{"id":8468,"date":"2026-07-21T11:11:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T16:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/?p=8468"},"modified":"2026-07-21T12:19:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T17:19:22","slug":"level-playing-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2026\/07\/level-playing-field\/","title":{"rendered":"Does a Rising Tide Level the Playing Field?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

State of This Union \u2014 President’s Message<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

One advantage leaders can have is anything they do or say seems important. Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders issued a statement and held a press event July 14 announcing that the “First Liberty Institute\u2019s Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy\u2019s Religious Liberty in the States index” found that Arkansas Ranks Number 1 for Religious Liberty<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doesn’t the First Amendment for all states begin, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When this pseudo-event<\/a> appeared on news feeds, a memory flashed. Among my duties as a journalist in small newspapers years ago, I compiled press releases about local businesses. When one would raise some doubt, we’d check. Early on, I opened one from an auto body shop heralding it had been ranked in the top 5 of some group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being an obscure professional association, I dug, learning some business associations exist whose purpose is to promote their members, for a fee, by proclaiming some rating or award to gain free publicity in the local news media as well as sending a certificate to hang on their waiting room walls. There are real associations of fender unbenders of course, and the ethical newspaper would edit up the legitimate news releases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the not-that-distant past, anyone who’d had a public school Civics or Government class would presume that a top ranking in religious liberty referred to welcoming the widest variety of religious beliefs and practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI signed Act 677 last year, protecting individuals who hold religious views on the fundamental biological differences between men and women,” Sanders said<\/a> the other day. “And I signed the Conscience Protection Act in 2023, ensuring Arkansans are free to live and work according to their faith. At the same time, thanks to the law I signed last year, we began placing copies of the Ten Commandments in classrooms and state buildings.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The First Liberty Institute is generally described as a “nonprofit Christian conservative legal organization.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s not the American Civil Liberties Union, whose Arkansas chapter responded<\/a>, in part: “… [S]tate leaders continue to push policies that privilege certain religious beliefs, mandate religious displays in public schools, censor books, and target LGBTQ people and other marginalized communities. The government does not protect religious liberty by elevating one set of religious beliefs over everyone else’s.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Essentially all the established news media in the state fell for the ol’ Best Body Shop gambit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was news of a sort, but why did they all run it prominently? While many reports included the ACLU response and other balancing quotes, those paragraphs were placed fairly low, except for the Arkansas Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a meeting a couple of months ago, Arkansas Education Association President April Reisma asked a few of us, “Why should someone join a labor union?” I popped out with: “To help level the playing field.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We employees want to be treated fairly. Also, protecting and improving public education \u2014 both K-12 and higher ed \u2014 faces an uneven field in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Level playing field,” though, makes no sense. Organized sports always have flat fields or courts. (The CommA Razorback Stadium \u2014 formally CommunityAmerica Credit Union Razorback Stadium \u2014 has no flaws.) Rich parents might spring for a bulldozer, but otherwise children manage to play despite hillocks and midfield bushes of their own yards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its Wikipedia entry<\/a> finds teams switching sides periodically comes closest to a literal meaning, but “a level playing field is a concept about fairness, not that each person has an equal chance to succeed, but that they all play by the same set of rules resulting in formal equality of opportunity.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Wiki corollary stunned me, “Handicapping might be thought of as the opposite concept, of unequal rules designed to make the outcome of play more equal.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once again, “Why should someone join a labor union?” Collective action is a bulldozer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a92026 Ben S. Pollock<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

This column first was published in the July 2026 newsletter of\u00a0UA-Fayetteville Education Association \/ Local 965<\/a>. Ben Pollock is the 2026-2028 president of Local 965.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

State of This Union \u2014 President’s Message One advantage leaders can have is anything they do or say seems important. Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders issued a statement and held a press event July 14 announcing that the “First Liberty Institute\u2019s Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy\u2019s Religious Liberty in the States index” found that Arkansas […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8467,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-culture"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Trump_1_gold_coin-Office-of-the-Secretary-of-the-Treasury-16x9-1.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":256,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2006\/12\/wal-mart-takes-liberty-bell-to-arkansas\/","url_meta":{"origin":8468,"position":0},"title":"Wal-Mart takes Liberty Bell to Arkansas","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"December 29, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2006 Ben S. Pollock A DISSOCIATED PRESS PHILADELPHIA -- The Liberty Bell is moving to America's heartland, specifically Bentonville, Ark., the National Park Service has announced. The bell, one of the nation's most prominent treasures, will be a permanent exhibit in the sculpture garden of the planned Crystal Bridges\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American Culture"","block_context":{"text":"American Culture","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/american-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"liberty bell 03 stress test","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/12\/liberty-bell-03-stress-test-199x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4034,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2012\/12\/soldiers-quartered-militias-regulated\/","url_meta":{"origin":8468,"position":1},"title":"If Soldiers Are Quartered, Only Militias Will Be Regulated","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"December 17, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"The Second Amendment has had a free ride for too long. Sure, laws and regulations on firearms purchases have been developed from it, but numerous events indicate their effectiveness is minimal. Now that it's 72 hours after a 20-year-old whacko killed his gun-loving mother and took her guns to a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ben Pollock, leaving a big meeting, October 2010","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Abe-Ben-square-10-10-300x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":317,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/05\/dash-it-ashcroft\/","url_meta":{"origin":8468,"position":2},"title":"Dash it, Ashcroft","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"May 20, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I don't know about you, but when I was growing up during the first administration of the second Bush, I was taught that John Ashcroft was the anti-attorney general. Both his foes and his supporters seemed to agree that he was a proud religious-right zealot in terms of God-first, Constitution-maybe,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":235,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2006\/09\/picture-postcard\/","url_meta":{"origin":8468,"position":3},"title":"Picture postcard","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"September 11, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Everybody has something to say about today, and what happened five years ago, today. Where is the numerology for the ninth month and eleventh day? Or the date of the first Trade Center attack. Or the hit on the USS Cole. Or the attack in Madrid. The one on London\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American Culture"","block_context":{"text":"American Culture","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/american-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":83,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2004\/07\/separation-of-church-press\/","url_meta":{"origin":8468,"position":4},"title":"Separation of church, press","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"July 26, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Constitutional separation of church and press Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock Monday, July 26, 2004: I want to toss an endorsement to the defense of the First Baptist Church of Springdale and its senior pastor, Ronnie Floyd. An self-proclaimed do-gooder group is trying to sic the IRS against them, citing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":72,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2004\/05\/down-to-the-level\/","url_meta":{"origin":8468,"position":5},"title":"Down to the level","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"May 5, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock Wednesday, May 5, 2004. A note about the U.S. MPs' sexual and general humiliation of Iraqi civilian\/military detainees. Here's The New Yorker's link to photos and articles. Jews are not supposed to make Holocaust comparisons lightly and don't want non-Jews to make any at all.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8468"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8485,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8468\/revisions\/8485"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}