Bill's Comments

I am currently in the Sky Club for Delta/Northwest, waiting to take my second leg to Ottawa, Canada. While I was sitting here, a young man started talking loudly on his cell phone to his kids. He was in the next section, but his voice carried. When I got up to get a snack, I asked him as politely as I could if he could talk a little more softly, as his voice carried all over the area. He started talking more softly but made a point of saying that an old man asked him to talk more quietly.

First of all, if he wanted to insult me, "old man" doesn't cut it. I am old enough to be considered an old man. But what takes the cake, is he came to my chair after he finished his phone call, and told me that there was plenty of room elsewhere in the club I could move to, and that he was talking to his kids.

I was simply gob-smacked by that statement, but after a moment I said that I understand talking to kids, but that he had a very interesting perspective. He thought that what he wanted to do was more important than inconveniencing me or intruding on my area. He once again said that there was plenty of room to move to. I pointed out that I was here first. He beat a retreat.

I have never run up against such self-centeredness before. I once was talking too loudly to my wife on a train in France, and upset one of the passengers. My response was to beat a retreat to the between-cars area. This guy plain got pissy over it.

My concern is not the particular instance this describes, but the implications for our society. If this guy is a typical late-20's/early-30's, then we are in deep trouble. One of the hingepins of civilization is manners and consideration. When it was simply "what I want" then the rule becomes might makes right. But this same sort of ego-centricism is so evident in our President. Look at the gifts he gives foreign leaders, and his behavior towards them. It is not about the US, but about him. He thinks no further than his speeches or a Sham-wow.

I have read about the apparent self-centeredness of the last two generations. This is the first I have directly encountered it--my own kids seem to be at least somewhat mannerly and considerate. The encounter is troubling. I would never have expected someone to defend themselves when they were being rude.

Scary.

Once upon a time, diversity had a nice, respectable meaning, that of variety of a category, e.g. a diversity of skills, a diversity of events, a diversity of cuisines. Now, the first thing that comes to mind is the politically correct idea which means different races, religions, creeds, genders, and sexual orientations. However, even within this restriction, it really means a statistically equal amounts of each category or preferably an excess of selected minority categories.

Extra encouragement, incentives, or even outright easing of standards are given to blacks, Hispanics, etc. (but not Asians), GLBT, and women (though numerically there are more women), any religion other than Christianity or Judaism. Diversity in the politically correct sense is to acknowledge a mixture of the desired categories, ignoring anything except the external markers chosen to define the categories.

From all I have read and experienced in my life, there is far more diversity between white-collar and blue-collar workers than between blacks and whites in the same socio-economic stratum. True diversity is not something the politically correct want. They want either elitists of the minorities like themselves, or far-removed members of the minority that they can patronize and pity.

Part of the strength of this country has been that we are genuinely diverse in our backgrounds, not just ethnically, racially, religiously, or sexually, but in our life experiences and abilities to cope with them. The red-necks that are so disparaged by the wannabe intellectual elites, have far more ability to cope and survive under stress than they would ever consider. Red-necks also have far more common sense, and that most wonderful of traits, the ability not to take oneself too seriously. The biggest distributors of redneck jokes are rednecks.

The wannabe intellectual elite tries to believe that everyone should be like them. They don't want true diversity. They want everyone to be college educated. Not for the value of being educated, but for the jobs it creates for them as professors and the money to be dispensed as politicians to support such excess of college attendance. It also is to provide a place of indoctrination. It is not hard to find examples of the suppression of any but the left/liberal viewpoint on college campuses. In fact, it is newsworthy when people try to oppose the indoctrination.

If the intellegensia truly wanted people to be educated, they would not have created all the worthless majors that now exist, such as Women's Studies. That degree and a buck will get a lousy cup of coffee. The intellectual content of universities has been diluted to accomodate the lower quality of entering student. There are still the top few that really can benefit from college or university training, but so many more are now being sent to college that would do far better going out and apprenticing or learning on the job. But then, they would not have been given the party line, nor would they have provided headcount for the college administration to use in their annual begging for dollars.

The faux diversity of political correctness is based on things that are countable. By counting and making the goal statistical parity at the minimum, then any time there is a statistical disparity, there is a "PROBLEM". This of course is baloney, but to the people that have had the lousy educations that are provided these days, it sounds almost right. It also avoids having to explain anything--different motivations, actual differences due to gender, differences due to centuries of cultural selection, or admitting that nature is as important as nurture.

There is another large area, which is quite dangerous in the long run to our society, that faux diversity is applied--multi-culturalism. It has been said much better before, but in a nutshell there are two forms of multi-culturalism. In the first, multi-culturalism is simply saying, "OK, I appreciate you have a different background, and I like knowing some of your customs. You can practice them as long as they don't break laws." The subtext here though is, "You are now in the US. You will learn English, you will learn how the country works, why it works, and you will obey our laws--all of them. You want to stay here, go through the process of citizenship."

Then there is the politically correct version which says, "In the name of diversity, your culture is just as valid or more so than our culture and you may practice it however you want. Don't worry about the laws and language, we will change to meet you." The first question to ask, is, "If your culture is just as valid, why did you go to the effort to come here?" Encouraging multiculturalism, where the underlying premises of the immigrant, though much different than those of US society, are taken as just as valid as ours, is a recipe for disaster. It will not just prevent the immigrant attaining the goals for which they came, it will destroy the society for the rest of us.

But it is here where we start to see the ugly truth--multiculturalism is a coverup for the wholesale buying of votes, legal and illegal. Demanding the things that keep our society stable and lawful, such as full-face identification cards, citizenship, access to services only to citizens or legal guests, requirement that English be the official language for government transactions, is being attacked at every turn. Legality no longer is meaningful to the politically correct. Today there was an article saying that denial of health care to illegal immigrants under the proposed medical care changes, will jeopardize the support of a block of Hispanic voters. Look who fights to prevent secure identification of voters--those who support all the aspects of multi-culturalism and faux diversity.

Politically correct diversity today is supposed to be tolerant and open-minded. It is not tolerant of any views save its own, and its open-mindedness is that of having holes-in-the-head, an ideological blindness that creates a total inability to see ones own survival at stake.

.....and my oldest son had to make the call. We are never without cell phones now.

Gates of Vienna published this wonderful bit of satire by Walter E Williams.

Walter Williams and Thomas Sowell are both at the top of my list of excellent columnists. Both have had much to say on both economics (both are respected economists) and on many other topics including race relations in the US. Neither supports any form of affirmative action, nor do they accept the posturings of the various race hustlers. Both are American black men.

They have, by their own merits, become successful in their fields. It crosses my mind that because they earned their success, they have little tolerance for excuses. Like Bill Cosby, they pretty much say, stop whining, get off your butts, and do something.

.....If you want to amount to something, you don't need excuses and scapegoats.

Pundita has excellent posts on topics that are not the topic du jour. This particular post was especially interesting.

Teasers:

So how did we get to this point, where Americans could show such poor judgment they'd proffer the name of a mass murderer as a guide for schoolchildren? And where their wishes are the only moral guide that makes sense to them?

I know this is unwelcome news for feminists. But there is much in addition to the elephant tale to suggest that unless young human males have a very strong patriarchal influence in their lives, they tend to rely on their wishes for moral guidance. This doesn't always work out well for society.

Read the entire article. It starts in one place and ends up where you would never suspect.

.....Men are necessary as authority figures.