“The next time some academics tell you how important diversity is, ask how many Republicans there are in their sociology department.”

— Thomas Sowell, 1998

In his 2012 book The Tyranny of Clichés, Jonah Goldberg recounts the pinnacle of his career, when the inclusion of his column (and the discontinuation of left-wing columnist Robert Scheer) caused Barbra Streisand to cancel her subscription to the Los Angeles Times in a 2005 letter that is a memorable example of bad writing and wrong ideas:

The greater Southern California community is one that not only proudly embraces its diversity but demands it. Your publisher’s decision to fire Robert Scheer is a great disservice to the spirit of our community. . . .

[Y]our new leadership, especially that of [publisher] Jeff Johnson, is entirely out of touch with [readers] and their desire to be exposed to views that stretch them beyond their own paradigms. So although the number of contributors to your op-ed pages may have increased, in firing Robert Sheer and putting Jonah Goldberg in his place, the gamut of voices has undeniably been diluted, and I suspect this may ultimately decrease the number of readers of those same pages.

Of course, Robert Scheer is a tediously predictable writer, a sort of fossil remnant of an earlier era when enthusiastic support of the Sandinistas and demands for a “nuclear freeze” were major issues for the anti-American Left. Despite the fact that the Los Angeles Times had many left-wing columnists — and that Jonah Goldberg was among the few conservative columnists for the paper — Ms. Streisand insisted, without the paradigm-stretching views of Robert Scheer, “the gamut of voices” (???) was undeniably diluted. From her multimillion-dollar beachfront mansion in Malibu, Ms. Streisand proclaimed that the newspaper’s publisher was “entirely out of touch” with readers who were demanding the kind of “diversity” that only Robert Scheer (a geriatric radical born in 1936) could provide them. Accusing a Democrat of committing “the most atrocious act of terrorism in world history” — which is how Robert Scheer described Harry Truman’s decision to use the atomic bomb in 1945 — certainly stretches the paradigm, eh?

This kind of knee-jerk anti-Americanism arises from the elitist attitude that defines the Left. Believing themselves endowed with moral and intellectual superiority, progressives harbor a limitless contempt for the Ordinary American. If the typical resident of Normalville, U.S.A., is a patriotic flag-waver, the progressive believes, any flag-waving patriot is an ignorant fool. By the same token, when contrasted with Robert Scheer’s comrades in Berkeley and Ms. Streisand’s wealthy friends in Malibu, the folks in Normalville, U.S.A., are more likely to be heterosexual Christians who enjoy hunting and fishing and football and NASCAR. Because small-town people are also more likely to vote Republican — which is the worst thing anyone could ever do, from the Scheer/Streisand Berkeley/Malibu perspective — then everything about their lives must be subjected to mocking ridicule. “Redneck dimwits! So ignorant they probably believe it was a good thing we nuked Hiroshima! Let’s insult them by calling Harry Truman a terrorist!”

Progressives do not believe in a “diversity” that would permit the residents of Normalville, U.S.A., to think of themselves as deserving a respect equal to the respect demanded by residents of Berkeley and Malibu. Those of us out here in the small towns of America, folks who believe in God, who love our families and feel a sense of patriotic loyalty to our nation’s traditions — well, we are so inferior to the likes of Barbra Streisand that she cannot even be said to hate us, because we are simply too insignificant to notice. The elite support progressive policies because these policies function to deprive the Ordinary American of political representation. The beliefs and attitudes of patriotic Americans are condemned as racist, sexist and homophobic, so that anyone who speaks for the values of Normalville, U.S.A., can be excluded from the institutions (academia, journalism, entertainment) that influence the political process. There are no Republicans in the sociology department for the same reason the New York Times will never hire a Christian editor, nor would Hollywood ever make a movie that implied a negative judgment of the Charlie Sheen Lifestyle:

Video surfaces showing HIV-positive Charlie Sheen ‘performing oral sex on another man and smoking crack-cocaine’ in 2011.

The clips reportedly show the actor, 50, performing oral sex on another man and smoking crack-cocaine out of a pipe in a Las Vegas hotel room . . .

The other man in the video reportedly sued Sheen for giving him herpes.

Remember: @CharlieSheen divorced Denise Richards so he could pursue this lifestyle. #Winning https://t.co/23DWdexciW — Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) November 24, 2015

Do you believe sodomy is a bad thing? Well, you can’t be permitted to say that in Malibu or Berkeley — nor on any university campus — where progressive “diversity” means your opinion is excluded from consideration, and no one who agrees with you would dare to say so.

Democrat Party and liberal media now exchanging high fives with atheists and America's worldwide enemies. https://t.co/aTw2ULsxlv — Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) November 24, 2015

Democrats believe in “diversity” in much the same way as Hitler believed in Aryan superiority, and for the same reason, because such fanatical beliefs justify the annihilation of a hated Enemy.

And that worked out really well for the natives, didn't it? https://t.co/3vkvNQDVBY — Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) November 24, 2015











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