There are many kinds of equality; among them are: egalitarianism, equal justice, equal opportunity, equality of outcome, as well as gender, racial, and social equality. In short, equality means different things to different people. No matter which type of equality appeals to you, there is an irreconcilable conflict between equality and liberty.
Alexander Hamilton said, "Inequality will exist as long as liberty exists. It unavoidably results from that very liberty itself".
Our founding fathers were not seeking Equality when they created our country. They were seeking Liberty. Freedom from outside compulsion or coercion. Freedom to behave according to their own free will and to be responsible for their own actions.
Let's look at the words of the Declaration more closely. The full text of the Equality clause is: "That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness".
When Jefferson wrote these words, he merely simplified the words of James Mason's draft of a bill of rights that was adopted in Virginia as the "basis and foundation" of government. "That all Men are by Nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent Rights of which when they enter into a State of Society, they cannot, by any Compact, deprive or divest their Posterity; namely, the Enjoyment of Life and Liberty with the Means of acquiring and possessing Property, and pursuing and obtaining Happiness and Safety" .
From this we can see that the Declaration of Independence does not say that all men are equal. It says that they were created equal. And, there the equality ends. Once born, every man is then free to pursue their own goals and ambitions.
The Declaration of Independence is not the foundation of our countries laws. The Constitution is. And, nowhere in the Constitution is there even a hint of a purpose to insure or impose equality of men or things. The due process clause of the 5th and 14th Amendments renders liberty and property immune from attack except by the orderly processes fixed by law. This should ensure that the American government may not impose equality.
Despite this, again and again the legislature and the courts have told us that all men are equal and cite the Declaration of Independence as the final authority.
It is Liberty, freedom and independence, that gives man his opportunity to pursue happiness, to be rich or poor, or to be good or bad. Equality leaves men no choice.
It is Inequality that gives enlargement to religion, to intellect, to energy, to virtue, to love and to wealth. Equality of religion destroys all creeds. Equality of intellect stabilizes mediocrity. Equality of energy renders all men sluggards. Equality of virtue suspends all men outside the gates of Heaven. Equality of love stifles passion and destroys the family. Equality of wealth makes all men poor. Equality homogenizes so that cream does not rise to the top. It locks the eagle in a cage so that it may no longer soar.
Equality of freedom cannot exist without inequality in the rewards and earned fruits of that freedom. As James Mason said, there can be no equality of freedom, without leaving to all men a free and lawful choice of the "means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness".
More than 2000 years ago Aristotle said: "Equality may exist only among slaves." Slavery is the end result of levelling or equalizing . In the fruitless effort to achieve equality short of slavery the peaks must be bulldozed into the valleys to make a level plain. Such may be done only through the process now called "social engineering" which holds that the end justifies the means. The means to those ends always are force, restriction, compulsion, terror and a complete loss of Liberty.
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