Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Racism (Continued...)

It's my belief that many of those that are "against" Affirmative Action at best do not understand that (1) racism exists and (2) that it's government's role to establish justice as well as they could. Or at worst, they do not care about 1 and 2.

IMHO if they understood, then their feelings may be different. And more understanding can be achieved through awareness and education.

Yes, there has to be fair, just, and legal ways to implement AA policies. Let me say that one more time: Yes there has to be fair, just and legal ways to implement AA policies, but in my humble opinion we will never make great progress towards justice if we lack understanding or fail to care about the fact that Racism exists and that it is the role of government to establish justice.

If I were an elected official, I would attempt to focus AA efforts on the education of #1 and #2. And I'd focus AA policies toward prosecution and fines for all injustice towards protected classes, including racism.

Bottom line: I think way too much emphasis is made about bad AA policies. Instead we'd all be better off focusing on calling out the haters among us (i.e. doing something about it) and admitting that racism exists, and not sitting idly by.

But that's just me. And my kooky views on justice.

10 comments:

  1. Rich, I DO think it’s the government's role to establish justice. But Justice is defined as
    the "establishment or determination of rights according to the rules of law." But where does "law" arise? This is where we disagree.

    I believe you have a very Hobbsian view of justice. The state (and by extension politicians) create justice through legislation. To have the state establish some sort of artificial, economically-egalitarian "justice" cannot be ascertained without a deep abatement of liberty.

    I, in contrast, am more of a Lockean. I believe that there is a clear distinction between the natural evolutionary law and the arbitrary edicts of the political class. To have a state-sponsored policy judging people by the color of their skin rather than their social or economic worth is a disgusting disregard of equality under the law.

    Call me "kooky" but I believe that freedom to be racist, sexist, etc. is protected by the First Amendment Constitution. I don't know about you, but I don't want the government telling me what to believe, whom I should hire and what I can say.

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  2. SGS,

    Just because we disagree is no reason to call me a fictional imaginary cartoon cat! lol

    http://paulbuckley14059.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/calvin-and-hobbes.jpg

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  3. So did SGS change your mind on AA or do you still believe that to end discrimination we must discriminate?

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  4. Where have I advocated discrimination?

    Please quote me directly.

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  5. AA equals discrimination either by funding (We'll give this group money, but not this group) or by quota (direct discrimination). I inferred from your post that you supported AA. If not, a thousand pardons, if so quod erat demonstrandum.

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  6. http://www.allanfavish.com/affact.htm

    Affirmative Action literally means positive activity or positive steps. Both Webster and the historical origin of the words support this. So, AA does not equal quotas nor discrimination. Beating up quotas is equivalent to beating up a straw man.

    What you seem to be describing are old misguided POLICIES that merely bore the name AA at one time and have since been struck down.

    The positive steps that I recommend are education of 1 & 2, and prosecution of discrimination against all protected classes, including racism.

    I think we’d all be better off if we focused on the facts that (1) racism exists and that (2) we should take positive steps (aka AA) against it.

    Are you suggesting doing nothing and letting racism thrive?

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  7. AA is the old misguided policies. It has been around for decades and has failed*. I'm suggesting that time and money (and Liberty) not be poured away into a failed solution.


    *Shelby Steele wrote a good summation of it's problems here:

    http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/composition/patterns/steele.htm

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  8. Even the article that you cite ends with the fact that more needs to be done. That proves my point that positive steps need to be taken. And positive steps are literally equivalent to affirmative actions.

    It seems to me that all you see is reverse discrimination.

    Yet, I see that too. And I acknowledge that RD should be eliminated. But I can get past that and still realize that racism still exists and more still needs to be done about it.

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  9. You can get "past that" (RD)? Are you saying that you can accept RD if it does something about racism? I'm not being snarky or anything, I just want to clearly understand your position.

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  10. I love love love clarity. And I do not mind whatsoever any and all attempts to achieve clarity. And I'm occaisionally snarky too. So no biggy either way.

    No. I do not accept reverse discrimination. I have repeatedly advocated that yes, there has to be fair, just, and legal ways to implement AA policies.

    RD must be struck down. (However I do think that RD is brought up way too often as a straw man in an attempt to hamper any efforts to combat racism. Just a personal opinion.)

    But regardless of that,,,more postive steps need to be taken to combat racism. AND in the name of establishing justice it is Government's role to do so. To not do so would be tacit approval of the injustice of racism.

    Perhaps the best way to achieve clarity is to avoid the term AA altogether because of the apparent negative connotations associated with it.

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