Reverse Equal Opportunity

In her lame attempt to discredit me on my view on equal opportunity in hiring in America, Tess Fahlgren has missed the mark by a mile.

I’m saying equal opportunity is an oxymoron. How can something be equal when it favors a certain population? In the past it was heavily in favor of the white male, I agree to that, but it has become reverse discrimination in recent years due to the EEOC.

American manufacturing (what little there is of it) no longer hires on merit. They hire on skin color, sex and race. Could that be one of the reasons manufacturing has left the country? Could that be because American-made goods have been made by the second or third best qualified workers?

I’m not surprised that the first vocal criticism of my latest article would come from the feminist movement. Someone who hasn’t seen the “other side” of America. Someone who views the country with rose-colored glasses. Someone who won’t admit that the decline of the family unit in America began with Gloria Steinhem and her feminist movement. Well, actually well before that with Susan B. Anthony but escalating in the mid ‘60s.

I can truly understand a woman’s need to have an identity other that “just” a housewife and mother. I see that women need their own walk-around money. That they need to be noticed for their brain. But at what cost to the family unit?

The term “latch-key children” was invented in the later part of the ‘60s to explain that children who were brought up in a two-worker family were more prone to be lax in discipline, got into trouble more often and got worse grades in school than kids who had a mother around when they came home from school to sit them down and help them do their homework. Families back then ate supper together as a unit. Mom had breakfast ready for the family.

For twenty years after WWII this country was vibrant. Unemployment was very low, housing starts were high, there was a “chicken in every pot.” We still had steel mills, carpet mills, lumber mills, furniture manufacturers, hardware manufacturers and the list goes on. It was a nation with predominantly, white male management. Rosie the Riveter and the AAGBL (All American Girls Baseball League) were no longer needed: Johnny came marching home again.

I’m not saying a white male dominated society is the only way to go. I’m just saying that this equal opportunity thing has gotten out of hand. Case in point: Our own Glasgow Courier: on staff, one male and six females. There are five women and two men on the contributors list for a total of eleven women and three men. Last week’s opinion page had three articles by women and one by a man. The front page had four articles written by women and one written by a man.

Some of the largest magazines in the country have women editors. Women have risen up the corporate ladder and through the glass ceiling at an astonishing rate in the past 15 years. Thanks to the EEOC women and minorities can get start-up loans much easier than can a man.

Some of the top chefs in this country are women. Women are cage fighting and boxing. (I still can’t wrap my brain around that. My burning question is ...WHY?) There are some women who want to break the sex barrier in professional rodeo to compete against the “boys.”

Sports in America were once dominated by white Americans. (There was an all-black baseball league playing in the deep south.) Then came Jackie Robinson and that allowed the floodgates to open favoring the black athletes across the country at all levels: high school, college, semi-pro and professional.

The African Americans (if that is what their leaders are calling themselves these days) are in complete control of two major sports: football and basketball. The Caribbean and Central American baseball players are a very high percentage of American baseball teams. Last weekend I watched the Seahawks (my daughter made me do it!) and noticed that out of the 44 starting players of both teams there were just five white starters.

Here’s my point. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Almost every day in this country the Blacks and other minorities are marching in protest of something or other and alongside them are the single white females between the ages of 18 and 38 (who, incidentally were a large part of the swing vote allowing Obama to get to bed down in the White House. Only six percent of the married white females of the same age voted for Obama.) When was the last time white male America held a march to protest anything?

I’m watching things develop in that Missouri college over the students wanting 10 percent of the faculty to be of African American descent. The Black students say they can learn better if taught by “one of their own.” I would say to that, “If you don’t like the faculty in your current college then go to one of the 101 predominately Black colleges in the United States.”

(The Black College and University Act defined a historically Black college and university as one that existed before 1964 with a historic and contemporary mission of educating Blacks but being open to all.)

If you want equality, earn it. Don’t expect the government to hand it to you because you are a man, woman, African American, Indian, lesbian, gay, Protestant, Muslim, cage fighter or sushi bar owner.

The Romans had their heyday which lasted almost 100 years. The Spaniards were a world power for 70-some years. The British lasted around eighty years as a world leader.

The United States reigned supreme as a world power for just twenty years (1945 to 1965) before the collapse began.

If one takes the time and effort to examine U.S. history closely you will see the pattern of the rise and fall.

It’s not good when a government can mandate who a private business can or cannot hire and then if that business is not in compliance the government can impose heavy fines or even cause that business to fold. And all because the business hired a white person over a minority person. Or hired a male instead of a female.

(The government regulators who regulate all the regulations imposed on the American public cost the tax payers $55.7 billion dollars yearly.)

What’s the answer? How do we heal the country? Where do we put the blame and how do we fix their mistakes? Where do we place the tourniquet?

That’s it for now, folks. Thanks for listening.