Good or Bad for the Jews

"Good or Bad for the Jews"

Many years ago, and for many years, I would travel to Morocco to visit uncles, cousins, and my paternal grandmother. Some lived in Tangiers;...

Saturday, February 4, 2017

"Diversity is Our Strength"

"Diversity is Our Strength" seems something that the pig rulers in Orwell's Animal Farm would have posted with their original seven commandments. This phrase gets repeated regularly with such conviction and energy by the proper thinkers and politicos in North America, Western Europe, and Oceania that one hesitates to ask "Why? Why is it our strength?" One also must ask, "Why isn't diversity considered a strength in places other than those mentioned?" First, however, one must ask something else, "What is meant by diversity?"

A common dictionary definition of "diversity" reads, "The state of being diverse; variety; a range of different things." Sure. OK. One can accept that a diversity of food products is good; as is a diversity of job opportunities; of vacation options; of car and gun manufacturers, etc. These are all good things, and in some cases, as in nutrition, prove "strengthening," but, is that how "diversity" is used in daily socio-politico-economic-academic-media discourse? Ah, let us remember that as Orwell also noted in a 1946 essay, "To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle." Let's see what's in front of our collective nose.

Almost four years ago, I wrote about how progressives,
Appropriate certain words, redefine them, and then use them to shape the ideological battlefield. The classic example of that, of course, is "bolshevik" and "menshevik." The Bolsheviks were, in fact, the Mensheviks and vice-versa. The word "bolshevik," derived from the word meaning "majority," was appropriated by the radicals who were in reality the minority of the old Social Democratic party. The minority labeled the majority the minority and got away with it. Clever. There are many other examples of this in history such as the insistence on calling nazis and fascists right-wing when they are clearly left-wing products,
 and, subsequently noted that,
Words have meaning, and the left is very good at ever so subtly altering the meaning of words so that over time those words no longer mean what they meant. Words, of course, are the bullets of intellectual debate. If you allow your opponent to select your ammo for you, well, let's just say you are at a disadvantage.
"Diversity" must now join that legion of words appropriated and deformed almost beyond recognition by our progressive overlords. It joins "gay," "liberal," "male," "female," "fascist," "racist" and many more words that now form the core of modern progressivism's narrative. All perfectly good words that now have become unrecognizable and put into the service of the progressive "vision." When, for example, a college dean calls for more diversity in the institution, he or she is not calling for more conservatives and libertarians on staff to balance the school's overwhelmingly progressive bent. Same with corporations and government; it is a call for more "ethnic" and "gender" diversity; it is a call to label anybody who questions that as a "racist," a catch-all term of opprobrium and dismissal; it is increasingly a call for a form of "diversity" that seeks to destroy Western Civilization. It is a call for uniformity of thought.

We see in the ongoing debate over immigration in the West that the proper thinkers want ever more "diversity." As I noted several years ago, we saw,
a leftist attempt to alter radically the nature of British society by encouraging immigration from poor countries and have those immigrants become dependent on and vote for Labour . . .  not unlike what happened in the US with the horrid 1965 immigration law which significantly changed the source of our immigration away from Europe to the third world, put the emphasis on "family reunification," and created a whole new class of people dependent on the government and the Democratic party urban machine. The effect, however, has proven more dramatic in Britain for a number of reasons. The US, of course, is much larger and since its creation has been an immigrant-based country; while our founding political and ethical traditions come largely from England, we are used to a relatively high degree of racial, ethnic, and religious diversity. That was not the case in the UK or in the rest of Europe where nationalities were akin to racial groupings, or at the very least well defined tribes. Those European countries, consequently, were much less adept at incorporating immigrants into the life of the nation than the more heterogenous less densely populated USA. Massive immigration to Europe from Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean has proven more jarring and disruptive than in the US. With, however, the rise of leftist multiculturalism in the US, and the extension of a vast social welfare state, our once vaunted ability to "melt" immigrants and recast them as Americans has suffered. We have begun increasingly to resemble the European nations as they struggle to retain their tribal identity.
We have the wise ones asserting that people all over the world have some right to immigrate to the US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, and Australia. That wherever and whenever the cry of "Refugee!" or "Immigrant!" goes out, the West must respond by opening our wallets and our doors. We have to allow millions of persons to violate our national sovereignty and laws, lay claim to a vast array of taxpayer provided benefits, and, above all, demand fundamental changes in our culture and institutions. We apparently no longer have the right to defend our borders and establish immigration laws and policies that benefit our people.

