Sunday Rant

From “The American Thinker” 5/10/23.

“The Enforcer” from 1976 was the third installment in the “Dirty Harry” film series, where Clint Eastwood’s Inspector Callahan and his new partner team up to foil a terrorist organization called “The People’s Revolutionary Strike Force.”

Early in the film, Callahan is punished by his superior for using excessive force to resolve a hostage situation and is transferred to the personnel department, where he is compelled to be part of an interview panel for promotions. 

And the fun begins. I won’t tell the story, I don’t need to if you’ve seen it, and if you haven’t, go watch it. In fact, go watch all of them.

It is quite astonishing how prescient this almost fifty-year-old film is.

Fiction is usually a reflection of reality, which proves that this identity politics insanity has been brewing in liberal precincts for decades.

Liberals gradually made inroads not just in government organizations such as the police force and the U.S. Army, but also in corporate houses such that it is an unwritten law today.  Most organizations boast on their websites about diversity.

Diversity is a euphemism for a quota system that is discriminatory and unconstitutional.  Diversity focuses on perceived victimhood rather than achievement or experience or talent.  Diversity focuses on generating P.R. instead of concrete accomplishment.  Diversity crushes spirits because it punishes the meritorious through no fault of their own.

The best system allows everyone to compete fairly and chooses the best among them, irrespective of (and not because of) race or sex or any other attribute.

The film also predicted how the focus shifted from protecting victims to focusing on the racial or ethnic identity of the perpetrators.

No screenwriter could have ever predicted the level of insanity seen now — i.e., lawmakers demanding that the police be defunded.

In current times, law enforcement has been vilified to such an extent that officers are probably petrified to act against criminals who happen to be black for fear of being branded racist and being target of a focused media smear campaign.  They probably choose to overlook certain criminals, and the damage done is unspeakable — precious innocent lives lost and property damaged.

The left won this identity politics war by deploying its activists at the grassroots, infiltrating organizations of consequence, attaching virtue to their agenda, and making incremental changes.

Conservatives on the other hand assumed that winning elections was enough to protect their interests.

If this insanity has to be undone and fairness has to be restored, the war will once again have to be waged at the grassroots.