Diversity, inclusion & the death of competency
Affirmative action laws have always been bollocks, no matter how well dressed up they are in the language of rectifying injustice and righting past wrongs. Birthright privilege has been rejected in the West for centuries – remember aristocracy and the divine right of kings? The left is now trying to restore it under the guise of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) label, because their preferred groups will benefit, but it remains race determinism, as Justice Clarence Thomas opined. And profoundly unfair. When the US Supreme Court finally overturned the concept of race-based admissions to higher education, it made illegal what has long been unpopular. Even leftist California voted against affirmative action (AA) in 2020. This race-privilege fight is not over, but the pendulum has started to swing away from identity politics.
In part this is because it is glaringly obvious that AA doesn’t work. It has not enabled blacks to scale the ladder of disadvantage, as other groups have. A New York Times analysis found fewer blacks and Hispanics were at college in 2017 than before AA. Commentator Ayaan Hirsi Ali writes that only 43 per cent of blacks who win college entry graduate in six years, well below the 63 per cent national average. And black graduates make up as much as the bottom 20 to 25 per cent of their law classes. Pity the poor underprepared and likely less capable black students outclassed and out-competed in lessons; cue the student derision.
Moreover, many Ivy League black entrants come from the offspring of foreign black elites, not the poor black kid from the Bronx. New and belittling words have entered the language – ‘diversity hire’, ‘token female’ and so on. I remember in 2016 reading the Wikileaks emails of then-Democrat campaign boss John Podesta, and finding a template for a proposed committee; no names were pencilled in, just identities: Black, Disabled, Hispanic, Female, and so on. But identity, like skin colour, is no magic wand for wisdom or efficiency, as Kamala Harris and White House press spokesman Karine Jean-Pierre, both diversity hires, demonstrate daily.
One aspect of AA that has been little discussed, in part because it is litigious ground, is the incompetence it ushers in. Prioritising diversity inevitably downgrades merit. The doomed Titan submersible typified this approach, with the boss Stockton Rush preferring ‘inspiring’ youngsters to competent ex-military white 50-year-olds, and he’s paid the ultimate price. None of us will ever forget the human figures tumbling off the last US flight out of Kabul after the bungled and disastrous American withdrawal. Similar disdain for both merit and reality can be seen in the global renewables debate, where the Chris Bowens of the world pretend ‘green sustainable’ energy can replace baseload power, without ever showing how the two ends meet. The arrogance of this approach, which assumes that the lights will stay on even if engineers and power grid realists say they will not, is a symptom of Western decline. We are no longer doing the hard yards that made the Judeo-Christian West the dominant global civilisation, and we are pretending we don’t have to. Reality is not as important as our pet projects these days. Until, as with the Titan submersible, it is.
US investment analyst Harold Robertson recently wrote an eye-opening expose in Palladium magazine – ‘Complex Systems won’t survive the Competence Crisis’ – on the incompetence and looming failure he sees around him. He referenced the East Palestine train derailment, the deaths of 17 in three US naval collisions in 2017 alone, air traffic control failures such as nine near-misses at US airports in the first three months of 2023, Boeing 737 safety issues and more as evidence that America’s complex systems, absent competence, are slowly collapsing. ‘The core issue is that changing political mores have established the systematic promotion of the unqualified and sidelining of the competent.’
Robertson expertly describes how DEI white-ants organisations, including by demoralising the capable and promoting the incompetent, and argues ‘catastrophic normal accidents will happen with increasing regularity…. While each failure is officially seen as a separate issue to be fixed with small patches, the reality is that the whole system is seeing failures at an accelerating rate, which will lead in turn to the failure of other systems. The more recent coronavirus pandemic was another teachable moment. What started just three years ago with a novel respiratory virus has caused a financial crisis, a bubble, soaring inflation, and now a banking crisis in rapid succession.’
Equally, as merit has receded, practical skills no longer command the respect they once did. Our schools now spend valuable curriculum time on climate change and feminism, sexual issues and activism, rather than prioritising the three Rs. This is all part of the same contempt for reality and practicality in favour of ideological correctness. Once upon a time, schools taught some life skills, along with the three Rs.
My small country high school taught cooking and sewing in home economics; there was woodwork and metalwork for boys. Now I find that young women of my acquaintance, for example, have only a dinner plate idea of where cuts of meat come from in an animal. By contrast, my high school learning, while better, was no match for that of my paternal grandmother, a bushie, who was locally famed for her ability to turn a pig into brawn, sausages, and all the different cuts. Skills matter, competence matters.
