Diversity of Thought

By: Dave Howell, May 12, 2021

 Diversity has become a dirty word, almost achieving status as a cuss word, or at least a word worth fighting over. If we could agree at the outset that diversity means different qualities especially of opinions then it will be an easier read for you.

A lack of diversity of thought creates divisiveness. Divisiveness is a tendency to provoke dissention among groups. We’ll follow this thought down the rabbit hole at the end of this article.

Diversity was a word first believed to be used in the 14th century as recorded by Merriam-Webster, founded in 1828. So using this source what was the meaning of Diversity when first used?

Appropriately, the same meaning as is listed today in dictionaries, however, there are certain groups who have twisted the word into a bludgeon to be used on groups of people, more often than not on races. This phenomenon started in the 20th Century when opinions were valued only when they agreed with those speaking their thoughts. Today these people are appropriately named “Fact Checkers” or “Thought Police”.

At home in our communities diversity of thought seems to abound, however, in the work place diversity of thought can backfire easily. Bias can cause one to go along with an underrepresented thought, or worse, lead one to believe you can freely do what you think.

  Figure 1. Diversity Wheel

When and how did critical thinking and valuing someone else’s opinion fall out grace? I will suggest a few ideas that go to the core of the problem, and then discuss each:

1.)   Government mandated education.

2.)   Government Civil Rights legislation.

3.)   Government Welfare legislation.

4.)   Government Abortion court decisions.

5.)   Government corruption.

You see the list that impacts a departure from valuing one’s opinion is directly related to equity or America’s fabric of equal opportunity redux.  

No. 1. Government education. While the department was officially birthed October 1979 through the Department of Education Organization Act our troubles actually started in 1965 with the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which was part of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society program. This program focused the federal role on the poorest kids, making sure poor kids got their fair share of resources. Sounds good doesn’t it. In Texas, the “Robin Hood” act was passed to ensure no matter how much tax a city collected, excess would be distributed to the state, and “equitably” re-distributed by the state.

Fast forward to the 21st century and we have endured many new federal programs dictating results, curriculum and comparisons to ensure everyone has an opportunity to achieve the same result. Why does the federal government (Ed. Dept. $68B per year) need to dictate this aspect of parental control? Isn’t this the states responsibility under the Constitution?

You can agree or disagree, but it is my opinion that we are paralyzed by ineffective, watered down curriculum which leaves America ill prepared in a technological world. Standards have been lowered everywhere in order to raise graduation rates, which seems like the wrong goal to focus on. We have redefined education where diversity, quality, and critical thinking are secondary to getting a child out the door with a diploma. Even the world ranking measurements are about diplomas, not entering the workforce prepared and into higher paid jobs. In short, federal education has dumbed down America.

Well, if the federal government has successfully dumbed down America for 50 years how does that affect diversity of thought? Diversity of thought is fueled by four defined psychological and physiological methods that our experience then forms our thoughts. However, this individual continuum has been railroaded into an expression to support and parrot what the government wants you to know. History is a great teacher and has been regularly rewritten to support the government’s view. Sounds quite a bit like Orwell’s 1984 written in 1949 doesn’t it? Has the federal government created a totalitarian, bureaucratic education system where it is near impossible to find individuality? Is then, diversity of thought, individuals who can think and express their thoughts freely?

No. 2. Government Civil Rights. The Civil Rights Act of 1875 established freedoms from discrimination in America. In 1954 US Supreme Judge Thurgood Marshall argued separate facilities were inherently unequal, paving the way through Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) for reordering society and breaking down Jim Crow era racially separate facilities. Then key civil rights activities were further re-defined in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. President Lyndon Johnson made the passage of slain President Kennedy’s civil rights bill his top priority during the first year of his administration.

The most sweeping civil rights legislation passed by Congress since the post-Civil War Reconstruction in 1868, the Civil Rights Act prohibited racial discrimination in employment and education and outlawed racial segregation in public places such as schools, buses, parks and swimming pools.

In addition, the bill laid important groundwork for a number of other pieces of legislation—including the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which set strict rules for protecting the right of African Americans to vote—that have since been used to enforce equal rights for women as well as all minorities and LGBTQ people. 

These changes ushered in affirmative action and promoted one race over the other, developing diversity of thought along racial lines. consider Martin Luther King’s statement, “I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character”. We are still a nation fraught with segregated activities and a plethora of hate crimes along racial lines. Hence, our quest for quality and equity has achieved the opposite of diversity of thought.

2019 population by race (327M total)

250M or 76% - White including Hispanic and Arab

44M or 13% - Black including African American

19M or 6% – Asian

9M or 3% - 2 or more races

4M or – American Indian and Alaskan Native

1M – Islanders

 No. 3. Government Welfare. The history of welfare in the U.S. started long before the government welfare programs we know were created. In the early days of the United States, the colonies imported the British Poor Laws. These laws made a distinction between those who were unable to work due to their age or physical health and those who were able-bodied but unemployed. The former group was assisted with cash or alternative forms of help from the government. The latter group was given public service employment in workhouses.

