Human equality is a universal (Natural Law) concept, and it is the only unshakable justification for political freedom. Because we are equal as human beings, we are each entitled to an equal voice in the government over us. Political freedom, if you will.

If humans are not equal, then dictatorship of the superior persons over the inferiors is justifiable. Those who plead the cause of freedom but reject human equality actually plead a different cause: consciously or unconsciously, they defend preferential status and a license to exploit others.

As seen in the responses to Humphrey’s questionnaire, equality is something deeper than logic; it is an irressible feeling in each person. The disregard of the human-equality/political-freedom principle on any grounds will cause problems, just as it did in 1776.

- paraphrased from pg 46, VFNM

So if all this is a repeat of 200 years ago, the question of “What is Human Equality” still remained. Dr. Humprey figured that the best way to find the answer was to ask for assistance from a few well respected institutions he was affiliated with.

He wrote back to his scholarly colleagues around Harvard, MIT, and the Fletcher School of Diplomacy. Replies included comments about “equality of opportunity” and “equality under the law.” The American GIs and host-nationals laughed at those ideas as “intellectual suicide.” A simple glance at the circumstances and one could see why.

The Declaration of Independence

Going back to what one could argue is one of the most foundational literary works that our country is based on, are “all men created equal” or not? According to that group of “higher ups” the answer is no.

A religious person might say that, “Yes, we are all equal because we are all created in the image of God” or perhaps, “Yes, because we are all God’s children” or perhaps, “We are equal because God loves us all and His love and value of our lives gives them worth.” But not all religions agree so we have to step beyond even that.

A lawyer might state “equality in the eyes of the law” but isn’t that, in some ways, communism at its best? Don’t forget that there was also a misunderstanding of human equality versus economic equality with regard to this as well. The list could go on.

Mission: Impossible

Days went by, then months. Dr. Humphrey found no answers, but he did clarify the issue into two crucial questions:

1. How does one teach equality?

2. What, exactly, does human equality mean?

He eventually found himself going on a few hunting trips, and it was on one of these trips that the answer came from a very unexpected source.

Read about The Hunting Trip next.

The U.S. Ambassador said to not bother with a survey. Dr. Humphrey simply replied that, if it was ok, he wanted to proceed with questioning the locals, anyway. And he did. Those two simple questions were:

1) What do you want from America?

2) What can Americans do to (or not do) to make things better?

The amazing thing was that he actually got the same answer back to BOTH questions!

Respect Us as Equals

The overwhelming majority (upper 90%) of answers came back in some way to say, “Respect us as equals”:

1. Stop treating our women like trash.
2. Stop laughing at us when we do something you don’t understand.
3. Stop looking down on our customs and traditions.
4. Stop thinking your culture is superior to ours.
5. Remember you are a guest in our country.
6. Don’t assume we’re idiots.

Those answers all boil down into one word: Respect.

Note: When most large groups of people were asked to guess the answer back then, no one hardly ever guessed correctly. Five decades ago, the idea of “respect” in this manner wasn’t even thought of. Most were shocked when they found out it was the answer because they thought the locals really did want more money or for the Americans to leave.

Higher-up response

Dr. Humphrey couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It was actually too good to be true! In fact, it simply went back nearly 200 years to our nation’s own idea of “Human equality” – after all, he thought, “we hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal.”

Humphrey went with glee to the “higher ups” and basically told them, “Guys, great news! They don’t want us to leave. They don’t even want more money. They just want us to respect them! It should be easy, right? Our own ‘Declaration of Independence’ supports human equality and that is what we need here… recognition that we are all equal.”

The reply? First, one of the gentlemen (keep in mind this is senior military and political leaders) simply looked with that adult-to-child look and basically said, “But Dr. Humphrey, we’re not all equal. Some are tall, some are short, some smarter than others, etc. Besides, even Jefferson had slaves. The Founding Fathers just said all that equality stuff to enrage the masses and get cannon fodder.”

“Besides,” it was even stated, “we’re not here for human equality… we’re here for Freedom!”
Second, there was an ideological problem with what Humphrey was saying. To say that we are all equal was to admit that Communism was right (this fallacy will be covered in the next post). They didn’t tell the good Doctor to simply take his survey and go home… they actually told him to burn the results and never mention them again.

However, Dr. Humphrey didn’t want to fail in his mission, and he knew he had “stumbled” upon the key. He just needed to figure out how to get the GI’s to respect the locals. So he did what we try to do even today:

Cross cultural Day

Let’s have a cross cultural day! “Cultural Awareness Day”, if you will. We’ll invite the locals to a big party, and we’ll each each other’s food, learn the culture and then we will appreciate each other more. Well, picture the day.

