Oh, Diversity!

The ever-increasing desire for diversity in the workplace and in general social life, that ultimate “progressive” idea, is really nothing less than racism in most cases and the sheer celebration of ‘victimized’ people in the rest.

Side note: I am of the firm belief that "progressivism" really ought to be renamed "regressivism."

I recently listened to (out of one ear) a Boston radio program, which I’ve known to be loosely billed as having two hosts, one conservative and the other a liberal. The conservative host was rambling, not sarcastically I think, about such and such being great for its wonderful diversity and whatnot. Okay, clearly, one of three things is going on in this vignette: I either heard the conservative host incorrectly, mistook her sarcasm, or she isn’t really that conservative.

As anyone with half a brain can critically see, the left’s constant push for diversity is chalk full of contradictions. Take this for instance: a company seeks to be more competitive/effective/profitable through being more diverse and so hires a black woman over an abler white woman. Right away the illogic of such a hire is glaringly obvious; and, at least I hope, the clear racial preference is as well. Not only is the less able worker going to realize less economy for the corporation but was chosen based on the color of her skin. This is racism by definition.

Ever wonder, as I do, why major corporations advertise the great strides they’ve taken to become so diverse and multi-cultural, yet, I’ve never seen the NAACP, African American Speaker Bureau (AASB), 100 Black Men of America, National Association of Black Accountants (NABA), National Association of Blacks In Criminal Justice (NABCJ), Black Wall Street Merchants Association, Black Women In Sisterhood For Action (BISA), National Black Child Development Institute (NBCDI), National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), National Urban League (NUL), Rainbow Push Coalition, Miss Black USA, National Action Council For Minorities in Engineering (NACME), Black Culinarians Alliance (BCA), Black America's Political Action Committee (BAMPAC), Stanford’s Black Student Union (BSU), Black Broadcasters Alliance, Black Caucus of the American Library Association, Black Coaches Association, Black Culinarian Alliance, Black Graduate Engineering and Science Students, Black Women in Publishing, Black Women's Leadership Council at Xerox Corporation, Blacks in Government, Breast Cancer Resources for Black Women, Gay and Lesbian Association of Doctors and Dentists, Gay and Lesbian Medical Association, Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies USA, International Association of Lesbian & Gay Judges, International Association of Lesbian/Gay Pride Coordinators, Inc., National Consortium of Directors of LGBT Resources in Higher Education, Chicago Lesbian and Gay International Film Festival, Gay Television Network, National Organization for Women, New York Radical Feminists, Womankind Worldwide, etc., etc., or etc. ever make cultural diversity a priority of their own? How many conservative minds, for instance, might be found in any of these organizations? Diversity my tuchas. This list could keep going and going, by the way. One must be left to wonder what sort of pressure those major corporations are under to become so very diverse.

The key to understanding the true purpose behind the drive for ‘diversity’ lies in understanding only a few facts about liberalism and liberals, which anyone who isn’t such will readily recognize.

First, liberalism, as an ideology/mindset/worldview/whatever-you-choose-to-call-it is nothing if it isn’t based out of the following fundamentals: pessimism, fear, ignorance, emotion, and an urgent need to feel pity for others. Keep in mind, though, that many young people vote for democrats and Obama-types from a collectivist mindset, a mindset that pushes them into making such decisions that will keep them in the mainstream. Being hip, as it were. These young people are simply young and not liberal in the fundamental sense that they have fully embraced liberal ideals because they believe them so much that they are more afraid of being different. Sure, young, liberal people are more likely to grow into older liberals than they are conservatives, but this is not a given. Afterall, with age comes wisdom . . . for some.

Second, those fundamentals of liberalism are not engines for greatness, enterprise, liberty, or growth. The goal of liberalism is not to lift anyone up, but to bring everyone down to the same level. Look at the ‘green initiative’ of Cap and Trade. Does anyone, even the most die-hard liberal, believe that this is anything but a way to knock down American business to a level more near that of the developing world? Cap and Trade literally does nothing to reduce pollution; it is only a vehicle for wealth redistribution. Liberals feel pity for those developing nations and, rather than provide incentives and trade deals to help their economies grow (see Columbia), they wish to knock the United States down a few pegs out of their bastardized sense of fairness.

There is a comical aspect, at least for conservatives, to the ‘tear everyone down’ actions of liberalism. While the middle-class activist is seeking to tear down the elitist (probably an entrepreneur who provides hundreds of jobs in the community), the bottom-dweller is trying to tear down the middle-classer. It’s very dog-eat-dog and even more humorous when you realize that they all hate each other for their conniving meanness but all paint on smiles in public.

Third, liberalism, as an ethos, is rife with contradiction after contradiction. For every liberal belief there is, at the very least, another to contradict it. And, as Ayn Rand, that literary giant who has somehow been left out of college literary canons, wrote, “there are no contradictions, check your premises.”