This point was beautifully made in the recent movie Triangle of Sadness, which told of an African luxury cruise for the ridiculously wealthy. When pirates attack, the ship is blown up, and, spoiler alert, the survivors wash up on a nearby island. There, only one person, a cleaner, knows how to fish without tackle or tools. As the sole food provider she becomes the boss, upending the old hierarchy, taking a young male model as a toy boy, and claiming the best sleeping spot. Skills matter, competence matters, and skin colour is neither here nor there.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/07/diversity-inclusion-the-death-of-competency/
*************************************************Supermarket employee fired for recording 3 men stealing $500 in laundry detergent
A Colorado supermarket employee was fired after he recorded three men stealing approximately $500 worth of laundry detergent from the store on Father’s Day.
Santino Burrola, the King Soopers employee, was alerted to a theft in progress at the store and the first thing he thought to do was pull out his phone and record it.
“When I looked there was already a guy halfway headed out with a food cart full of laundry detergents and scent boosters and what have you,” Burrola told CBS Colorado. “My first instinct, record.”
As Burrola, a former military police officer, walked out of the store, the three thieves hurry to load up a black Chevy Trax, one opening the doors, another throwing a basket full of items into the back seat, and another struggling to unload the full shopping cart.
“Really bro you got to resort to this? The economy isn’t that bad,” Burrola could be heard in the now-viral video shared by the Arapahoe Sheriff’s Office.
“Better gettin while the gettin’s good,” Burrola jokes at the men.
As the three stooges attempted to flee from the parking lot, the getaway driver was a little faster than the two still outside the car, who had trouble getting into the vehicle.
That allowed Burrola to yank a sheet of foil covering the license plate.
After the men got into the car and left the area Burrola called the police, later sharing the video to social media which helped out the investigators.
“So I posted it on TikTok hoping that somebody would recognize them,” said Burrola about the video that was seen 1.5 million times, including by rapper Snoop Dogg.
When Burrola returned to the store for his next shift he learned he had been suspended and a week later was fired.
“Me and the union rep sat down with them and they recommended termination,” Burrola said. “I would never let any criminal conduct slide especially when it’s happening right in front of me.”
Burrola says he didn’t break any rules nor touch the thieves, all he was doing was trying to help the community.
“Did I feel that I overstepped boundaries? Not really because I didn’t physically touch them or alter their shoplifting in any way, I just revealed the license plate to help the community to be aware, the police be aware and to help better catch them,” Burrola told 9News.
“Investigators have already identified and arrested the driver, Jorge Pantoja, 32, the man in the green shirt,” the Arapahoe Sherriff’s Office said in a statement. “Pantoja is currently in custody at the Adams County Detention Facility on unrelated felony charges. He has also been charged with Theft/Shoplifting, a Class 2 Misdemeanor.”
Police are still searching for the two passengers after the driver was arrested on an unrelated felony and also was charged with a misdemeanor in the theft.
During their investigation, police contacted the registered owner of the vehicle who loaned the car to a friend, and the driver was later found.
“The driver was then contacted, arrested, and stated he picked up two other males at the Light Rail station at I-25 and Belleview and offered them an opportunity to make some money. The men told the driver their names were Robert and Bugsy,”
The other two thieves are still on the loose, but investigators are aware of their first names as Robert and Bugsy.
The supermarket chain found around the Rocky Mountains is a subsidy of The Kroger Company, which Burrola says has a policy against employees chasing or intervening in a theft.
“We are disappointed by the increased level of crime across retail establishments and the impact these incidents have on our associates and customers. We remain committed to working in partnership with local law enforcement to address this issue, as safety remains a top priority,” King Soopers said in a statement to CBS Colorado.
“We have security measures in place to help prevent crime and de-escalate such confrontations to minimize the risk to our associates. While we are unable to comment on personnel matters, we value our hardworking associates and their safe return home,” the statement concluded.
Following his termination from the store, Burrola posted a follow-up video to TikTok where he held an impromptu press conference to ask and answer his own questions.
“I was limited to my abilities due to the fact that I was employed there,” Burrola answered on why he didn’t “deck” the thieves.
Burrola said he received “racists comments” on the video but said, “I didn’t see color when I confronted them, I’ve seen criminals, white, black, brown, purple it didn’t matter a crime was being committed and wrong is wrong and a crime is a crime.”