"Diversity is Our Strength." Really? Are Japan and China weak and miserable because they are not diverse? The historical record would beg to differ. "Homogeneity is Their Strength"?

That aside, I have noted before (here and here, for example) that many if not most of the so-called Syrian refugees, the current progressive plat d'jour, are neither Syrian nor refugees. They are not particularly persecuted any more than anybody else unfortunate enough to live in a Muslim majority country. Let us not forget that the bulk of Islam's victims consists of Muslims, the same ones who come to our countries to instill the same sort of barbaric Islamic regime and practices they supposedly "flee." I tire of comparisons of these "refugees" with Anne Frank and the millions of other Jews who fell to the Nazis. Prior to and during WWII, we did not take in Nazi "refugees." We did not take in the people vowing to destroy us. The US also didn't take many Jewish refugees either because, if you remember, the Democrats held power, and the Democratic party is the historic repository of racism and anti-Semitism in American politics. The Nazis of today are the Muslims pouring into Europe. The Anne Franks of today are the Christian, Baha'i, and Yazidi minorities living in the hell created by Islam. That same Islam, by the way, long ago eliminated the Jews from the Muslim world. I also would note that Islam drove the Hindus, the Buddhists, and the Sikhs out of Pakistan, but we have no UN programs or refugee camps for them. We have no Hollywood celebrity calling for justice for them.

The progressives seek to destroy our culture, and replace it with . . . what exactly? The progs can't or won't say, but we can certainly get a glimpse of what's to come if they succeed. Has "diversity" of the progressive kind made Europe a stronger and a better place to live? I think that hundreds of victims of Islam in Paris, Nice, Brussels, London, etc., might have an interesting answer to that. I note that thanks to the strength derived from diversity, Swedish police now advise Swedish women not to go out alone after dark and to dress modestly so as not offend the "refugees" who might just have to rape and murder these women for cultural reasons. If "diversity" is so good, why not encourage it in the Muslim world? Let's build churches in Mecca! How about that? Why not more diversity in Nigeria? Perhaps Mexico should diversify its demographics by taking in hundreds of thousands of "refugees" from the Middle East and Africa, and not funneling them northward? The same progs who worry about cultural contamination by missionaries of an isolated tribe in the Amazonian forest have no problem turning vast swathes of our cities into "no go" zones ruled by the practitioners of Sharia and the other blessings of the Religion of Peace.

Opposition to the progressive concept of "diversity" has nothing to do with race. I, for one, find race a boring concept, and one that tells you little useful about any person. Melanin levels have no bearing on the worth of an individual. A typical Caribbean person has much more in common with a typical North American person, regardless of color, than does a white Iranian or Syrian. The issue is culture. The overwhelming majority of the immigrants to the US, for example, came from "diverse" backgrounds but within a cultural range framed by Judeo-Christian concepts. Islamic culture is not within that range, and, unlike Buddhism or Hinduism, is openly hostile to our culture and its values. We have the right to defend ourselves from that sort of "diversity," PM Trudeau and Hollywood not withstanding.

37 comments:

  1. Diversity and it's evil twin, inclusivity, is homogenizing our society and eliminating the cream of genius.

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  2. Diversity is something a prog imposes on his or her neighbors, not on themselves. They want you and yours to live in a 'diverse' society -- i.e. your neighborhood --but keep the 'diverse' at arms length. As always with these people (the progs) it is merely a talking point.

    The other day I was at relative's house and two progs were talking (but not to me) about a TV program about Afghani refugees to the west. They were liberal in their use of the words such as 'inspiring' and 'exciting' but I doubted either of them wanted non-English speaking, welfare-claiming neighbors where they lived. They'd probably be happy if they became my neighbors, living as I do many miles from the homes of the progs.

    Nice to think though any concerns and potential difficulties for my family would however be inspiring to them.

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  3. "During WWII, ...[t]he US didn't take many Jewish refugees either because ...": actually because after 1940 there were virtually none; the poor buggers were prisoners for the slaughter.

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    1. You're right. I meant to refer to the period in the run-up to the war.

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  4. David Thompson has the more honest term LETELU: Looks Exotic Thinks Exactly Like Us.

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  5. We may have reached Peak Diversity with Hong and Page's publication of Groups of diverse problem solvers can outperform groups of high-ability problem solvers in PNAS.

    They purport to show that

    "[W]hen selecting a problem-solving team from a diverse population of intelligent agents, a team of randomly selected agents outperforms a team comprised of the best-performing agents."

