A Few Words about Diversity

A Few Words about Diversity
Fred Gielow
Posted here for March 12, 2018

The road back home

We are constantly reminded by "everyone" -- on the left and right -- how precious "diversity" is. It is universally applauded.

"It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength." (Maya Angelou.)

"We are of course a nation of differences. Those differences don't make us weak. They're the source of our strength." (Jimmy Carter.)

"If we cannot now end our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity." (John Fitzgerald Kennedy.)

"I have never wavered from my intention to advance the cause of diversity in new and more affective ways." (Jeb Bush.)

"We need to stand up and be clear that . . . we need to celebrate diversity." (Hillary Clinton.)

"Diversity has always been our strength, not our weakness." (Lindsey Graham.)

"Diversity is our strength." (Justin Trudeau, prime minister of Canada.)

But if diversity is so wonderful and beneficial, why is it necessary to tell us so time and time again? Endlessly? If diversity is such a good thing, why isn't it obvious; why doesn't it go without saying?

"If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor!" We heard that so many times, but that didn't make it true.

A case could be made that there are countless examples where diversity is not a good thing. Here are a few examples:

Basketball teams. All the players are tall. To celebrate diversity, shouldn't some midgets be added to the teams?

Hockey teams. All the players are strong and athletic. For the sake of diversity, wouldn't it be desirable to put a few wheel-chair folks on the ice?

Orchestra conductors. These are talented, musical people. Why aren't there any deaf conductors? Wouldn't that dramatically improve diversity?

TV camera operators. They all have their vision. That's not fair. That doesn't celebrate diversity at all. We need some blind TV camera operators.

Surgeons. We expect those who perform operations to be skilled and steady-handed. That's not honoring diversity. We need surgeons who have Parkinson's disease or Saint Vitus Dance, or rheumatoid arthritis. If diversity is so great, don't we need much more diversity in our surgeons?

Ballet dancers. Why are we so exclusive in our demands of those who entertain us at the ballet? If we were truly caring people, we'd expect to see some paraplegics among the performers.

Airplane pilots. We assume pilots will be educated, experienced, and dependable. No diversity there. Shouldn't some pilots be alcoholics, some addicted to recreational drugs, some with explosive vests?

Catholic churches. Catholics who go to confession assume they're talking to a priest in the confessional. Just priests? We can't have that! Maybe we could throw in some kindergarten kids, a few atheists, some folks with mental illness, some Muslims, and a few who don't speak English.

Knitting bees. They're usually women who enjoy knitting activities. Why so limited? Why not include a few terrorists, rapists, and murderers? Diversity is so very important, don't you know.

Freak shows. We expect some really odd people on display. After all, they're freak shows. But this just isn't right. There's insufficient diversity. We need to add a bunch of average, normal-looking people to these shows.

Children's choirs. How boring. There are only kids singing! How exclusionary. How anti-diversity. Let's sign up some octogenarians to make things more inclusive.

U.S. Congress. Don't you think we need to add some anarchists, America haters, and bumbling idiots to the cast of characters in the U.S. Congress? Wait! On second thought . . . maybe Congress is quite diverse enough just as is. (A little too diverse, perhaps.)

The mainstream media. There are thousands of men and women in the MSM giving us information every day. Just for a change, perhaps it would be desirable to add some who are actually telling us the truth.

Immigrants. --

Ah, immigrants. We have happened upon the heart of the matter. All the calls for diversity are aimed at justifying a flood of immigrants. Republicans want cheap labor; Democrats want votes for Democrats. (It seems Republicans haven't yet figured out that if there are enough Democrat voters, there won't be any Republicans elected to office.)

So, our politicians have flung open the doors at our border and encouraged millions upon millions of immigrants to come here. Millions of legal immigrants. Millions of illegal immigrants.

Oh, the diversity! Many (most?) don't speak English. Many (most?) are not highly educated. Many (most?) have few employable skills. Some (many?) are criminals. Many (most?) do not share our attitudes, values, and beliefs.

As they stream in, our country is changed. Our country's attitudes, values, and beliefs are being skewed. Our country's culture is being transformed. Our thinking, our wishes, our hopes are being shifted. The America we used to know has become something foreign, something altered from what it once was.

Muslims allow up to four wives per husband. Is that what we want here? With enough Muslims, that's what we'll get.

Muslims demand rule under sharia. Derived from the religious precepts of Islam, particularly the Quran and the Hadith, sharia is totally incompatible with American law. Are we willing to give up our laws and legal system? The chances of sharia in America improve with each new Muslim on our shores.

A manual of Islamic law states that someone who kills his own child incurs no legal penalty. Do we want that law here?

