We hate egalitarian; most of us do, at least. We don't want to be average, let alone equal to the lowest (even if the lowest and highest are the same). We want to be special, different and individuated. We are willing to stake our personal worth on being the biggest fish in ANY pond, and we choose the pond accordingly. People who can't excel in a career choose to excel in a hobby. Americans feeling oppressed at home and at the office become tin hat dictators in the local pub. Regulars at the homeless shelters lord it over the others when they can.

The only people in America who love the 'egalitarian' are those who imagine themselves above it, forcing it on everybody else.

Those people are called liberals.

Everybody else doesn't want 'equality' - they want 'superiority.' Somewhere visible. In something other people can envy. They will spend time and money to 'earn' their petty superiorities. Even at Starbucks, if everything else is taken.

This may be pathetic, but it is hardly 'creepy' or un-American (like Social Security and universal health care).

Farily nice sort of Sinclair Lewis parody, and not completely wrong, until the very end. But, Social Security, 'un-American'? er, you know you can construct better arguments with a last edit before hitting send, don't you?

The only equality we should all have is opportunity, beyond that, you are on your own.

Equal opportunity can only exist if there is a level playing field. As long as homo sapiens have lived and organized themselves into groups a level playing field has not existed. The only way to have 'equal opportunity' is to create it. A society that rewared solely on the basis of merit is far more difficult to create than it appears. Nepotism would have to be declared illegal and that would mean an end to society as we know it. Men like Bush would never have a chance to become president. There are many other ramifications not so desirable.

Men like Bush? Obama blows you argument out of the water. No "equal opportunity"? Right.

Obama does not come from the kind of privilege that Bush comes from and on a 'level playing field' would have Bush for lunch in just about every conceivable category that can be measured. Whether one is in favor of Obama or not you cannot claim that he is where he is because of his powerful father and family while it is inconceivable that Bush is where he is without them.

He is where he is due to family connections. How many have parents, in his case admittedly absentee, who are BOTH PHDs? A connection as valid as any. Kennedy would have been elected if his only credentials were PT 109?

Ambrose Bierce: Heaven is a place where you can have everything you want, and a little more than the next guy.

If we did, all those inner-city children would not be forced to go to such thoroughly crummy schools.

Americans pay lip service to the idea or ideal of equal opportunity, but we self-evidently do not take it very seriously.

They have opportunity. Its just not perfect. Compare them to a poor white child in Appalachia where the dropout rate is similar. Why not use that as an example?

Nepotism is not only practiced by Republicans. You seem to think that I believe that Democrats are not as guilty of it. It is not about political parties. Bush is an extreme example, similar to the dog that ends up getting a PHD from Harvard law by way of someone else doing the work. There are plenty of examples that are not this extreme. I assume you are talking about Jack Kennedy. Nepotism is universally practiced and in most cases does not end up causing the kind of damage as in the case of Bush. The point is that in order for merit to be the primary measure of success there needs to be a level playing field for equal opportunity to exist. I cannot believe that you are seriously suggesting that Bush and Obama have had the same opportunity. Drop the two of them into an imaginary city with only what they carry in their head and body. My bet says Obama would end up running some part of the show and Bush would never be heard from again.

This is perhaps the most rediculous dispute I've ever seen on the Fray. There are many kinds of tribalism and 'nepotism' in the USA, and Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Obama, Carter, Gore, Kerry, McCain... they have all profited by relations, friends, associations, etc. There is no such thing as pure merit in politics anyway. Some people imagine that the biggest policy wonk is the most meritorious politician, forgetting that the politician's biggest job is usually to bring soft power and indirect force to bear on various people for the accomplishment of other people's dreams and goals. Wonks can be great advisors but they are usually useless leaders.

Forget the dreams that the democrats or republicans play a fundamentally pure, wonk centered, game. Neither could, neither should. Nor should anyone expect or even dream that the child of a homeless crack addict should have the same political aspirations as the child and grand child of a Navy Admiral, a state Governor, or a successful entrepreneur. Nonsense.