Discrimination Inequality

            We live in a crazy, upside-down world, which is much like the world described in George Orwell’s 1984. The novel is all about how Big Brother and The Party control Oceania in a totalitarian state and how none of the citizens have any freedom. In November 2016 Christianna Wiggins wrote the following comparison between 1984 and our day, and the Mueller report, along with the Democrat reaction, confirms the fears of a power-hungry central government. 

In the mid-20^th century, George Orwell wrote a book about an ominous future society that featured a watchful Big Brother, crazy war propaganda, and sheep-like citizens. The dystopian cult classic painted a chilling but fictional picture that even the New York Times called an “excess of satire” upon its release in 1949.

In 2016, it doesn’t seem that excessive.

The novel, which was meant as a satire of the political climate in which it was written, has somehow withheld the test of time. From the way that citizens in 1984 follow their fearful leader without question, like most of us dutifully follow the law, to the book’s eerily watchful technology that tracks your every move, similar to how satellites and the internet track us today, there are a number of striking comparisons.

            Wiggins lists the following comparisons between 1984 and American life in 2016:

(1) Telescreens, the two-way televisions that worked similar to our computers; (2) Newspeak, the newly-created words that caused confusion and were used to persuade the citizens to do whatever the government wanted them to do; (3) The idea that war is peace; (4) Proles, a group of uninformed workers who were happy simply because they had no idea what was going on;

(5) The Brotherhood, rebellious outcasts fighting against Big Brother, similar to today’s activists.

            I have to admit that there are numerous similarities between the fictional 1984 and today. Technology changes so rapidly that mere mortals like me cannot keep up with it. Politicians and other so-called leaders in our nation change the meaning of words and use politically-correct language. Our nation is fighting wars on several fronts, but American citizens go merrily on their way with no personal sacrifices required. There are so many activists on both sides of the political situation that most people cannot keep them straight, and all of them claim to be protecting the Constitution. One example of the doublespeak is the idea that illegal aliens are undocumented immigrants because there are no illegal individuals.

            An article by Walter Williams, which is a review of a new book written by Thomas Sowell, made me think of 1984 without even mentioning the novel. Sowell’s book is titled “Discrimination and Disparities,” and Williams reviews a chapter titled “Social Visions and Human Consequences.” Williams says that Sowell challenges the idea that “human endeavors would tend to be equal” except for “biased interventions” and “genetic deficiencies.” He says that “academicians, lawyers, and courts” use “disparate impact statistics” to prove their points. He gives some examples of why their statistics do not work to stop the discrimination inequality, one of which follows. 

Different social classes raise their children differently. Studies have shown that children whose parents are professional heard more words per hour than children whose families are on welfare. Studies show that professional parents used “more words and more different words … more multiclause sentences, more past and future verb tenses…. The ratio of affirmative words to negative words was six to one with parents who had professional occupation.”

By contrast, families on welfare used discouraging words more than 2 to 1: words such as “Don’t,” “Stop,” “Quit,” and “Shut up.”

Sowell sarcastically asks, are we to believe that children raised in such different ways, many years before they reach an employer, a college admissions office, or crime scene are the same in capabilities, orientation, and limitations?

Social justice warriors ignore many differences that have little or nothing to do with discrimination but have an enormous impact on outcomes….

            Our so-called leaders are trying to get equal outcomes out of widely-varying circumstances and crying discrimination when the desired results do not come. Instead, our leaders should be concentrating on creating an atmosphere where every American has an equal opportunity to prosper. The best place to make this happen is in the home.

            Our government should develop policies that would encourage marriage and families. In my studies over the past week, I learned that there are whole groups of people where not one person knows a couple with a long-term marriage – long term being any time longer than just a couple of years.

            Since marriage is a learned behavior, as is divorce, how can we expect people to know how to develop a mutually satisfying marriage when they have never known anyone that had such a marriage? We need to stop the doublespeak and start speaking in plain language. We need to say things as they are and not as we wish they were. We need to bring back the idea that each person has the right to live their life as they choose but are responsible for the consequences of those choices. We need proclaim long and loud that the family is the core unit of society and that society will fail without strong families.