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Frank Lee's avatar

Great piece again Brad. You routinely hit on the most important topics we should all be discussing. Not that Lauren Boebert misbehaved in a theater.

Elon Musk started what I thought was the beginning of the end of the woke rot when he exited all the toxic woke employees of Twitter. Other firms have been following his lead. In my businesses, I require all hiring managers to use a list of questions that identify the level of woke rot in the candidates. They will not be hired if they have it. I also discriminate against certain schools and degree programs knowing they are highly infected with the woke rot.

Now, I am good with people having diverse views. The problem with having the woke rot is that at some level those beliefs are counter to what makes a good employees. For example, prioritizing identity grievance over actual productive results. Believing that there is no objective truth and every decision is just relative to power. Unfortunately those in deep with these views are toxic to the workplace and must be prevented from entering.

I have been considering that this cannot last in private industry because private business fails unless it operates as a functional meritocracy. The quality of products and services will decline with the decline in workforce capability. Owners thinking that they are virtue signaling to prevent activist attacks that hurt their sales will start to realize that a growing reputation for lower quality is a bigger business threat. I think that realization is there and many owners are quietly purging.

However, I do think that we need new legislation. I think we call it Civil Rights 3.0. For it we need to expand the requirements that all public and private institutions get significant sanctions for any actions that harm American constitutional rights. Specifically, no organization of size should be allowed to discriminate based on political orientation or any historical record of speech... as it conflicts with 1A rights. I think it is fine to assess and test ideas and values to accept or reject candidates... but fairly for each person. Selection based on racial, gender or other identity attributes is already in violation of civil rights laws, we just need to strengthen them and include penalties. Big tech needs to lose Section 230 protections if they are not acting superficially as platforms and are censoring content (in effect controlling content like a publisher). Again, 1A protections need to be hammered in and enforced.

I think the woke thing will die itself because the logical and rational eventually win all the arguments. However, we might need help by government intervention to expedite the death of woke as it is doing great damage to the republic today.

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Ryan Gardner's avatar

Excellent article.

It is so bizarre to me that people with families vote for this shit. Or at least tolerate it. Or feign that it doesn't exist.

I think we're close to a tipping point. IMO it comes down to suburban women.

We'll see what's more important; their children or the boogie man (insert Hitler).

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