Walter Williams wrote a recent editorial about the Naval Academy and their Diversity Program. Having experienced this form of discrimination many times while a federal employee, I agree with him wholeheartedly. Here’s how the Naval Academy's PowerPoint display explains diversity by saying, "Diversity is all the different characteristics and attributes of individual sailors and civilians which enhance the mission readiness of the Navy," adding that: "Diversity is more than equal opportunity, race, gender or religion. Diversity is the understanding of how each of us brings different skills, talents and experiences to the fight -- and valuing those differences. Leveraging diversity creates an environment of excellence and continuous improvement to remove artificial achievement barriers and value the contribution of all participants." Admiral Gary Roughead, chief of Naval Operations, says that "diversity is the No. 1 priority" at the academy.” Unfortunately, how diversity is being and is to be achieved completely belies this statement.

Says Walter, “Diversity at the Naval Academy, as at most academic institutions, is not about equal opportunity but a race and sex spoils system to achieve what the Navy brass see as a pleasing race and sex mix. They accomplish that vision by the removal of "artificial achievement barriers." Mr. Williams, a professional, educated black man of real accomplishment, then describes what he sees as the Naval Academy’s artificial achievement barrier candidate, a black with B and C grades, with no particular leadership qualities, and 500 on both portions of the SAT. Such is virtually guaranteed admittance while a white student, who's not an athlete, with such scores is deemed not qualified. In fact, there is a disproportionate number of unqualified blacks now in attendance at 3 service academies.

Many students ( of all minority groups) are admitted to the Naval Academy through remedial training at the Naval Academy Preparatory School (NAPS) in Newport, R.I., which is a one-year post-secondary school. Finishing the year with a 2.0 GPA, a C average, almost guarantees admission to the academy. A C average for remedial work is nothing to write home about. Occasionally, when students don't make the 2.0 GPA target, the target is renegotiated downward. Minority applicants with SAT scores down to the 300s and with Cs and Ds grades (and no particular leadership or athletics) are also admitted after a remedial year at the Naval Academy Preparatory School. “ All the academies have their remedial schools.

But such unqualified applicants who apply for mere government positions not Military Academies are still hired and given promotion preferences over higher qualified non-minorities simply because they exist, even though the Civil Service Law governing “equal opportunity” dictates different methodology for selections than mere color or gender. The Law is ignored in the name of diversity and most promotional selections must first be approved by some “equal opportunity” office or board made up of minorities, generally blacks. This has been going on so long, there is a huge majority disparity of black women who now run virtually every agency in Washington.

Selection boards and officials are under constant pressure to select minorities rather than better qualified and educated whites. They found the way to do this legally is to lower the overall standards for selections by discounting education directly related to the agencies for which they work, equalizing outside work experience with experience gained within each agency, then allowing anyone with an overall score above the actual minimum required to be selected rather than the most qualified. Sometimes the information and selection criteria used become “unavailable” or the selectors are told to NOT write anything down because no records will then be available in case of lawsuits or reviews.

Diversity agendas give rise to widespread resentments at two levels. Some minorities admitted or promoted meritoriously on the same basis as whites, resent the idea of being seen as having the same minimal qualities as blacks given preferential treatment, in other words being ignorant. Another level of resentment comes from whites who see minorities being admitted, retained, and promoted at lower levels of overall performance and achievement then being treated with kid gloves. If any whites openly complain about the unequal treatment, they run the risk of being labeled as racists, one of the most unappreciated aspects of preferential treatment. It runs the risk of creating racist attitudes, and possibly feelings of racial superiority, among whites and others who were formerly racially neutral.  

Governments at all levels, Colleges, Universities, and Corporations with racially preferential admittance and promotional policies are doing a great disservice to blacks and other minorities in another, mostly ignored, way. By admitting and promoting poorly prepared and educated blacks and minorities, they are helping to conceal the grossly fraudulent education they receive at the K through 12 grades. Also, ignorance breeds ignorance and bad decisions because the poorly prepared don’t want to compete with more highly qualified so tend to select and promote other poorly qualified minorities with whom they can better compete. And this forces already low standards even lower.

PL Booth, www.blueeyeview.blogspot.com 07/22/09

The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions

 Have you ever given thought to how we got into our present fascist quagmire? What has brought us to the brink of Socialism where a President can openly fire the CEO of a private corporation and nearly 40% of our nation’s residents receive some form of federal monetary aid (notice I said residents, not citizens.) When did we step onto that slippery slope? And how can we get off?

