What Now?

Are They With Us?

The next time some academics tell you how important diversity is, ask how many Republicans are in their Sociology Department-Thomas Sowell

If you are out celebrating the firing of Harvard President Gay, you shouldn’t be. This is not a celebratory moment. Gay resigned because she lost her board not because of any remorse or self-realization that what she did and believed was wrong.

My friend Dan Proft correctly called it a “Mob Hit”. If you don’t understand what he means when you “rub one person out”, the next person that steps into that role might have a different name but isn’t any different. There isn’t going to be a sea change because of this. A skirmish was settled.

There is still plenty of rot in our educational system, in our long-standing trusted institutions, and in the federal bureaucracy. The firing of two college presidents will only cause them to speak a bit differently and do things underground again rather than transparently. They thought they had won the war and could emerge. They miscalculated. This is no time to revel in one forced resignation.

Let’s look at the broader spectrum.

Over the past few years, people like

Bari Weiss

Matt Taibbi

Glenn Greenwald

Bill Mahar, and now Bill Ackman have come to a slow realization that the things they used to hold dear and institutions they used to trust have gone sour.

Do you think if those same institutions changed course and it was less obvious how rampantly anti-capitalistic and pro-discrimination they are those same people would be singing the same tune? Do you think they prefer government solutions to problems or to let people solve them themselves?

If confronted with economic facts and data, would they leave where they were and become out-of-the-closet conservatives? Each of them has one or two issues they hammer on without thinking about the broader spectrum. In Ackman’s case, it was his school and anti-semitism. In Weiss’s case, it was the way Jews were being treated and the way the New York Times and journalism in general operated. I wouldn’t say that either of them has been “red-pilled”.

In Ackman’s Twitter essay, he said he never paid attention before. It was only after his school, Harvard, unfurled its anti-semitic colors for all to see that he woke up. But, is he now aligned with conservatives? It’s an open question. Objective people can change.

For those of us who were paying attention, we have known this for a couple of decades.

It was Covid policy for some. It was the way the Obama/Clinton/Biden apparatchiks inside government agencies locked their fascist hands with social media companies to go after Trump and Covid and character-assassinate good people. It was the terror attack on Israel and the response that finally got some people to wake up to DEI (and ESG) and how toxic a philosophy it is.

Are they all now fellow travelers in the conservative movement? Admittedly, it’s hard to define what a conservative is today. Are they even “conservatives” in the old Goldwater/Reagan Conservative sense? By the way, neither of these groups is embraced by the core Republican Establishment. They are useful for votes and talking points.

If they are, jump on the bandwagon we are happy to have you. But, my guess is they aren’t but might be somewhat persuadable.

Even yesterday,

Mark Cuban

took to Twitter to explain his thoughts on DEI. His word salad showed he didn’t understand the true meaning of DEI. Instead, he articulated his business principles for operating a company.

I have said that many times. If you are doing things the right way, you don’t need to worry about DEI or ESG because they are already incorporated into your operations.

As a matter of fact, the conservative movement embraces the surface words of DEI and ESG but certainly doesn’t embrace the core principles of either.

DEI and ESG are excuses to discriminate, attack, and instill anti-capitalistic Marxist values. The Conservative Movement is the antithesis of that. Maybe

Elon’s Newsletter

is becoming conservative now that he has bought Twitter and endured attack upon attack along with the arms of every government agency locked together and enabled by the President to persecute him.

Observe the differences:

Elon Musk says Discrimination on the basis of race, which DEI does, is literally the definition of racism

Musk is clear and concise.

Mark Cuban says Let me help you out and give you my thoughts on DEI

1. Diversity Good businesses look where others don't, to find the employees that will put your business in the best possible position to succeed. You may not agree, but I take it as a given that there are people of various races, ethnicities, orientation, etc that are regularly excluded from hiring consideration. By extending our hiring search to include them, we can find people that are more qualified. The loss of DEI-Phobic companies is my gain.

1a. We live in a country with very diverse demographics. In this era where trust of businesses can be hard to come by, people tend to connect more easily to people who are like them. Having a workforce that is diverse and representative of your stakeholders is good for business.

