One of the most effective strategies of the left has always been to identify victims, including people who don't even know that they are victims.  The left has long accused the right of engaging in the politics of fear (and even accusing one of their own of acting like a Republican when employing her own fear strategy), but I see no difference between the politics of victimization and the politics of fear.

The question I ask, much like the proverbial tree in the forest, is if a person doesn't know that he or she is a victim, then is that person a victim after all?

The reason this is relevant is with the most recent House passage of the Fair Pay Act, known colloquially as the Lilly Ledbetter Act, named for the litigant whose denied claim sparked the issue.  Ms. Ledbetter's story has been rehashed all over the internet, and there is no reason to go into detail here, especially because those facts seem not to be in dispute.  In a nutshell, she worked for a single employer for almost two decades before she discovered that her male colleagues were being paid more than she, and her claim of discrimination under the Civil Rights Act was denied by dint of the running of the limitations period.

Before I articulate my objection to this bill, I need to diffuse any claims on your part of misogyny.  Illicit discrimination in all its forms is repulsive and ignorant, and by no means do I think that the legal system should endorse, actively or passively, any form of illicit discrimination.

That said, there are good reasons to object to this bill.  As a preliminary matter, it should be noted that statutes of limitations serve an important purpose in our legal system.  They limit the number of lawsuits that can be pursued by placing a preference on those that can be litigated most efficiently.  In a judicial system already overburdened by overzealous trial lawyers (a separate discussion for another day), placing reasonable limitations is absolutely necessary.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, I do not see the need to remedy a harm when two decades can go by with the so-called victim entirely unaware of the harm.  Despite the name of this bill, the ability to sue under the facts presented has nothing at all to do with fairness.  The terms of employment are the result of a free market in which the employer and employee are free agents.  If a person is offered a job under certain conditions, including with certain compensation, then that person may accept or reject that offer freely.  The incentives attributed to each side of the equation ensure a fair result: the employer has an incentive to pay as little as it can get away with, and the employee has an incentive to seek as much as he or she can, so if both sides can come to an agreement, then the terms of employment are, by definition, fair.  The fact that others may be receiving varying compensation packages is irrelevant to the fairness equation.

As a result, the Fair Pay Act does nothing to ensure that people receive a fair wage, other than to create distortions in the market for labor (which, of course, by itself, drives up the cost of employment).  This bill, if enacted, will accomplish nothing more than create a new class of victims - people who bargained for certain employment conditions and later became unhappy with them solely because of the discovery that other persons were able to bargain for a better deal.

There are enough real victims in the world.  We don't need to make any more.