The Judgement Arrives

Things got hysterical when I asked the rhetorical question "Why do people celebrate Xmas again?"  Some of my more secular friends were offended that I even dared asked such a question, and thereby challenged the rational foundation they had for celebrating Christ's birthXmas.  Now, I don't have a problem with non-Christians unwrapping gifts from under a tree or singing Jingle Bells, but I couldn't help but notice how cheap sounding it is to call it Xmas in fear of arousing obvious connotations, as well as trying to appear culturally audacious and rebellious, and yet do the exact same things as everybody else does.

At any rate, the response that ensued didn't live up to the virtues of honesty and truth.  I won't recount it verbatim, but it went something like this:

Okay, everybody is entitle to their own opinion, but your taking this too far; you're judging! You really don't want to go down that path.

 I know, right?  How I dare judge her! How cruel of me to critically examine the rational foundation behind people's actions.  This line of attack is no different than when the clowns at CNN got up and arms for as long as they could stand up and speak for the day about Ron Paul's alleged racism.  No counterargument was necessary, because its raaaaaaa-cism.  For them, any attempt to draw racial differences from objective data is self-defeating.  Ergo, it can be dismissed. Likewise, for the self-pitying pawns of the cultural Zeitgeist, anything carrying the tiniest fragment of judgment is evil, something to be immediately dismissed before the idols of equality and tolerance.  No judgements are warranted and no actions frowned upon because everyone is equal in every way.  

Conventional mentality really does flop around through time, sometimes rotating a full 180 degrees. See, even though this blog is advertised as counter-conventional/cultural, the many truths it espouses were recognized by the many for most of recorded human history. The notion that there really are ways to live your life that are either right or wrong, smart or stupid, rational or irrational, this was common sense before the cage of equalitopia was broken loose.

It must tough going through life, living with no sense of self-superiority, not being able to pat yourself on the back because you were smart enough to take the one correct path over ten other incorrect ones, to cherish victory only because you had no chance of defeat, to be inferior to no one only by definition, to be special because everyone is special.  But then again, I'm operating under the tenuous assumption that they're not living some looser lives, denied even the comforts of mediocrity.  Equality is the endeared refuge of the sub-median.  

I've always been curious as to what extent one's personality affects one's politics.  Apparently a lot.  If you are loosing at the game of life, the easiest way to salvage your self-worth is to convince yourself there is no scoreboard.

Should everybody have equal opportunity?

Should everybody have equal opportunity?

I found myself contemplating this question after inadvertently stumbling across the apparent dichotomy between the two senses of equality: equality in opportunity and equality in success. The former is a belief that no one should be born with an unfair advantage, the latter is a dogmatic creed that holds that everybody's success should be put in parity with each other.
But before we move on, it must be noted that it is eminently clear to anyone sufficiently grounded in reality that equality does not, will not, and cannot exist in any material sense; everyone is different, no human being is equal in ability and action than anyone else. Mind you, this does not mean that anyone is intrinsically superior to another, but simply that no two individuals are equal.
Going back to the question of whether people should have equal opportunity or not, it seems to me that individuals manifestly do not have the same opportunities as each other, a poor kid will most likely have less opportunities than a rich kid, for example. The problem arises whenever an intervening entity, such as the government, elects to disrupt the natural tendencies of reality by directly eliminating the inequality of opportunity that necessarily exists as a part of the human condition. This usually involves programs such as welfare, the progressive tax, affirmative action, and anti-discrimination laws. But because it is based on a manifestly nonexistent concept, state-imposed equality is a failure that is doomed from the start. And in the process, it systematically eradicates all of human liberty.
So the answer is no, people should not have equal opportunity because it is an empirical absurdity, the only way it could conceivably exist is through the actions of an unlimited State that controls every human action. Equality of opportunity should only exist in the sense that the State should have no right to violate the individual's right to life, liberty, and property.