וולטר (זאב) בלאק Walter E. (Ze’ev) Block

Boeing and DEI (587 words)

By Walter E. Block

Yes, Boeing has slipped a bit on airline safety. Alright, alright, quite a bit. However, this company should be credited with stepping up to the plate with its strong and enthusiastic support for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. That is far more important than merely ensuring that they produce reliable aircraft.

According to statements emanating from this Seattle-based firm: “Racial and ethnic minority representation in the U.S. is up to 35.3%, a four point increase from 2020 and three points higher than the industry average.” They further brag that “More than 3,300 employees across 33 countries are registered Inclusion Ambassadors — individuals committed to advancing inclusion on their own teams.” Nor are they in any way behind hand when it comes to seeking to hire new staff: “Join Boeing, where you’ll be welcomed, respected and supported. Learn about our commitment to Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and search jobs and careers.”

There are some who would complain about Boeing placing DEI above safety. For them passenger protection is the be-all and end-all of what an airline manufacturing company ought to be all about. But this is extremism. This is fascism. This is meritocracy. This is color-blindedness (yet another gigantic no-no for the woke). This is, even, dare I say it, white supremacy.

There are other considerations that are of equal or even greater import than merely turning out safe airplanes. We want the employees of all American corporations to “look like America.” Merit, expertise, sometimes, no often, no, always, must take a back seat to that desiderata. To think that the only goal or even the main goal of airplane manufacturing is safety constitutes white supremacism, or, maybe, Asian supremacism.

Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 departed from Portland International Airport on Jan. 5, 2024. The door plug fell off a few minutes after take-of. Passengers filmed a hole in the fuselage where the door plug came loose on the Boeing 737 Max 9 plane. No one, happily, lost his life upon that occasion but it cannot be denied that this almost occurred. Did critics of DEI focus on this serious mishap? To ask this is to answer it: no. They forgot about all the good work Boeing was doing in promoting racial diversity, equity and inclusion.

However, matters were not quite as salutary in 2018 and 2019. In the former case, a Max 8 operated by Indonesia’s Lion Air fell into the Java Sea. In the latter, an Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max 8 crashed after takeoff from Addis Ababa. A total of 346 people lost their lives in both cases.

Can we definitively and unambiguously blame DEI on these near and actual tragedies? No. Planes have crashed long before this advent of cultural Marxism. However, if there are a bunch of kids choosing up membership for a baseball team, and one of the captains selects on the basis of athleticism, and the other is guided by the need for diverse skin color, or, indeed, any other consideration whatsoever, it does not take a genius to figure out which team is more likely to win the game. The same considerations apply in the present case.

It is one thing to apply DEI for the selection of professors of poetry (not that this is anything to sneeze at). It is quite another matter to do so for anything having to do with airplanes, whether pilots or mechanics or construction engineers. The fact that the cultural Marxists would apply this initiative to so important aspect of our economy shows just how rabid they are.

Pegs:

Boeing has embraced DEI

https://www.google.com/search?q=Boeing+and+DEI&rlz=1C1CHBD_enUS796US796&oq=Boeing+and+DEI&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyCQgAEEUYORiABDIHCAEQABiABDIICAIQABgWGB4yCAgDEAAYFhgeMggIBBAAGBYYHjIICAUQABgWGB4yCAgGEAAYFhgeMggIBxAAGBYYHjIICAgQABgWGB4yCAgJEAAYFhge0gEJMzQzM2owajE1qAIIsAIB&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

rivets, door plug

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=on+what+date+did+the+rivets+fall+off+a+boeing+plane%3F;

https://www.vox.com/2024/1/8/24030677/boeing-alaska-airlines-plane-737-max-door-plug

deadly crashes

two deadly crashes of Max jets in 2018 and 2019.

https://www.google.com/search?q=boeing+planes+crashed&rlz=1C1CHBD_enUS796US796&oq=boeing+planes+crashed&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyCQgAEEUYORiABDIICAEQABgWGB4yCAgCEAAYFhgeMggIAxAAGBYYHjIICAQQABgWGB4yCAgFEAAYFhgeMggIBhAAGBYYHjIICAcQABgWGB4yCAgIEAAYFhgeMggICRAAGBYYHtIBCjEwOTk3ajBqMTWoAgiwAgE&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

346

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=two+deadly+crashes+of+Max+jets+in+2018+and+2019.

