So, here in the "land of the free, and home of the brave," exactly how much equality exists between us Americans?
Let me tell you. Across all households, the national median net worth is $86,000. Half of your fellow citizens have more than that, and half less.
The top ten percent have, on average, a net worth of $833,600, according to the
most recent Federal Reserve Board Survey.
One percent of the U.S. population -- nearly 3 million people -- currently has as much money as the 100 million people at the bottom of our pyramid.
This afternoon, my 13-year-old asked me to drive him out to the JV Girls' championship game at the fancy gymnasium at the Katherine Delmar Burke School (KDBS). It was a classic confrontation between the rich side of town and the poor.
For me, it was a complicated moment. I am still grateful for the excellent education my oldest two girls received at KDBS a quarter century ago. But, tonight, the Mission District prevailed over Pacific Heights. The final score was in Synergy's favor, 14-10.
-30-
p.s. The latest link to a Free Bird concert on YouTube:
1 comment:
David,
Formula for Equality in America:
E=MC²
(Equality equals Money times an individual's Capacity to remove it as a measurement, squared)
Using the term “equal”, within the American culture, is very dangerous, indeed. It immediately provokes misconceptions among many, and in so doing, overwhelms judgment with emotion. “Equality” is a very important concept in American heritage and requires diligence in it's use.
“We hold these truths to be self evident...” opened a new chapter in humanity. It announced in a way never so announced before, that human beings were granted certain “rights” - not by governments of men, but by a source well beyond the petty, frail, and much flawed human capacity for measuring equality. Though the document was unmistakably laden with Christian influence, its message has clearly resonated with people of many beliefs ever since.
Equality in that context has nothing to do with how much you have, how you appear, who you know, what social post you may occupy... it is rather a declaration that these petty measurements must not be abused to deprive you of your life, your liberty, or your ability to pursue happiness. It proclaims clearly and concisely your birth right to such, and attempts to distance that birth right from the diminishing effect by governments of men.
Nowhere - not in the Federalist Papers, not in the Declaration, not in the (original) Constitution – will you find a hint of effort to create governance by men to impose a standard for “equal” division of wealth among men. This is very important.
When you look at another American with an eye to measuring whether he is enjoying full measure of “equality”, you must limit the instruments you employ to those which will measure his ability to protect his life, his ability to think and do independently, and his ability to think and do what pleases him most.
That you can measure individual outcomes by any monetary standard to determine equality is false. It requires that you first assume every individual invests precisely the same effort, in precisely the same manner, at precisely the same time... and that every individual perceives the values of that standard to be precisely the same.
Everything in the Federalist Papers, Declaration, and (original) Constitution fairly screamed this message: Humans are NOT equal in their individual actions, but their freedom to act individually MUST be equally protected. We forget the former to the destruction of the latter.
Dan
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