In the Kurt Vonnegut short story 'Harrison Bergeron', the world he tells us about finally has true equity.
That's right: everyone is exactly, perfectly, equal. The smart are burdened so they're more like their less intelligent neighbors. The athletic are hampered so they're on the same playing field with the weaker and disabled. The attrative are made ugly.
This is equity drawn out to its natural, logical end.
It is also a dystopia, where there is no beauty, no diversity, no opportunity to better oneself.
There is only strictly enforced 'equity' and no one is truly happy.
So when this video of Kamala Harris talking about equality makes the rounds, it's worth paying attention.
“…and if the goal is truly about equality, it has to be about a goal of saying everybody should end up in the same place. And since we didn't start in the same place, some folks might need more.”
— John Cardillo (@johncardillo) October 1, 2024
She’s a full blown Marxist pic.twitter.com/znlIqgHA6f
By equality, she means equity. And specifically the equity of outcomes.
If everyone should end up in the same place -- what is that place? Who gets to define it?
For the sake of argument, let's say Kamala decides an 'equitable' income is $75,000 a year. That's great. If you make $74,999 or less. For those who make $75,001 or more, you're going to be knocked down a peg. Or two. Or ten.
What if 'equity' is everyone has a two bedroom, one bath home? Those who live in studio apartments will undoubtedly be thrilled with the upgraded accommodations, but my three bedroom, two bath home is now inequitable. I am harming my neighbor and have to give up what I own.
In the name of 'equity', of course.
Equity is an impossible metric to achieve.
Unless - and this is important -- your definition of equity means everyone is reduced to the lowest common denominator.
Because there's a pattern in Vonnegut's story and in Kamala's ideology: never are those without built up.
Those who have are always, invariably, torn down.
This ideology has popped up in political circles since time immemorial. Regimes have risen and fallen based on it. Michelle Obama famously said:
The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more.
Michelle Obama saw the pie as finite, limited. Therefore someone has to give up some of theirs to another person.
'Equity' is always about taking a way and tearing down. It can never be about building up.
And two things always happen 1) the government does the taking and the giving and 2) the government exempts itself from the rules it ruthlessly enforces on the rest of us.
In 'Harrison Bergeron', the title character breaks himself and others free from their handicaps for a brief, shining moment in time.
That is, until the Handicapper General shows up. With a shotgun. To restore equity, of course.
Everyone finishing "in the same place" is communism. At some point, regardless of the over use of the accusation, it is time to consider it may be true.
— Dr. Eddie Waldrep (@dreddiewaldrep) October 1, 2024
If you walk like a duck, talk like a duck, you might just be a communist. https://t.co/7cRtTTCnB6
She might just be.
Because for Kamala Harris, 'Harrison Bergeron' is less a cautionary tale and more of an instruction manual.