“Let me tell you something if something is happening right in front of me, I’m gonna make it my business,” Burrola concluded.
Burrola’s family created a GoFundMe for the fired worker to recover lost wages
“He was not given severance pay and was planning to move to Florida to be closer to family. This loss of position has put a hold on plans and has made him fall behind in a couple of bills,” the GoFundMe states.
King Soopers’ decision to fire Burrola left many outraged under the GoFundMe page, some even praising Burrola for his quick thinking.
“Sorry to read you were fired recording these losers thinking they could just go in and steal. Good for you though,” one comment read.
“It is completely absurd that this dedicated employee, who was clearly doing his job in trying to protect his stores merchandise and assist the police in arresting these thieves, was fired due to the insane regulations these corporations have created regarding retail theft,” another commenter added.
“I can understand the “do not physically engage” rule in order to prevent employees or innocent bystanders from being hurt, but the action this employee took was assisting the business, the community, and the police. He did not deserve to be fired by any means.”
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The Media’s Strange definition of Patriotism
Only Leftists can be patriots, it seems
“Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism,” warned George Washington in his 1796 Farewell Address. Washington was a man who dedicated his life to his country and loved it dearly. He knew a thing or two about real patriotism.
“Gentlemen,” he said to an audience 13 years earlier in 1783, “you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have grown not only gray, but almost blind in the service of my country.”
Would that we had more leaders today who embodied, as Washington did, the model of presidential character and patriotism.
With that setup, for obvious reasons, your humble Patriot Post team was intrigued by an Associated Press story about how a “polarized” America is having trouble with the word “patriot.” We’ve written a fair bit about the subject of patriotism over our nearly 27 years in operation, so we couldn’t pass up this story.
But the AP article, published on Independence Day, isn’t a deep-diving investigative report. It’s a hit piece by what the late Rush Limbaugh dubbed the “drive-by media.”
For starters, says the AP, the definition of the word “patriot” is in the eye of the beholder:
Today, the word and its variants have morphed beyond the original meaning. It has become infused in political rhetoric and school curriculums, with varying definitions, while being appropriated by white nationalist groups. Trying to define what a patriot is depends on who is being asked.
Naturally, many beholders are people the AP doesn’t like very much. “Far-right and extremist groups have branded themselves with American motifs and the term ‘patriot’ since at least the early 20th century,” the AP notes. After the requisite name-dropping of Timothy McVeigh, the article continues, “Many right-wing groups have called themselves ‘patriots’ as they’ve fought election processes, LGBTQ+ rights, vaccines, immigration, diversity programs in schools and more. Former President Donald Trump frequently refers to his supporters as ‘patriots.’”
Can it get any worse? they must be thinking.
We’re not here to defend the nation’s paltry handful of actual white supremacists but to rebuke the Left’s mischaracterization of virtually all Republicans as such.
In any case, how do the AP’s trio of intrepid journalists know that the “wrong” people are choosing the word? By appealing to the experts at the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center, as well as in academia. The writers just don’t bother including a single word identifying or even hinting at the ideological bent of the supposed experts opining on the subject. We’ll dispel the mystery: Those experts are far-left extremists who view anyone to the right of Karl Marx with contempt.
Lest you think we’re totally unfair, we’ll acknowledge that the AP gets a couple of things right. The opening paragraph sets up a widely agreed definition of the word “patriot” by recounting “the courage of the nation’s 18th century patriots who fought for independence from Great Britain.” It also notes festivities honoring “the military and those who sacrificed in other conflicts that helped preserve the nation’s freedom over its 247-year history.”
Later, the article quotes Republicans like “former Reagan-era education secretary Bill Bennett” who want to instill patriotic curriculum in schools.
But the AP scribes conclude with a rebuttal by a Democrat “who previously served in the U.S. Coast Guard,” a fact included so as to thwart any challenge to his view. Moreover, on the subject of curriculum, it is leftists in public K-12 schools and colleges and universities who are teaching kids to hate America because of its supposedly systemically racist and oppressively capitalist past.
As the AP paraphrases the favored Democrat, “Saying one curriculum is ‘patriotic’ suggests that others currently in use are not.” Well, if the shoe fits. There’s nothing patriotic about, say, the 1619 Project or critical race theory more generally. Teaching love of America, warts and all, is by definition more patriotic.