    Stated another way, a randomly-selected group of individuals, stratified on various identity dimensions (e.g. black, female, Latino/a, etc) would have "outperformed" the "best performing" team assembled for the Manhattan Project.

    They even include a "mathematical model", the de rigeur social "science" signifier of scientific seriousness.

    Unfortunately for Hong and Page, the paper attracted the notice of Abigail Thompson, a topologist at UC-Davis, who published a rebuttal in Mathematical Notices, a flagship journal of the American Mathematical Society.

    Never, ever attract the notice of a mathematician when you publish a lackwitted mathematical model. I encourage you to read her rebuttal. It will, as Dirty Harry suggested, "make your day".

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    1. Amen sister....Just read your note about Math Methods. I once had a similar argument with a prog who screamed at me (Quote is more or less accurate): "Just because you have your PhD in chemistry does not give you the right to criticize My Global Warming!!!"

      Of course the guy in question had a BS - wait for it - in Sociology. And no data was mentioned or cited with his discussion. Just "I have a feeling that blah, blah, blah."

      Needless to say, no questions were invited...

      Good Ole Charlie

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  6. Diversity is now an industry and I have a book somewhere in the boxes of books in my garage waiting to be shelved about that subject.

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  7. Ted Heath fired Enoch Powell back in the late '60's for his views on immigration. Powell's "Rivers of Blood" speech was spot on and widely condemned by the media and politicians. His constituents loved him. History, of course, has shown him to be an accurate prophet. IMHO, we are a very long way down the wrong path. But still, kudos
    to the Diplomad for excellent effort - keep at it!

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  8. Diversity??? they are so fascinated with it, do they even understand the meaning of the word? It comes from the root "to diverge" as in to separate and split asunder. Hardly befitting to the UNITED States of America. It is real simple, you cannot simultaneously make yourself a member of an exclusive club IE; LGBT, black, "pronoun" American, etc, and then expect the greater majority to accept you as one of them. By definition, with the label you yourself created, you have excluded yourself from the greater majority...and proclaimed yourself a special caste above all others.... and then you act surprised when they treat you as such?

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  9. This should be common knowledge in the USA. It's Quran 4:34, and it speaks for itself. Combine it with refusal to allow apostasy (as in Sunni/Shia theology), and a horrible society for women is the result.

    "Men are in charge of women by [right of] what Allah has given one over the other and what they spend [for maintenance] from their wealth. So righteous women are devoutly obedient, guarding in [the husband's] absence what Allah would have them guard. But those [wives] from whom you fear arrogance - [first] advise them; [then if they persist], forsake them in bed; and [finally], STRIKE THEM. But if they obey you [once more], seek no means against them. Indeed, Allah is ever Exalted and Grand."

    How is it that people who can find "misogyny" in a man saying a woman is attractive can turn around and ignore the systemic mistreatment of women in Islam?

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    1. @CT: How is it that people who can find "misogyny" in a man saying a woman is attractive can turn around and ignore the systemic mistreatment of women in Islam?

      It is a talent lefties have, they can keep multiple contradictory ideas in their heads and believe all of them. Or as Dr. Savage has noted; leftism is a mental disease.

      Veseng

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  10. Mixed feelings. This Jewish-Scandinavian hybrid found his Chinese wife of a third of a century+ while teaching in Taiwan. As an ESOL teacher, I see black African immigrants behaving pretty much like the EUropean immigraants of yesteryear and the Asian immigrants of yesterday: assimilating. It will also be a bad day for the Dems when my Baptist, Pentecostal, and Adventist Salvadorean students who nearly rioted when Oscar Romero was quoted as "insipiration" over the PA one day grow up, are naturalized, and find that the Democrats want their sons to grow up to be a palabra de eme que yo no hablo.

    While I'm all for enforcing the immigration laws we have, and want to punch out people on both sides of the immigration debate who use "immigrant" as a synonym for "undocumented alien", I'm not sure that our non-white and non-Western immigration is necessarily a negative. We get both good and bad. I feel blessed in having had Chinese immigrant teachers who put me on the road to being able to read Lao Zi, Kong Zi, and the Tang poets in the original no less than in other teachers who put me on the road to reading the Scriptures and Plato in the original. Dump the monoglott philo-barbarians who pretend to be "multicultural" simply because they call other people "racist" in the middle of the Bering Sea in winter, I say, but let's not close ourselves off.