The Americans were all about, “Come try our food! Hamburgers! Hot Dogs! A real Bar-B-Que! Yummy!” But what do you think happened when it was the local’s turn. The Americans basically said, “What? Are you kidding me? I ain’t eating this stuff.” (nevermind what hot dogs are actually made of, right?). And the fact was that very few Americans even bothered to show.

Ok, strike the Cultural day. But wait! We can do something better:

Learn the Language

You know… we’ll teach the American some of the local language, etc., they’ll learn to be polite, say thank you and all that and then eventually learn to respect the people and their culture.

Hmmm… what do you think the first words most GIs ever learn in a foreign language are? So that went over about as well as a slingshot in a china shop.

Mission: Failure

Doctor Humphrey did what any self-respecting contractor would do when they find themselves in an impossible situation… he started playing golf on the weekends. Ok, so not quite like that, but he did end up doing some hunting, and it was on one of these hunting trips that he discovered the secret to recognizing human equality and activating it within others.

I’ll explain “The Hunting Story” in a little bit, but first, a short discussion on human equality.

See you in a bit!
KermitJr

Back in the fifties, we thought that big money and big projects were the key to developing third world nations, and we only interacted with their governments on a very snobbish level. We didn’t want to connect and help the common folk because of several reasons… that would require actually talking to them and we nor their government really wanted that to happen. What do ignorant peasants know, right? We know what’s best for them. I did say this was back in the fifties, right? Nothing at all similar to today…

Americans Overseas

I’ve spent several years living overseas and have traveled a good bit on the side, as well. I try not to stand out too much wherever I go. I always say please and thank you, and I try to do it in the native language, if possible. I consider it to be common courtesy. Spend any amount of time in a restaurant that may be happened upon by Americans, however, and you’ll see one form of “Ugly Americanism.”
I’ve actually seen scenes in movies that came close. Basically, the American comes in with an attitude. They appear “haughty”, if you will. The symptoms vary, but they can range a great deal with phrases like, “Doesn’t anyone here speak English?” (Note the assumption that they should speak English). “Run along and get my ____ for me now.” In short, they are loud, obnoxious, self-centered, demanding and just plain rude. They think they should have “Hollywood” treatment because they were nice enough to grace these people with their presence. Their actions are such that it makes you want to pop up and say, “G’day mate!” This enables you to distance yourself from them and politely leave.

Can you see a similarity with our government and our people when it comes to going overseas?

Third World Countries & The Iron Curtain

Quick! When I say “third world country” you think of… and be honest. How about dirty, stinky, ignorant, diseased, and uneducated people? Living conditions are horrific. The whole place smells. Oh, and mud huts with animals wondering in and out. They do really weird stuff, too, right? Hey, most people tend to think something similar, too… especially us “cultured” Americans, right? Right!

Well, remember that thing called the Iron Curtain? We (the good guys) were trying to stop them (the bad guys) from taking over and spreading Communism all over the world. Basically, we had our missiles pointed at them; they had their missiles pointed at us; as long as nobody pulled the trigger, we were good, right?

Contractor Hired

Except that in one country, we actually started running into trouble. I won’t mention the country by name (it doesn’t really matter), but it basically comes down to the fact that they were protesting at the gates, yelling “Yankee, go home!!!” That sort of thing. You can imagine that it wasn’t going very well. In fact, we were running into trouble installing our missile base, and having some other problems, as well.

Enter Dr. Robert L. Humphrey. I’ll skip the biography for now (stay tuned, though!). He was a “cross-cultural conflict resolution expert” which is a fancy way of saying he helped people get along. Being an intelligent man – and a good conflict resolutionist – he decided to first do a little homework. It makes sense that if some people are upset that you should find out why, right? Right!

Survey & Results

Dr. Humphrey narrowed down close to 200 questions to only two: 1) What do you want from America? 2) What can Americans do (or not do) to make things better?

Fairly simple, eh? As a courtesy, though, he decided to run the survey questions by the U.S. Ambassador at the time and he went in and told him, “Sir, I’m gonna ask the locals these two question in a low-key manner. I just wanted to let you know and make sure its ok.”

The Ambassador replied, “Doc, I can save you a lot of time and trouble and answer both those question right now. What were they – ‘What do you want?’ and ‘What can Americans do?’ – They want ‘MORE MONEY’ and they want us to ‘LEAVE.’ So don’t waste your time.” Now keep in mind that this was back in the 50′s when we threw “big money” at everything. Read The Ugly American and you’ll see want I mean.

Dr. Humphrey simply replied that, if it was ok, he wanted to proceed with questioning the locals, anyway. And he did. The amazing thing was that he actually got the same answer back to BOTH questions? Keep in mind that this was the era of big money, as well. The questions, again, for you to think on:

1) What do you want from America?

2) What can Americans do to (or not do) to make things better?

Find out more in my next Life Values post!