2. Equity Treating people equally does not mean treating them the same. I made the mistake for a lot of years thinking it did. Equity is a core principle of business. Put your employees in a position to succeed. Recognize their differences and play to their strengths where ever possible. It is not a hard concept. But it is not easy to implement. Most workforces don't have the depth of management to do this well. When it's not done well it can create tension and resentment.

3. Inclusion One of my favorite sayings is that "Great employees reduce the stress of those around them" Great companies create environments that reduce unnecessary stress of their employees (Im not talking hitting quota or getting the product out the door stress), which in turn increases productivity This is what Inclusion is all about. Making all employees, no matter who they are or how they see themselves, feel comfortable in their environment and able to do their jobs Again, it's not easy.

4. Why DEI is like HealthCare One of the lessons I've learned in healthcare is that most CEOs don't know and don't really want to know where their healthcare benefit dollars are going. In their minds, its not part of the core competency of their business. As a result they waste a shitload of money on less than quality care for their employees and more often than not it's their sickest and lowest paid employees that subsidize the rebates and deductibles (Sicker employees have to pay up to their deductible, healthy don't) So what does this have to do with DEI ? Like HealthCare, DEI is not seen as a core competency in most companies. It's just a huge expense. Intellectually they see the benefit of DEI. But they don't have time to focus on it So it turns into a check box that they hope they don't have to deal with beyond having HR do a report to the board and legal tells them they are covered. When anything that impacts all of your employees is pretty much a check list item to the CEO, there is a good chance that its not going work well and you are going to have employees who are not comfortable for a lot of different reasons. Which in turn creates resentment towards DEI policies and training. Which in turn makes it harder on the managers trying to implement it When companies do DEI well, you see a well run , successful company

There is no perfection in a movement, so stop looking for it. Was there perfection in the Civil Rights movement? No. By definition, even the people leading it were imperfect since they were human. Was there perfection in the Women’s suffrage movement? No. The movement to end slavery? No.

The conservative movement isn’t perfect but it might be just finding its stride and on the way to something real. The attack on Israel might be the straw that broke the Marxist back. Why wasn’t it the riots of Marxist BLM during COVID-19? I am shocked that it wasn’t COVID-19 and equally shocked it wasn’t the blatant undermining and Democrat-led insurrection against Trump that opened eyes. Except, many of them received the outcome they wanted then. Since many of the people whose eyes have been opened are Jewish, the other things didn’t affect them directly. When someone spray paints your business with a Jewish star, it does.

For those of us who have been here for a while, we aren’t necessarily surprised. We know full well it doesn’t stop with the Jews. Once they are dispatched, it will be the next group they can isolate. I am shocked though that the pure bare knuckles anger of it and the acting out in general public of it.

Where are the people on college campuses to step in and protect the Jewish kid being assaulted by terrorist Palestinian supporters? Are they afraid? By not stepping up and saying something or doing something, you enable them. By not getting up and throwing the megaphone out in the hall of the terrorist who disrupts the class, you enable them. Inaction is action. It’s what the terrorists want. Fear is how totalitarians take control.

I am happy to see professors leave boards and resign from faculty positions at the colleges and universities that support DEI. If they are good enough, they will find a tenured position at another university that fits them. Right now it might not have the prestige of MIT or Harvard, but when enough great professors leave the current elite institutions for others, guess which institutions will become elite?

Conservativism has been muffled, poorly translated, and corrupted by the mainstream press and by powerbrokers in Washington DC. Even the guy who sang the Rich Men of Richmond song realized that, and he isn’t a conservative Republican….yet.

If you want to know how conservatives feel about race, click this link. Vivek Ramaswamy said it perfectly.

“I'm not gonna recite some catechism for you. I'm against vicious racial discrimination in this country, so I'm not pledging allegiance to your new religion of modern wokeism.”

“You wanna know what the best way is to end discrimination on the basis of race. Stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

“You people have been responsible for dividing this country to a breaking point, creating a projection of national division.”

“Shame on you. Look people in the eye and tell them what you've actually failed to tell them for the last five years. Own the accountability for your own failures as the media.”

It is not simple ever to outline the principles of a movement. That’s one reason people like Dr. Martin Luther King and Milton Friedman were so great. They were able to distill very difficult concepts into soundbites that people understood the core meaning of and could take action on.

