DVSentinel
DP Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2011
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- Location
- The Republic of Texas.
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- Other
In a country where everyone is supposed to be equal, you can not penalize one group more than others just because of the size of their bank account.
"that all men are created equal" is perhaps the most misunderstood and most abused concept in our society and government. It is not even in the Constitution, but in the Declaration of Independence.
The Declaration of Independence is not a governing document, or at least it was not intended to be. It was explaining to England that we, at least those supporting it, were revolting against England and why we were doing it.
I believe the meaning is fairly simple. England had a class society based upon heredity. It says that there is no Noble class that naturally exists giving one person rights over another simply by dint of Birth, but rather that all people should be treated equally under the law and have the same rights at birth.
We know, beyond any doubt that not every person is born equal to any other person except that law should be applied to each and every individual equally. Each and every person has innate intelligence, personality, drive, interests and talents, among other things. Some are born into poverty and some into wealth. The authors of the Declaration knew that there was no way that each and every person would "equal" in all things, it is impossible. However, they believed that government and law should be applied to each and every person no matter what station in life they are born to or what level they rise to.
Throughout our history, this one statement has been applied in many different ways. Some good, some bad. It's application to our education system has been particularly stellar in gutting the effectiveness of that education system. It has been used to demand that all children have access to and be taught the same as every other child without taking in account natural intelligence and abilities. It has been demanded that monies be spent on all children equally despite differing needs and variations between individual children and the cost of giving each child the best education possible.
It has been used to justify welfare and other entitlement programs, after all, if all people are created equal, shouldn't they all have a basic standard of living, regardless of their own efforts to achieve it? Shouldn't all people be given equal opportunities? If the true concept of all people being equal was actually applied to these types of laws, then many of our existing laws would not exist as they only apply to some, not all of the people. If Welfare was applied using the real meaning of this phrase then every person in the US would receive the same welfare check, regardless of their current economic status. That would be equally applying the law. Affirmative action would not exist since it only applies to some, it uses race, color, sex and other factors to give greater advantage to some over others. If the law treats them all equally, regardless of those factors, the it would have the same affect for everyone, not just some.
While some use this phrase to mean many different things, it is clear that the one thing they do not want to apply it to is Taxes. If government is required, as some believe, to treat all citizens equal under the law, then the same, equal tax rate would apply to all citizens.