Amerika

The primary component in the equality game is ideology. Ideology is the default winner, similar to the house in a casino. Ideology manages all of the other components in the game, delegating authority through the bureaucracy.

The secondary component is the bureaucracy. As ostensibly impartial arbiters accountable to an ideology which is by definition quite partial, the bureaucracy wields authority over the tertiary components on a transactional basis. The bureaucracy wins by default as well, as a kennel full of curs each win scraps from the king’s table.

Bureaucratic Rational Grounds – resting on a belief in the ‘legality’ of patterns of normative rules and the right of those elevated to authority under such rules to issue commands (legal authority).

nmsu

The third component is you people. You people are divided into us and them.

The us half provides continuous energy to the equality process. To choose otherwise is to default at the “negotiating” table before the “impartial” bureaucratic mediators and thereafter incur penalty.

The them half provides the endless stream of justification for the equality process.

Plus, and minus. Haves, and have nots.

Altogether then, ideology creates the rules all will play by and bureaucracy directs the flow of the game pieces. New generations of us come about and are automatically assigned to the positive, giver side. Simultaneously, a steady flow of thems are brought in to the game as well and assigned the negative, taker side.

One might reasonably ask if Title II at least did no harm since it only codified what was already happening. The case can be made that it was harmful. The effort to pass the Act diverted the grassroots movement from self-help, mutual aid, and independent community action to lobbying, legislation, and litigation – that is, dependence on the white ruling elite. Direct efforts undertaken by free individuals were demoted to at best a supporting role.

That was a loss for freedom, justice, and independence. Our country is the worse for it.

csmonitor

Thus with positive and negative in proximity, or living under the same system, a flow of energy is established. The flow first stops at the second layer, typically as a general tax for public services everyone uses.

Yet, some of the tax is siphoned off to keep our equality game operating and much of this siphoned output stops at the bureaucrats and their zealots in the form of salaries. The remainder is released to the have nots who otherwise, we are told, would not have as much as us.

Since ideology isn’t a tangible thing, it exists over the secondary and tertiary layers invisibly. But as a whole, ideology is nearly always out of mind for all but the ideologues who act as managerial elite zealots among the bureaucrats.

Ideology in the equality game is powered by the negative side from which justification is drawn. Like taxes, justification flows up to the second layer where it is tailored, using the makework hours of liberal arts majors, into public decree which is then sent down to us in official documents pinned up on public billboards.

Like ideology, justification is not a tangible thing. Justification is unlike a steady flow of payments which are actually tangible and accountable. Ideology and justification alike simply require embodiment in the mind of a bureaucrat or a zealot among them.

For us however, the input required is a function of both material and time called labor that for each of us cannot be reclaimed once spent. But happily enough for the ideologue beneficiaries in the layers above, the justifications received by us, like an approving smile to a child for not being naughty, are for us an investment well made and lifetime that was well worth living.

Tags: class war, egalitarianism, pluralism