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    1. Well stated, Kepha. As I dimly recall from my days as a consular officer, immigration by law is to be closed to people who do not support the American constitution and lawful government. If enforced, those provisions ought to suffice.

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    2. That's the key; I agree 100%. I have never been bothered by racial issues.

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    3. As a former consular officer, I wasn't bothered by signing off on people who'd played by the rules. I now live in an area that's full of them, too.

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    4. I love legal immigrants who love our Constitution and the values embodied in it and the Bill of Rights. And since my own grandfather was initially a illegal alien who through marriages managed to stay in the US and even do a stint in the US military, I think the kids and grandkids of illegal immigrants can embrace those values, too. If they're taught why the values matter and why they were a magnet strong enough to draw their parents to live in the shadows of a new country. That's a big "if" these days in many schools.

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    5. Why then is so much of this done in secret. Do you really believe American citizens are aware that millions of people immigrate here every year and that once here they can bring in all their relatives and that each of them can bring in all their relatives too? And that many of the people who come here on those visa you hand out like candy stay on welfare their entire life. Why isn't this common knowledge in the discussion about immigration? Why is almost all of the refugee immigration mandated and carried out by the UN and often by UN bureaucrats who openly hate the U.S. (I know that really covers all of them including many of ours). Why do the citizens not know that it costs on average $5000 a month per refugee family and that many of them continue to "need" this aide for decades. If this forced diversity at the expense of the middle class taxpayer is SOOOOOOO good why not put all the facts on page one instead of hiding it? It is in fact such a good idea that now federal judges demand that we aren't even allowed to close any of the flood gates and our only choice it to accept the invasion. Immigration is the single largest factor in the failing of our Social Security system. Did you know if a 62 year old immigrant comes to America that they can get SS? No! Because it is a secret.
      In the news is the very sympathetic case of the little Iranian baby who needs heart surgery. The hospital is even going to do it for free. Well there will be costs and American citizens will pay those costs one way or another. But do you for a second think this little girl and her parents will go home when it is all done???? Au contraire mon frere. They will apply for asylum or some other little known program (again why are there so many of these little known programs?) and they will stay here and get welfare and housing and who pays for it all???

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    6. Chain migration under the auspices of "family reunification" has to end. Family reunification for those who don't know includes the right to bring in adult siblings and for them to bring in all of their relatives. It never ends and has since 1965 disadvantaged people who want to immigrate from European countries. Skills the person brings in are not considered. We could come up with a system that is both better for the US and more fair to potential immigrants. Side note: what is the whole immigration law industry. The rules should be clear and fair so that no lawyers are needed.

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    7. I'm a former consular officer too, and when I did my first tour in the Philippines from 92-94 in the aftermath of the 1986 amnesty law I learned that the amnesty was a BAD idea. So much fraud, not just there but in China too as I learned in a later tour. I firmly believed then and still believe today that our immigration policy based on family reunification should NOT mean transporting the better part of the inhabitants from a village in the Philippines or China to the US, but for all practical purposes that is what the law encourages. I also believe that when PROVABLE fraud is discovered on the part of the original amnesty recipient, that person's legal status in the US should be revoked, they should be deported and never be allowed to come back nor should anyone they brought in be allowed to stay (fruit of the poisoned tree....). Finally, the H1 program is also riddled with fraud and abuse. I always wondered, if we need nurses, why are we not educating our own citizens to be nurses? Why import them from the Philippines? Why bring in tech workers when we have tech workers in the US already? Of course, I also believed at the time that when Assistant Secretary Mary Ryan asked for input from front line junior officers she actually wanted that input. Part of the then-largest US Embassy in the world (Manila)with the largest consular operation, we learned eventually that our suggestions for immigration reform were not actually respected nor wanted. That was a big part of the reason why I eventually left the Foreign Service and didn't make it a career (though I was on the "fast track"). Funnily enough, so many people who knew I was leaving never really believed I was leaving until I actually did so. I have never regretted it.

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  11. "and, above all, demand fundamental changes in our culture and institutions." A friend's girlfriend is a progressive who teaches foreign students; many may be refugees. Good for her, but in a recent discussion, she told me that our culture needs to change to accommodate these refugees. I had serious problems with that idea; we change for them!
    IMO. we need to be taking in ME Christians because they have the basic values we have. More racism, I suppose on my part.

