Getting the job done prevails over racism-Finally!

If my business was competing in the market place to produce the best product for the least cost requiring optimum efficiency and customer service, laws prohibiting me from hiring the most qualified applicants would not help.

In the public sector, especially in the realm of public safety, what justifies limitations on hiring the most qualified people? Racial quotas? Social engineering? Absolutely not!

The public sector is the butt of constant complaints and jokes about laziness and inefficiencies. Is it a coincidence that that is where affirmative action and other efficiency and performance constraining policies are first and most aggressively applied?

One doesn't have to be a racist to see the negative shooting-yourself-in-the-foot outcome of eliminating "the best" to meet some racial, ethnic, or gender quota, or to meet some other social engineering expectation.

Darren Chapel of the San Francisco Examiner begins his article on the recent Supreme Court ruling on the New Haven, CT, firefighters case with some facts. Then, typical of experience-challenged leftward skewed commentators, he derails into opinion that shows his absence from the reality of running businesses and government services.

Here is where Darren loses it when he claims:

"But what's less fair is the playing field of American race relations. Anyone denying that fact needs to take a long look at the available information. What hasn't been discussed in the wake of this decision is the overwhelming income gap and stunning disparity in net worth that white Americans enjoy compared to their counterparts. If we are going to talk about fairness, this is the place to start. The rash of white people claiming discrimination in recent months needs to be noted, and I believe that in this case the firemen had a descent argument, but they're still wrong. They may have lost a promotion, but on average, they still are exponentially better off than their black co-workers."

The firemen are wrong? Because they "still are exponentially better off?" So, folks who are better off are wrong about issues of fairness, and justice, and skills, and merit, and hard work? This is the opposite of every sound principle of human success I have ever learned. So, let us forget about promotion, in school or at work, based on merit. Let's have it all based on quotas and making everyone feel good about themselves. Then we can have a lottery on how many years it will take for this nation to reach third world status.

Darren the Pollyanna continues:

"Justices may strive to make their rulings based on a "colorblind society," but that's not what exists in America. The romantic notion of racial harmony isn't realistic because the playing field isn't even. Living in a colorblind society means that each group is treated exactly the same in all aspects of life, including economics and social mobility. They aren't. To suggest so is pure ignorance. On average, blacks are less likely to go to college or finish high school. They also attend poorer funded public schools on average and are more prone to experience child abuse, substance abuse, neglect, divorce, teen pregnancy, health complications and about every other challenge available. They don't grow up next to country clubs. Most importantly, they are more likely to be poor, a fact that makes economic progress much more challenging."

Racial or any other kind of "harmony" does not require economic or social parity. Poor whites, poor Latinos and poor Asians face the same challenges. Whites, blacks, Latinos, and Asians who don't perform well on tests well-designed to identify the best canditates for the job should not be hired for these positions - despite the fact they are poor. It is neither logical nor prudent to hire a less qualified person over a qualified person because of race, gender, ethnicity, or economic status. We have a black President, black generals, (prior) black Secretary of State, black Attorney General and blacks in hundreds of other high positions in government, for crying out loud! Doesn't that count for something?

In the balance of his article, Darren simply reveals his hostility toward "class". He seeks not merely equality of opportunity, but equality of class, income, and wealth. I'm not sure whether to label this thinking Socialism or Communism. In our current political environment, I wouldn't be surprised if these labels were considered a compliment.

Darren and Sonia Sotomayor are both racists in their quest to carry affirmative action to its illogical and counter-productive extreme. The affirmative action pendulum has now swung past its point of equilibrium into the realm of screwing whites. The Supreme Court decision wisely slowed the momentum of that swing.