E-Pluribus | August 26, 2021

The Navy should reject race-based promotions, the world's policeman takes a step back, and Jeopardy! is in jeopardy.

Aug 26, 2021

A round up of the latest and best writing and musings on the rise of illiberalism in the public discourse:

Harry Jackson: Should Military Officers Be Chosen by Race?

At a recent conference, the Navy’s Vice Adm. John Nowell Jr. expressed disappointment at the lack of diversity in promotions in recent years, and suggested that resuming the practice of including a photo on the candidates might improve the track record. At The Wall Street Journal, Harry Jackson takes issue with this clear attempt to tip the scales based on physical characteristics over merit, a practice Jackson would find insulting.

Earlier this month the Navy’s chief of personnel made a revealing remark that received little public attention. “I think we should consider reinstating photos in selection boards,” Vice Adm. John Nowell Jr. said at a conference. Officers up for promotion used to submit a photo as part of the review. A couple of years ago the services eliminated the photo requirement, aiming to remove any bias.
Adm. Nowell suggested the result wasn’t what the Navy hoped for. “We look at, for instance, the one-star board over the last five years, and we can show you where, as you look at diversity, it went down with photos removed.” In case that wasn’t clear, he continued: “We’re very clear with our language to boards that we want them to consider diversity across all areas. . . . I think having a clear picture just makes it easier.”
This statement undermines every minority officer who has risen through the ranks on his own merit. It says that people like me are useful to the Navy because we are black, not because we are highly trained professionals or because we met the uncompromising standards of leadership.
That’s not the ethos of unity and common purpose that made the U.S. Navy the finest fighting fleet in the world. The American commitment to excellence produced leaders like Samuel Gravely, a destroyer captain who served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam and became the Navy’s first black admiral. His story inspired many black officers like me. A destroyer now bears his name.

Read it all.

Bret Stephens: Our ‘Broken Windows’ World

The debate over the role of the United States in world affairs has raged virtually as long as the country has existed and the pendulum has swung from intervention to isolation and back again more than once. The exit from Afghanistan and its potential consequences had Bret Stephens at the New York Times contemplating the image our country is currently projecting to the world and how it may impact the actions others either already on the world stage as well as those itching for a part.

Criminologists can debate the causes of the new crime wave. But many people intuitively understand that places in which decay and disorder become the norm are places where crime tends to thrive. That’s because crime is largely a function of environmental cues — of the palpable sense that nobody cares, nobody is in charge, and anything goes.
We now live in a broken-windows world. I would argue that it began a decade ago, when Barack Obama called on Americans to turn a chapter on a decade of war and “focus on nation-building here at home,” which became a theme of his re-election campaign.
[…]
Some pundits lightly dismiss the notion of credibility in statecraft. But foreign policy is also conducted by taking the measure of your opponents, as John F. Kennedy learned after Nikita Khrushchev thrashed him at their summit in Vienna and built the Berlin Wall two months later.
If you’re wondering why remote and God-forsaken Afghanistan matters in places of allegedly greater strategic relevance to the United States, ask yourself what signals this bungled withdrawal — the overconfident predictions, the lousy military intelligence, the incompetent diplomatic coordination, the unwillingness to stand by allies — sends about our capacity to deal with a more serious adversary, especially one that can hold the American heartland at risk.

Read the whole thing.

Robby Soave: Cancel Culture Is Ruining Jeopardy!

Many Americans have fond memories of growing up watching Jeopardy! with its inimitable host Alex Trebek, so a lot of people may identify with Robby Soave’s lament at Reason. The search for a new host may be revealing just how inimitable Trebek was, though the reception given the two who ended up being selected (at least for a time) probably says more about the current climate of intolerance than about the qualifications or abilities of anyone seeking to replace him.

[T]he winners, according to CBS, were Jeopardy! executive producer Mike Richards and The Big Bang Theory's Mayim Bialik. The latter was selected to host special tournaments, while the former would host the show on a daily basis.
This outcome did not sit well with some members of the media and Jeopardy!'s fan community, however, so cancel culture did its thing. Last week, following the publication of a hit piece in The Ringer accusing him of all the usual moral failings—chief among them, derisive comments he made on his podcast—Richards abruptly resigned. Bialik is filling in for the meantime, but she, too, has faced attempted cancellation, namely for being a self-described "liberal Zionist" who believes that both Israel and Palestine deserve to be "autonomous, free, and safe" nations.
[…]
[S]ocial media's venomous reaction to Richards' casting lacked any sense of proportion, with many people apoplectic at the idea that a generic-looking white person had beaten out prospective hosts of color like former Reading Rainbow host LeVar Burton, Twitter's runaway favorite choice. The Ringer threw everything it had at Richards, frequently quoting anonymous former colleagues at Jeopardy! and The Price is Right, where Richards worked as a producer, who found him to be an abrasive and conniving self-promoter. The article mixes fair criticisms, like Richards internally maneuvering himself into contention, Dick Cheney style, with low blows—the offensive podcast comments—and unverifiable gossip.