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seawasp On to another indigestion-spawning topic...
As the evil juggernaut of Project 2025 continues careening down the track, wearing hideous clown makeup like the car from Twisted Metal, one of its targets to demolish at the crossing is "DEI" (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) programs and organization. While the people at the top are undoubtedly aware of the real intent (to put "those people" in their place), they haven't been stupid enough to phrase it that way.
Instead, in Project 2025 and elsewhere, they've chosen to once more proclaim that up is down, black is white, and, in this case, that fighting discrimination is identical to discrimination. For example:
As I note in my summary of Project 2025 (available here), the "in other words" is utter bullshit. The rule simply clarifies that you can't use ANY sex or gender based assumptions for discrimination.
Throughout this, they do similar things to other words and phrases. In the above bit, "unscientific" means "doesn't fit with the simplified descriptions of biology and sex I was taught in grade school 50+ years ago", as if you follow actual science it's been shown that "Man and Woman" is an extremely simplified division of the variations in human sexual characteristics, expressions, psychology, brain chemistry, and so on.
Again, I'm pretty sure the people at the very top know this; they don't care about the facts, however, because the PURPOSE is to permit discrimination in very particular ways that are advantageous to their group (rich first, white next, Men certainly, preferably espousing lip service to "Christian" values. Another quote that points this up:
This statement contains other dangerous lies ("children have a right to be raised by the men and women who conceived them", rather than "children have a right to be raised by people who care for and protect them", for instance), but the whole thing shows the narrow view of what is "proper", and that they intend to force their ideas on everyone.
One more example of their making anti-discrimination into discrimination:
Instead, in Project 2025 and elsewhere, they've chosen to once more proclaim that up is down, black is white, and, in this case, that fighting discrimination is identical to discrimination. For example:
“Nondiscrimination in Health Programs and Activities.”58 This rule addresses nondiscrimination provisions of the Affordable Care Act, known as Section 1557, which is enforced by the Office for Civil Rights and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Section 1557 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, and sex in covered health programs or activities.
Under the proposed rule, sex is redefined: “Discrimination on the basis of sex includes, but is not limited to, discrimination on the basis of sex stereotypes; sex characteristics, including intersex traits; pregnancy or related conditions; sexual orientation; and gender identity.”59 In other words, the department proposes to interpret Section 1557 as if it created special privileges for new classes of people, defined in ways that are highly ideological and unscientific.-- Project 2025
As I note in my summary of Project 2025 (available here), the "in other words" is utter bullshit. The rule simply clarifies that you can't use ANY sex or gender based assumptions for discrimination.
Throughout this, they do similar things to other words and phrases. In the above bit, "unscientific" means "doesn't fit with the simplified descriptions of biology and sex I was taught in grade school 50+ years ago", as if you follow actual science it's been shown that "Man and Woman" is an extremely simplified division of the variations in human sexual characteristics, expressions, psychology, brain chemistry, and so on.
Again, I'm pretty sure the people at the very top know this; they don't care about the facts, however, because the PURPOSE is to permit discrimination in very particular ways that are advantageous to their group (rich first, white next, Men certainly, preferably espousing lip service to "Christian" values. Another quote that points this up:
The Family Agenda. The Secretary’s antidiscrimination policy statements should never conflate sex with gender identity or sexual orientation. Rather, the Secretary should proudly state that men and women are biological realities that are crucial to the advancement of life sciences and medical care and that married men and women are the ideal, natural family structure because all children have a right to be raised by the men and women who conceived them. -- Project 2025
This statement contains other dangerous lies ("children have a right to be raised by the men and women who conceived them", rather than "children have a right to be raised by people who care for and protect them", for instance), but the whole thing shows the narrow view of what is "proper", and that they intend to force their ideas on everyone.
One more example of their making anti-discrimination into discrimination:
Pursuing Equal Protection for All Americans by Vigorously Enforcing Applicable Federal Civil Rights Laws in Government, Education, and the Private Sector. Entities across the private and public sectors in the United States have been besieged in recent years by an unholy alliance of special interests, radicals in government, and the far Left. This unholy alliance speaks in platitudes about advancing the interests of certain segments of American society, but that advancement comes at the expense of other Americans and in nearly all cases violates long- standing federal law.
Even though numerous federal laws prohibit discrimination based on notable immutable characteristics such as race and sex,73 the Biden Administration— through the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division and other federal entities—has enshrined affirmative discrimination in all aspects of its operations under the guise of “equity.”
Of course, what the Biden administration was ACTUALLY doing was making clear that you can't discriminate against ANYONE, even groups you don't like (like trans, gay, etc.). But it's so much easier to discriminate if you just pretend those groups DON'T EXIST, so their approach is to deny these groups exist "as a thing" and therefore it's discrimination against "real people" -- namely, the groups they like.
