WHY DEI = DIE

DEI leads, first, to Mediocrity... then to Tragedy... then ultimately to Annihilation

********** AS IS MY SPEECH - SUBSCRIPTION IS FREE **********

UPDATE/NOTE (1/13/25): This column was written in advance of the horrific fires in California. The upcoming series of columns on Wokeism will address DEI’s and Wokeism’s effects on California’s vulnerabilities and subsequent fires and related tragedies. For now, all readers should note the accuracy of my schema for DEI/Woke’s inevitable deliveries (as contained in the subtitle above) - Mediocrity-Tragedy-Annihilation - and the perfect match to what happened in California. More will follow absent the demolition of DEI/Woke.

Original column:

A soon as you make someone’s immutable characteristics the primacy of their qualification for high or low station, be it their race, their sex, their gender, any other immutable classification, you’ve doomed a society first to mediocrity, then to tragedy, then to annihilation.

That society will simply grind itself to ordinariness, pettiness, mistakes, willful neglect, chaos, escalating civil strife, and an expanding inability to preserve, protect, and sustain an ability to prosper while pursuing happiness. The borders - and sovereignty - will dissolve. The Department of Defense and our military branches will/have become “woke.” Absent a reversal to DEI (and associated wokeness and CRT), America itself will dissolve.

With DEI, you may find the relevant few who ring some bells “downstream” from their “identity/identities” - in other words, they’re Black and… they’re qualified! Yippee. They’re female and… they’re qualified! They’re a Trans Queer Pterodactyl and… mmm, maybe a bridge too far on that one. But, in consideration for what they’re really saying: They’re not White… and they’re qualified! They’re not a man… and they’re qualified! (Just be certain the individual isn’t “gender fluid,” or you may find yourself saddled with a man after all on certain days… or maybe in perpetuity. Horrors).

It’s just that… well… in too many cases, they’re not best-qualified. There are, of course, cases where the best-qualified person just happens to be someone who, coincidentally, rings one or more DEI “bells.” Would I hire Dr. Thomas Sowell, the economist, social philosopher, and political commentator for a fitting position? We’d be lucky to have him - there are no better. Would I hire Dr. Ben Carson for a fitting position as a neurosurgeon? Would I hire an Amelia Earhart to fly my plane? Same.

However, if we’re ever going to enter the Happy Land of post-racial society*, then the case of the “just happens to be” should not even inspire a breath for comment. They’re best qualified - period. That “first qualifier” (under DEI) should not matter… should never matter. Just look what the DEI qualifier did in serving us a presidential candidate who could not speak coherently, could not think coherently, had no faculty with the issues, and did not even have sound political chops in an arena (politics) that rounds off every corner for quality, merit, justice, honesty - and more. She could not even clear the low bars for politics - and only got as far as she did through career-long consideration for her sex and skin. (And I mean “for her sex” in more ways than one). But, the Democrat Party told us it was our sexism and racism that parried Kamala Harris’ White House dreams.

*

It was catastrophe for the Democrat Party and, had she been elected President, would have been catastrophic for the country. To say nothing of the queer candidate for VP she selected. (Note: I’m using the word “queer” as an adjective, and in selected original definitions - IOW, to indicate something/someone deviating from what is expected or normal; very strange; odd or unconventional; of a questionable nature or character; suspicious. That was Tim Walz, all right. Any other application of the word “queer” to him is up to you. [*wink*])

If any sort of markers, determinants or weighted measures, are applied from the candy basket of race, gender, sex, identity, and all the other bundles and boodles of things that have NOTHING to do with intellect, experience, judgment, maturity, grace, veracity to the fair distribution of opportunities based on individual merit(s) and best qualifications in match to the demands of any office, any job, any position, any requirement, and so forth… if those immutable things take priority or are even considered, then on balance, you will necessarily have less capable people in critical positions. You will have erosions of teams, morale, efficiency, outputs, and solutions. Will they be “capable enough?” That’s the real question for any particular situation and its associated scale of critical need. Over time, though, you will see a degradation to all. The debasement will seep down and into mail delivery, trash pick-up, bank balances, and our trust in anything and everything. It’s already shaky.

Do you want the best pilot available (heart surgeon; plumber; General; private, construction engineer, etc.) or a DEI candidate who graduated in the bottom half of a class where the Cs and Ds are now As, Bs, and… more Bs? (Or should I just make that more BS?)

Occasionally you may get the best person in the job, etc. - but that will be incidental and coincidental to the other immutable things - meaning that that person would have cooked to the top regardless and, thus, why again consider DEI? I firmly believe that in today’s America the best will rise in match to the best opportunities. I hear from too many hiring managers - going back to the ‘80s and ‘90s - about how they couldn’t give a rat’s about someone’s color, origin, creed, sex, etc., if they could just do the job. Back when I was hiring software programmers, network engineers, vendors, contractors, and staff - I used to say: I don’t care if someone comes to work with a red ball clown nose and a flowerpot on their head - I need someone who can code! I need someone who shows up on days scheduled… on time…

Is there still racism and sexism in America? Sure - in small, discreet, pockets. You can call me naive if you like… or ignorant… or a privileged white man (itself racism, in the case of the latter). But I’ve spoken to too many Close Friends of Color (hey, let’s call ‘em CFOCs - pronounced CEEFOCKs). Anyway, my CFOCs tell me they’re weary of being bagged by the Left as “victims,” essentially too weak to think for themselves, too weak to excel and progress up a career ladder; to realize the American Dream; to be taken as individuals, with individual capabilities, capacities, talents, and contributions-to-be-made.