Under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Social Security Act was enacted in 1935. The act, which was amended in 1939, established a number of programs designed to provide aid to various segments of the population. Unemployment compensation and AFDC (originally Aid to Dependent Children) are two of the programs that still exist today.

The Head Start State Collaboration Offices were first funded in 1990 as a pilot project much like the Head Start program that started as an experiment in 1965. Today there are six major U.S. welfare programs. They are the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs (SNAP or “food stamps"), Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), and housing assistance. However, there are over 80+ means-tested welfare federal programs providing cash, food, housing, medical care, social services, training, and targeted education aid to poor and low-income Americans. This system has always been designed to assist the poor (see chart below).

The poverty line is dependent on the members in a household. For example, in 2017 the poverty line for a single adult was $12,488, but for a family of four it was $25,094. In 2000, those numbers were $8,791 and $17,604, respectively.

Here is a chart of the poverty line, defined annually for a family of four from 1959-2017 as a reference point.

Figure 2. Poverty Defined by USD

 But alas, when testifying before Congress in 2011, Patricia Dalton of the General Accountability Office refused to “hazard a guess” as to what percentage of federal welfare programs achieved their objectives. She admitted that it “would be good to have a number of how many programs there are, what exactly are we spending, and what are we getting for that money.”

As of July 8, 2014, the demographic breakdown of welfare recipients was 38.8 percent Caucasian, 39.8 percent African American, 15.7 percent Hispanic, 2.5 percent Asian and 3.3 percent Other. There are 12.8 million Americans on welfare, which is equivalent to 4.1 percent of the U.S. population.

In 1996 President Bill Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, which provided some federal funding to states to assist the poor. States are expected to take steps to ensure welfare recipients are being encouraged to take steps to return to employment. However, during the world financial crises, President Obama set a new record for welfare benefits with almost 40% of American families on food stamps.

How productive and creative does that make America? A disintegrating society dependent on government, a low producer of goods for the world, and no doubt group thinkers, protective of their benefits at any cost. If creativity is lost, where does diversity of thought stand among welfare recipients? The answer is complex and inter-related to fatherless children, a divorce rate at 50%, and other factors of the disintegrating family unit, abortion and the declining birth rates in America. All this adds up to a quest for equity without an equal chance for opportunity, and a lack of diversity of thought.

 No. 4. Government Sponsored Abortion. Most notably, Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973),[1] was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States protects a pregnant woman's liberty to choose to have an abortion without excessive government restriction.

In January 1973, the Supreme Court issued a 7–2 decision ruling that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides a "right to privacy" that protects a pregnant woman's right to choose whether or not to have an abortion. But it also ruled that this right is not absolute, and must be balanced against the government's interests in protecting women's health and protecting prenatal life.

Total estimated abortions by race/ethnicity for 1965-2018 (and compared to current population) are:

• white, non-Hispanic: 28,900,000 (14% of current population)
• black, non-Hispanic: 18,700,000 (42% of current population)
• Hispanic: 9,200,000 (15% of current population)
• other, non-Hispanic: 3,500,000 (15% of current population)
• total, all races/ethnicities: 60,500,000 (18% of current population)

Figure 3. Abortions by Race

Do you notice what I see? A disproportionate abortion rate among blacks. How can there be a statistical difference of more than double when compared to other races in America?  This looks more like black genocide to me.

Moynihan Report, was a 1965 report on black poverty in the United States written by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, an American sociologist serving as Assistant Secretary of Labor under President Lyndon B. Johnson. Moynihan argued that the rise in black single-mother families was caused not by a lack of jobs, but that economic conditions determine social conditions. The report concluded that the high rate of families headed by single mothers would greatly hinder progress of blacks toward economic and political equality.

You may have also noticed a thread connecting President Lyndon Johnson, his 1960’s Great Society and the War on Poverty resulting in horrendous results, especially for blacks in America. This is not a coincidence but design. His programs are a colossal failure by any standard or measure. One might make the argument that social welfare programs are the moral path for a modern government and that these programs have led to a decline or destruction of America, diversity of thought and led to divisiveness.

No. 5. Government corruption.  Kleptocracy, literally meaning "the rule by thieves," is a form of political corruption in which the ruling government seeks personal gain and status at the expense of the governed. While corruption can exist in any human organization, it seems that corruption in government is the worst. The 2013 Global Corruption Barometer, published by Transparency International, reported that people worldwide have the perception that the five most corrupt institutions are political parties, the police, public officials, the legislature, and the judiciary.

As a young industrial power, the United States suffered from levels of political corruption commonly associated today with impoverished nations in the developing world. This is among the findings of a new working paper co-written by Harvard Law School Professor Matthew Stephenson ’03 and California State Supreme Court Justice and Stanford Professor Mariano-Florentino Cuellar tentatively titled “Taming Systemic Corruption: The American Experience and its Implications for Contemporary Debates,” which chronicles the history of corruption in the United States between 1865 and 1941.

