Paul Craig Roberts over gelijkheid en privilege

Paul Craig Roberts is een vooraanstaand Amerikaans econoom en conservatief opiniemaker. Hij was redacteur van het magazine "Business Week", huiscolumnist bij de "Wall Street Journal" en onderminister van financiën in de eerste regering van Ronald Reagan. Roberts wordt door velen beschouwd als één van de grondleggers van de Reaganomics. Ook vonden we hem doorheen de eerste helft van de jaren 1990 constant terug in de "Forbes Magazine"-ranglijst van "tien beste Amerikaanse journalisten". Roberts, ondertussen al 70 jaar oud, kan terugblikken op een zéér rijkgevulde carrière, maar hij weigert nog steeds op zijn lauweren te rusten. In de laatste twee jaar publiceerde hij nog twee boeken: één over de financiële crisis en één over de teloorgang van de Amerikaanse Grondwet. Paul Craig Roberts schrijft tevens voor tal van opiniërende magazines en is een vaak gevraagde gast in politieke talkshows op radio en televisie.

Onlangs vond ik een schitterend artikel van hem terug, waarvan ik hieronder enkele stukken zal citeren, over hoe "privilege" meer en meer de plaats ingenomen heeft van "gelijkheid". Wat hij schrijft, is iets dat alle productieven, zeker die in Europa, ook aanvoelen. Het is stilaan een zonde geworden om productief, blank en gezond te zijn.

Growing up in America: Privilege displaces equality
By Paul Craig Roberts, Chronicles Magazine

None of us growing up in Atlanta in the 1940’s were under the delusion that we were equal. We were aware of a myriad of differences that had nothing to do with race or gender. Some were better football players. Others were better baseball players. Some could run faster. Others were more witty, or better fighters, or more attractive, or smarter, or more fun to be with. Yet none of us had any illusions that special talent or physical attributes bestowed special rights. Neither the best quarterback, the best pitcher, the best fighter, nor the prettiest girl got to go to the head of the line. The only person with special privileges was teacher’s pet. And teacher’s pet paid in spades for the privileges. (...) Today, taunting the teacher’s pet would be a hate crime.

(...)

Privilege, based on race, gender, and handicapped status, was introduced into American society after I was an adult. I graduated from Georgia Tech three years before the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed. (...) The act defined discrimination as an intentional action. (...) Banking on the inclination of the federal judiciary to defer to agency interpretation, [they] succeeded in redefining discrimination to be “disparate impact.” Thus, discrimination became the absence of proportional representation of “favored minorities.” That was the end of equality under the law. Bureaucrats (...) created privilege based on skin color. Blacks went to the head of the line. Feminists made sure that women soon joined the ranks of the legally privileged, as did advocates for the handicapped. Today homosexuals are pushing to join the privileged.

(...)

I have been in many airport parking lots where there are scores of unused spaces reserved for the handicapped. I have missed flights from having to resort to satellite parking so that handicapped privileges may sit there unused. Many a time all of us have arrived at shopping centers in the rain to find that all close-in parking is reserved for the handicapped. Whoever allots these spaces vastly overestimates the percentage of handicapped who frequent airports and shopping centers. (...) What the signs [$500 fine] tell us is that we are second-class citizens. Because we are not handicapped, we cannot park in an available space, which has to be reserved in the event that hordes of handicapped motorists arrive. Young people learn the same lesson when they apply to graduate schools and for jobs. Preferences trump abilities.

(...)