Liberals don’t want true diversity, either. This is one of their contradictions. Their diversity has limitations and exclusions. For instance, a diverse community for a liberal does not include opposing thought. Conservatives who do not value diversity for diversity’s sake are not sought for inclusion in the liberals’ diverse community. What better example of this than all of American academia? Communists, socialists, green partiers, democrats, independents, maybe even some republicans, atheists, agnostics, Catholics to some degree, Deists, polytheists, pagans, Wiccans, perhaps some Jews, Muslims for a certainty, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Zoroastrians, Scientologists, and the utter non-religious, the poor, the addicted, the afflicted, the lower and middle classes, the self-hating rich, nudists, hedonists, homosexuals of course, heterosexuals who are supportive of homosexuals, transsexuals, the transgendered, the incarcerated, the paroled, the medicated, the rehabilitated, the unemployed, and especially the pitiable are all welcome so as to complete the liberals’ diverse community; but, you’ll not find (gasp!) the Evangelicals. Not that anyone has even bothered to figure out what an (gasp!) Evangelical Christian is. Evangelical, like ‘born-again’, is a popular label that has taken on its own identity in leftist circles – being quite far from reality – among the liberal population. Libertarians, pro-lifers, pick-up truck/gun owners, Mormons, and anyone who actually understands capitalism and economics in general are also on the liberals’ black list.

Keep in mind that those who are eligible for inclusion in the liberals’ diverse community, based on the above criteria, make up less than half of all Americans. The liberal idea of diversity really has nothing to do with diversity. It is about tearing down those they don’t include and pitying the rest. Power certainly plays a role in the liberals’ minds, but their motive, whether they recognize it or not, comes more from their overriding pessimism. Their fight for diversity isn’t about social equality; it’s about seeing the handout-of-a-job go to the less-qualified black woman. The fact that she couldn’t get the job without her skin color will always be in her mind (thus, keeping her subservient, humbled, and probably angered) and the evil corporation has hired the lesser worker who will not help the company realize as much profit. No one wins in the liberals’ diverse world; everyone gets torn down and down until everyone lies together on the bottom – on the same level with no one better than the other.

Make no mistake: this is the aim and only possible result of the mass of liberal ideals.

Liberalism exists when people refuse to see the world in black and white. Liberalism can only exist and foment when people find it safer to reside in the shades of grey. Shades of grey make it easier to live . . . never having to pass judgment or condemn. It takes courage to live in black and white; it takes an optimist. Deciding right over wrong is sometimes a tough and heart-wrenching business. The compassionate employer would hire everyone if he or she could; but, in order to see a profit and, thus, provide an income for his other employees, that employer must be selective and discriminate in his hiring practices. Some people must be told “no.” The liberals would force this employer to hire those undesirables . . . for the sake of diversity. What about the sake of profit? See, profit is a bad word and profit shouldn’t be the goal of businesses, (ready for another contradiction?) despite the economical fact that businesses don’t and can’t survive without that dastardly thing called ‘profit’.

The liberals’ diversity cannot countenance ability, production, efficiency, effectiveness, or innovation. Nope. Diversity only applies to spiritual and religious beliefs, nationality, and skin color. That’s it. Say there are three teams of two people per team. Each team must solve a complex mathematical formula – the first team to complete the problem wins. Team 1 is a Muslim male and an Asian female. Team 2 is a black female and an Hispanic female. Team 3 is two white males. According to liberalism, Team one and two stand a far greater chance of being successful than does Team 3, merely because they are diverse. It doesn’t matter one iota to liberals that the members of Team 1 are janitors by trade and the members of Team 2 are stay-at-home mothers, while the members of Team 3 are graduates of MIT. The two professional mathematicians don’t ‘look’ as good, therefore, we shouldn’t ‘feel’ good about them. They clearly need to gain some diversity to optimize their workplace.

Does it not seem that ‘diversity’ is just another form of equal opportunity? The next time you hear someone crying for the need of more diversity in our society, ask them why.

A parting shot: Back when I was a soldier, I carried the notion that I never wanted a medal or award that I didn’t truly earn. I can faithfully say that I did, in fact, earn all the awards I was given. I can even say that I didn’t receive a couple medals that I did earn, for that matter. As a sergeant in the Army’s Old Guard, I implemented that same value when scrutinizing my own subordinates for awards. My guys were never recommended for awards for simply doing their jobs as so many other soldiers were. When I finally had a soldier who did something commendable, I submitted the paperwork for him to receive the Army Achievement Medal, the lowest medal for achievement. The recommendation was denied. When I asked a friend of mine who worked in the Battalion personnel shop as to why, I was told it had been denied because “not enough black soldiers had been given recommendations for the same award in proportion to the Battalion’s demographics.” I guess the award ceremony just wouldn’t have been diverse enough.