On Martin Luther King

I have posted on MLK day before and my feelings are not hard to discern. I think he was a hugely influential figure who sadly is still quite polarizing. I am not sure why anyone would be against a man who stood for non-violence, who sought a positive, needed change and did as much if not more than any single person to move the issue of equal opportunity for non-white people to the forefront.

Contrast him with someone like Malcolm X who rejected socially acceptable naming conventions and was militant, advocating physical action that would have (and often did) lead to death, not often of the guilty.

You  might take note of a discrepancy between my verbiage above, however, and the verbiage most often used. I specifically and very intentionally said equal opportunity rather than equality.

The harsh, unpopular truth is all people are not equal. Some people are more talented than others. Some people work harder than others. And yes, some people are even luckier than others. Some people have more ambition.

I do not believe equalizing all people is a good thing. I am not for equal income. In fact, it really gets my goat when I see people who are unabashedly lazy that are taking money from my pocket to give them a better standard of living than I have. That isn't right.

I have worked with people like that in the past. They slough off work, and slack when at work. They are unproductive.

It is no accident that there is exactly one person I will recommend for any job, any time, any place, whether he knows how to do the job or not. That is because I have worked with him in the past and I know his work ethic. He will never leave something for others to do if he doesn't have to. He arrives early, stays late, and gets more stuff done day in and day out than other people in similar jobs.

No, I don't think it right that people who show up as close to punch-the-clock time as possible, take extra long breaks, leave early with regularity, call in sick often, and so forth are worth as much as he is, financially speaking. 

At the same time, I don't think people should be rejected from having a chance because they have different levels of skin pigment. I believe we should strive to admit that people are people. There are good people and bad people of all colors and it is way past time to move past that nonsensical, immoral discrimination based on color.

And that is true for everyone. You will note i do not use terms like "African American" any more than I use "Irish American". 

Pick one. Are you Scottish or are you American? Setting yourself apart as different and then complaining when you are treated different is illogical, untenable, and problematic on many, many levels. 

I do not use any ancestry in conjunction with American. I find it to be divisive and offensive and will not participate in that. Lets move past the need to label and move past where we seek out extra reasons to be offended regardless of the intent of the speaker. 

Let's stop equating opportunity with results, also. Not all of us will have the same results with the same opportunity. Just sayin'. I guess it had been a while since I said something controversial...like, I don't know, one day? Let the hate mail start.