Equal -- and Free to Reach for the Stars

Americans rightly believe the “self-evident truth” proclaimed in our founding document, “that all men are created equal” and “that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.” In proclaiming these truths, our founding fathers were affirming the right of every person to be equal before the law and to freely pursue life, liberty and happiness without needing any special privilege, or having any penalty imposed on anyone. This has been the animating struggle of American history.

However, there is perhaps no American ideal that has been more poorly understood and more frequently misinterpreted than the very American idea of equality.

In the past century we have seen the ideal of equality misinterpreted to mean that all must be equal. Brutal regimes in the Soviet Union, Cuba and Cambodia spoke of equality, but theirs was a forced leveling-down that defied human nature and natural law. Taken to the extreme in those countries, it has meant the persecution and death for those who would excel, the redistribution of wealth, and the making of individuals to be slaves to the collective.

In speaking to an American audience about the true ideal of equality, Margaret Thatcher once said:

"The pursuit of equality itself is a mirage. What’s more desirable and more practicable than the pursuit of equality is the pursuit of equality of opportunity. And opportunity means nothing unless it includes the right to be unequal and the freedom to be different. One of the reasons that we value individuals is not because they’re all the same, but because they’re all different. I believe you have a saying in the Middle West: ‘Don’t cut down the tall poppies. Let them rather grow tall.’ I would say, let our children grow tall and some taller than others if they have the ability in them to do so."

The leveling-down that occurs in our schools, in our tax code, in our bureaucratic rules and regulations, in our union contracts, in the culture of our workplaces, has promoted a notion of equality at odds with what our founding fathers intended, at odds with human nature, and one that encourages, at best, the mediocre and average instead of the excellent.

The mistaken notion of what equality means has led to schools where students are socially promoted even though they fail to master what they should be learning. School administrators frequently complain that because of regulations it is impossible to fire an incompetent teacher, and tenure policies guarantee employment for life, regardless of performance. Businesses, too, are often faced with regulatory obstacles and costly lawsuits when they attempt to remove an incompetent employee.

Americans see the unfortunate result of this misunderstood notion of equality every day when they face incompetence and attitudes of indifference at the supermarket, at the bank, at fast food restaurants, in the post office, or in trying to ensure better education for their children.

It is part of human nature for people to be competitive, to want to excel and win, to seek something better for themselves and their family. But when we give excellence the same rewards we give to the average and the mediocre, each of us, and our nation, is cheated of not only what the “best and the brightest” could offer, but what we could otherwise accomplish in a nation that would truly reward excellence. After all, a nation that has gone to the moon should always reach for the stars.