Achieving Mediocrity

One of my main beefs with Liberal/Progressive ideology is that in its practice it does not reward achievement. From socialism’s redistribution of wealth to the dumbing down of our schools through inane self esteem programs, this odd mantra dominates much of what the modern day Liberal espouses.
To the Left, the wealthy are all evil greedy bean counters only made rich off the toil of the poor and the luck of a fortunate fate. Their sacrifice, stress, and hard work are either completely denied or at least mostly ignored. A quick glance at the Liberal’s list of whipping boys shows this point all too clearly...Wal-Mart, Big Oil, Microsoft, Halliburton, ‘Fat Cat CEOs’, the ‘top 1% of wage earners’, and so on.
But it would seem to the logical mind that when one tears down the great, one does not create more of the great just more of the average, or worse, more of the poor. As Thomas Sowell puts it succinctly in a recent TownHall column on the upsurge in wealth in neo-capitalist China versus less successful programs elsewhere,
in “...Zimbabwe today, attempts at a redistribution of wealth have turned out to be a redistribution of poverty...”
The main tenets of Socialism, and yes Communism, have this at their very core. That there must be no greatness. That all men are not merely created equal, but doomed to be so. That those humans of greatness must be torn from their height to sit with the lazy and the bored. How does this make Humanity better? How do we as a species look to an outside observer when we tear down the great and exalt the average? How does this help us to evolve?
Part of the Left’s hatred of Capitalism springs from Capitalism’s proof that competition causes evolution. It is odd that the theory they so cherish and protect in the public schools, frightens them so much when seen in the economic world. Odd yes, but understandable as well. Competition leads most always to a win-lose scenario. To a winner and a loser. To one man or idea being greater than another. To an achievement. And to the mind of the Leftist, this can not stand.
Surely this is why they fight so hard against school vouchers. It is the hatred and fear of competition. Fear that competition will make for better schools, churning out more intelligent and qualified students. Students public school children would have a disadvantage in competing against. The recent Florida Supreme court decision is a prime example of this thinking. Andrew Coulson in a recent Cato Institute article put it this way,
“If you think kids are all the same, and that monopolies are the key to quality and efficiency, consider moving to Florida. As of this week, a uniform government bureaucracy is the only legal approach to public education in the Sunshine State.”
Why on Earth should we even try another method when the NEA, who currently teach our children so very well, are so dead set against it? And surely the NAACP has the future of the young black student in mind when it too denounces school vouchers.
But if these examples were all there were to the Liberal world view that attacked greatness and achievement they could be dismissed as aberrations. But alas, they are not.
There is also the Left’s simmering hatred of all things America. Some may say despite of, but could it not be rather because of her greatness and achievement? ‘How could such a great and powerful country rise from something as unjust as Capitalism’, they ask.
And we also have their tax programs that almost universally hit the productive and the achievers most hard. The hatred of the top 10% of wage earners. Their lust for the estate tax. The politics of envy.
Along these same lines we have their profound hatred for profit, whether record or otherwise. The attacks on Wal-Mart and Big Oil prove this out.
So what is it, then, in the Leftist mind set that causes one to so despise achievement? Well, I believe it is fear. Fear of failure. Fear of struggle. Fear of loss. Fear of sacrifice. And this would be fine if their fear were kept at the personal level. But as we see all around us, it is not. It is repackaged, politicized, and sold to a waiting audience. It is wrapped in entitlement claims and victim status. It is boxed as the politics of envy and the loathing of the rich. And sent to us then with a guarantee that we just may all achieve sublime mediocrity.