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    1. American culture has always drifted with the incoming of immigrants.... it's the 'pot' part of 'melting pot'. Lefties just want to overthrow our capitalist republic. I suppose that's because they're not motivated enough to make the system work for them and need an easy way out.
      Just going to get worse with these guys... (hilarious, clean/no-smut, but maybe old?)
      https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=RGvrmltfMrA

      - reader #1482

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  12. OT. About the story of the firing of the three IT brothers - how can we verify this? Story is on the Daily Caller.

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  13. Diversity + proximity = war - read history

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  14. "The progressives seek to destroy our culture, and replace it with . . . what exactly? The progs can't or won't say, but we can certainly get a glimpse of what's to come if they succeed."
    The clue to the answer is bound up in their name 'Progressive'. One of the axioms of Marxist thought are the successive stages of societal development: Primitive communism, Slave society, Feudalism, Capitalism, Socialism, and then finally Communism. Once Communism is reached there is no further development as there will need to be no further development as everyone will be in a perfect society, forever.

    So, a Progressive is someone who believes in this inevitable Marxist progression towards the end goal of Communism. Because this progress is inevitable, even if its progress can be retarded or stopped for a short time, then it doesn't matter to them what happens when society is destroyed, as they believe it will inevitably progress to the next stage. It will just happen, and no proof is needed since it is an axiom of Marxist ideology. In fact, the Progressive seeks to destroy our existing culture since they generally believe that Capitalism has managed to stall the progress towards Socialism for over a hundred years. They see the advances into Socialism that our society has made as a first step to full Socialism and then Communism. If our current society is destroyed, they believe that full Socialism will rise out of its ashes because Marx said so.

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    1. All of these destructive ideologies come under the umbrella of Leftism. This leftism has been a genetic defect in Western thought from the beginning. It's modern version can be traced to the French Revolution of 1789. Leftism is a universal acid and only exists to destroy. Chaos vs order. Any surviving system will be destroyed because destruction is the only thing that feeds Leftism. Its enablers will turn on each other along the way over fights regarding "ideological purity". The purity of destruction.

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  15. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4192182/World-leaders-duped-manipulated-global-warming-data.html#ixzz4XlWgDL48

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  16. At a deeper level demographics and our economic model are driving immigration in Europe and out porous border to the south. The basic theory is that we need and ever expanding population to support a growing GNP.

    Without immigration that model collapses as the birthrates here and in Europe are below replacement with the impact only a couple of decades in the future. Japan, Russia are already facing the coming problems. The problems of rampant immigration won't stop until we change the formula. Mind you, immigration only puts off this change as immigrant births drop very sharply once established here and in Europe. That said, Europe is in serious shape because their "illegals" are Muslim otherwise known to some as the "Borg".

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  17. Any thoughts on the ongoing, childish insubordination at DOS? I'm thinking some more firings are in order!

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    1. State has been thoroughly infiltrated by progressivism, especially in the Consular cone jobs. State needs to be drastically reduced in size (about one-third to one half) and have its mission focus greatly narrowed.

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    2. That's one of the reasons I don't regret leaving! The hue & cry over the prospect of cutting jobs amuses me. It's not as if State's bureaucracy was so terribly efficient when I was in. And frankly, the "reporting" done by econ/pol is very often culled from media and not from sources -- so in today's "global environment" it makes sense to reduce the number of staff needed. I was quite fascinated to read recently of Exxon's internal intelligence network. I would bet that some international corporations have better or equal intelligence operations than State's.

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    3. There's similar hyperventilating going on at EPA (my agency has some dealings with them). Looks like they might finally end up paying the price for all the politicized "protection" of the environment. I really saw how bad DOS was getting during the post 9/11 period, but I'm sure that rot was setting in long before then.

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  18. Diversity means that you have more interesting restaurants to eat at. That's all they want.

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    1. Well, that and the fact you have a new voter base dependant on the government for support and thus supportive of a larger and more powerful government that aids the leftist politicians. The right-leaning politicians like the support of the corporate world who will be grateful for cheap labour to keep costs low.

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  19. This very phrase is beloved by our Prime Minister, Juthtin Trudeau. Of course, it means everyone must agree with him, as all the people he mixes with does, good dinner party guests.

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  20. Degarding "Diversity is Our Strength"...

    Antonyms for diversity
    agreement
    sameness
    identicalness
    similarity
    uniformity

    So in 1984 or Animal Farm fashion, wouldn't it be one of these:
    "Diversely the Same"
    "Diverse in Color, Similar in Action (or Thought)"
    "Identically Diverse"

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