The Left Misunderstands the Purpose of the Constitution. Again.

 

The left doesn’t understand the Constitution.

We’re not even talking about the text. They question the purpose of the Constitution and a nation of laws. This is not news; Obama himself went on a ridiculous tirade about the superiority of his imagined “positive rights” over mere equal rights. And just witness their panic at the idea that the Supreme Court might get taken over by constitutionalists.

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Part of the reason they don’t like the Constitution is that it limits what they view as the ability of the government to be benevolent and look after everyone. (Perhaps it is just my impression that these people mostly come from broken homes and want the government to be their daddy, or want the government to be daddy and mommy for others.)

Recently some on the Left have been circulating the below graphic on Facebook, as their self-reinforcing pat-on-the-back reason why strictly adhering to the Constitution is a bad thing and we’re bad people for wishing it.

Like most of the Left’s memes, it’s very simple (not to say simpleminded) and you have to dig under it to realize the levels and levels of wrong its cutesy drawings hide:

Sounds lovely, doesn’t it?

Note two things:

First, the problem in this case is caused by a difference in heights, which is both something easy to see, verifiable, objective, and relatively easy to correct. (Also, what’s wrong with these kids? When I was the much smaller kid in the group of my brother’s friends — an average ten years older than I — I got held piggy-back in similar circumstances. It’s like this graphic can’t even acknowledge the possibility of people helping each other. Oh, wait. It’s exactly like that.)

Affirmative action is not for something such as a difference in heights. Instead, it seeks to compensate for past discrimination by treating some groups as more worthy of consideration/jobs/entrance to universities than others. The problems with this are already myriad.

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As Rachel Dolezal and Elizabeth Warren show, it’s very easy for anyone to claim membership in a “downtrodden” group they don’t actually belong to.

Then there is the fact that groups are not, in fact, composed of identical widgets. While I can see giving special consideration to a kid who was raised in a bad part of town, by a drug-addicted mother (regardless of skin color) if that kid happens to be black, he gets shoved in the same category as Malia and Sasha Obama — whose father was president and who grew up in the White House. Because, as Martin Luther King Jr. fought so hard to make clear, the color of your skin is not the definition of your character, your circumstances, or how much help you might in fact need.

Which brings us to the third little image. You see, democrats/leftists (but I repeat myself) believe that every person who can tan in America is at a disadvantage; that there is a system of discrimination holding back everyone who isn’t male and northern European. That Malia and Sasha Obama are totally victims of people treating them badly because of their skin color.

They want to remove that! They want to make sure no one — but those evil white males who must be really potent, but they can be held back all the way and still achieve the same results as the others who are being given special boosts — ever suffers from “institutional discrimination.”

First let’s call this entire “institutional discrimination” what it is: stone cold racism.

Think about it. There is a force so terrible in our society that it holds back every ethnic person and every woman (even when dealing with other women and ethnic people) and that can’t be seen, heard or smelled. Even the daughters of the president are affected by it. And no matter how much we give people who are members of protected classes a boost, they still can’t make it as much as white males. Even immigrant white (Jewish, but never mind) males who were Holocaust survivors. (Yes, this has been held as true in Facebook discussions with leftists.)

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Look at that little graphic again. The tall kid is the white male. Everyone else needs help and they only come to his size. Stone cold racist.

Also untrue: As a woman who can tan, I am willing and able to compete with males in any field of endeavor that interests me. Yeah, sure, I’m not crazy. I’m not stronger, or bigger than your average male. (Maybe avoir du pois) and if I competed in sports it would be against other women (and about 35 years ago.) But in the things I want to do – not being crazy – and can do, I have yet to find a male that intimidates me by being male or paler than I.  There are people who are way better than I at writing, sure – both male and female – but I fail to see how this has anything to do with the protected classes the left would shove me into. As I informed an editor who complained I don’t write “enough like a woman” that would be a terrible organ to write with.  It can’t type at all.  And although I suppose holding a pen and writing with it could be a parlor trick, it would render the paper soggy. Also smelly. (Yes, I know, I missed my chance at an NEA grant.)

More importantly, when the government starts grubbing about in eliminating invisible “institutional barriers” it has to decide who is being held back and why, and which barriers are worth eliminating.

The government are not gods or angels, who can see into the mind of each man and woman and whatever else half of them are calling themselves these weeks, and automagically eliminate every barrier to success.

Even if it identifies barriers and tries to eliminate them, how is it going to do that without oppressing the vast majority of the population?  No? You don’t think it’s oppression being told that you have to hire a certain person because of color, funny bits or chosen bed partners?  What about having to call people by whatever pronoun they picked that week, and being criminally persecuted if you don’t?  There’s places this is happening already.  And seriously, one of my friends self-identifies as an Abrams Tank.  (I’m ALMOST sure he’s joking.

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Look at that little graphic.  Most of the boosts the left wants to give; most of the barriers it wants to eliminate are not immediately obvious.  They’re not height or physical disability (not that this would be particularly easy to do, either, on a mass scale.)

The institutional advantages that the left wants to eliminate are things like, oh, “white privilege” which these days and from my kids’ teachers encompasses everything from having an intact family, to having books in the house, to being made to keep clean and dress in a non-repulsive way and having consistent discipline.

The institutional disadvantages the left wants to eliminate are things like actually being capable of performing a job without having the requirements lowered.  (Unlike firefighters and police officers throughout the land, lowering requirements to allow in women and disabled.)

There was that sad/funny article about Penguin/Random House (now called Random Penguin by anyone who ever deal with either of those or – lucky me – both of them) wanting to both do away with the requirement for a university degree (yeah, because their junior editors were so literate, even with it) and wishing to make their office “look like Great Britain” by hiring people to the right percentages, regardless or aptitude or interest.

The end of any society – the French revolution comes to mind – who tries for equality of results is a lot of dead.

Humans are individuals.  We are all different.  Not only is there any way to make all of us have the same results, it’s impossible to make all of us want the same results.  (I have absolutely no interest in being most things under the sun except writer. And you can’t make me. Other people want to do other things for reasons inexplicable, but which seem to please them.)

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Demanding humans all end up “alike” is making society into a Procrustean bed which cuts off every tall poppy till the survivors starve in mediocrity.  (Vid. Soviet Union, Maoist China, Cuba, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, and the beat goes on.)

More importantly, though, as a friend on Facebook pointed out, look at that graphic again.

Why is there even a fence?  Oh, I know, it’s because the sports field is a private business, which makes its money and survives by selling tickets to the game.

The kids are stealing access to a ticketed sports event.  Sure, most of us did that when very young and stupid.  But on the other hand, what happens if everyone can see the game without paying?

That’s right.  The club goes out of business.

So by “removing institutional barriers” the government is interfering with private property and the right of individuals to earn their own living and pursue their own happiness as they desire.

Not shown at the end is of the kids sitting by sadly, as the field is deserted and overgrown because the club went out of business.

And that is a more clear representation of the effects of government interference in society than the idiots spreading it will ever understand.

The Constitution is that fence, protecting our life, liberty, and property.  Which the left would happily do away with.

 

 

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