The Progressive mantra of “diversity is our strength” is one of the most honored catchphrases of the left. 

Like all slogans, it is a test to see if common folk are “gun-toting, Bible-clinging” Neanderthals or are they part of the enlightened, educated elites to whom the rest of us must surrender our individual beliefs, opinions, and thoughts. 

But as with all that the Progressives say, the meaning of the words being used is warped and misrepresented. 

For example, think about what Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Shultz is saying in the following:

Diversity on the bench is critical. As practitioners, you need judges who 'get it!' We need judges who understand what discrimination feels like. We need judges who understand what inequality feels like. We need judges who understand the subtleties of unfair treatment and who are willing to call it out when they see it!

Although the word “diversity” is the first one out of her mouth, the following description of what she feels are the very qualities that she claims to be seeking in judges indicates an almost robotic uniformity.  Judges who do not conform to Wasserman Shultz’s ideal are apparently not welcome.  In other words (and only Debbie could come up with this logic), if your views are not totally monolithic, you are anti-diversity.  Please keep in mind that this comes from the titular head of the Democratic Party. 

But the Democrats apparently do practice what they preach.  Sort of.  They believe in diversity, and encourage it at every opportunity.  Of course, with close observation, it displays itself in a very odd way.  What Progressives apparently mean is that they like the idea of various racial and ethnic factions being available for Democrat political candidates to use as a background for whatever their latest silly idea might be.  So if they’re going to talk about illegal immigrants, they will go to the Hispanic plantation and harvest thirty or forty decorative elements to stand behind them to provide gravitas and the impression that Hispanics support what is being said.  If the issue even remotely touches on the lack of jobs that are crippling our black communities, well, a quick trip to the “persons of color” plantation, and voilà! – the candidate has another backdrop.  If the candidate wants to talk about the “religion of peace,” another visit to the plantation, the one that is run by CAIR, will produce a made-to-order and photogenic small crowd of what could be interpreted as supporters as well.

These plantations seem to exist in endless variety – or, if you prefer, diversity.  If you’re a Progressive-Democrat, you can simply place a call to “Crowds-for-Us” and order up an appropriately subdivided crowd of blacks, Hispanics, gays and lesbians (or two separate crowds, one of each sort), young women, doctors, urban elites, or Second Amendment opponents, as well as many other sub-groups.

This is supposed to show how “diverse” Progressive-Democrats really are and how they value differences among us.

Candidly, this is not the diversity that I grew up with.  As a young boy, growing up in a typical middle-class neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY, I remember that I had to be able to speak at least six languages in order to say good morning.  Honestly, “good morning” was about the total extent of my linguistic skills, but no one thought it at all odd, since once you got past that point, everyone in the area reverted to (if not necessarily grammatical) English.  But it worked!

It would seem that today, as long as each identifiably minority voting bloc remains independent from every other identifiably minority voting bloc, and maintains its voting integrity (i.e., its members vote almost exclusively for Democrats), as far as Progressives are concerned, diversity has been achieved.

I can see how that represents diversity.  Can’t you?  Can’t everyone see how maintaining these separate plantations of voters gives Progressives enormous solidarity and strength?

Another favored word buried in the Progressive lexicon of “diversity” is the word tolerance.  We should show tolerance for our differences.  This will make us all stronger, or so the Progressives tell us.

Keep in mind that the word “tolerate” is defined as “to allow the existence, presence, practice, or act of without prohibition or hindrance; permit.”

So, it would seem that Progressives are allowing us to do things – they are permitting us to do things.  This would imply that they had the power and/or authority to forbid us from doing things, saying things, or thinking things, and it is only by their leave that we are not quite that subservient to their whims.

Funny – I must be really dumb.  All this time, and I wasn’t aware that anyone had the ability, power, or authority to deny any American the ability to think for himself, decide for himself, act for himself, or speak for himself...but there it is!  Apparently the backdrops that are harvested from the various Progressive plantations are fully aware of this, since it is extremely rare (read: never) that the individuals pictured in those backdrops express any opinion on anything that doesn’t immediately sound like it was drafted by the Center for American Progress.

The underlying problem is not with Americans who don’t belong to one of these plantations, but rather for those who do.  Allowing Progressives to create all these subsets of our countrymen, to craft special messages for each, to prevent the cross-pollination of ideas among these groups and do everything possible to suppress ideas from outside the plantations to infiltrate has been done before, with tragic results – for the very people who reside on these plantations.  They are isolated and can be singled out.  Think about that as you think about the words of Rev. Martin Niemöller, who wrote:

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—

because I was not a communist;

Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—

because I was not a socialist;

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—

because I was not a trade unionist;

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—

because I was not a Jew;

Then they came for me—

and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Just who will speak out for those on these plantations of diversity?

Jim Yardley is a retired financial controller, a two-tour Vietnam veteran and writes frequently about political idiocy, business and economic idiocy and American cultural idiocy.  Jim also blogs at http://jimyardley.wordpress.com, and can be contacted directly at james.v.yardley@gmail.com.