Response to "Envy"

My blog posts sync with my Facebook account.  My brother responded to my blog post of  4/30/2010 (which finally was posted  today).  He said

Isn't the idea of equality supposed to be a founding principle of this nation? 

To which I reply, "It depends upon which type of equality you are referring."


There is equality before the law, as articulated in the Declaration of Independence.  In it, our founding fathers stated

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

The “Declaration of the Rights of the Inhabitants of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts”, penned by John Adams in 1780 perhaps states the idea more clearly.

Article I. All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness

They wrote this in rebuttal to the idea of the Divine Right of Kings at a time when the law for the commoner was not the law for the royals. Created equal means that our nation does not recognize certain classes to be superior than others and all people in this nation have equal state and standing before the law.
Even though we've veered some from this founding notion of our nation with some of the current class-based politics (hate crimes, protected classes in employment law, affirmative action laws, etc in which one group is 'more equal' than others.) and that wealth and power still create a pseudo nobility which often receive much fairer treatment than the poor and obscure (to the nation's shame), most of our nation's law is based around guiding principle.
But I wasn't talking about that kind of equality. No, I meant the equality of outcome.
My problem with equalizing outcome that I discussed in my blog post is that in attempting to equate outcome, the government must restrict freedom.  It has no other choice. Either it must take from one to give to another, or prevent one from accomplishing his potential so that he will not overshadow those with less potential.
If we are both handed a shovel, one of us digs for ten hours while the other doesn't, the results aren't equal.  We both had an equality of opportunity (the shovel, the dirt, and the ability to dig), but outcome was not equal.  If we were paid by cubic foot of dirt dug, one would make out well, the other wouldn't.
But, equality of outcome means that in the above scenario the government ignores the difference in the amount of effort applied and money it takes from one and give to the other, to make things equal.
Is it fair for you, after toiled in the sun all day to dig that hole, for the government to take your pay to give to me, who found a shady spot and napped?  This rewards my sloth, and punishes your  work.  When the Soviet Union experienced this, they sent men with machine guns to force both do the same amount of work. That's not freedom but oppression.
Furthermore, the highest need in Maslow's hierarchy of needs is self-actualization, which I will define as a human reaching his or her fullest potential based on the skills, desires, talents and abilities he posses. Under a model of equality of outcome, nobody can reach this except, perhaps, the lowest-functioning among us.
The only true way to allow people to grow and nurture the talent they have while being fair is to dispense with the notion of equality of outcome and focus solely on equality of opportunity because attempting to enforce that type of equality leads only to equality of misery and suppression of the human spirit.