The Fickle Nature of Fairness

My mom used to tell my brother and I about an episode in which there was one candy bar left and we had to share it.  She asked who wanted to divide it.  I, being the oldest and most certainly the wisest, volunteered.  I cut the candy bar into about a 1/3 cut and a 2/3 cut.  HA!  Smart me, now I’ll just take the 2/3 cut.  My mom stopped me and told my brother to pick first.  WHAT?  Of course he picked the 2/3 cut.  (Turns out he wasn't

as dumb as I thought he was.)  I was outraged!  Mom, how could you do that?  That’s not fair!  She said life isn't fair, but you can be.  From that point on, when we had the same situation, I think you would have had to use a micrometer to measure the two halves.  It took 20 minutes to cut the darn candy bar, we were being that careful to make the halves as equal as possible.

We've heard a lot about fairness lately.  In fact, “fairness” seems to be a rallying cry for many liberals.  President Obama, in his Weekly Address commemorating Memorial Day, said “So this weekend, as we commemorate Memorial Day, I ask you to hold all our fallen heroes in your hearts.  And every day, let us work together to preserve what their sacrifices achieved – to make our country even stronger, even more fair, even more free” (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/05/28/obamas_memorial_day_message_fallen_heroes_fought_to_make_country_more_fair.html).  (By the way, I don’t believe our fallen heroes gave their lives for fairness – they gave them for freedom and liberty.)  There have been many calls for fairness from numerous representatives on Capitol Hill.  But what is fairness?  What is fair?

The Miriam-Webster on-line dictionary defines “fair” a number of ways.  Most pertinent is this definition: marked by impartiality and honesty : free from self-interest, prejudice, or favoritism ; (1) conforming with the established rules : allowed (2) :consonant with merit or importance : due ; open to legitimate pursuit, attack, or ridicule .  But this is the “official” definition of “fair.”

The definition of fair differs quite a bit in politics depending on the political affiliation.  There have been many calls for the “rich” to pay more – their “fair share.”  The President has also said that he wants a country “where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules” (http://www.barackobama.com/state-of-the-union/).  Sounds good.  The problem is that the political definition of “fair” is often defined by whoever is in power.  “Fair” has become the rallying cry for increasingly higher number of people receiving government handouts, aka welfare.

“Fair” doesn't mean that everyone gets the same starting point.  There are people born into lives of advantage and those born into poverty.  There are those born with incredible intelligence, and those that aren't.  There are those born with amazing athletic skill and play professional sports or win Olympic medals, and those that have two left feet.  There are those that naturally excel, those that have to work hard at it, and those that just don’t. 

The “War on Poverty” initiated by President Lyndon B. Johnson was an attempt to eradicate poverty in America.  Yet after decades of spending, almost 16% of Americans live at or below the poverty line (http://www.npr.org/2012/08/04/158141728/how-americas-losing-the-war-on-poverty).  In fact, poverty was continually falling until the war on poverty started and since then the poverty rate has slowly climbed (http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/library/chart-graph/poverty-rate-was-fallinguntil-war-poverty-began).  In American government mentality, if it’s not working, throw more money at it.  To date, $15 trillion (that’s with a “T”) have been spent on the war on poverty since 1964 (http://www.ksl.com/?nid=757&sid=21057405).  While there are families that truly need the assistance, there are others that take advantage of and abuse the system.  Is this fair?  Today, federal assistance money is being spent on lavish food items and at strip clubs.  Is this fair?

There’s a big push from the federal government to get as many young people into college.  But here’s the thing: not everyone has the ability to successfully complete a college degree program.  Is it fair that tax payers fund scholarships to those that don’t display the academic acumen to successfully complete college?  It’s also been said that college graduates are saddled with a significant financial burden as a result of going to college and are graduating without job prospects.  There have been calls to erase the government student loans because it’s not “fair” that graduates have that debt.  Excuse me?  You mean you fill out the paperwork, go to and graduate from college, and then you want to get out of the loan?  Is this fair?  Certainly not for the taxpayers.  But here are a couple more important lessons for those graduates:  1) You've made your bed, now sleep in it.  It’s called taking responsibility for your actions and being accountable for your decisions.  That’s the real world and it’s fair.  2) The real world will not forgive your debt.  Trying making that argument to your mortgage company, and you’ll be tossed out of your house.

Here’s a thought.  If the government wants to forgive the actual student loan debt, put the graduates to work for the federal government at a low ranking job to pay it off.  The graduates get work and experience, the government gets something for the money it paid out, and the government becomes good stewards of taxpayer money.  Now that seems fair.

There are a lot of young people in the country with amazing athletic skill.  Yet, only about 0.03% of any single male high school student becoming a professional basketball play (0.02% for female students).  The odds are “a little better” for football: 0.08% (http://www.thesportdigest.com/archive/article/what-are-odds-becoming-professional-athlete).  So even if you have amazing athletic skills, the chances of you achieving your dream of professional sports aren't all that great.  Not that a student should give up that dream, just realize that you aren't owed a professional sports career because you play well.  It’s called competition.  That’s the real world, it’s not always fair, get used to it.

Throughout the world, America is the fairest of countries in the world.  If it weren't, we wouldn't have had 1,062,040 people obtain permanent resident status in 2011 (http://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/immigration-statistics/yearbook/2011/ois_yb_2011.pdf).  If this wasn't the fairest country in the world, why would people literally put their lives at risk to get here?  If the American dream, democracy, freedom, and liberty as our Founding Fathers envisioned this country embracing were so terrible, why would so many people want to come here?  But I digest.

The Founding Fathers stated in the Declaration of Independence that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” (http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html).  They set up our form of government to help ensure that everyone is able to pursue life, liberty, and happiness.  Ideally, this would have created the utopia everyone sought.  Unfortunately, because of the sinful nature of man, we didn't always follow this idea.  Blacks were enslaved and not given full freedom until the mid-1900s in many places in the country.  They were certainly not treated fairly.  I wish I could say that discrimination has been erased, but that would be foolish.  It is up to all of us to root out discrimination and stop it wherever it is.

Another form of discrimination is favoritism.  When we lift an individual or particular group of individuals above everyone else, that isn't fair.  The Bible warns us about showing preferential treatment (James 2:1 & 9).  Preferential treatment is given with the implied or expressed intent of getting something back or lifting up one person or group over another.  Regardless of the intent, there is always a bill to pay down the road; you’ll have to pay the piper at some point.

A “fair shot” means that anyone and everyone has the ability and capability to reach their own individual potential, not the potential of someone else.  In America, like no other place in the world, anyone can reach their full potential if they try hard enough, work hard enough, and want it hard enough.  But even then, we might not achieve our best, but that’s life, and life sometimes isn't fair.  Getting government handouts will never allow anyone to reach their full potential, only that which the government (i.e. the taxpayers) can afford.  We are equal under the law, we are equal in God’s eyes, but we are not equal to each other.  Each of us has our own abilities and talents that we must use to lift each other up, not lift ourselves above everyone else.  Life may not be fair, but we can be.

That’s my 2 cents … for what it’s worth.