Where Liberty Dwells, there is my country » political correctness kills

The Dangers of Racial Preferences

BenjaminFranklin — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 16:26:33 +0000

The corrosive effect of racial preferences is huge. Just how huge is captured in a Washington Times editorial

The United States Navy has created a list of “diverse” candidates who are to be helped along when it comes to desirable positions and promotions. “Diverse” is a codeword for blacks and other minorities, possibly women as well. The “protected classes” of the Left. The bottomline is that the Navy will select a less qualified black officer over a more qualified white one.

This is a threat to the professionalism of the U.S. military and the security of the country. Political correctness, “diversity,” and all of the other racial preferences forced on the country by the Left have no place in America today, and especially no place in the national security institutions required to protect American security and allies.

The corrosion of racial preferences has gone on for far too long. It has infected all of the institutions of the United States. It is time for patriots to say “No! Racial preferences are completely at odds with the political principles of the United States.” It is time for the American people to vote for candidates who will cut out the cancer.

The Navy wants to judge sailors by the color of their skin, not the content of their seamanship.

The latest national security leak is a shocking e-mail from a Navy admiral on “Diversity Accountability.” The message, sent to a list of other flag officers, notes that “a change in focus of this year’s diversity brief is the desire to identify our key performers (by name) and provide insight on each of them.” Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead, who apparently originated this order, “is interested in who are the diverse officers with high potential and what is the plan for their career progression. He may ask what is being done within to ensure they are considered for key follow on billets within the Navy.”

The message specifies, “This list must be held very closely but will provide ready reference to ensure we are carefully monitoring and supporting the careers of the best and the brightest the Navy has to offer.” That is, the best and the brightest provided a sailor is one of the euphemistically “diverse.” If you are a white male, it might be time to set sail and seek opportunities elsewhere.

In practice, the Navy will be creating a list of privileged “diverse” officers who will enjoy special benefits and career mentoring not available to people of the wrong race, as well as a virtual guarantee of fast-track access to the highest reaches of command. Fifty-six years after the Supreme Court struck down the concept of “separate but equal” treatment of races, the U.S. Navy is erecting a wall of segregation between what will amount to two parallel promotion systems: one for the “diverse” and another for the monotone. If this isn’t illegal, it should be.

How this dual-track system will be implemented is difficult to discern. Will officers doing fitness reports on those on the list be made aware of their subordinates’ privileged status? Will the people on the list have knowledge that the system is looking out for them? If they get a poor fitness report, will they have special means of getting a second look? Will there be repercussions for reviewing officers who did not know they were supposed to just keep the list members on the fast track no matter what? The devil will be lurking in these details.

This type of backward, 20th-century, overtly racial thinking has no place in 21st-century post-racial America. The Navy leadership apparently believes the way to promote racial harmony is by engaging in blatant, invidious discrimination. In practice, however, this system will, in fact, relegate “diverse” sailors to a form of second-class status. Any nonwhite male sailor who – through intelligence, initiative and drive – builds a stellar career will simply be seen as just another special case, just one of “the Listers.” Those sailors may achieve rank, but they will have to work twice as hard to command respect.

In the contemporary naval bureaucracy, this type of politically correct nonsense has run out of control like a loose cannon on deck. The Naval Academy lists racial diversity as the “highest personnel priority,” apparently even over the mission of educating future Navy leaders for warfare on the high seas. Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made achieving diversity a “strategic imperative” when he was chief of naval operations. Call us old-fashioned seadogs, but we’d prefer that the Navy’s top priority be fighting and winning our nation’s wars rather than engaging in social experimentation.

The suggested list of privileged officers is due Monday. The message states that the reporting requirement will not be put into the secretary of the Navy’s TV4 Taskers tracking system “due to the sensitive nature of the by name list.” No doubt, once the secret list leaks, as it surely will, there will be as much discomfort for the people on the list as for those not on it, especially those unfortunates who met the diversity requirement but for some reason did not make the cut. Maybe they can sue, charging discrimination. Either way, the Navy Department has run aground.

The Ft. Hood Report Has Been Released: Political Correctness Kills (Once Again)

BenjaminFranklin — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 16:49:55 +0000

On Friday, the Pentagon’s report on the Ft. Hood terrorist attack was released. U.S. Army officers are punished. Their careers ruined because they did not call attention to Maj. Hasan’s jihadism. Of course, to do so before the attack would have ended their careers due to the politically correct requirement for diversity.

The Left has got the country in a death-grip. This has to change. The military is responsible for the security of the United States. War is too serious for political correctness and the social engineering of the Let.

If this does not change immediately, the West is doomed.

H. Thomas Hayden has an excellent summary here:

owhere in the report does it mention the threat posed by Al Qaeda and nowhere does it mention influences that caused the “self-radicalization.”

There is nothing on why it happened.

The only revealing piece of information in the “Executive Summary: Overview,” is that “DoD force protection programs are NOT focused on internal threats.”

