By Kamala Harris released an animated campaign video yesterday that starts with two men at the bottom of a mountain. One of them is able to reach a rope to start the climb. The other can’t reach it. If you vote for her (through Joe Biden), the ground below the 2nd man will rise up until he can reach the rope. The video ends with the two men sharing the same view of a sunset at the top of the mountain. Thus, the video purports, “equitable treatment means we all end up at the same place”.
Tomorrow, approximately half of the country is going to vote for a ticket that openly endorses this communistic ideal.
I’ve seen some argue semantics and say that she just means equal opportunity. More on that below, but listen – you can fit a thousand random people with custom hiking shoes, offer them all months of training, give them all the same backpack full of supplies, give them all the same motivational speech, and proclaim to them all the splendor of the view at the summit. They’re not all going to end up there. That’s not how humanity works.
Some will try, but just won’t have the strength or stamina to make it. Some won’t try, because others have told them that the odds are stacked too highly against them. Some will stop along the way to write poetry about the journey and become lost in their thoughts. Some will have eschewed the training for something they deemed more important. Some will say that climbing mountains just isn’t for them. They’re not an expert. They’ll say the reward can’t possibly justify the effort.
If Harris really meant equal opportunity, the video would have ended with the two men equally equipped in the foothills. But since it didn’t we should take a moment to think about what her tagline “There’s a big difference between equality and equity” really means.
Because what this kind of propaganda never shows is the human cost of forced outcomes. History has taught that communist governments never take the shape of benevolent social workers exalting exhausted climbers from below, but rather, they act as vengeful axe murderers wreaking havoc on those leading the way through the forested ascent. Despite its lofty intentions, Communism is not glory at the top – it’s bodies at the bottom.
This life isn’t about equity. It’s about sweetening our strengths and working on our weaknesses. It’s about finding fortitude in our faults and gratitude in our gifts. By doing so we will inevitably lift others around us
and that’s where the catch is –
only fellow climbers can offer a hand
that isn’t a hatchet.
