In a recent article, I spoke about the “left”, “democrats”, “progressives” and “Blacks” in a rather stereotypical fashion. I did this to point out how asinine it is to lump people in groups or, in other words, to stereotype them based on certain traits, characteristics, behaviors, or appearance.
Sadly, the Diversity & Inclusion bunch do this all of the time. Far from being inclusive, they only welcome those who share their beliefs and exclude anyone who has a different value set. I am not intentionally stereotyping everyone in this group, but it is the culture in and of itself that makes it nearly impossible to be an independent thinker and be included in their orbit.
Progressives seek to change almost all aspects of society without really knowing what it is they wish to achieve other than change for change’s sake. Take the final piece of their moniker, which is Equity, as in, Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity. In retrospect, they had to rearrange the order to keep their acronym from becoming DIE.
Equity is very poorly defined today. You hear people talk about equality as equity but that doesn’t actually encompass all that most progressives see as the goal of equity. Equity to them is the redistribution of assets, regardless of the consequences, due to their belief that those who control vast amounts of assets obtained them due to having an advantage others do not enjoy.
For instance, property owners who fit a certain demographic, would have their property seized and transferred to someone who, based on other criteria, has been unfairly penalized and unable to acquire property. This seizure could come in many different ways from overburdensome taxation to actual redistribution under government programs. The following is from a paper linked here of one such plan:
- Redistribution. ‘Downstream’ action is required to improve equity by reducing inequality.
Progressive taxation can help, if the additional fiscal space created is used to fund
interventions that will support equity. Other priorities include lowering taxes on staple goods
and applying taxes on property – inheritance taxes are key. Land reform is also crucial and redistribution may be required to provide the poor with productive assets.
My issue with most of the left is that they refuse to actually have a meaningful conversation about the expected results of their plans from a “living minimum wage” to “tax the rich” along with vast other perceived problems. A living minimum wage will result in a proportional increase in the cost of goods and services, and the rich are already taxed to the point that the top 1% paid 45.8% of income tax collected for the year 2021 according to the article found here.
The same article points out that the bottom 50% paid only 2.3% of income taxes collected. Maybe we should apply our “Equity and Inclusion” here and make the tax burden “Fair and Balanced”.
More to come.