As I have repeatedly observed, there
is no such thing as equality, the grand rhetorical flights of Thomas Jefferson
notwithstanding. The artificial distinctions that conservatives attempt to make
between equality of opportunity and equality of result, and between equality
before the law and equality of condition, simply do not exist.
Literally every day we see material evidence to the contrary.
A rookie cop whose dad is an NYPD chief avoided getting fired after an
off-duty arrest for groping a woman at an Atlantic City casino, police sources
told the Daily News. The department’s handling of Officer Joseph Essig’s case
raises questions among police sources who suspect high-ranking officers and
those close to them are treated with kid gloves in discipline cases.
Just 15 months into his brand-new NYPD career — on Oct. 8, 2015 — Essig was arrested at Harrah’s Casino in Atlantic City on a felony charge of criminal sexual misconduct. New Jersey authorities downgraded the charge to a health code violation. Essig pleaded guilty, was ordered to stay away from the victim, and paid a $1,000 fine.
Officers facing similar charges with less than two years on the force are typically fired, say sources. But Essig remains on the job. A police source said that’s “shocking.” “Other probationary cops have been fired for way less,” said the source.
Just 15 months into his brand-new NYPD career — on Oct. 8, 2015 — Essig was arrested at Harrah’s Casino in Atlantic City on a felony charge of criminal sexual misconduct. New Jersey authorities downgraded the charge to a health code violation. Essig pleaded guilty, was ordered to stay away from the victim, and paid a $1,000 fine.
Officers facing similar charges with less than two years on the force are typically fired, say sources. But Essig remains on the job. A police source said that’s “shocking.” “Other probationary cops have been fired for way less,” said the source.
This is not at all surprising, of course.
Just as one does not expect off-duty police to receive speeding tickets or DUI
citations, one does not expect the influential or their family members to be
treated just like anyone else in the courts of law. But as petty as it is, this episode serves to
effectively demonstrate that the conservative concept of equality is just as
fantastic, just as utopian, just as nonexistent, and just as ludicrous a basis
for societal policy, as the leftist concept of equality.
God does not believe in equality. Nature does not believe in equality. Neither should Man believe in it, must less attempt to order his societies around it, because it does not exist.
And as much as it pains me to contradict Mr. Wright's beautiful and emotionally compelling tribute to the conservative concept of equality, to "judge all men by the content of their character" is not, and has never been, "the definition of conservative philosophy". One will search Burke and Kirk in vain for any such concept. One will not find it in Aristotle, Aurelius, Augustine, or Aquinas. It is very far from self-evident that all men are created equal, and indeed, the very man who wrote those stirring words repeatedly denied as much in the very same document in which he wrote them.
The closest one comes is Kirk's third canon of conservative thought. But the recognition of something that observably does not exist is pure utopian fantasy, every bit as silly and irrelevant as building one's political philosophy on the foundation of the Labor Theory of Value and the Worker's Paradise.
Conviction that civilized society requires orders and classes, as against the notion of a "classless society." With reason, conservatives have been called "the party of order." If natural distinctions are effaced among men, oligarchs fill the vacuum. Ultimate equality in the judgment of God, and equality before courts of law, are recognized by conservatives; but equality of condition, they think, means equality in servitude and boredom.
The reason that Jefferson found it necessary to claim it was self-evident that all men are created equal is because he could not find a single observable example of that imaginary equality to cite, not in religion, philosophy, history, nature, or law. The assertion is not a self-evident truth, it is nothing more than a logical and empirical falsehood, and easily proven to be so by every possible standard.
For a deeper dive into the mythical nature of equality, one cannot do better than to read Equality: the Impossible Quest by historian Martin van Creveld.
God does not believe in equality. Nature does not believe in equality. Neither should Man believe in it, must less attempt to order his societies around it, because it does not exist.
And as much as it pains me to contradict Mr. Wright's beautiful and emotionally compelling tribute to the conservative concept of equality, to "judge all men by the content of their character" is not, and has never been, "the definition of conservative philosophy". One will search Burke and Kirk in vain for any such concept. One will not find it in Aristotle, Aurelius, Augustine, or Aquinas. It is very far from self-evident that all men are created equal, and indeed, the very man who wrote those stirring words repeatedly denied as much in the very same document in which he wrote them.
The closest one comes is Kirk's third canon of conservative thought. But the recognition of something that observably does not exist is pure utopian fantasy, every bit as silly and irrelevant as building one's political philosophy on the foundation of the Labor Theory of Value and the Worker's Paradise.
Conviction that civilized society requires orders and classes, as against the notion of a "classless society." With reason, conservatives have been called "the party of order." If natural distinctions are effaced among men, oligarchs fill the vacuum. Ultimate equality in the judgment of God, and equality before courts of law, are recognized by conservatives; but equality of condition, they think, means equality in servitude and boredom.
The reason that Jefferson found it necessary to claim it was self-evident that all men are created equal is because he could not find a single observable example of that imaginary equality to cite, not in religion, philosophy, history, nature, or law. The assertion is not a self-evident truth, it is nothing more than a logical and empirical falsehood, and easily proven to be so by every possible standard.
For a deeper dive into the mythical nature of equality, one cannot do better than to read Equality: the Impossible Quest by historian Martin van Creveld.
