Differing on View of Differences

Re “Fear of Differences Is Just Another Way We’re All Alike,” Orange County Voices, Jan. 25:

Orange County Human Relations Commission Executive Director Rusty Kennedy speaks about hate crimes in Orange County but fails to identify the major cause.

Baron Montesquieu’s “The Spirit of Laws” was well-known to the founders [of our country]. In it, he wrote that the guarantee of equality of opportunity was essential to freedom and that the pursuit of equality of outcome was inimical to liberty.

For most of this century, our government has tried to engineer an equality of outcome. This can only be achieved at the expense of someone else’s opportunity. This puts government in the position of enacting arbitrary laws and making capricious decisions.

Manifestations include a progressive tax structure--compounded by selected tax credits and deductions, various group rights policies, “targeted” educational, social and medical programs, etc.

The end result is that when government picks winners and losers, regardless of its intentions, it is creating lifetime employment guarantees for Kennedy’s trade. Hate crimes will subside only when we return to the general rule of law.

Under general rule, the law applies equally to all subjects. People are then more prone to feel that their station in life is the result of their own best efforts.

Hate crimes--though not to be condoned--will be a reality as long as one party perceives that the government has granted preferential treatment to another at the first’s expense. It’s easier to vent that anger against the second party than it is to change Leviathan.

BRUCE CRAWFORD

Fountain Valley

* Rusty Kennedy makes his living from finding hate crimes. In this regard, one might liken him a little to a termite inspector who can’t make a living unless he finds termites, and therefore makes sure that he finds them. Call it a hypersensitivity to what one wants to find.

Interestingly, Kennedy and his organization seem to always find hate crimes against non-whites perpetrated by whites. He never seems to find many nonwhite on white hate crimes even though most of the violent crimes on our streets are done by non-whites with an increasing number of whites as victims.

H. MILLARD

Costa Mesa

* Re “Anti-Semitism at College Board Meeting Decried,” Feb. 7:

I found Rusty Kennedy’s comment about statements that “are typical of white supremacist, Christian-identity type of movements” to be highly offensive and uninformed.

White supremacist groups are in no way, shape or form associated with Christianity. Christianity teaches love, kindness and tolerance. Any white supremacist who claims to be “Christian” is not.

JENNIFER J. GARRETT

Mission Viejo