In its 86 rambling pages they treat “the alleged perpetrator,” Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, as just another workplace shooter with references to the Columbine massacre and the new civilian police force concept of neutralizing an “Active Shooter.”

The report did flirt at saying that any attempt to call attention to Maj. Hasan’s radicalism and prevent his promotion could be perceived as reflecting poorly on his superior officers and maybe have negative influence on their careers.

There is another DoD report, which is classified and not available to the public, where one can only hope that DoD recognizes the role “political correctness” played in this tragedy.

Political correctness and the absence of profiling is going to get more American killed until someone in Congress says enough is enough and do something to stop this nonsense.

Political Correctness Does Indeed Kill

BenjaminFranklin — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 14:05:22 +0000

In today’s Washington Times, a great opinion article on the dangers of political correctness. Rep. John Carter, from the great State of Texas and Ft. Hood is in his district, reviews the history of Islamic fundamentalist attacks against Americans. One point he does not make is that political correctness is a communist concept, and is completely at odds with American political thought.

We must not wrongfully prejudge people. However, we also can no longer refuse to take the steps necessary to defend ourselves, as clearly was the case with the Fort Hood attack. We can’t allow political correctness to intimidate Americans from speaking out against clear and present dangers out of fear they will be ridiculed or penalized for offending any group. We should have learned that lesson in 2001.

Muslim males with ties to radical Islamic groups and persons – including Imam Anwar Al-Awlaki, then of Northern Virginia – rammed airliners into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001, killing 2,976 men, women and children.

A Muslim male with ties to radical Islamic groups and persons attempted to bomb a U.S. airliner with a shoe bomb in December 2001.

A Muslim male with ties to radical Islamic groups and persons attacked the Los Angeles airport in July 2002, killing two persons and wounding four.

A Muslim male with ties to radical Islamic groups and persons engaged in a sniping attack with a juvenile accomplice in the Washington area in October 2002, killing 10 and wounding three.

A Muslim male with ties to radical Islamic groups and persons attacked his fellow U.S. Army soldiers in their tents in Kuwait in 2003, killing two and wounding 14 of his own comrades, a foreshadowing of the Fort Hood attack.

Muslim males with ties to radical Islamic groups and individuals attempted to plan the bombing of the Sears Tower in Chicago in August 2006.

Muslim males with ties to radical Islamic groups and persons, including Mr. Al-Awlaki – now in Yemen – plotted in 2006 to attack the Canadian Parliament and other buildings in Toronto.

Muslim males with ties to radical Islamic groups and individuals – including the same Mr. Al-Awlaki in Yemen – were arrested in May 2007 for planning an automatic weapons attack on U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix, N.J.

A Muslim male with ties to radical Islamic groups and persons attacked a U.S. Army recruiting station in Little Rock, Ark., in June, killing two recruiters.

The FBI and the Defense Department were aware that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was in contact with the same Mr. Al-Awlaki in Yemen with ties to the Sept. 11 attackers and the plot to attack Fort Dix, and that Maj. Hasan made verbal and written statements justifying attacks.

Maj. Hasan’s profile, associations, communications and actions were a perfect match with multiple previous attacks in this country that had killed nearly 3,000 Americans since 2001. Yet no action was taken.

So another Muslim male with ties to radical Islamic groups and persons, including Mr. Al-Awlaki in Yemen, stands accused of attacking our soldiers and civilians at Fort Hood, Texas, on Nov. 5, killing 14 and wounding 32. Mr. Al-Awlaki is publicly praising Maj. Hasan as a “hero.”

What has been done since? Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s chief concern apparently is not why the FBI and other authorities failed to prevent another attack, but whether the public might be led to blame Muslims in general, which would be politically incorrect. This is the same Department of Homeland Security that had no problem warning law enforcement agencies earlier this year of a supposed threat from “right-wing extremists,” defined as Americans who believe in the Constitution and oppose Obama administration policies.

Yes, a distinction needs to be made. No one is calling for rounding up law-abiding and loyal Americans of the Muslim faith or singling out anyone in this country for investigation simply because of his or her ethnic or religious background. We are not discussing all Muslims – or any group, for that matter.

But when a Muslim male contacts the radical Islamic colleague of the Sept. 11 hijackers, the Fort Dix shooting plot and the Canadian Parliament bombing plot; tells responsible people that he sympathizes with our enemies; and claims that jihad against the United States is justified, somebody needs to stop him instead of failing to act from fear of violating the unwritten taboos of political correctness.

We are letting political correctness destroy our nation. It cost the lives of 14 Americans at Fort Hood, and the current administration apparently has not learned a thing.

There is a simple definition of political correctness. It is just another word for a lie. When we say we have no need to fear or take action against people with clear ties to radical Islamic terrorists, that’s a lie.

We must start acknowledging the truth if we want to survive as a free nation.