The Plunging Locomotive of Equality

A few days ago, someone asked me whether any of the Republican presidential contenders could lead the country to salvation. My answer was an immediate and unequivocal no.

This is not to disparage any of the contenders, who in normal times might very well be capable of steering the ship of state. But we now find ourselves in extraordinary circumstances, and a radically different set of qualifications is needed.

Numerous metaphors have circulated to describe the existential crisis of the West. One of the most picturesque is the runaway locomotive heading full-speed for the cliff.  I would add my own little tweak to this image, in order to endow it with full accuracy: The locomotive has already jumped the cliff. We are plunging into the ravine.

If any proof of this is still needed, the events of the last few months should suffice. In fields too numerous to mention, the government and “elites” of the Western countries have been raining ruin and destruction upon the heads of their people. The recent move by Congress and the President to drag the country into now irreversible financial collapse is only the most spectacular scene in this disaster film, a production so appalling and grotesque that no work of fiction could match it.

Only a leader who is fully cognizant of this reality, and operates within its constraints, will be capable of restoring a modicum of health to our dysfunctional society. This eventuality, however, is still out on the horizon. It does not yet belong to our current political constellation.

A Romney, or a Perry, or a Bachmann, if placed into the cab of our plunging locomotive, would instinctively grasp at the levers, attempting to slow the wreck. This, in essence, has been the standard conservative response to the mayhem and destruction sown by the Left. The basic paradigm of the Left has rarely been challenged head-on. No one has been able or willing to shunt the train to another track. Frantically pulling the brakes is the best we could ever hope for. But when the train has jumped the cliff, brakes are of no use (if they ever really were).

This is not meant as a criticism. Leaders are only a reflection of the people. A wise governor or president or king can lead the charge in a certain direction, but he cannot run miles ahead of the pack.

Government is a lagging indicator of the underlying culture. If Barack Hussein Obama didn’t exist, he would have to be invented. He is the logical result of nearly every trend in the West perhaps since the French Revolution, and certainly of the entire landscape in the United States since the 1960s.

In all likelihood, the style of leader we so desperately need will not emerge until the train hits the bottom of the ravine. Only a shock of great magnitude can force the majority to reject the paradigm that has been force-fed over the course of decades.

The old mindset is toxic; it must be uprooted and replaced. The new mindset—the new railroad track—must be constructed on the following simple reality: Civilization is based on inequality. In other words, inequality is beneficial. This seemingly revolutionary principle has been considered obvious at most times and places. No accomplishment is possible without inequality. Excellence in every field depends on it. Without a hierarchy, no domain of human endeavor can function effectively. Without a ranking of people and their abilities, there can be no development of art, industrial design, architecture, literature, theater, baseball, haute cuisine, fine wines, technology, medicine, and so on. Likewise, there can be no aspirations. If everyone is the same, why bother to improve yourself?

Inequality is human. Equality, however, belongs to the animal world, to the herd. It is no coincidence that the ideologies of rampaging egalitarianism seek an endless leveling, in order to reduce society to an amorphous mass of jelly, an undifferentiated herd of cattle. The Left knows that an honest appraisal of human abilities is a great threat to their plans, an obstacle to their dream of a totalitarian world in which the human spirit is crushed forever.

If you doubt what I say about the possibility of our current leadership overtly recognizing and acting in accordance with these principles, run a simple test in your mind. Can you imagine one of the Republican presidential candidates appearing on CNN, and saying flat out, “Equality is bad”? Just like that, those three words. My guess is that you cannot imagine it. And for good reason: It is impossible. The candidate’s political career would be over, effective immediately.

This will change, however, and perhaps very soon. We can lay the groundwork by educating ourselves and those around us. Let us state without hesitation, without conditions, without excuses, that equality is bad.

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Our short-term outlook, courtesy of the Manchurian president and his enablers: