Merit is an essential part of a free market. Recognition of it helps good employees achieve better pay; it helps consumers decide what they like and what they will pay for it, and it helps businesses prosper over those that do not achieve the levels of skill and customer satisfaction consumers want.
Merit is not valued in political circles. Rather than allow consumers, business owners, and employees to decide what best suits them, politicians focus on other matters and choose which of those matters takes precedence in their never-ending larceny of other people’s money and freedom.
Thus, for example, we don’t have the freedom to board airplanes without suffering the indignity of the Fourth-Amendment-breaching “Transportation Security Agency” patting us down or forcing us into scanners.
We fly in a system that long ago was usurped by the feds, who have built airports for political purposes, directed routes to politically favored areas, subsidize “favored” fliers, claim control of the “safety” of flights, and even claim control over the training of pilots.
Which brings us to the latest example of how the DC air-regulation leviathan is a pantomime of safety.
Nicole Silverio reports for the Daily Caller that Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) recently bragged about getting race-based, rather than merit-based, “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) funds into the most recent FAA/NTSB funding bill, as a means of hiring more “minority” pilots.
In other words, not just pilots -- regardless of gender, religious beliefs, or race -- but pilots who are selected specifically for race-based reasons.
“The House and Senate approved the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) bill to renew authority to the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) for five years in an attempt to ‘strengthen aviation safety standards.’ Crockett said she and some of her colleagues snuck in funds to ‘increase the numbers’ of black and Hispanic pilots in their alleged ‘crazy anti-DEI environment’ during a Thursday interview on ‘Roland Martin Unfiltered.’
“’We were also able to get monumental legislation into the FAA Reauthorization Act that really flew under the radar, thank God,’ Crockett said. ‘But this was funding to make sure that hopefully we can increase the number of African Americans and Hispanics that are entering aviation which can be very expensive, but can obviously be very lucrative. So we set up a situation where basically there will be full rides for those attending grant HCBUs as well as HSIs to go into aviation. And in this crazy anti-DEI environment, we were able to get that done.’”
Which raises a few flags of alarm.
First, there’s the idea that merit takes a back seat to race.
People like Crockett might argue that a plan to “support” minority pilots is a way to alleviate some form of “systemic” prejudice against certain minorities – however the politicians define "minority" for their political advantage. Perhaps these politicians mean to “make up for” older, generations-removed, “racism,” or they might argue that certain school districts termed “underprivileged” (these typically receive MORE per-pupil government funding than other schools) have “not served” the select “minorities”, thus making it harder for members of those student groups to become pilots.
Related: FAA's Crazy, Cumbersome (And Odd) Drone Rules Cripple Commercial Users
Those arguments actually tell us that the politically-driven education system is immoral and does not work. They are not pertinent when it comes to freedom and the antithesis of freedom manifested in government taking money from people to promote new racial preferences that will harm new generations of Americans.
Sadly, this DEI mindset already has infected many boardrooms, as Silverio notes:
“Airlines have been lowering their qualification standards for hiring new pilots, which evidently has led to more emergency landings and serious mechanical issues. Many of these airlines have implemented DEI hiring practices to hire more people of color and women to fly planes.
United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said in January they are striving for 50% of graduates of their pilot classes to be ‘women or people of color,’ while Alaska Airlines touted its 3.7% increase in racial diversity in March 2023 and intends for its representation to consist of 30% ‘racial diversity’ by 2025, according to a report published by the airline.”
Why aren’t the airline CEOs striving for colorblind hiring and merit?
Perhaps these seemingly contradictory approaches are not necessarily incongruous. Perhaps companies simultaneously can hire the best while also taking extra time to be sure they fill those “best” slots with people who magically “represent” some formula of racial preferences that the companies adore.
In a free market, each of us would be able to engage in that kind of activity, and benefit or suffer because of our policies. Customers would be free to hire our companies, or avoid us, based on their own criteria. But Congresswoman Crockett takes away our choices, and she replaces the options of airlines with her own preferences. She uses our tax money to reshape the world to fit her dreams of “equity,” and “inclusion.”
She excludes our freedom of choice and separates us from our earnings. Every time someone does this, it’s an immoral act and it reduces the ability of market participants to show what they prefer, tilting the economics of the US more and more towards fascism.
And this fascism is the elephant in the room. The feds should not be writing bills pertaining to planes, or “transportation safety.”
Congresswoman Crockett might want to brush up on what James Madison said about misreading the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. It was written to allow Congress to resolve trade disputes between states, not play politics – and racial politics, at that – with what travels over state borders.
Until more Americans understand this, our market choice will be targeted by people like her, and our money will be spent to serve her will.
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