Matthew Stephenson: “Corruption was a serious problem in the United States in the late nineteenth and twentieth century. First, there’s a lot of corruption associated with political machines, particularly though not exclusively in urban areas. The political machines provide jobs for supporters, who use their positions to generate illicit income for themselves and the party bosses, and mobilize voters to support the candidates backed by the machine. The machines also provide tangible benefits to voters to ensure their support. Second, while the political machines tended to dominate local governments, the practice of buying and selling public offices, or using government appointments to purchase political support, was widespread at the national level as well. Third, wealthy business interests corrupted politicians to receive favorable treatment by the government, for example by offering legislators bribes, sometimes in the form of company shares or special privileges, to provide special benefits to companies, or to look the other way when private interests were siphoning off taxpayer funds. These sorts of corruption often involved government-supported infrastructure projects, especially railroads, and natural resource extraction.

A sure sign of corruption is an electoral outcome like 2016 and the 2020 illegal vote switching by Biden. Donald Trump got rich via tax loopholes, and then used his own money to run for the presidency. He was given billions of dollars in free campaign time every evening on CNN, MSNBC, Fox and other channels that should have been more even-handed, because they were in search of advertising dollars and Trump was a good draw.

Then, too, the height of corruption is the Supreme Court getting rid of campaign finance reform and allowing open, unlimited secret buying of elections. The permitting of massive black money in our elections was taken advantage of by the Russian Federation, which, having hopelessly corrupted its own presidential elections, managed to further corrupt the American ones, as well.

Another sign of American corruption is the rapidity with which American society has become more unequal since the 1980s Reagan destruction of the progressive income tax. The wealthier the top 1 percent is, the more politicians it can buy to gather up even more of the country’s wealth. In my lifetime the top one percent has gone from holding 25% of the privately held wealth under Eisenhower to over 38% today. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is right that we need to increase the top marginal tax rate; and we need to tax unearned income, as well.

The US has a vast gulag of 2.2 million prisoners in jail and penitentiary. There is an increasing tendency for prisons to be privatized, and this tendency is corrupting the system. It is wrong for people to profit from putting and keeping human beings behind bars. This troubling trend is made all the more troubling by the move to give extra-long sentences for minor crimes, to deny parole and to imprison people for life for e.g., three small thefts.

Asset forfeiture in the ‘drug war’ is corrupting police departments and the judiciary. Although some state legislatures are dialing this corrupt practice back, it is widespread and a danger to the Constitution.

Now couple these corrupt practices with the fact that a two-tiered justice system is at work where politicians are immune from prosecution, and the government’s FBI, and DOJ works against ordinary Americans spying and prosecuting while ignoring politicians (government) illegal wrongdoing. 

  Figure 4. America is Bleeding

Corruption, as defined by the World Bank, is a form of dishonesty or criminal offense undertaken by a person or organization entrusted with a position of authority, to acquire illicit benefit or abuse power for one's private gain. Corruption may include many activities including bribery and embezzlement, though it may also involve practices that are legal in many countries.

How then does diversity of thought become effected by corruption? If the government is corrupt and politicians are using illicit activities to enrich themselves, they are promoting non-transparency and thus; by their own very acts stymying thought and diversity of thought.

This goes back to Orwell’s 1984 where the government only allowed citizens to work – no fun, no laughter, no religion, etc. where thought and diversity of thought were illegal because it ran afoul of the government’s agenda.

Divisiveness. So I said we’d return to “a lack of diversity of thought creating divisiveness”. If the government can separate, segregate and divide the masses against each other, then what we have left is a miserable existence as working drones. As Caesar did, create entertainment to hold the average citizen in check. Divisiveness has been the instrument and the world’s elite have been patiently implementing strategies across two centuries to rob Americans of freedoms, and hence diversity of thought. Creativeness has been killed, and we at the precipice today of a culture war. War on words, war on thoughts, war on diversity all creating distractions while elites and their puppet politicians rob us blind.

Our own judgmental tendencies towards judging people is the root cause of divisiveness, and manifests problems at every level. The key to success is to purge the notion of judging people before you know them. Acknowledge their opinions, especially if you don’t agree.

Diversity of thought nowadays gets accused of conspiracy theories, and labeled tin hat conspirators, or worse white supremacists, Black Lives Matter and ANTIFA fascists. Everyone is definable by race, sex, age and other distinguishable features to divide and conquer us.

The way forward for Americans is actual critical thinking, investigation, shedding propaganda norms in education and television programming for starters. A return to American values to stop killing generations of Americans through abortion, restore the family as the core unit of American culture, and stop the war on religion. Another idea would be to vote, and hold the judiciary and politicians accountable. You can vote with your wallet against corrupt corporations. You can do a lot of things if you understand that the wars are perpetrated against you and your family.

You are encouraged to communicate your thoughts about anything to anyone who will listen, and remain open to a change of mind if so convinced. Today, an actual disorder, called Cognitive Dissonance has defined our inability to change our minds as truth itself becomes uncomfortable. Diversity of thought becomes the pathway forward to shake the heavy burden and slave yoke placed upon your mind.

Figure 5. Quote by Bruce Kasanoff - https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/kasanoff/

Bruce does not endorse this article on Diversity of Thought but has allowed use of his quote.