The following is a reprise of a post entitled, A Failure to Differentiate, which was originally published on November 19, 2006.

Liberal Equalism - As alluded to previously, one of the manifest failings of liberal reasoning is the notion of "equalism" which posits that by treating disparate persons, entities or situations equally, one is showing fairness to each. A prerequisite of successful implementation of equalism is the ability, entirely at the discretion of liberal thought leaders, to define equal treatment as equality of inputs (which mandates equalized per-pupil spending in primary and secondary education) or equality of outcomes (which necessitates affirmative action.) Rarely, if ever, do liberals submit that equality of results be related to either [e]quality of preparation or of effort.

A corollary to the equalist's proposition is that differentiations between unduly juxtaposed comparators are entirely subjective and in the eye of the liberal observing them. A failure to differentiate is therefore a symptom of equalism. Because of their bent towards equalism, liberals are loath to create or acknowledge distinctions between ideas and belief systems. Today’s Left finds itself adrift in a sea of relativism, moral and otherwise. They make no meaningful differentiations between genders (or for that matter, sexual orientations), races, religions or cultures.

The Left also makes no attempt to distinguish between the roles and responsibilities of individuals and private organizations in society versus those of government. These habits feed into the Left’s desire to appear even-handed and egalitarian in all things. In the end however, liberals simply appear to be unable to comprehend the difference between differentiation, which is (almost) always benign, and discrimination, which is only sometimes bad. The Left is fully subscribed to the “where you stand depends upon where you sit” school of thought, and believes that human judgment is handicapped both by paradigm and by parallax.

In not acknowledging differences between things, progressives fail to acknowledge the true nature of anything. All of this is that much more complicated by the Left’s professed esteem of diversity. (Of course, when the Left claims that it celebrates “diversity,” what is meant is that it fetishizes tribalism.) While paying lip service to desiring a more diverse society, the Left diminishes and undermines true diversity by attempting to disconnect diversity of behavior, attitude and effort from any risk of failure or negative consequences.

Indeed, equalism necessarily negates diversity, as true diversity is never apart from disparity. In the ideal liberal world, there would be full diversity of lifestyles and behaviors (read more space for deviancy from established societal patterns of behavior) minus any differences in real-world outcomes. As is typically the case, the Left wants to say one thing and behave in a way that is not consonant with their public pronouncements.

That the Left is unable to differentiate is evidenced quite sufficiently by the comments of prominent leftists regarding our adversaries in the War on Terror. To liberals like Bill Maher, the September 11, 2001 hijackers were “brave,” Mr. Maher apparently not recognizing that it takes no particular courage to overwhelm a plane full of unarmed and unsuspecting passengers. Maher appears to display no desire to recognize the difference between trained, disciplined and uniformed soldiers who target the enemy on the battlefield, and the shadowy figures that populate al-Qaeda, who wage their attacks almost exclusively on civilian populations.

Bill Maher's inexplicable comparison is matched by the willingness of so many on the Left to refer to Iraqi insurgents as “freedom fighters” who are simply defending their land against the aggressive acts of American occupiers. The fact that the Left is unwilling to recognize these people as terrorists who are simply desirous of mayhem, destruction and bloodshed on a mass scale is perhaps more confounding. Given what we now know about the defunct regime of Saddam Hussein, there was more than ample cause to overthrow his government in Baghdad, and give Iraqis a chance at forming a legitimate democratic government in the long-troubled Middle East.

Of course, like much of liberalism, equalism collapses under the weight of it's own absurdity. The Left would have us believe that equalism is part of the legacy of the civil rights struggles against racism and sexism. In fact, the foundations of equalism are more rightly seen as flowing from Marxist ideology than anything rooted in any sort of movement towards civil empowerment. The idea that we should regard a black high school dropout and an Asian Ph.D. as similar in anything other than their humanity is ridiculous on it's face, and a special sort of diminished capacity would be required to accept such a premise.