Jurisprudence

Without affirmative action plenty of other people...

gringo_911 — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 01:28:31 GMT

For example Dr.Patrick Chavis would be still alive - except he would not be a doctor.

http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=1788

Re: Recognizing racism isn't racist

Tarkol — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:03:39 GMT

degsme:

So Barak Obama is our President because of AA?

Yes. Without AA, Obama doesn't get into Harvard or any Ivy, NO BLACKS do.

Without Harvard he lacks the exceptional resume required to even be a minority senator much less a POTUS Candidate

Without Harvard, he doesn't have an answer to "what are your qualifications"

Same is true of Rice, Powell, Thomas, Dinkens etc. etc.

Utterly False. Harvard Law School Graduated its first black in 1867. So you cannot state that Obama would not be right where he is. And to state that no blacks get in is false as blacks have been attending Harvard since 100 years before the Civil Rights Act. So for you to perpetuate the myth that none of them would be there without AA is racist.

Re: Recognizing racism isn't racist

trapdoor — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 14:22:33 GMT

Degs: For, "First off, even in the face of racism minorites CAN compete, but it is not a competition that stands the Constitutional scrutiny of EQUAL before the law" to be true, we have to be discussing that discrimination that takes place in a legal situation -- before the law, in other words.

AA provides differentiated treatment, not equal treatment, before the law. It does this in attempt to ameliorate discrimination that occurs throughout society -- but not before the law. While I deplore that social discrimination, it is not a reason that I should face a disadvantage under the law in hiring, firing, college admissions or any other area where legally sanctioned racial discrimination (in the name of integration) currently exists.

And, as we discussed, AA is also now set up to be a permanent entitlement, even if the circumstances that prompted its creation disappear entirely.

Sorry Degs -- no racial discrimination, not now, not ever. Unequal treatment is inherently racist.

Recognizing racism isn't racist

degsme — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 08:39:40 GMT

I also find it racist to assume blacks can't compete with whites.

IOW recognizing the existance of racism and its consequences is racist. UHUH...

First off, even in the face of racism minorites CAN compete, but it is not a competition that stands the Constitutional scrutiny of EQUAL before the law. Thus you are going to have disparate outcomes. Disparate doesn't mean NO success, but it means disproportionate LIMITS on success. And that latter is very much true even today.

But even more racist is your statement that AA is the only access to such rights by minorities.

Again bad logic. Without AA that access is usually highly constrained, though in some cases it IS completely limited.

So Barak Obama is our President because of AA?

Yes. Without AA, Obama doesn't get into Harvard or any Ivy, NO BLACKS do.
Without Harvard he lacks the exceptional resume required to even be a minority senator much less a POTUS Candidate
Without Harvard, he doesn't have an answer to "what are your qualifications"

Same is true of Rice, Powell, Thomas, Dinkens etc. etc.

Re: Sure you can

trapdoor — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:06:43 GMT

Degs: You're smart, but you should stick to plain English rather than attempting to use $5 words like meretricious.

meretricious, adj,

1. alluring by a show of flashy or vulgar attractions; tawdry.

2. based on pretense, deception, or insincerity.

3. pertaining to or characteristic of a prostitute.(Source, Dictionary.com)

The first meaning rather describes your argument in favor of affirmative action as it stands today -- at the very least, I find that argument tawdry Really, the second meaning also applies to your argument, which is based on the pretense that society can mend racism in the past by practicing it in the present. I don't think your argument amounts to the third meaning -- but the racial whoring by people like the mayor of New Haven might apply. In any case, under no definition (nor in its latin roots which have to do with prostitution) does "meretricious" mean "based on merit."

The statement, "But in the case of minorities, that position defended by AA is usually the ONLY access to such rights," is as incorrect as your use of meretricious. AA doesn't, ahem, discriminate between rich and poor -- upper and middle class minorities have as much access to rights as poor whites. The fact that you continue to ignore this disparity damages your argument.

And arguing for a quota system is simply foolhardiness. The courts and the public reject it. Let's argue the real world, no pie in the sky.

In the real world, you cannot argue that differentiated treatment leads to equal rights. That is the pre-Brown v Board of Education view, and it is factually, legallyl and simply wrong.

Re: Sure you can

Tarkol — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:57:34 GMT

degsme:

You cannot increase access to a broader set of the population by limiting access for some and increasing for others. Your net gain is zero.

Not true at all. While it is true that white unearned privilege is decreased, that unearned privilege is not the only acces to legal and economic rights available to white males. But in the case of minorities, that position defended by AA is usually the ONLY access to such rights.

AA in the form of a quota does exactly this. It says that we don't worry about levelling the playing field between whites and minorities between men and women. Each gets to compete within its own proportionality of the population for their fair share of the pie. Then over time you clearly have the most meretricious of each group in place. Do that for 3-5 generations and then you might be able to start going towards more blended metrics.

Seperate but Equal? Who advocates Jim Crow now? I also find it racist to assume blacks can't compete with whites. But even more racist is your statement that AA is the only access to such rights by minorities. So Barak Obama is our President because of AA? According to your statement he had no other access.

