Is Liberal "Fairness" Fair?

President Barack Obama gives a big thumbs up to failed national leadership.

"These men ask for just the same thing, fairness, and fairness only. This, so far as in my power, they, and all others, shall have." - Abraham Lincoln


"Obama is a leveler. He has come to narrow the divide between rich and poor. For him the ultimate social value is fairness. Imposing it upon the American social order is his mission." - Charles Krauthammer

The political concept of fairness is not the same ideal we used to value here in the United States. As the old adage goes: "Today's fairness ain't your parent's fairness." Liberalism has turned the ideal of fairness into something much, much more than the constitutional concept of equal protection under the law.

Here's a point where modern conservatives and modern liberals fundamentally disagree. Where fairness and equal treatment under the law is the conservative view, founded on the basic principles of the US Constitution, as well as on the 14th Amendment, the liberal concept of fairness nearly ignores the legal concept in favor of economic and social ideals of fairness.

Economic Fairness
One of the mainstays of modern liberalism is the concept of "leveling the playing field" referring to economic leveling. In economic terms, liberals view economic discrepancy as the sin of the modern world. According to modern liberals, the differences between rich and poor are patently unfair. (As many have pointed out, this sounds suspiciously influenced by debunked Marxist Doctrine.) If only the playing field were level, according to leftist doctrine, then we would have a fair and equitable economic system.

Yet, as history proves, some individuals will always rise above others, regardless of the playing field. Some who were given the least opportunities in life rose to become rich and powerful, while some with the most opportunities dwindled into obscurity. The facts of success simply do not support the concept of a level playing field.

Of course, the two traditionally oppressed groups in the US, Blacks and women, did indeed require additional legal protection in order to create economic opportunities. We should note, however, that the economic changes did not come from "leveling the playing field" per se, but from applying already constitutional principles first to afford equal protection under the law for Blacks and women. The economic changes followed the legal.

Since the level playing field concept didn't produce the leftists' desired results - leveled economic distribution - a new concept was introduced - "spreading the wealth." Again we note this economic ideal stems from bankrupt Marxist Doctrine. The problem with this ideal stems from the historical fact that all spreading-the-wealth politics have ended by producing statist regimes where government controlled its people, not the other way around.

This is the real fear and disgust of modern conservatives against leftist liberalism - we see only one conclusion from the Obama-esque doctrine of economic fairness, namely a government that is no longer based on its constitutional principles and no longer serves the people of the United States, but rather dictates to the people of the United States.

Mix in the ideal of spreading the wealth with the blatant unfairness of leftist protected classes (think of such über-rich icons as Michael Moore or Barack Obama who both have declared war on the very capitalism that has made them rich) and we are left with a dangerous ideology that could very well recreate a government in its own image of spread-the-wealth doctrine, an elitist class, a Leninist-style vanguard party (in the form of the Democrats), and and oppressive economic system that would enslave its citizens rather than liberating them.

Social Fairness
Perhaps more insidious than the leftist concept of economic fairness is the leftist liberal concept of social fairness.

One of the axioms I learned while growing up is the idea that life ain't fair. Back then, schools didn't torture students with sensitivity training. (How did we ever survive?) When I got beat up because I was too short, instead of complaining about how unfair the world was and threatening to sue to create a protected class of short people, I learned how to defend myself. (This turned out to be a two-part process of martial arts combined with making friends with certain members of the football team. One of my football friends grew up to be six foot five.)

But I digress.

One area where leftists ply the ideal of fairness is, of course, within the school system - attempting to make schools "safe" for learning (whatever that means). The ideal of a world without opposition is a pipe dream and, in my view, trying to "protect" students from the opposition of the world only succeeds in turning our children into a bunch of weenies creating a generation of youth who are incapable of meeting the demands of the real world.

Couple the concept of anti-competition within schools with the demands of modern educational theory (i.e., testing and more testing to determine "accountability") and we've succeeded in bestowing the double-whammy of ignorance on our up-and-coming generation of students.

Another example of liberal fairness applied to society is the concept of same sex marriage. Here is social fairness taken to its logical extreme - the idea that any two people can get married. In order to bestow the social fairness of same sex marriage, we all have to pretend that marriage has nothing to do with sex. In other words, we have to pretend that there is absolutely no qualitative difference between a man and a woman. We also have to accept that gay activists are willing to enforce, by legal fiat, that there is no qualitative difference between men and women. In order to accept same sex marriage, we are also forced to swallow the idea that government can and should no longer recognize the value of families and generation building but government can and should regulate love relationships. All in the name of fairness.

In other words, in the name of fairness, same sex marriage advocates must force and manipulate the legal and social system in order to create laws that coincide with their ideology. This, in turn, fortifies the ideal of government control that only recognizes certain privileged classes.

Perhaps the most blatant example of social (and in part economic) fairness is the "Fairness Doctrine" that has reared its ugly head again these past few years with the financial success of such media outlets as Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck. It's obvious to anyone with half a brain that if people, a lot of people, didn't listen to Glenn Beck, he'd disappear faster than a Democrat running for office in 2010. The same applies to such broadcasters as Keith Olbermann. He isn't drawing anywhere near the same crowds, not because of some unfair conservative stranglehold over the airwaves, but for the simple fact that most people don't want to listen to him.

Which leads us squarely back to the leftist ideal of economic fairness. Since leftist ideas cannot compete within a free enterprise system, we are faced with increasing government control to force "fairness" on the American people.

Is this fair?