of the moral ideal. He attracts those that want to be valued, but have no idea nor inclination to earn it. He is the spiritual fuel for the losers of the story and in particular, Peter Keating, the second-hander architect.
Jesus said the "Meek shall inherit the earth." That is so if only you can somehow drag the best, most talented, most able producers of value, down to equal status with the least. Only by that means, covering your poison with honey, can you seduce and guilt the unwary strong.
Listen to this excellent debate on the Role of Government where Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute is pitted against David Callahan of Demos, a progressive liberal-left organization based in New York City. Listen to the smooth, oily presumptive way that Callahan presents his case. This means of delivery to foist anti-life, anti-man ideas onto an unthinking public is a cardinal sign of evil's most effective persuaders. When you are speaking from your values, not anti-values which no one can practice, there is an authentic energy of life present that is never present in the anti-life person. Learn to smell that difference.
Existential equality is impossible. It cannot be attained except if everyone is put to death - which, ironically, the people of this type always overtly or covertly have at the bottom of their ideas. Take the environmentalists who hate industry and would sacrifice their wife, husband or child's life by destroying the means for living - like electricity - to their love of a snail darter. Or take Jesus Christ who tried to show us something by setting up his death on the cross. Or look at North Korea which on the map at night is dark. No light at all. These are all united by one maxim: Hate the good at all costs.
There is but one alternative that works: Choose life; create values which sustain and are everywhere consistent with life. Get busy. 2012 is ready to take off.
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