Comments
by Scoper...
A DISCRIMINATING COLUMN
(for the discriminating
individual)
Discrimination is bad, discrimination
is wrong, discrimination is tearing our society apart. Therefore
any attempt to end discrimination is, deep down and inherently, a good
thing. I must confess that I was suckered into this mantra for years.
Many Americans still are. Slowly, over time, I realized that none
of us can get through the day without discriminating. Even worse,
the "anti-discrimination" groups have now become so discriminating themselves,
that they're now a textbook example of "good intentions gone bad."
Some of them are targeting
the Boy Scouts, because - surprise - they don't view homosexuality as moral.
I dwelt on this at some length in an earlier column, so I won't do that
again here, except to ask: how many people who disagree with the gay lifestyle,
yet have learned to become quietly tolerant of it, had any idea that their
tolerance would ultimately be used as a weapon against them?
"If you don't believe as
I do, I will have my revenge." And it is revenge, pure and simple,
a futile, destructive attempt to change people's hearts and minds by force,
leading us to, you guessed it: hate-crime laws. You might as well
say "thought-crime laws." George Orwell did 52 years ago, and his
words have never seemed so prophetic.
At last check, assault and
murder were always illegal, always serious felonies, occasionally punished
by death. But it's no longer enough to punish someone for what he
did, now we must punish him even more for what he was thinking when he
did it! That's quite a concept, considering I can't crawl inside
your head and you can't crawl inside mine.
If somebody shoots me in
the process of robbing me, is it more of a crime because he's black and
doesn't like white people? Or the other way around? And can
you imagine a violent criminal, any violent criminal, choosing his victims
on the basis of whether he held "hate in his heart" when he committed the
act? That just stretches the rubber band of reality to the
breaking point.
But there's still more: the
Americans with Disabilities Act, now 10 years old. Originally designed
to provide greater handicapped access, it's now a bonanza for greedy tort
lawyers. (Not all lawyers are greedy, of course, but I do hold them
under general suspicion. Uh oh. That might be a thought/hate
crime.) Recently, a woman sued Clint Eastwood for discrimination,
not because his hotel didn't provide handicapped access, but because the
access didn't meet her personal standards. She lost, but people were
surprised, apparently on the belief that all discrimination suits have
merit and should win.
At least one lawyer disagrees.
Julie Hofius is a wheelchair-bound woman who's good at what she does, but
has trouble finding work with a law firm. Why? In an article
for the Cato Institute ("How the ADA Handicaps Me") she writes:
"Thanks to the ADA, I can
physically get through (the) doors (and) have access to elevators.
(But) the physical obstacles…have been replaced with a more daunting obstacle…It
is hardly surprising that job-hunters with disabilities are viewed by employers
as "lawsuits on wheels."
Wonderful. Now this
intelligent, capable woman's law career is being hampered by other lawyers
and other disabled people! And all in the name of fighting that awful
"discrimination."
Discrimination is all around
us, but it's as often a positive as it is a negative. It's called
freedom of choice. Do you discriminate over whom you date?
If you're a white man who marries a white woman, are you a racist?
What about a black man who marries a black woman? Are you discriminating
against Burger King when you buy a Big Mac? Is a vegetarian discriminating
against the beef and poultry industries? Does the NBA discriminate
against short people? Do gymnastics discriminate against tall people?
And will this web site one
day be sued because it doesn't provide speaking text, thereby discriminating
against the blind?
Think I'm being silly?
Here's where we're headed: at the Sydney Olympics last month, one of the
competitors in swimming was a man from an African country who had just
learned to swim a few months earlier. He was in more danger of drowning
than winning, and indeed barely finished at all. For a few minutes,
the quadrennial competition of "the best of the best" became the "Pity
Olympics."
But of course, that's better
than discrimination. Isn't it?
Scoper
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