“Multicultural”

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A news writer for The New York Times, Peter Baker, in typical journalism guild, misstated American culture in an interview with the left-wing network PBS‘ Washington Week With the Atlantic, as excerpted by The Wall Street Journal.

One of the things that they’ve [the Trump administration] been very successful at, and I would expect to see more of, is their war on DEI, on the notion of diversity, equity and inclusion, the notion that diversity is an admirable goal, even if you don’t necessarily want quotas. They have managed in just a very short amount of time to create a new culture in the country—not just in the government, across the board—where private employers feel the need to retreat from DEI. And you’re going to see, I think, an acceleration of that in the second year…. I think the question, though, is in a multicultural country, at some point does that begin to go too far for people and by the midterms?

Leave aside Baker’s blithe assumption that there’s nothing intrinsically racist or sexist in DEI, which favors approved races and the approved gender at the direct, deliberate expense of disapproved races and the disapproved gender. Those favoring criteria, however far down the selection tree they might be, are explicitly and by design racist and sexist.

More than that, the United States is not a mix of race, of old-world cultures, of religions, or of whathaveyous. The Unites States is a nation of a single culture, one unified by a common belief in a basic system of intrinsic rights: to life, to liberty, and to the pursuit of happiness and of a limited government granted to which by our nation’s sovereign citizens only enough power and authority to protect those intrinsic and basic rights.

Baker’s bald claim that the United States is a multicultural country is as cynical as it is wrong.

Even that queen of European identity politics, Germany’s ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel, ultimately recognized that multiculturalism is an abject failure. And that’s something that Americans have known since our inception, if unevenly put or kept in effect.

Happy New Year

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Originally published in 2012, I repeat it here.

This blogger hopes for increasing prosperity for all in the new year just begun.  Following are some additional thoughts, from those better than me.

Dinner was made for eating, not for talking.
–William Makepeace Thackeray

New Year’s Resolution: to tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time.
–James Agate

Those who gave thee a body, furnished it with weakness; but He who gave thee Soul, armed thee with resolution.  Employ it, and thou art wise; be wise, and thou art happy.
–Akhenaton

Character is the ability to carry out a good resolution long after the excitement of the moment has passed.
–Cavett Robert

And ye, who have met with Adversity’s blast,
And been bow’d to the earth by its fury;
To whom the Twelve Months, that have recently pass’d
Were as harsh as a prejudiced jury –
Still, fill to the Future! and join in our chime,
The regrets of remembrance to cozen,
And having obtained a New Trial of Time,
Shout in hopes of a kindlier dozen.
–Thomas Hood

We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched.  Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives…not looking for flaws, but for potential.
–Ellen Goodman

New Year’s Day: now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions.  Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.
–Mark Twain

Youth is when you’re allowed to stay up late on New Year’s Eve.  Middle age is when you’re forced to.
–Bill Vaughn

This bit of ’70s-style wisdom:

A year from now, you’re gonna weigh more or less than what you do right now.
–Phil McGraw

And finally,

Let our New Year’s resolution be this: we will be there for one another as fellow members of humanity, in the finest sense of the word.
–Goran Persson

There’s a Lesson Here

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Recall that the Federal government last summer canceled a $4 billion grant to California’s slower-than-a-sick-snail-in-January bullet train project over that thing’s huge cost overruns and delays that kept the train not far from its drawing board. California’s Progressive-Democrat governor Gavin Newsom had filed suit over the Trump administration’s effrontery in declining to fund, further, this California waste management project. Now we get this:

California dropped its lawsuit against the Trump administration after it pulled roughly $4 billion in federal funding for the state’s high-speed rail project.

The bleats of the California High-Speed Rail Authority in explaining its decision to drop the lawsuit notwithstanding, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy explained the reason for cancelation.

Governor Newsom and the complicit Democrats have enabled this waste for years. Federal dollars are not a blank check—they come with a promise to deliver results. After over a decade of failures, CHSRA’s mismanagement and incompetence has proven it cannot build its train to nowhere on time or on budget[.]

The lesson: don’t do upfront Federal grants to States for projects. Don’t do grants after the fact without hardy strings attached. Make all grants conditional on the States having let the contracts; construction having begun; and significant, serious construction progress having been underway for six months. Then release the grant money a month at a time, after the State has released its funding for the month, with the granted funds matching, not exceeding, the State’s funding for each month. If the State misses funding its project for two consecutive months, or for any three months out of five consecutive months, the rest of the grant must be canceled. The grant could then be renewed, or funding resumed, conditioned on the State having relet its project contract; construction having been resumed; and significant, serious construction progress having been underway for six months. The month-to-month grant funds then could be released as above.

CHSRA’s CEO Ian Choudri had this in the alternative:

Interest from the private sector in investing in California’s high-speed rail project is strong and continues to grow[.]

Even better. If the private sector really is willing to fund this, then go for it. Just don’t expect the Federal government, or the taxpayers of the other 49 States who are the source of Federal dollars, to pay for it.

Not Enough

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European managers say they’ve made a concerted effort to stop buying Russian oil when the barbarian invaded Ukraine. Then there’s Turkey.

Several times a month, tankers unload tens of thousands of barrels of oil products at a Turkish storage terminal in the port city of Mersin. The vast majority of the ships come directly from Russia.
And several times a month, tankers leave that facility carrying similar quantities bound for the European Union.

In that alleged effort, those managers neglected Turkey. Now they’re claiming to be increasing “scrutiny” of that Turkish port and others.

I claim those managers’ neglect was largely intentional. I claim they consciously chose to ignore Turkey’s long relationship with Russia. Turkish enterprises, and the Turkish government, have long been happy to broker Russian oil.

Even if the increased scrutiny leads to concrete action regarding Turkish ports and transshipments of Russian oil, it’s not enough.

European nations, in addition to actualizing their scrutiny, could stop buying Russian oil that passes through Turkey. It isn’t that hard to trace the provenance of most of that oil, and where the provenance can’t be determined, that should be sufficient reason to not buy that oil.

The Racism of the Mayor

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And the straightforwardness of one recruit. Progressive-Democrat Mayor Karen Bass is upset that so many Americans of Latino background are enlisting in the Customs and Border Patrol along our southern border. Bass responded to a report that [a]pplications up 70% from last year as over half of southern border agents are now Hispanic.

Well, in a way, I think it’s sad. I think that those Border Patrol agents are going to have a difficult time when they’re out in the field and they see what actually happens in real life separate from their training.

Not so much. Maybe Bass ought to travel along the border without her entourage screening her and see for herself.

On the other hand, here’s a young recent recruit to the CBP:

Juan Peralta, a 20-year-old who said friends back home were surprised that he’d joined up and would say things like, “How do you feel about arresting your own kind?”
“And how do you answer that when you hear that?” [CNN‘s David] Culver asked.
Peralta responded, “They didn‘t come in the right way. So, they aren‘t my kind.”