Cops and Robbers (914 words)

By Walter E. Block

Should there be a cease-fire between the cops and the robbers? No. The cops should never cease to put the robbers in jail. Should there be a pause in the efforts of the police to stop the rapists? Should the former make peace with the latter, and no longer catch them and send them to the courts for punishment? No. The police should continue, to their level best, to bring rapists, all of them, to justice. What about the sheriff and his deputies in their goal of eradicating murder by arresting those responsible? Should there be a “humanitarian” end to their efforts to call a halt these unjustifiable killings? Maybe the murderers should be given a state of their own from whence they can launch their future attacks on their victims? Of course not.

These questions are stupid, silly, ridiculous, foolish, deranged and unhinged. Not even a three year old child would ask them. Every sensible person would look upon these questions as some sort of a sick joke. We all know that if we are to have a civilized society, if we are to promote human flourishing, if justice is to be attained, the forces of law and order must never cease. Given human nature, their efforts to root out criminality must continue.

Hamas is a criminal organization. They use tunnels to spring forth and murder innocent people. They place rocket launchers in schools and hospitals, using as shields the very people they are sworn to protect. They are not above a bit of rape, more than just a bit. If there were any doubt about their moral stature, the events of October 7, 2023 should have put paid to all such forevermore.

No, I take that back. Hamas is far worse than a mere criminal gang. Far worse. They are terrorists. At least an ordinary murderer, after he kills someone, leaves his family alone. At least a run of the mill rapist does his evil deed and departs. He does not make a film about his depredations and brag about it to his friends. He has some vestige of decency. No mere criminal kills babies. Oh, no, Hamas deserves a special place in hell off limits for relatively agreeable ordinary criminals.

The IDF is the good cop. It is now in the process of attempting to bring Hamas to justice. This time, the Israeli military does not have in mind a mere slap on the wrist. That sort of lawnmower operation has been tried several times in the past and Hamas keeps coming back. We must acknowledge the perseverance of this terrorist organization.

What of widespread public opinion? Are the masses of people in the west, in Europe, at prestigious American universities, cheering on the good guys in this conflagration? Do they look upon the Hebrew soldiers as they would the cops stopping murderers, sheriffs corralling rapists, police arresting robbers? Alas, they do not. Even leading newspaper columnists take the very opposite point of view. Yes, they will acknowledge that the sickening behavior of October 7, 2023 was appalling. But so is the defense against a repetition of those horrid events “over the top” and unjustified.

In a massive rejection of justice, popular opinion makers now call upon the soldiers who are doing the Lord’s work to cease and desist. They claim they are guilty of, wait for it, genocide. It cannot be denied that hundreds, maybe thousands of innocent Gazans are now perishing in this attempt to eradicate Hamas. Some from bombing, some from starvation, some from a lack of shelter, health care, etc.

But whose fault are these needless deaths? Obviously, if people have not taken complete and total leave of their senses, they would lay the blame squarely where it belongs: at the feet of Hamas. Instead, all too many take the side of the robbers, rapists and murderers, not the cops who are dedicated to stopping them.

If this group of terrorists would lay down their arms and surrender, if they would release all captured hostages, not a single solitary Gazan would henceforth lose his life. These deaths would cease immediately. Has Hamas done any such thing? To ask this is to answer it: of course not. Instead, they continue to hide behind innocent Gazans, the very people in whose name they supposedly act. Several tens of thousands of them have already died, if we are to believe the statistics offered by Hamas.

All too much of the civilized world has completely taken leave of their senses. They confuse the cops and the robbers, the police and the murderers, the sheriff and the rapists. They are blaming the victim, the innocent Israelis who have been murdered and raped, and those who are struggling to ensure this occurs never again, the IDF.

Shame on you.

They call for a “humanitarian” end to the war to conquer Hamas. But this group has promised one, two, many, repetitions of the abomination of October 7. How is it humanitarian to allow monsters like that to continue in operation? How “humanitarian” is it to call for a cessation of the effort to stop them?

Imagine if, God forbid, Hamas conquered the IDF. What would be the result? It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that every single Jew in Israel would be put to the sword, with no mercy extended to any of them. Genocide? Yes, that is the middle name of Hamas. Innocent defense, is what the Israeli military is involved in.

Pegs:

Friedman, Thomas. 2024. “Israel Is Losing Its Greatest Asset: Acceptance.” February 27; https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/27/opinion/israel-gaza-peace-thomas-friedman.html

Stack, Megan K. 2024. “Starvation Is Stalking Gaza’s Children.” February 29

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/29/opinion/gaza-israel-palestinians-starvation.html