Wednesday, October 25: From Conservative Compendium:
“Trying to achieve diversity, which in common usage actually means proportionality, is itself a form of quota regardless of whether the means to achieve that end utilizes quotas. Diversity, as typically used, is actually a misnomer. What is actually desired is uniformity. All jobs/institutions must have a uniform representation of all groups, making all such institutions virtual copies of each other. They would, amongst themselves, lack diversity…[W]e see that many falsely associate workplaces or other institutions with exactly proportional group representations as nondiscriminatory, when the opposite is actually true.”
Also see this Opinion Journal piece: “To avoid charges of ‘racism,’ we disciplined black and white students differently.”
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When I was young and naive, I used to believe in a “colorblind society.” I envisioned a utopia-like world where everyone got along, despite differences in skin color, religion, height, weight, or other “irrelevant” factors.
Having lived in the real world for a few decades now, I realize how silly I was. Human beings can’t ignore differences if we tried. The best we can do is condition ourselves to not allow those differences to divide us too sharply. If we can do that, we’re doing quite well.
Some people misunderstand the conservative position on “colorblindness.” I should say my position on colorblindness, since I can’t speak for conservatives or black people. While humans will always make decisions based on what we perceive, the government should not. What conservatives and other anti-race preference opponents like myself believe is that government policy should be colorblind; that is, the government should not make policy, write laws, or base decisions on a citizen’s race, color, creed, or religion. We are to be judged and treated as individuals, not as members or representatives of a racial or ethnic group.
This idea of colorblind government policy extends all over: the legal system, the legislature, the execution of laws, etc.
According to the Fourteenth Amendment, federal, state, and local governments are prohibited from preferring one group over the other on the basis of race. Neither the amendment nor the rest of the Constitution denies differences; they embody the idea that “all men are created equal” and that government is expressly forbidden to allocate rights or burdens on the basis of race.
As noble an idea that is, it’s currently not practiced by the United States government.
Thomas Jefferson said, “The purpose of government is to allow for the preservation of life and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Sound familiar? A government’s purpose is to maintain order, protect rights, and the rule of law so that people can pursue life, liberty, and happiness. A government’s purpose is not to give, promise, or guarantee these things. No government can. In a free and relatively orderly country like the U.S., we have the freedom to forge our own destinies — to enter into and excel in a profession, to create art, music, and literature, to procreate and form families, to contribute to society, to pass on our wealth and our legacies to posterity.
That’s a lot of power and potential. No matter what our limitations may be, our government affords us the freedom to succeed, fail, and try again. That’s why I’m in awe of this country’s founding principles.
I once thought human beings could ignore differences and just “get along.” I now understand that even if we can’t do that, our government is there to make sure our rights are protected without regard to those differences.
It looks like my naivety has come full circle. 
Related posts:
- “Minority” Journalism Program Challenged
- Value of Diversity
- Individuality
- 40 White Male Professors Entitled to $1.4 Million
