How many times have you heard your boss or your parent or even a friend say something like this:

If I do this for one of you, I have to do it for everybody.

Think about the implications of this for a moment. What the person is saying is that we are all exactly alike, with the same needs, desires and capacity for enjoyment or pain.

Politically, it could be said to be a confusion of "all men are created equal" with "all men are identical." As if everyone actually had an IQ of 100, all women were 5'6" tall and every family had 1.7 children with an income of $27,000 a year. Ludicrous when put in those terms.

The statement, "all men are created equal," while a fine philosophical or spiritual valuation, does not hold in other categories, nor would we want it to be so.

Some people are short, some tall; some intellectually brilliant, some gifted in manual dexterity; some leaders, some followers, and so on.

It follows then that what I do or give or offer to one should not be exactly the same as for everyone else, but should be a fair equivalent or an appropriate substitute--or nothing at all. A minimum living wage and Social Security to workers; nothing at all to multi-millionaire CEOs and members of Congress, for example, who have no need of such support for a decent standard of life.

From this position it's only a short mental hop to looking at a society where each contributes according to his abilities and in turn receives according to his needs, with "extras" available to those who want (and are able) to earn them.

I wrote the above many years ago when I was but a sprout. I wonder how well it stands today....