Sure you can

degsme — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:31:35 GMT

You cannot increase access to a broader set of the population by limiting access for some and increasing for others. Your net gain is zero.

Not true at all. While it is true that white unearned privilege is decreased, that unearned privilege is not the only acces to legal and economic rights available to white males. But in the case of minorities, that position defended by AA is usually the ONLY access to such rights.

AA in the form of a quota does exactly this. It says that we don't worry about levelling the playing field between whites and minorities between men and women. Each gets to compete within its own proportionality of the population for their fair share of the pie. Then over time you clearly have the most meretricious of each group in place. Do that for 3-5 generations and then you might be able to start going towards more blended metrics.

Re: Equal Protection

Tarkol — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:08:35 GMT

degsme:

Am 14s Equal Protection clause is the law and the test. AA -even blatant and obvious - increases the EQUAL Access to legal and economic rights and powers to a broader set of the population.

Jim Crow does the opposite/

First of all no one is advocating Jim Crow. It was a bad thing. Also your statement about AA is flawed. You cannot increase access to a broader set of the population by limiting access for some and increasing for others. Your net gain is zero. You increase access by increasing it for all.

AA in the form of a quota system doesn't do this. AA in the form of improving all public schools to ensure everyone has access to a quality education does. Efforts to recruit more minorities into underrepresented fields does.

Re: Equal Protection

trapdoor — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:07:36 GMT

Affirmative action does not increase equal access, it merely promotes an unequal access for a different race.

The 14th Amendment makes no distinction between equal protection and equal treatment. The Jim Crow laws were violations of that amendment, and so are most AA laws -- you cannot have differentiated treatment and equal protection any more than you can have "separate but equal" schools. The differing treatment itself leads to inequality, as SCOTUS ruled in Brown v Topeka Board of Education. You can either have identical treatment, and hence equal protection, or differing treatment, and consequently differing protection.

Equal Protection

degsme — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:33:28 GMT

Am 14s Equal Protection clause is the law and the test. AA -even blatant and obvious - increases the EQUAL Access to legal and economic rights and powers to a broader set of the population.

Jim Crow does the opposite/

Learn some logic

degsme — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:29:48 GMT

People were treated unequally based on race [mont. bus boycott] - i.e. your seating arrengement was directly dependent on your skin color.

The former doesn't follow from the latter. That your seating is directly dependent on skin color is not inherently unequal. What was unequal was that minorities were required to surrender their seats to whites and they were required to surrender BETTER seats because they were deemed inferior and not deserving of such seats.

Again what you are trying to argue is a Catch-22, ie the fact of recognizing and ameliorating racism is "racist" itself because it uses skin color to determine how the initial racism will be dealth with.

That's useful if you want to preclude any ability to ameliorate racism. Something that continues to entrench your daily white male privilege.

IE you are arguing the Catch-22 so that you don't have to ever compete on a level playing field.

Re: What's wrong with blatant an obvious

fsilber — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 12:44:43 GMT

degsme:
What's wrong with blatant and obvious? Affirmative Action was MOST effective when it WAS blatant and obvious. The Little Rock integration was hardly a calming influence on the existing racial hostility. Yet it worked. Same is true of quotas.

There's no law requiring statistical racial economic equality, nor the pursuit thereof.

The problem with blatant and obvious methods of improving the conditions of one race at the expense of another is that if these were legal, it would also be legal to create policies intended to increase racial inequality (eg. Jim Crowe segregation).

Re: Definition of racist

gringo_911 — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 01:27:48 GMT

Not inherently so.

Inherently so.

Participation in MLK's Freedom March, was based on "other people's race" - by your definition this makes the Freedom March racist. Same with Montgomery Bus Boycott, Same with Freedom Summer.

No, all of the above was a movement to have people of different races treated same by the government. By YOUR definition, this movement was racist.

Your definition of racism is specifically designed so that it precludes any actions to ameliorate racism.

My definition is the only reasonable definition. It does not preclude actions to ameliorate racism - I am doing it right now with your racism.

But in doing so you make it a meaningless definition. That's not slander. It may be your viewpoint but it is one that is itself based in perpetuating racism.

You are perpetuating racism, not mean. Your theories rely on classical anti-semitic theory that some groups stick to their own, and we must discriminate against them because of this.

That's funny....

gringo_911 — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 01:25:00 GMT

People were treated unequally based on race - i.e. your seating arrengement was directly dependent on your skin color.

All people took same test. Do fail to see the difference?

You couldn't

degsme — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:26:44 GMT

And the discarding of the NH test was based on the denial of equal treatment as demonstrated by the disarate outcome.

After all, in Montgomery AL, blacks could still ride the bus and get from point A to point B- how was that a 'denial of equal treatment" to require blacks to sit in the black section and whites to sit in the white section? Oh that's right, the black section's ride was less comfortable. Hence the outcome at the end of the ride was disparate.

but of course that doesn't matter.