occupy a history book, then talk to me about “equality”

“A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism,” Francis Bacon quipped, “but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.”

These Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protesters are proof that Americans are generally schooled beyond their intellectual abilities.  Your average high school graduate is nominally educated, yet grossly unlearned.

Americans take for granted the maddening proposition that public education is both “free” and “compulsory,” all at the same time.  The government schools start at age five, and aren’t through until right about the time a person is eligible to vote.  In those thirteen years, the person is inculcated with the State morals, chief of which is equality.  By the time an American can biologically reproduce, the language of equality and fairness is engrained in him.  That equality is the moral object of all society is the first commandment of what ought to be described plainly as the American religion:  As pagan as Rome’s, only more sophisticated in its promulgation.

This nascent OWS movement is predictable beyond debate.  Its members are products of the government schools, many having spent four more years at higher institutions of reeducation.  They were taught that the world should be fair and equal, and discovered the most ghastly surprise that nothing could be further from the truth.  Thus, they demand retribution, restitution, and redistribution.  If society is not fair, dammit all, we shall just imagine it into fairness with the power of our Collective voice!  We shall force people to be fair and equal!

Theirs is a philosophy of freedom through control, as ludicrous as the idea of being both free and compulsory.  The origin is less like a perfect line, than it is a large and imposing oak, dead and long-since raped by disease and infestation.  One branch is French Jacobinism, another the Utilitarianism of Bentham, another unadulterated Socialism.  They share a common trunk of Collectivism, binding all mankind to a hunger for Utopia.  Its roots are deeply planted in the putrid soil of Hell.

On many occasions, civil societies have lit its branches aflame to rid the world of its ugly presence, yet to no avail.  There it still sits, offending our every sacred value, wallowing in its squalid hatred for all that is true.  And many times, idiot children with antisocial affections come along and build pathetic little tree houses atop its crusty old branches.

You see, the OWS radicals were beheading Parisian priests as early as 1789.  Among their demands were liberty, fraternity and, finally, egalitarianism; which is another term for equality.  What does equality mean, exactly?  It sounds nice, but why should we want it?  Let’s return to this.

In 1848, they attempted to raze Europe from its ancient political roots in their campaign for universal suffrage.

In 1918, they slaughtered the Russian Czar and his family like unhinged sociopaths.

In 1968, drunk on their own vanity, they shut down whole cities in protest across the globe.

In 2011, they have returned in full force.  What is common among these movements (and these have only been the popular handful) is that the protesters aren’t wrong in demanding reform.  Nor are they wrong with respect to certain outrages:  The opulence of monarchy, the plight of workers and their working conditions, the corruption of banks and many other issues always were worthy targets of social reform.

Yet, what is chilling about these radicals is their heinous solutions, enlightened by an historical and philosophical illiteracy.  For they are Collectivists, and the only solution they can imagine to their concerns (some worthy) is the revamping of the State into a Utopian religious institution, coupled with a police power.

It is essentially the merger of religion and State that they request, whether they know it or not.  It is a religious movement in that Collectivists would sell the whole of humanity at a slave auction in exchange for a set of nebulous values, which can only be justified by appeal to metaphysical belief.  Among these are fairness and absolute equality.  Indeed, by eliminating the free market, they say, we can banish the state of economic inequality.

And, who said inequality is always wrong?  Indeed, nature itself is demonstrative of rampant inequality.  Some people are fat, others are skinny.  Is nature immoral?

Thus, the free market is the first target.  For in the free market, we find a bastion of inequality, as well as individual choice.  Some people, the 1%, are rich; others are not.  Therefore, since all must be equal, no one can become rich.  Incentives must be abolished, the acquisition of capital must be penalized, and, most importantly, private property will have to be eliminated.

Collectivists assume the free market to be a cruel invention of capitalists.  Their crude minds are unable to see that the market is nothing more than the free association of mankind:  It is a mirror image of humanity, in a state of liberty secured by the Rule of Law.  They don’t understand that the restriction of the market, which Collectivism calls for, is the restriction of liberty itself.  For the moment a person takes a risk, with the goal of acquiring an unequal share of capital, he is participating in the market.  He takes the risk in the hope that he will be rewarded if he is successful.  A Collectivist demanding economic equality cannot tolerate this.

It is only through the preservation of the market with its marriage to the Rule of Law, that mankind has ever raised the general standard of living for the whole of society.  Yet, ironically, Collectivists always demand better living conditions, including access to public health and living wages.  (Consequently, I find it curious that people demanding access to public health are currently sleeping in parks, wallowing in filth, and consuming food rations nearby human excrement.)  They demand that we direct our innovations toward the common good of all mankind, and yet it is only because of the market’s encouragement of risk taking that any technological innovation exists.

Collectivism is, finally, about servitude.  It demands that the apparatus of State control be turned in favor of bringing about the greatest social good for all.  In this we reach the alliance of Utilitarianism with Socialism.  For in directing all of society toward a singular goal for all, variety is extinguished.  The Collectivist abhors variety and social diversity of any kind.  Society must run like a machine, where every sprocket fulfills his designated role; and if he fails to, let him be anathema to the Collective.  The Collective cannot hazard individual liberty and choice where it conflicts with the “common good” of all.  Any normal, clear-thinking person would desire the opportunities the free market has to offer him.  But the moment anyone strays from the Collective, the Collective system is hampered and Utopia becomes impossible.  The Collective must control the full authority of the State, inclusive of police and military powers.

In the end it is the union of State and religion OWS Radicals and Collectivists in general desire.  Subtler minds, uncorrupted by the absurdities foisted on them by the government schools arrived at this fact long before 2011, whenever radicals have raised the specter of state control.  But by keeping people ignorant, and providing glib samples of true learning through the machinery of the government schools, America has effectively created the OWS uprising.  By absorbing a little knowledge, their mind’s inclineth toward abject stupidity, and their hearts inclineth toward tyranny.