In the Lebanese Republic, there are virtually no traffic rules for vehicles driving on the roads. Do we want to share American roads with folks who have absolutely no respect for our driving rules and regulations?

A tribe in western New Guinea considers it acceptable to eat carcasses of deceased human beings. Is that an attitude we want to embrace here?

In some cultures, incest is legal. Is that something we'd be comfortable with?

Some cultures consider it acceptable to defecate in public. Do we want that attitude prevalent here?

Once each year some Shia Muslims beat themselves with whips and knives. Do we want to adopt that custom?

In Solapur Village in Maharashtra State, priests drop newborn babies (*) from a height of 30 or 50 feet. The babies are (with luck) caught in a sheet or towel held at ground level. It is believed this will give the baby good luck (if he or she lives through the experience). Should this be a custom in America, too?

There's a tribe in Papua New Guinea that believes it's proper, during a loved one's funeral, for a woman's finger tips to be amputated as a symbol of sadness and mourning. Should we adopt this belief as well?

Fire walking is still common in some cultures. Should we do it here?

An ancient tradition in some communities calls for teen-age girls to have the tips of their tongues cut off. This tradition is done to insure a happy future marriage. Is this something we should copy?

Different cultures incorporate different attitudes, values, and beliefs into their way of life. They become ingrained. They define the cultures. They create cultural histories. They are fundamental to the people in the cultures. They are fundamental to how people live and to how they demand to live.

When people with significant differences are merged together, there's tension. There's conflict. Sometimes, there's fighting. Sometimes there's killing. These outcomes are not the result of compatibility. They are the result of incompatibility! They are the result of . . . diversity.

There are great differences around the world in attitudes about equality, individuality, hard work, freedom, mobility, safety, competition, efficiency, and on and on. (Source.) Every difference creates friction. The attitudes are so basic, people cannot let them go. You cannot un-believe something just because someone wants you to.

Christians and Muslims have been fighting for a long time, from at least 1,500 years before the first Crusade. (Source.) They did not fight over issues of compatibility. They fought -- and continue to fight -- over issues of incompatibility. Diverse attitudes, values, and beliefs have been the cause of the fighting, blood-shed, and over four million deaths!

An article in the American Thinker states: "[T]he greater the diversity in a community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and work on community projects. In the most diverse communities, neighbors trust one another about half as much as they do in the most homogeneous settings. The study ("The Downside of Diversity," published on Boston.com in 2007), which was the largest ever on civic engagement in America, found that virtually all measures of civic health are lower in more diverse settings."

Another article in the American Thinker states: "Of the top ten most diverse countries in the world, every single one has suffered major, lethal political violence since 2001. For whatever economic benefits it may bring, it will also bring tribalism, disunity, and violence."

A article in Quillette states: "[M]ass migration is the singular challenge of the 21st century. This is because it is a meta-issue that will affect our response to every other challenge. This is due to the fact that as mass migrations change demography, they may also affect changes in host nations' cultures and political economies."

An article in BarbWire states: "Perhaps the most sinister and dangerous lie the left has beaten into the brains of unthinking Americans is that there is strength in diversity. Nothing could be further from the truth. Diversity, as the first syllable in the word implies, divides. It does not unify. It fractures, debilitates, and diffuses. Energy that could be harnessed through unity of purpose and values is frittered away. America became the greatest nation the world has ever known -- freer, stronger, more prosperous, more stable -- for one reason: an unshakable commitment to common core values and standards. That's not diversity, that's unity."

Walter E. Williams: "Diversity worship and multiculturalism are currency and cause for celebration at just about any college. If one is black, brown, yellow or white, the prevailing thought is that he should take pride and celebrate that fact even though, just as in the case of my eye color, he had nothing to do with it. The multiculturist and diversity crowd see race as an achievement."

Thomas Sowell: "The next time some academics tell you how important diversity is, ask how many Republicans there are in their sociology department."

Thomas Sowell: "Can you cite one speck of hard evidence of the benefits of 'diversity' that we have heard gushed about for years? Evidence of its harm can be seen -- written in blood -- from Iraq to India, from Serbia to Sudan, from Fiji to the Philippines. It is scary how easily so many people can be brainwashed by sheer repetition of a word."

Theodore Roosevelt: "The one absolute certain way to bring this nation to ruin . . . would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities."

Pat Buchanan: "Where liberals see as an ever-more-splendid diversity of colors, creeds, ethnicities, ideologies, beliefs, and lifestyles, the Right sees the disintegration of a country, a nation, a people, and its replacement with a Tower of Babel. Visions in conflict that democracy cannot reconcile."