When Equal Treatment Feels like Discrimination - American Thinker

The counter-programming from secretary of War Pete Hegseth during his September 30 Quantico speech to top military brass doubtless received a frosty reception from at least some of the high-ranking commissioned officers who had grown accustomed to preferential treatment. - Todd Gregory, Erik Gregory

Dr. Thomas Sowell famously and rightly remarked when people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems like discrimination.

Consider the psychological mindset of a DIE-privileged general, perhaps someone like Hegseth’s predecessor (the race- and climate-obsessed Gen. Lloyd Austin) or Gen. C.Q. Brown, Jr., formerly of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a vocal supporter of Black Lives Matter...

• Such officers sitting in the audience listening to Hegseth’s scary-sounding speech would feel singled out and offended by Hegseth’s demand for rigorous, uniform, meritocratic standards to be enforced. After all, that’s not how progressives understand the word equity.
• The DIE generals and admirals–turned–pronoun police might think (to themselves or zirselves): Hegseth was a mere platoon leader in Iraq, whereas I’m a two-star general who memorized von Clausewitz and studied military theory in the classroom at West Point. I’m credentialed, and I’ve sat in on important meetings with allied generals throughout the world.
• I’m far more accomplished than Hegseth, who attained only the rank of major in the military before becoming a right-wing pundit on Fox News. Who is Hegseth to lecture me about military readiness, or whether I need to get on Ozempic and commence daily P.T.? How dare this administration humiliate me, force me to come to Quantico, and listen to this crap?...