I find it interesting how the proponents of socialism hang on to the concept of equal rights, thinking that it means distribution of wealth and property. They scream for the rich to share their wealth because they have it to give.

It’s like toddlers screaming because one of them has received a new birthday toy, and everyone else didn’t get one. I wonder if they understand what the founding fathers meant when they penned the words:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
—Declaration of Independence

The three unalienable rights mentioned in the Declaration of Independence began in the Garden of Eden. God gave Adam and Eve agency. He gave them dominion over the fish in the sea, the fowls of the air and upon all the creatures of the earth.

In other words, Adam and Eve were free to make decisions about their lives and their environment. They were free to choose what they would eat, where they would go and what they would do.

Of course, they were given labors to perform. Adam was given the daunting task of naming all the animals, and certainly Adam and Eve gathered their own food. God didn’t make neat little piles of food here and there for Adam and Eve to consume.

God didn’t micromanage their existence. They had the right to pursue their own happiness in whatever manner they chose, but it didn’t absolve them from the consequences of their choices.

God gave them only one commandment. “Thou shalt not eat of the fruit of the tree” of good and evil, or you are going to die. When they disobeyed, the consequence followed. They were cast out of the Garden of Eden and would eventually grow old and die. Adam and Eve had their rights, but it didn’t shape their consequence. Their choices did that.

Adam and Eve were created as equals. They were not intended to be the same. They were intended to be different, starting with the same set of rules, so to speak, but different in every respect. The birth of Eve was a metaphor for Adam and Eve to instruct them that they were equal. Eve was created from Adam’s rib, indicating they should stand side by side, not one higher or lower.

God didn’t create Eve from the feet of Adam to be walked on, nor from his head so that she could rule over him. The battle of the sexes didn’t begin in the garden. God made it clear that they were to be “one flesh.” That implies unity and agreement, each rejoicing in their own identity and role but content to be part of something bigger.

As the world moved away from God’s laws and started worrying about worldly things, equality reared its ugly head.

What kind of equality did God intend for Adam and Eve? Did they look just alike? No. Did they make the same choices? No. Did God cut up the fruit every day to make sure that everyone had their fair share? No. Then how could they ever be equal?

I don’t think God intended His equality to be like the town described in Madeleine L’Engle’s book A Wrinkle in Time, where all the houses looked exactly alike. The lawns were the same shape and size and they had the same number of flowers in the flower beds. Even the children played exactly the same way and at the same time.

They bounced their balls and jumped rope in rhythm with every other child. In that town, everyone was equal. No one had more or less than their neighbors. I don’t think the proponents of socialism have that kind of vision for equality, but in its purest form, socialism, as it drifts into communism, demands that kind of equality.

To create that kind of society, it would take eliminating all the differences. Only people with a certain body type and skin color would be able to survive. Any person with a defect would have to be eliminated.

People with a different mindset would not be tolerated. In other words, people who “marched to a different drummer” would be considered traitors to the cause. Artists, musicians, writers and other paradigm-shift creators would have to be re-educated or eliminated. I am sure God did not want that kind of equality.

If God had wanted everyone to be just alike, He would not have created the magnificent DNA system that causes everyone to be different. There have never been and never will be two people exactly alike.

Even identical twins have their own minds and abilities. God could have arranged for everyone to have the same color eyes, the same color hair and the same body type and skin color. He did not make that adjustment because equality means something different to Him.

Is God’s equality a mathematical concept? In math, we teach children that 2 + 2 = 4. We teach them also that 1 + 3 = 4, as well as 5 - 1 = 4 and so on. The equation is different, but the answer is the same.

Each side of the equation balances. There is the same amount on both sides of the equal sign. It only matters how the numerals are placed on either side. Maybe to God it is a backward equation with the answer coming first, 4 = 2 + 2 or 4 = 1 + 3.

Perhaps God begins with the answer and then forms the method. In order to get 4 for an answer, the person must first put in the effort of 2 + 2, or for some it might be 1 + 3.

In God’s world, there are laws that govern everything. The law of gravity governs the rise and fall of objects. There are laws of energy and motion, laws of velocity and the laws of the harvest. It stands to reason that God intended for men and women to learn these laws in order to have dominion over the earth. He didn’t teach Adam and Eve every law and how it works in the Garden of Eden.

He left that up to them and their posterity to learn those laws, and it has taken millenniums of trial and error of the most brilliant thinkers to learn those laws, and there are still centuries of laws yet to be learned. God gives information as man puts in the effort. Yes, equality appears to be a 4= ?+ ? equation.

The Declaration of Independence is a reflection of God’s thinking. All men are created to be equal, not to be exactly alike. Men and women have the same answer. Discover the laws that govern the success you desire, and go for it. True, some people come into the world with more ability and opportunities for success.

They are able to stand on the shoulders of the greatest scientists of the world and move upward. Sadly, there are those who have ability and opportunity who never wake up to the possibilities. They sleep through life in the state of “If only I had ...” They spend their time complaining about how unfair life is and how they do not have as much as the person who has learned the laws that govern wealth and prosperity.

The equality dream of socialism and communism will never work because it goes against nature and God’s laws. The God-given rights spelled out in the Declaration of Independence would be null and void. If you kill off the incentive of those who think and act differently from the status quo, you stifle the quest to learn the laws that govern greater success and happiness.

Thus, you take away the right to pursue happiness. For those who are different, you take away their right to life. In a society where everyone is the same, you cannot tolerate any differences.

Those who “march by a different drummer” must be destroyed. Finally, the human right of liberty would be gone. Freedom means being a free agent. If you must be and think like everyone else, you are not free.

The laws that govern freedom are as real as the law of gravity and the law of energy and motion. God intended Adam and Eve and their posterity to have the precious privilege of discovering the laws of success on their own.

According to the Declaration of Independence, we are created equal, but it is up to us to make use of the rights we have been given, and our choices make all the difference.