Deceits of the Left

Thomas Sowell, American economist & social philosopher is one of my favorite political commentators who once wrote, “If you want to challenge liberal policies all you need do is ask three questions.  How much does it cost, compared to what and where’s your hard evidence?”  And it’s true, those three simple questions will lay waste to just about every liberal social policy.

Sowell melds logic and evidence to reveal the fallacies of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion movement.  Obviously, I have neither Sowell’s intellect, insights, or acumen, nonetheless, I’d like to share some of what I’ve gleaned from his writing over the years with a focus on DEI.

Let’s begin with the fact that the world has never been a level playing field.  Whether or not we accept that reality is a choice, but similar to the law of gravity, no matter how hard we try, we cannot fight that reality.  Yet that is exactly what the DEI movement is trying to do.  As an aspiration DEI is a noble idea, but it’s also a fool’s errand to even try implementing into society because so much of what we hear from the Left regarding social justice simply doesn’t stand up to empirical testing.

~ Want Proof? ~

It’s a fact that women are statistically under-represented in Silicon Valley – no one questions that because it’s a fact supported by hard evidence.  Yet the virtue signaling Left in its attempt to artificially ‘level the playing field’ tells us the cause of this condition must be sexual discrimination.  But progressive ideology isn’t known investigating matters too deeply, and at the risk so appearing snarky, experience has shown that they’re far better at creating pithy bumper-sticker slogans, such as “Jesus was a liberal”  than actually assessing a problem and seeking a solution.

But  by doing just a bit of investigation (something the left is not wont to do when explaining DEI policies) we see that Silicon Valley is based on an application of engineering skills, including computer software engineering, and women receive less than 30% of all engineering degrees in America.  Conversely, when American men receive less than 20% of undergraduate degrees in education we should not find it surprising that men are under-represented among schoolteachers just as women are under-represented in engineering occupations, begging the question, these facts are easily attainable so why does the Left try so hard to hide them?

We’re all familiar with the phrase “comparing apples and oranges,” but when it comes to DEI, the left compares “Apples to Volkswagens.”  When addressing the question of why statistics indicate that men are paid more than women, the left begins with the premise, “all things being equal.” But the reality is that there are few instances in life when all things are equal.  And while there is a myriad of factors affecting that matter, here’s a headline we’ll never hear from the Left.  The most basic difference between male and female compensation in the United States is that women are full-time year-round workers significantly less often than men.

The latest U.S. Census Bureau data show that there were 15 million more male full-time, year-round workers than female full-time, year-round workers.  And when we begin with a faulty premise, we’re going to get two things—a faulty conclusion and a new liberal bumper-sticker.  An adjunct to the foregoing statistic is the fact that as far back as the 1970s single women in their 30’s who had worked continuously since leaving school were earning slightly more than men of the same description.  As Yogi Berra might say, “Look it up!”

Not that long ago a headline in the San Francisco Chronicle read “Why are Black and Latino people still kept out of the tech industry?”  with the clear implication of bias towards those demographics.  But allow me to ask, does equal representation need to be so automatic in every endeavor, trade, and profession that the absence in one  can only be due to discrimination towards a particular demographic?   That headline could just as easily have read, “Why are Asians kept out of the NBA?”

As is the case with sex differences in demographic representation, in the field of engineering, ethnic differences in educational qualifications exist because Asian Americans have more college degrees in engineering than Blacks and Hispanics combined, even though Asians comprise a lesser percentage of general population than either minority.

I could go on but I’m nearing 800 words, so my plan is to continue illustrating the many falsehoods, deceits, and fabrications from the Left in future blog posts- check your inbox.

Quote of the day:  “If kids knew what they wanted to be at age eight, the world would be filled with cowboys and princesses.  I wanted to be a pirate.  Thank goodness nobody took me seriously and scheduled me for eye removal and peg leg surgery.” —Bill Maher