It's definitely an election year.
You can tell because only in election years do millionaire politicians start talking about "equality" for everyone. Now, don't get me wrong- there is nothing wrong with equality. I don't like unfairness and believe that people deserve to be treated fairly. The problem is that the word "equality" when spoken by politicians rarely ever means what we think it means.
When I was in 7th grade, I read the book "Animal Farm" by George Orwell. In it, a farm containing all different kinds of animals make their own form of government, with the mantra being "all animals are equal." The pigs, who are the most clever of all the animals, begin to slack off, boss the other animals around, and live in luxury while all the other animals worked. They change the mantra to "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
The pigs' definition of "equality" was equal luxury for themselves and equal misery for the rest of the animals.
Now, enter all the calls for "equality" from today's reigning politicians. They are calling for pay equality between men and women. I think this is probably a more complex issue than they are making it out to be, because workers aren't created equally, don't work equally, don't produce equally, don't work equal amounts of hours, don't have equal amounts of schooling or training, and haven't worked for the company for equal amounts of years. So, determining pay equality would be very difficult indeed.
You can say, "Dave, you're a man. You are against this "wage equality" because you are the beneficiary. You want to keep women down!"
Well, I have a wife and two daughters. They are all very hard workers. My wife is a nurse and my daughters are in school. Do I want my wife to be paid less than a man for doing equal work? No. Do I want my daughters to be paid less when they establish careers than a man who does equal work? No.
I just have read Animal Farm and know exactly what politicians mean when they say, "Equality." It is equal luxury for themselves and equal misery for the rest of us.
However, I can make this whole "equality" thing a great deal easier. I will support our politicians' demands for "wage equality" when the following things happen:
1) When the president of the United States calls for "travel equality." He will pay for his own plane tickets and eat the same food we do when flying. All members of Congress will drive their own vehicles, paying for their own gasoline, taxes, repair and maintenance.
2) When the president of the United States calls for "vacation equality." The president of United States will actually pay for his own vacations like the rest of us do and stop taking $100 million vacations to Africa on the taxpayer dime.
3) When the president of the United States calls for "food preparation equality." The POTUS will fix his own meals using groceries he paid for out of his own money, just like the rest of us, instead of having a private chef prepare his meals.
4) When the president of the United States calls for "education equality." The POTUS sends his kids to Washington DC public schools instead of high-dollar elite private schools.
5) When the president of the United States calls for "graduation equality." The POTUS will address the fact that 60% of college degrees go to women and only 40% to men.
In other words, when millionaire politicians who have their food prepared for them by private chefs and who take $100 million dollar vacations on the taxpayer's dime talk to me about "equality," I get a little nervous. The pigs in Animal Farm loved to talk about equality . . . . for all the rest of us, not them. I see the same thing here.
Now, if a regular person, working a regular job raising a regular family, were to call for equality, I'd be more apt to listen. However, this is not the case. America, remember exactly who is telling us that we need to care about "wage equality." It certainly isn't anyone living like you or me.
