Shared misery: Nobody can have air conditioning unless everyone can

Do people on the political left really want to help folks? Or do they just want to make sure everyone suffers equally?

A friend of mine is applying for admission to some elite northeastern U.S. colleges, and he found himself on a tour of one of them last weekend. Something he heard from the tour guide says a lot about the way the modern liberal mind works. (I’m using the word “liberal” not in its classical sense — which would have meant what we call libertarian today — but in the mainstream “progressive” sense.)

While explaining information about the campus dorms at this very liberal school, the tour guide said:

“The two new dormitories have air conditioning, but it’s not used in any of them, because the administration doesn’t think it’s fair for some dormitories to have air conditioning while the rest don’t.”

You just can’t make things like this up.

Those on the left don’t seem to care that medical progress will be slowed dramatically by turning more of it over to state price controls and rationing — as long as everybody is forced to suffer the same kind of care. They don’t exactly say that, but it’s clear what their priorities are. This is true across the board with them, it seems.

My friend pointed out one exception to the egalitarian rule. The administration building from which the college president issues his pronouncements on shared student suffering is air conditioned — and it’s used regularly.