Today I have a better understanding of the Republican mind thanks to Doug Powers.

In the conservative blogger's article, "What Freaks the Left Out About Limbaugh Owning an NFL Team?" Powers writes

Until a few days ago, I had no idea that liberals loved football so much. Sure, the “worst team gets the first choice in the draft” and the league’s policy of parity reeks of socialism and as such may attract a certain leftist element, but on the field the sport itself remains a merit-based, dog-eat-dog, affirmative-actionless, “pull yourself up by your own boot-straps” challenge where hard work is rewarded and the ill-equipped and lazy are sent away without a trophy.

The NFL-to-real-world analogy Powers is attempting to make better reveals insight into the conservative worldview than it does skewering the progressive one.

Powers describes the NFL playing field as a right-wing Utopia of merit based successes where the "ill-equipped and lazy" rightfully find only failure (that this framing of the NFL is easily disproved by the numerous Super Bowl rings being worn by 3rd string fullbacks who never saw the field is beside the point). What's really interesting is Power's (and most conservatives) misunderstanding that a level playing field exists in the first place.

A few years back, a friend of mine replied to hearing the good fortune of another friend with, "I'd rather make it there on my own merit". To this I remained silent but wondered if he considered the upper middle class family in which he was born, the education he received at one of the top public schools in the state, the safety of the neighborhood in which he lived, the willingness of his family to pay for his entire education and the family connections he used in order to land a job out of college. Was this "doing it on his own merit?"

This story exemplifies a fundamental disconnect between a vast majority of conservatives and progressives: Conservatives choose to remain ignorant of the advantages individuals receive simply by being born into a societal structure more conducive to success.

Power's view of the unsuccessful as "ill-equipped" is an outright admittance of this fact. If you and I are in a fight and I have a sword and you have a butter knife, I'm going to win. How did I become better equipped? And am I really more talented than you, or did societal factors have a hand in putting that sword in my hand? Does the fact you're holding a butter knife make you lazy? A conservative would answer these questions, "don't care", "no, you obviously worked harder to get the sword" and "yes".

There's a chance all of this is true. There's another possibility... I inherited that sword.

Why the same "pull yourself up by your own boot-straps" mentality doesn't apply to conservative's view of inheritance is as dumbfounding as it is hypocritical. If fortune and glory are truly is the reward of the hard-working, are there any citizens less deserving of it than the offspring of parents whose assured their children never had to work for anything in their lives?

That conservatives ignore the societal factors involved in rewarding the lazy is as simple-minded as their assumption that laziness is the primary cause of failure.

Thanks Doug, for making that clear.