In a purely selfish and practical way, of course, all this makes perfect sense. They don't want resources and support given to Those People when it could go to THEM. It's cruel, evil, and against any decent civilized person's sensibilities, but it's very much founded in a clear understanding of their goals.
However, using this framing device allows them to convince OTHER people that they're doing the right thing. While they're on a race course that has two hurdles to jump, and the Other People are jumping twenty, they're painting the removal of hurdles as being the PLACEMENT of hurdles in front of them -- which isn't the case. Does it reduce their chances of winning the race? Well, yeah, to an extent, because now everyone's running on the same track in the same race. But that's not because the Other People are getting special treatment (discrimination against Our People), but they're no longer getting blocked, so the competition is now more equal.
It undoubtedly FEELS like discrimination if you're uncritical and simply looking at your personal view (hey, there were never any of Those People on this track, how the hell are they all catching up to me? That never happened before!), and so Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation can play on that perception to give people a self-righteous justification of "we're being discriminated against!".
Now, one CAN argue that various approaches of DEI might be a form of discrimination, and in a VERY narrow view, even be right sometimes. But the problem isn't the attempt at removing prejudice and discrimination; the problem is that existing prejudice and discrimination is rooted deeply and, to those raised in it, almost invisibly. It takes FORCE -- legal, social, hopefully not physical -- to push obstacles out of the way. That force will obviously be fought against by those who either have a vested interest in the prejudice and discrimination, or who happen to sit at the points of pressure and become exposed to it.
There are unfortunately only two alternatives to using such approaches to wearing down discriminatory habits and practices. One is to NOT do so, and allow the people on top to maintain their overall advantages; I would hope that most people would agree that this isn't appropriate or justifiable.
But the other alternative is revolution; if legal and social force fail, or are prevented from acting, then it is INEVITABLE that physical force becomes the only remaining approach to rectifying society's failures.
The people at the top may believe that such a thing will not happen -- that they can PREVENT it from happening. I incline to doubt it. But the more they exert pressure to mold society into an unrealistic, and ultimately evil, mold that denies the existence of entire groups of people and their rights to the same things as those on top, the more extreme will be the results of that pressure finally breaking containment. Speaking purely selfishly, I don't want to SEE a new civil war in my lifetime. I don't want my children having to face bullets for the sake of their own survival. I don't want to see my country become a battleground.
But it WILL happen, if we allow this kind of thing to continue. We're going to MAKE it happen by leaving people no alternatives.
In a purely selfish and practical way, of course, all this makes perfect sense. They don't want resources and support given to Those People when it could go to THEM. It's cruel, evil, and against any decent civilized person's sensibilities, but it's very much founded in a clear understanding of their goals.
However, using this framing device allows them to convince OTHER people that they're doing the right thing. While they're on a race course that has two hurdles to jump, and the Other People are jumping twenty, they're painting the removal of hurdles as being the PLACEMENT of hurdles in front of them -- which isn't the case. Does it reduce their chances of winning the race? Well, yeah, to an extent, because now everyone's running on the same track in the same race. But that's not because the Other People are getting special treatment (discrimination against Our People), but they're no longer getting blocked, so the competition is now more equal.
It undoubtedly FEELS like discrimination if you're uncritical and simply looking at your personal view (hey, there were never any of Those People on this track, how the hell are they all catching up to me? That never happened before!), and so Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation can play on that perception to give people a self-righteous justification of "we're being discriminated against!".
Now, one CAN argue that various approaches of DEI might be a form of discrimination, and in a VERY narrow view, even be right sometimes. But the problem isn't the attempt at removing prejudice and discrimination; the problem is that existing prejudice and discrimination is rooted deeply and, to those raised in it, almost invisibly. It takes FORCE -- legal, social, hopefully not physical -- to push obstacles out of the way. That force will obviously be fought against by those who either have a vested interest in the prejudice and discrimination, or who happen to sit at the points of pressure and become exposed to it.
There are unfortunately only two alternatives to using such approaches to wearing down discriminatory habits and practices. One is to NOT do so, and allow the people on top to maintain their overall advantages; I would hope that most people would agree that this isn't appropriate or justifiable.
But the other alternative is revolution; if legal and social force fail, or are prevented from acting, then it is INEVITABLE that physical force becomes the only remaining approach to rectifying society's failures.
The people at the top may believe that such a thing will not happen -- that they can PREVENT it from happening. I incline to doubt it. But the more they exert pressure to mold society into an unrealistic, and ultimately evil, mold that denies the existence of entire groups of people and their rights to the same things as those on top, the more extreme will be the results of that pressure finally breaking containment. Speaking purely selfishly, I don't want to SEE a new civil war in my lifetime. I don't want my children having to face bullets for the sake of their own survival. I don't want to see my country become a battleground.
But it WILL happen, if we allow this kind of thing to continue. We're going to MAKE it happen by leaving people no alternatives.
