ARGH – I can’t even with these people.

Yesterday I was ripping on the Army and thought I’d catch a break, but oh, no. This gem of a military bureaucrat slides into my X feed and depressed my whole day.

Even worse, I find out he’s an Army veteran himself and is still mouthing this crap. WTFO?

The Navy’s chief DEI officer defines “equity” as a vehicle to achieve “EQUALITY OF OUTCOMES”

How did Communist ideals get so embedded in the United States Navy? pic.twitter.com/p8YSS7E0sn

— Mythinformed (@MythinformedMKE) January 18, 2024

…When you think about equity, you also need to think about equality, because those terms are often used interchangeably. So when you think about equality, which is the end state we want to achieve or the equality of outcomes, think about equity as the route we take to get there. How do we assess those different barriers and access the information to ensure that we all have the equal…um…access to that outcome that we want to achieve…

Wait a minute, dude! Your biography says you were in the military. The sentence I highlighted says you don’t have the first clue what the military is about. Nobody is the least bit concerned with “equality of OUTCOMES“! The state of an outcome, well, that’s on the individual, hello.

All the military was ever supposed to guarantee every single member of any service is equality of OPPORTUNITY. We all start from the same E-1/O-1. We all go through the same basic training for enlisted or officer, and our schools after that.

Nobody’s a special flower because of their skin hue or their sex or their religion (All Marines are green, for example).

But here’s dis guy, making a fortune working as the Director of the Department of the Navy’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs, undermining the very principles that gave everyone the same shot at the same brass ring, be it promotion or awards. Every last servicemember began at the same start line – it was up to the individual themself to put the work in and cross the finish. Where you placed as you came across depended on how hard you worked and if someone outworked you. That’s always been the way.

Dr. Barber here seems to want to reverse the order of the race – everyone can do their thing (or not do it) until it’s time to line up to finish together.

That might be a great idea for third graders playing t-ball, but it can make for a sucky military.

It is already doing so.

Even at the Naval Academy.

DEI Destroys Excellence, Military Cohesion at Service Academies

In 2021, the Academy issued a Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan whose lead picture has a black male midshipman standing as Brigade Commander in front of a phalanx of white males. A former military instructor in the History Department and USNA graduate J.A. Cauthen, in an article entitled “The US Naval Academy is Adrift” objects—and it’s hard to disagree with him that this plan “will erode the competency of future officers and imperil our national security.”

He quotes the plan as saying that the Naval Academy “will develop a diversity and inclusion checklist and schedule to inventory and assess all academic classes and training events,” something I saw beginning as I was being forced out of the classroom. It will “partner with Academic Departments in conducting comprehensive curriculum review prioritizing the inclusion of marginalized scholarship and hidden histories within midshipmen education.” And he asks a question relevant to my situation: “What will be the fate of those who will not comply, given their belief in, and right to, academic freedom?”

Those professors are being shuffled out of Annapolis. According to the author, they also have established a punitive snitch system. Careful with those biases – don’t let them slip out in polite company because it’s military punishment at the Academy. Not a Harvard slap on the wrist.

…“Any person subject to this chapter who uses provoking or reproachful words or gestures toward any others person subject to this chapter shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.”

All this comes with something called the DPE Program, Diversity Peer Educator Program, including a confidential system to report “bias incidents.” I’ve seen it all before with sexual assault training. And he asks: “will a DEI agenda propagating woke ideology prepare future leaders to wage and win wars against our enemies? Those who believe so are either blind or worse.” But of course, the service academies have long since moved on from preparing leaders to wage and win wars. Now they’re about enforcing by military rather than constitutionally permitted means (even against civilians) the obsessions of a certain sector of society.

In 2022 I wrote about the cliff the number of applicants for the Naval Academy had fallen off of and I’ve sat on a senator’s recommendation board for over 10 years now. I had never seen so few.

In 2023 the Navy missed all of its recruiting goals – every last one.

Despite a year of pilot programs aimed at getting new sailors, the Navy missed all its recruiting goals in Fiscal Year 2023, resulting in higher goals for next year, the sea service announced Tuesday.

The Navy missed its enlisted sailor goal by 7,464, according to the sea service’s numbers published Tuesday. It aimed to recruit 37,700 sailors, but ended the FY 2023 with 30,236. The service met its active-duty enlistment goal in Fiscal Year 2022 by a thin margin, USNI News previously reported.

The sea service fared no better with officers or reserve personnel. It missed the officer goal by 452, enlisted reserve goal by 2,048 and officer reserve by 773.

They missed their retention numbers for that critical, middle Zone B 6-10 years of service mark.

Sailors are sick of the BS and punching out before they have too much time invested to do so.

The fewer available sailors to spell their shipmates afloat, the worse life gets. When you pile on the administrative pain and make it punitive to boot, things go south quickly, particularly when the few rewards and attaboys you can earn start to look like a PeeWee football trophy shelf instead of worthy personal accomplishments.

Anyone listening to the learned Dr. Barber above would most probably think twice about the Navy as a career field for their kid or grand kid, or much loved neighbor’s child.

Equity doesn’t leave you much to individually strive for and little incentive to improve, period.

It’s one big, suffocating group boa constrictor hug.