Trump’s brand of “conservatism” is NOT conservativism but it certainly has some elements of it. Strong borders come to mind. A strong defense comes to mind. A limited government that isn’t on the backs of citizens comes to mind. School choice is conservative.

Tariffs are not remotely conservative.

Trump’s methods of attack aren’t anything but part of his character. I wouldn’t say Trump is a conservative, but he is a vessel to get some really conservative things done in government. So is Ron DeSantis and it looks like Vivek Ramaswamy embodies it as well.

Christie and Haley espouse conservatism but are more comfortable with Establishment Republicans. They will say conservative talking points, and in Haley’s case, she is where the country is when it comes to the pro-life issue, to sound good and win votes. But, their instincts aren’t always conservative by a long shot. If you look at what Democrats did in Illinois to elect George Ryan, you might see a correlation to Democrats today working to elect Nikki Haley.

Lowering taxes is not necessarily a conservative value because people will pay less to the government. Lowering taxes is a conservative value because low taxes mean more freedom from the tyranny of government.

Value statements are necessarily broad because they set goals. It’s the execution of the value that is precise. Hence, the first amendment says what it says and those values are broad. Over time, they have been interpreted to be what they are today and liberals are trying to end them, or put very hard limits on them.

The real conservative movement has an intellectual base in the philosophies of people like John Locke, Adam Smith, and David Hume. Later people wrote essays about it like “Self-Reliance” by Emerson. Others like Milton Friedman and the original Chicago School of Economics discovered it through research since conservatism relies on the hard-wired DNA instincts of man. Thomas Sowell is a modern-day embodiment of the old Chicago School.

Being a progressive/liberal/Democrat in its modern form doesn’t take intellect or thought. It’s emotional and hateful. It’s envious and divisive. Becoming a conservative takes thought and objectivity. You have to work through it all to figure it out.

If you try to list off conservative values here are some. See where you stand and how you would put those values into public policy. It’s not easy, and why conservatives debate instead of falling in lockstep.

Conservatives endorse and support:

• The nuclear family and life at birth and death

• The rights of the individual over the collective

• Limited government and very limited regulation

• Strong military. The Big Stick policy works

• Strong national borders with limited legal immigration

• Equal justice under the law

• The capitalistic free enterprise system and intense competition

• Solving societal problems with abundance, not limits or restrictions

• Self-determination

• Consequences for actions

• Strong private property rights

• Creative destruction

• A strict constructionist and objective judiciary

• Limits on each branch of government

• Conservatives do not support democracy, they support a democratic republic

This is not exhaustive, but each point is broad. That means there is a supply curve and a demand curve! Gary Becker was the first to realize that and codify it in his research. Add your broad thesis in the comments.

Since the Gay resignation, I have seen the left say that it was racially motivated. It wasn’t. I have seen the left defend plagiarism! Al Sharpton is picketing Bill Ackman’s office! We are living in both Ayn Rand, Ray Bradbury, and Orwellian times.

These tropes might have worked for race hustlers like Jesse Jackson and earned Jesse the right to operate, as John Kass coined, the King of Beers. But, they don’t work anymore. Pandora’s Box is open and transparency is helping people see the light. Twitter not suppressing content has opened eyes. Twitter will become the most powerful social media platform because it has embraced the values of free speech. By embracing those values, you have to embrace other values to support that one value.

I see the population swing from blue state to red state and laugh. Even the Democrats who voted for and supported the crap they hate in the blue states are moving to red states. They are discovering having more freedom is good. Of course, they will turn around and support the same crap again. It’s amazing to me.

My friend Andy Swan is a great to follow on Twitter. He says the most obvious things in a funny way.

the most incredible thing to me is that you watch

- leaders blackmailed via sex orgies with children

- government FUND THE CREATION of the deadliest virus of the century and then CONSPIRE to cover it up

- government censoring citizens from discussing a TRUE STORY about the disgusting and corrupt behavior of the President's son

- government invite "migrants" in and shame those who protest, then turn around and tell citizens that their services will be cut because there are too many migrants ...

all of this happens, and then we sit here and watch in horror as people will STILL clamor to give government MORE power over their lives and shame those who disagree.

Milton Friedman said, “A society that puts equality ahead of freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom ahead of equality will get both.