They don’t cry in a corner because someone backed a shopping cart into them because they’re black… or female… or gay… or, or, or… something. (Note: I get backed into all the time - but it’s not because I’m white. It’s because there are a lot of stupid people in the world who don’t glance behind them before backing up with their shopping cart because they realized they just passed the Doritos.)

Believe it or not, as a White Man, I once had a sexist boss. She was a bitch - women said so, and I say so. She didn’t like me because I was a… Man. I didn’t have to guess - a VP told me so… she wanted to hire a woman, but a panel overrode her and voted to hire me… and her anger was evidenced my entire three years there. After my departure, I stayed in touch with that VP with dinners and drinks. I also had many friends who remained my friends. Uniformly, they lamented, “You were the best I.T. Director we ever had. Would you ever consider coming back?” I always replied, “I’d consider it - but Susan would never have me.” Onward and upward, for me.

But I’ve always maintained: America is not racist; never was. America is not sexist; never was. Some of America’s office holders, fallible human beings, were - and some are today. However, America is not a human being - it is an idea… a set of ideas… values… and freedoms that should not be infringed. It is not America’s fault if certain officeholders abused their offices, abused Constitutional protections and guarantees, abused elements of the citizenry. America is a Declaration of Independence… it is a Constitution… it is a Bill of Rights… (and other founding documents and guides) and they are what allowed America’s full flower into the greatest country on earth - and is allowing America’s ongoing fulfillment of its promises in spite of human frailties, foibles, follies and associated fallibilities.

America’s enumerations of rights require honest people, in offices to which We the People are supposed to grant them temporary access, to ensure them. We want fair competition. But America is only supposed to grant equal opportunity - not equal dispersion and placement of people according to people’s occupancy in baskets of immutable characteristics.

If you have a racist, and/or sexist, or just an unfair, boss (I’ve had the usual run of A-holes - who doesn’t?) - do what is available to us all: The hallway of opportunity is long and wide. Some doors are unyielding due to biases, ignorance, or just mistakes. Walk a little way and you’ll find doors and more doors that swing open on oiled hinges, opening to vistas of opportunities for you. And if you did barge through that unyielding door, you just might have found that it merely granted access to the worst job of your life irrespective of anything else.

You hear this in the professions and trades today. As for the trades, people look for plumbers, electricians, carpenters, drywallers and painters, with good ratings. We just need someone to get the job done. Hell, I’ll even take a roofer who voted for Harris/Walz if they are the best roofer in town. (Ok, I’m kidding, there: A survey of roofers found that roofers who harbor on the political Left fall off a roof within the first two years on the job, leading to incapacitation or death. Sad. So sad. It’s very, very sad).

The problem with any particular collective – and once you insist that that collective has to have “equal representation” amongst a larger diaspora – is that you necessarily must vault some of the lesser intellects and faulty people into key, critical, and even ordinary positions. How could this not be so? It’s not just that you’re using the wrong criteria - you’re using something that should not be, and is not, criteria at all! It’s the old “The airplane doesn’t know the pilot’s skin color” mantra. (Ok, it’s not old - but it should be).

As to the most recent manifestation for what DEI delivers: Harris is a dummkopf.  So is Walz. (Oh, wait: He’s a knucklehead - I forgot that he identified himself).  Add to that the fact that they are both pathological liars and we have two pilots who would have lit the American plane on fire as they flew it straight into the ground. A very close call.

DEI really only survives by benefit of “Wokeism,” something I’ll be discussing in the next column - particularly Wokeism’s deleterious effects on the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense. For now -

Many companies are abandoning DEI and its “representation goals” - and instead hiring people based on their education, experience, skills, and overall talent(s). Here are a few:

• Toyota Motor Corp.

• Ford Motor Co.

• Molson Coors

• John Deere

• Lowe’s

• Harley-Davidson

• Brown-Forman (makers of Jack Daniels and other bevs)

• Tractor Supply Co. (yes!)

Many of these and more are also backing out of Pride Month and other associated “celebrations.” I never understood those, frankly. They’re tiresome. I just don’t care, excepting the fact that so many of us are just plain weary of you being proud of nothing.

Say it loud - say it proud:

Death to DEI.

___________________________________________________________________________

Now playing: The Kinks, I’m Not Like Everybody Else

___________________________________________________________________________

David Scott Strain is a U.S. Army veteran (HQ, 500th Military Intelligence Brigade [Japan]; 1st Personnel Command [1st PERSCOM, Europe]; Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans [ODCSOPS, Pentagon], more) and a retired Fortune500 I.T. executive (Young & Rubicam, Inc., DC-NY; Burson-Marsteller, LLC, DC-NY; ShuffleLabs, Inc., Virginia, more) as well as employment at major non-profits (Nat’l. Food Processors Assoc., N. VA [now GMA]; Water Environment Federation, N. VA, more); as well as TS contract work for clients (most notably BCP, Int., Alexandria, VA). Mr. Strain has passed three FBI background checks in association with his work.  He is also the author of the novel THE GRIM GRIND OF LIFE:  A PI’s Strange Bounces through a Surfeit of Eateries, Juke Joints, and Dark Doorways (2020) and A Bohemian in a Precarious Belfry - Vol. I: Poetry & Prose (2023). (Available on Amazon - Kindle and paperback). Prior, he authored the MBA-text I.T. WARS: Managing the Business-Technology Weave in the New Millennium (UofW, UofMD, others).