Lew Rockwell on how Americans worship equality

A sharp Martian visiting Earth would make two observations about the United States — one true, the other only superficially so. On the basis of its ceaseless exercises in self-congratulation, the US appears to him to be a place where free thought is encouraged, and in which man makes war against all the fetters on his mind that reactionary forces had once placed there. That is the superficial truth.

The real truth, which our Martian would discover after watching how Americans actually behave, is that the range of opinions that citizens may entertain is rather more narrow than it at first appears. There are, he will soon discover, certain ideas and positions all Americans are supposed to believe in and salute. Near the top of the list is equality, an idea for which we are never given a precise definition, but to which everyone is expected to genuflect.

~ Lew Rockwell, "The Menace of Egalitarianism," speech given at Dallas-Ft. Worth Mises Circle, October 3, 2015