As you may have guessed, I'm with Jaffa . . . America insists upon an equality of rights which leads inexorably to an inequality of wealth.



I don't see why this is confusing. How can liberty not lead to inequalities of wealth? Not everyone will make the same choices. And how can equality of rights not imply liberty?

The problem occurs at the point where you have to decide whether there is an equality of rights (which we'd agree is the case) or a right to be equal (which the Left would argue). I agree under our system we are right and they are wrong, but still don't think that necessarily makes them wrong in the abstract.

It's no surprise that we disagree with the Left, but you said "even conservatives have [difficulty] agreeing among themselves about the question of whether the idea of equality is integral to the American system" . . . where's the difficulty?

Isn't that the point of the entire article? Though I think by the end West has shown that they essentially do agree with one another.

I worry about Jaffa's project, which is to give the Declaration "constitutional" significance -- or, more precisely, to give merely the "we hold these rights . . ." a sort of unanchored, context-less constitutional primacy. The Jaffa Project seems to contain at times the weakness identified by Publius when he wrote with such disdain about "parchment barriers" to violations of liberty.



Immediately after the famed "we hold these rights" line, even the Declaration itself plunges directly into the question of How liberty is to be secured. "That to secure these rights government are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." Self-government is enervated when a citizenry becomes inebriated by abstractions, which Jaffa's admirable project seems uniquely vulnerable to, as evidenced by the staggering abuse by Left of the noble idea of equality.

meant "we hold these TRUTHS" of course . . .

I don't think choices is all, or even most, of the

explanation of inequalities of wealth, pj.



Lots of folks don't get to make choices. We're

not in pioneer with ax v. forest any more.

When a person of talent is shunted aside for

a person of lesser talent, you can see why

the talented person might not think that the

inevitable disparities of conservatism is such a

good deal.



It is, I suppose, an advance that in the 21st

century, people of all races, creeds and colors

are so situated as to rightfully feel unfairly

shunted aside.



There used to be a notable imbalance.

If they're talented they find opportunity elsewhere. That's the beauty of freedom.

"An equality that welcomes inequality?"



The equality is one of opportunity, or potential.

The inequality results from differing realizations of that potential, due to many factors.

The challenge is to keep the potential opportunity equally (un)limited for all.

A just blogged an essay
that seems quite apropos this discussion.

Gee Harry, are you saying that life isn't always fair?

I'll take freedom over equality.



marc

Harry - I never said choices were the only influence upon wealth - but they are a very large one. Some people choose to pursue money, others don't. Some choose to work with others, others try to go their own way. These choices make a big difference.



I have extensive experience with talented people who have felt "unfairly shunted aside" in favor of less talented people. Invariably they fail to recognize that many skills are required for success and though they are highly endowed with some, they are weak in others, and they were shunted aside because others put more weight on their weaknesses than their strengths. As Orrin says, if they are genuinely talented, they can eventually find someone who values their strengths and can work around their weaknesses. But most people who are "shunted aside" stubbornly refuse to recognize their own weaknesses, keep those weaknesses, and insist on seeking positions that they can't excel at with those weaknesses.

Orrin - yes, that was the point of the article, but I think the source of the disagreement is Mansfield's idiosyncratic views rather than a difference that is widespread among conservatives. Mansfield rejects the Judeo-Christian roots of the American founding and of classical liberalism as a whole, rejects Locke and the Declaration, and justifies this by willfully misinterpreting Christianity and misrepresenting Jefferson's "equality" as implying an equality of wealth. When you create a strawman that you can easily knock down, you've exaggerated the differences with your real combatant. That's all that happened here.

Harry / pj -





I could not agree more with pj. The archetype in my field is the talented engineer/coder/analytical type that plateaus at a modest level, never realizing that guile, wit, deft political maneuvering, and the 'emotional intelligences' are just as important in his field as in any other. Sheer technical brilliance gets you squat.



Look at the career of Robert Oppenheimer as an example. His Q-clearance was taken away due in large part to his political naivete.

Bruce:



Naivete? or Communist sympathizer?

I wasn't talking about people shunted aside because

they lacked the savvy to lunch with the right bosses. I

was talking about people who don't get a chance because they have the wrong color skin or a funny accent.



Those aren't talents.

Harry - now you have me mystified - you seem to be saying that inequalities of wealth are due to racial or regional discrimination (if so your view neglects how markets work, e.g. you only need to find one employer and surely not everyone is prejudiced against your skin color) - but you also say "people of all races, creeds and colors are so situated as to rightfully feel unfairly shunted aside" - if all people are discriminated against, how can that explain inequality?

Because everybody can't move to SF and apply for jobs at Rightthinking Inc. and all get jobs. We have to live in a world.



Where I grew up, employers, no matter how needy of labor, routinely declined to hire qualified dark people.

Things are better than they were in 1968 (when I went looking for my first full-time work) but they're way short of even.



One of my brother's grad students was at U. of Michigan and living in graduate student housing. The housing council decided that since homosexuals had suffered such pervasive discrimination, they should be offered a discount on rent, compared with married, straight people.



I guess it's a kind of progress that straight white people feel the sting of prejudice more and more often, compared to the past, but we're a tad shy of the millenium still yet.



I am a business reporter. Some employers welcome all kinds in my county, and some don't. Don't blame the applicants, blame the employers.

Isn't the point that the talent finds the willing employers and the unwilling employers suffer from lack of talent?

OJ -





Oppenheimer was a lefty, but that was known before the Manhattan Project. When suspicions arose in the 1950's, he couldn't read the zeitgeist and thus contributed to his own demise - sneering & arrogant at security hearings, stubborn and refractory on technical matters. The latter was seen as an unwillingness to progress on defense matters...







Harry -





The example I cite is the limiting case of everything being propitious for success, but the protagonist fails to follow thru. If many things aren't in alignment for success, it is still your responsibility to follow thru. The underclass may not be deferential to authority, or show up on time, or a dozen other things that hurt their (diminished) chances for success.

Bruce:



It seems increasingly unlikely that the explanation for the spying on Oppie's watch is that benign:



http://hnn.us/articles/printfriendly/935.html

Yep. We all get to be unequal together.

Yep. We all get to be unequal together.

Orrin, you got that exactly right. It is as true

that Moslem countries suffer from keeping

women illiterate as that Southern employers

suffered from keeping blacks out.



An economy is not fungible. There are limits

undreamed of -- and certainly unaccounted for

-- in the fantasies of the Friedmanites.



Opening economies does tend to displace

the stupid employers, who find they cannot

compete with the smarties from outside.



That does not, however, mean that everybody

who suffered helplessly from the stupid

old regime is made whole in the new.