Run, Don't Walk, Away From the Word "Fair"
We typically grow up using the word “fair” in the context of games and sports. Not playing by the rules of games amounts to fraud. A card game opponent with 5 aces is certainly perpetrating fraud. Tackling soccer (football outside the USA) players is certainly outside of the authored rules of that game.
Games are engaging activities that serve as entertainment and/or contests to compare a narrow set of human abilities against one another. It’s important to remember that games are human constructions.
In reality, the only “rules” are those imposed by nature (e.g., physics and psychology). Humans increasingly learn to manipulate the raw materials of nature to create increasingly complex and useful products—products that achieve the goals of the people who seek them. To understand reality, humans use reason to integrate and simplify reality’s seemingly endless details in to useful concepts.
In free societies, the division of labor greatly improves the quality of life by allowing individuals to voluntarily trade with one another—thus reaping the benefits of each other’s expertise. Individuals in societies should be protected from force or fraud (killing/threatening, stealing, or violating agreements).
However, politicians and liberal pundits alike are increasingly using the word “fair” out of context of games. They use it to imply that someone isn’t playing by the proper “rules”. Most societies already have rules against murder, stealing, and breach of contracts, so what are they seeking to add to this list?
Those who use the word “fair” in politics are seeking to impose their own game on a society separate from reality. Most often, they’re inspired by destructive and unreal games thought up by the likes of Marx and Lenin. Of course, when these games are made in to laws (imposed by guns), no one can choose to stop playing.
There is nothing more proper than people dealing with one another by voluntary free trade. There is nothing more evil than people dealing with one another by force and extortion. Societies flourish when individuals are rewarded for creating wealth. Societies crumble when individuals are penalized for creating wealth.
The use of the word “fair” should send up an automatic red flag in the mind of anyone who enjoys political freedom.