The U.S. military used to be everything that Thomas Jefferson -- and Martin Luther King, Jr. -- thought America ought to be.

That George S. Patton -- arguably one of America's greatest generals -- demanded it be. 

A meritocracy -- in which people rose according to their talents and initiative. As opposed to having privileged status on account of some other consideration, such as family name or wealth. 

Or skin color. 

Or sex.

Patton demanded excellence and initiative. He did not care what color wrapper it came in. It is why his Third Army rolled over the German Wehrmacht in Europe, racking up victory upon victory.

Patton earned his four stars. 

The Biden administration is determined to make the U.S. military more like the America it has been working overtime to turn into the antitheses of a meritocracy. One in which what matters most isn’t what you’ve done or how hard you’ve worked to get it done but whether your color (or sex or sexual preferences) check the necessary boxes. 

These policies basically turn the U.S. Marine Corps into a Benetton ad. 

Biden has officially come out against merit-based promotions that do not take the candidate's race into consideration.

This is absolutely fascinating -- as Mr. Spock from Star Trek might have put it. Weren't Democrats once-upon-a-time the party that opposed checking people off the list on account of their race? The liberal crooner Bruce Hornsby sang a whole song about it:

“That's just the way it is...  some things will never change... because a law don't change another's mind when all they see at the hiring time is the line on the color bar."

Well, it's of a piece with the Left's parking brake 180 on free speech -- which it claimed to favor once-upon-a-time. But that was a time when leftists objected to their speech being suppressed. Once the Left acquired control over speech -- via the Left's control of the federal government, colleges and of major media - it no longer favored free speech. 

Well, for those who questioned Leftist speech.

And the same as regards "choice." The Left says -- militantly -- that a woman has the absolute right to choose to abort her baby, because it is her body the growing baby happens to be inside of. But if men -- or women -- want to choose whether to wear a mask, well...

So much for their choice.

"The administration strongly opposes... sweeping attempts (by the GOP-controlled House) to eliminate the (Defense Department’s) longstanding DEIA efforts and related initiatives to promote a cohesive and inclusive force," says the Biden regime's Office of Management and Budget (OMB). 

This statement is even more fascinating -- in that the "efforts" to force-feed Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility criteria on the military are not "longstanding." They are less than three years old. They came into force almost immediately after Joe Biden took the presidential oath in January of 2021.

I'm not sure U.S. Army General William Tecumseh Sherman was worried about DEI when he burned Atlanta to the ground. 

"Promote a cohesive and inclusive force"? 

How do you promote cohesion by separating out people according to how they look? And how is it inclusive to kick certain people out -- or shunt them aside - on account of how they look? Will a white male captain who didn't get his earned promotion to major because he was passed over in favor not of someone more qualified but someone of the politically correct sex feel respect for the person who got promoted because of their sex -- or color?

And how about "people of color" -- as the Left styles everyone who isn't the one wrong color? 

The military used to be the place where Black Americans especially didn't have to worry that their color would hold them back. The military -- once upon a time -- did not indulge doctrines that thwarted the promotion of people who had shown they were right for the job -- because it wasn't just a job.

If a mediocre student is allowed to graduate law school while a better student is denied admittance to law school, the legal profession is subtly degraded. If people in the military are advanced -- or held back -- according to any other standard than excellence, America's ability to fight -- and win -- wars is degraded.

The Russians and the Chinese do not consider "diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility." They consider intelligence, drive, and capability. Because if there's a war, they want to win. They want to beat us. There's no moral victory for your armed forces looking like the Crayola 64 box. 

Patton understood this. Because he didn’t like to lose.

"DoD’s strategic advantage in a complex global security environment is the diverse and dynamic talent pool from which we draw," continues the statement issued by the Biden regime's OMB. It is a statement as counterfactual as "safe and effective," regarding the assertions made about the vaccines that neither prevented anyone from getting COVID or spreading it. 

The "talent pool" referenced is no such thing when talent is excluded on the basis of color or sex.

"Wokeness is a cancer that will destroy our military from the inside out if we don’t stop it," says GOP Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana, who is among those leading the fight in the House to rid the military of DEIA considerations. 

"What we’re trying to do is move to a colorblind, race-neutral worldview, where we’re focused on building a national defense and a military that is focused on, you know, blowing things up and killing people, not on social engineering wrapped in a uniform," adds GOP Rep. Chip Roy of Texas. 

In other words, the things the military used to focus on in Patton’s time -- back in the days when it was the most meritocratic institution in America.

A.J. Rice, is President & CEO of Publius PR, Editor-in-Chief of The Publius National Post, and author of the #1 Amazon bestseller, The Woking Dead: How Society's Vogue Virus Destroys Our Culture.

Image; PxFuel