If we were to treat the notion of “colorblindness” as the animating principle of the Constitution, the law, and the very concepts of justice and quality, we would thereby concede the moral, ethical, and ideological debates to those who assert that our interpretation of the world must be based, one way or another, on race. Instead, we should regard liberty, not “colorblindness,” as our highest ideal.
Seems pretty self explanatory to me. You can be different but equal. To use a metaphor, a truck and a car are built in very different ways, but they still travel the same roads, use the same fuels, carry the same people, and drive to the same places. It doesnt matter how you’re built, what matters is where you go.
I hope that makes sense.
That’s a good metaphor!
Even so, there’s luxury cars/trucks and economical cars/trucks. Sure, the purpose of a car or truck is to get you from point A to point B. In the objectives of a vehicle, they’re all mostly the same. But it’s in how it achieves its purpose that differences pop up. Luxury performance cars get you from point A to point B with style and a roaring engine, while my little 2019 Hyundai Ioniq does so with an austere sense of minimalism. Thus cars, in their means of achieving their objective, are different.
Why isn’t it the same with people? I concede that humans are humans, but some humans are financiers while others are nurses. How are we equal in our humanness but different in our methods of expressing it? Charitably, it sounds like the conservative ideal is to treat those differences as equal, but that’s never what really happens.
You’re confusing the attributes of a person. I’m a high income, wealthy person with a high IQ and a ton of education. At the end of the day, I’m the same as the homeless guy down the street. We are both humans.
It’s why I never celebrate the death of another human like liberals do. we are all humans.
Right, but so what? You’re both human. Great. It’s like the conservative argument is:
Therefore what? These two premises are contradictory and nothing can ever follow from them. That we’re all equally human doesn’t make it necessary to treat every human as equal before the law, and that we’re all unequal in our attributes doesn’t mean the law should provide preferential treatment either.
I mean, you said it yourself: you and a homeless person are both human, but he’s homeless and you’re wealthy and educated. Why is there a difference in income and wealth and education? Those are all social attributes, not innate human ones. Do you think what innate attributes you have justify the social inequalities?
I think the answer to that last question is what I’m missing.