The AP and the rest of the Leftmedia are too busy treating “patriot” like the new “Nazi” while running op-eds that someone wrote from the fainting couch after enduring the ghastly sight of … lots of American flags.
It’s not just school and the media. Earlier this year, Joe Biden’s Department of Defense — which oversees the Patriots who voluntarily give their lives to defending the flag and the Liberty it represents — prohibited certain flag displays.
Don’t even get us started on that garish “progressive pride” flag display at Biden’s White House recently, which dishonored the U.S. flag and made a mockery of patriotism.
True patriotism won’t flourish in more people without better instruction on what it is. The Associated Press and the experts cited fall woefully short of anything resembling helpful analysis. For that instruction, we suggest you start here.
And remember these other immortal words from Washington’s Farewell: “The name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism.”
https://patriotpost.us/articles/98619-the-medias-pretended-patriotism-2023-07-06
********************************************Australia: Gender-skeptic doctor launches human rights challenge to pronouns policy
A doctor’s right to object on medical grounds to the unquestioning affirmation of children as the opposite gender faces a human rights test in Queensland, with a suspended psychiatrist filing a complaint against the state’s children’s hospital over transgender health policies.
Jillian Spencer alleges she was prevented from adopting a neutral therapeutic approach and instead forced to comply with gender-affirming polices that risked causing substantial harm to young people, during the course of her employment as a senior staff specialist in the consultation liaison psychiatry team at the Queensland Children’s Hospital.
In a complaint lodged with the Queensland Human Rights Commission, Dr Spencer, who is openly critical of gender-affirming policies, reveals that she was subject to lawful employment directions that required her to use gender-affirming pronouns at all times in her practise of medicine and refrain from dissuading any child and their family from seeking a referral to the hospital’s children’s gender clinic, which frequently prescribes puberty blockers and cross sex hormones to young teenagers.
“I was concerned about the increasing number of children and adolescents – especially biological females – presenting with gender dysphoria in the context of comorbid mental health diagnoses and complex psychological issues, including trauma,” Dr Spencer writes in her complaint.
“I became very concerned about the potential harm our hospital was doing in immediately using preferred pronouns, that unquestioningly affirms a child’s perceived identity and sets them on a treatment pathway of medical intervention that purports to transition a young person into an identity that they are likely to outgrow if interventions of this kind are not applied.”
Dr Spencer, who was stood down from clinical duties at QCH three months ago following a patient complaint, is seeking amendments to health policy pursuant to the state’s Anti-Discrimination Act that “no health worker may be required to use a patient’s preferred pronouns” and that “affirmation of a child’s gender identity cannot be imposed on health professionals”.
She also requests acknowledgment by the QCH that a rejection of the affirmation model of gender dysphoria treatment is a protected political belief and a reasonable professional judgment that is to be respected.
Dr Spencer said the gender-affirmative pathway adopted by QCH in her professional opinion “seemed inconsistent with best medical practice of taking an evidence-led holistic approach to child and adolescent psychiatry”.
Staff were warned at education sessions there was a “grave risk of patient suicidality” if gender-affirming interventions were not applied.
Tension within the hospital over transgender healthcare policies boiled over when management hung a large trans pride flag in the youth mental health unit waiting room, which Dr Spencer took down on the basis the area needed to be a neutral space.
Dr Spencer says she took the action some time after becoming extremely disturbed at the hospital’s policies when the psychiatry team was given an education session conducted by a nurse from the children’s gender clinic on chest binding for young female patients.
Dr Spencer later began using the pronoun “adult human female” in her email signature in protest at the pronouns and was reprimanded.
A spokesperson for Children’s Health Queensland said the organisation adopted a “universal person-centred care approach”.
“We respect the individual needs and preferences of every child and young person and their right to feel safe and supported while receiving clinical care through our service,” the CHQ statement said.
“This aligns with our responsibility as a Queensland government agency – where everyone employed is bound by public sector workplace policies and a code of conduct.
“Similarly, CHQ is committed to upholding the human rights of all people who connect with, or work within, our services.
“This reflects our obligations under the Human Rights Act 2019 to act and make decisions in a manner which supports and does not limit the human rights of patients, families and staff, unless such limitation is reasonable and demonstrably justifiable.”
Dr Spencer’s complaint was lodged with the QHRC late last month but CHQ said it hadn’t yet been notified.
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair
Bliss: What every woman wants: to feel safe and secure in the arms of her man. Robert Irwin and Rorie Buckey. See
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