Noah Rothman writes for National Review Online about the true goals of those who push for “equity” in public policy.
Occasionally, proponents of the concept of “equity” forget that they are supposed to emphasize the benefits of the discrimination they advocate on behalf of America’s allegedly marginalized minorities. Instead of highlighting their fraught but well-intentioned program of positive discrimination, they sometimes let the mask slip and indulge the bitter avarice that drives their ideological crusade. The San Francisco Chronicle did just that in a recent story on the private, for-profit firefighting teams who helped save some Los Angeles properties from going up in flames — “raising questions about equity” in the process.
“Critics contend that when wealthy individuals hire their own firefighters, they compete with public teams for precious resources such as water, and could potentially interfere with those teams’ efforts by, for example, blocking or crowding narrow access points,” the Chronicle reports. That is a reasonable objection, although there have been few reports of such conflicts since the fires erupted last week. Rather, what has been reported is that residents suffered unduly from a shortage of LAFD personnel, which private firefighters would help mitigate.
It’s all a red herring anyway; a smoke screen that distracts from equity advocates’ true objection to this phenomenon, which is their revulsion toward suffering that is not visited equally — perhaps even disproportionately — on those who they believe deserve to suffer.
The Chronicle provided an example of this invidious impulse. “The rich suffer zero consequences of anything, even cataclysmic natural disasters,” read one illustrative comment, posted on X. Indeed, the dispatch could have sprawled with examples of social media users reveling in the torment they hope those of means experience after watching their homes and possessions disintegrate in an inferno.
This covetous instinct may be ugly, but it is a trait native to our imperfect species. We shouldn’t celebrate it or festoon it with the trappings of virtue. And yet, that is precisely what the concept of “equity” does.