 “It is hard for those who did not live through it to grasp the full force of the worldwide depression. Between 1930 and 1939 U.S. unemployment averaged (editorial note: substitute peaked) 18.2 percent. The economy's output of goods and services (gross national product) declined 30 percent between 1929 and 1933 and recovered to the 1929 level only in 1939. (Ed. Note: The stock market recovered much sooner but GOVERNMENTAL POLICIES stymied recovery.) Prices of almost everything (farm products, raw materials, industrial goods, stocks) fell dramatically. Farm prices, for instance, dropped 51 percent from 1929 to 1933. World trade shriveled: between 1929 and 1933 it shrank 65 percent in dollar value and 25 percent in unit volume. (Ed. Note: Protectionist policies restricting free trade kept business, manufacturing, and agriculture from exporting goods, hence prices and production suffered.) Most nations suffered. In 1932 Britain's unemployment was 17.6 percent. Germany's depression hastened the rise of Hitler and, thereby, contributed to World War II.”        --     Robert Samuelson, Encyclopedia Britannica

Mr. Samuelson’s history is generally accurate but relies upon Marxist economic theory for his commentary, normal in today’s Socialist theology.

 In his effort to combat the problems of the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed, and with the help of the Socialist minded Democratic-controlled Congress passed, many New Deal programs. Within 100 days of taking office in 1933, he and his advisors proposed a series of measures designed to provide relief for the unemployed, recovery of the economy, and reform of the economic and banking systems. In other words, Roosevelt began tinkering with our economic engine. By 1934, the Supreme Court began ruling, correctly, against many of the New Deal programs as unconstitutional. In his second term, Roosevelt, flush from his 1936 landside presidential victory, was outraged and was convinced he had a mandate from the people to continue and expand his New Deal programs. This conflict between the Court and the Executive branches of government led to FDR's court-packing bill in 1937. The court acquiesced joining FDR in his Utopian ideology.

 FDR’s Dem Congress passed the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933. Portions of its provisions were correctly ruled unconstitutional by the Court in 1933 which lead to passage of further curative amendments by Congress in the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act in 1936. The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 limited the area that farmers could devote to wheat production. (The Soviets had done so well with their own allocation programs we had to as well. Of course, the USSR allowed 30 million peasants to starve to death so Stalin could eat well, a mere statistic.)

 The stated purpose of the act was to stabilize the price of wheat in the national market by controlling the amount of wheat produced. The motivation behind the Act was a belief by Congress that great international fluctuations in the supply and demand for wheat were leading to wide swings in the price of wheat. Of course, our farmers weren’t allowed to export their excesses which led to widespread world hunger and poorer US farmers. Ah, how well the road is paved, eh! Even farmers who grew more than their Government allowed allocations for their own usage were penalized. More Socialism. Why should Government in any form be allowed to tell farmers how much grain they can grow for their own use?

 Wickard v. Filburn was a US Supreme Court decision. It allowed the Fed’s to control wheat production. Filburn was a small farmer in Ohio. He was given a wheat acreage allotment of 11.1 acres under a directive, Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938, which authorized the government to set production quotas for wheat. Filburn harvested nearly 12 acres of wheat above his allotment. He claimed that he wanted the wheat for use on his farm, including feed for his poultry and livestock. Fiburn was penalized. He argued that the excess wheat was unrelated to commerce since he grew it for his own use. It wasn’t sold nor intended to be sold.

 The Federal District Court ruled in favor of Filburn. The Act required an affirmative vote of farmers by plebiscite in order to implement the quota. (The Dems thought a vote would seem democratic.) Much of the District Court decision related to the way in which the Secretary of Agriculture had campaigned for passage: The District Court had held that the Secretary's comments were improper. The government then appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, which called District Court's holding against the campaign methods which led to passage of the quota by farmers a "manifest error." The court then went on to uphold the AAA under the Interstate Commerce Clause.

 Government prosecutors claimed concern lest the Act be held to be a regulation of production or consumption rather than of marketing.  In fact, activities such as 'production,' 'manufacturing,' and 'mining' were considered strictly 'local' except in special circumstances and not regulated under the commerce power because their effects upon interstate commerce were, as matter of law, only 'indirect.'

 It was supposed no decision of the Court allowed activities to be regulated where no part of the product is intended for interstate commerce or intermingled with the subjects thereof. It doesn’t work that way, of course. The issue was not how one characterized the activity as local, but rather whether the activity "exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce." In simple language, since Filburn didn’t have to buy feed from somebody else, his activities infringed on someone else’s ability to sell their grain.

 But the decision held ….even if (a person’s) activity be local and though it may not be regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever its nature, be reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce and this irrespective of whether such effect is what might at some earlier time have been defined as 'direct' or 'indirect.'  …..  It was a power grab by FDR and the DEMS to allow them to regulate who could buy and sell. Lot’s of flowery language but same result, Fascism. Just exactly the governmental form we went to war to end in Japan and Europe, aided, abetted, and promoted by a populist President same as Obama today.

 PL Booth, The Blue Eye View, MO 04/02/09