In my post about the idiotic over-reaction to a New Jersey 10-year-old posing with his new squirrel rifle , Dana Garrett left me this response: One waits, apparently in vain, for you to post the annual rates of children who either shoot themselves or someone else with a gun. But then you Libertarians are notoriously ambivalent to and silent about data and facts and would rather talk abstract principles and fear monger (like the government will confiscate your guns). It doesn't require any degree of subtlety to see why you are data and fact adverse. The facts indicate we have a crisis with gun violence and accidents in the USA, and Libertarians offer nothing credible to address it. Lives, even the lives of children, get sacrificed to the fetishism of liberty. That's intellectual cowardice. OK, Dana, let's talk facts. According to the Children's Defense Fund , which is itself only querying the CDCP data base, fewer than 10 children/teens were killed per year in Delaw
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Although in theory there shouldn't be much difference - as long as you're talking about equality of opportunity and not Harrison Bergeron style equality, and you are trying to achieve equality by maximizing rather than minimizing opportunities for everyone.
I'll play, but while I'd obviously prefer freedom, there are different freedoms and different equalities:
Freedom to fail
Equality of opportunity
Equality of outcome
If you are going to drill for information, maybe a better definition is in order.
Government mandated equality of any definition has a strong tendency to drag everyone toward the lowest common denominator.
cf. Roderick Long's Equality: The Unknown Ideal
If the government is making such a mandate, it's explicitly asserting that we are unequal to it. Under a reasonable definition of equality, the government would be seen to lack the authority to mandate such a move.
equality of outcome is an unachievable ideal.