What’s Right


A measure is before Congress that would set aside a certain amount of money to accommodate left-handed people in a number of ways: forbid discrimination in hiring, housing, education, and public services; provide for equal access to tools, sports equipment, and public buildings; set up a commission to oversee the new rules and regulations; and make it easier for left-handed people to sue for redress.

There has been much speculation about the implications of this measure: complete rebuilding of doors on buildings and automobiles so that handles are on either side and the doors themselves can be opened from either side; requirements for manufacturers and merchants to stock left-handed tools; rebuilding of school furniture, e.g., desks, so that left-handed people can use them; and so on.

A groundswell of resistance has been formed.

One of the people coming out against the measure is the well-known financier and orator I.M. Right. Right has been allotted several minutes on national TV to state the case against the measure.

Statement by I.M. Right:
“Some things we don’t need books for. Some things we just know because of the preponderance of evidence before us. My religious friends tell me that it’s no accident that God made most people right-handed. They tell me that the right hand is in every way superior to the left. They say, try it yourself: Pick 10 people at random. Ask them to do any task—any task!—with their right hand, and then ask them to do the same with the left. You can do it in any order, they say—right, left; left, right—and the results will be the same: The right hand is stronger, more flexible, more precise.

“But leave aside religion for the moment. It is a right-handed world. That is clear. Look around you. It is very clear. Whatever your religious beliefs, it is difficult to argue that left-handedness is natural; if it was, if left-handedness was as favored by natural selection as much as right-handedness, then sheer evolutionary logic would indicate that over these millions of years, there would be as many left-handed people as there are right-handed people. But there are not.

“None of us are bigots. Left-handed people have the same—pardon the term—‘rights’ as we do, but—and this is important—no more than we do:
• Lefties have the right to seek counseling for their infirmity in order to get it corrected.
• Lefties have the right to attempt to adjust to a right-handed world.
• Lefties have the right to strive to be as good people as they can be, given the burdens they carry.

“There are some rights, however, that left-handed people most certainly do not have:
• Lefties do not have the right to procreate with one another so that they bring another left-handed person into the world to suffer as they have no doubt suffered. Sterilization is looked upon as primitive in our society, but I ask you: Is it not better—for left- and right-handers alike—to stem the tide? How can the world gain from more lefties?
• Lefties do not have the right to demand special allowances, for example, by insisting that tools and implements be made to conform with their unnatural way. It is more likely the case that these people lack the sufficient industry, intelligence, or ambition to perform tasks competently.
• Lefties do not have the right to flaunt their left-handedness, especially in front of impressionable children. We have already heard too many horror stories about children ‘experimenting’ with their left hand because of an adult’s urgings. These children may at some point realize their error, but by then it may be too late: The resultant confusion and physiological havoc wrought by that ‘experiment’ is often devastating.

“There is currently before us a measure that would allocate a great deal of money—money that is in scant supply—to accommodate left-handed people. Think about this: To the moral, genetic, and social affronts must now be added an economic affront. When will it end? When will the rights of right-handed people be considered in this equation? We are the ones who should be compensated for tolerating sloppy handwriting, poor parenting, tainting of the gene pool, and a constant threat to break down our society.

“Let’s send a strong message with this vote: No more special consideration for lefties!”

Neal Starkman