Words Of Wisdom

The list of things I wish for is long and varied - winning the lottery, world peace, an end to poverty and disease, and a better golf game, to name just a few.

But topping the list is that I wish that more people would read and heed the writings of Thomas Sowell. Here's his latest.

However great the shock of the massacre in Orlando, it is only a matter of time before we start hearing again the fact-free dogma that “diversity is our strength.”

If there is any place in the Guinness Book of World Records for words repeated the most often, over the most years, without one speck of evidence, “diversity” should be a prime candidate.

Is diversity our strength? Or anybody’s strength, anywhere in the world? Does Japan’s homogeneous population cause the Japanese to suffer? Have the Balkans been blessed by their heterogeneity — or does the very word “Balkanization” remind us of centuries of strife, bloodshed, and unspeakable atrocities, extending into our own times?

Has Europe become a safer place after importing vast numbers of people from the Middle East, with cultures hostile to the fundamental values of Western civilization?

I think most of us would agree the answer to that question is a resounding "No!"

However, smug elitists in both Europe and here at home are more concerned about perceived “Islamophobia" than they are about customs and values that have made their home countries prosperous and safe.

America’s great good fortune in the past has been that Americans have been able to unite as Americans against every enemy, despite our own internal differences and struggles. Black and white, Jew and Gentile, have fought and died for this country in every war.

It has not been our diversity, but our ability to overcome the problems inherent in diversity, and to act together as Americans, that has been our strength.

Today, that sense of American unity is being undermined by the reckless polarization of group-identity politics. That affects not only how Americans see themselves, but how others in our midst see America.

Some people demand American citizenship, as if it is an entitlement, while burning the American flag and waving the flag of Mexico. And the apostles of “diversity” and “multiculturalism” watch in silence. That includes the president of the United States.

Unfortunately, there is remarkably little interest in the relevant facts about crime rates, disease rates, welfare dependency, or educational deficiencies among immigrants from specific countries. Most debates about immigration policies are contests in rhetoric, with hard facts being ignored as if they didn’t exist.

Tragically, the massacre in Orlando seems unlikely to change that...