Lohan

Reparations for past sins in terms of AA and blacks seems to me to be an intellectually contradictory position to take for most atheists. When Christians present the argument that we are sinners because of the Original Sin of Adam and Eve, every reaction I've seen on this board is that, "How can that be fair? I didn't eat the apple. I didn't make the choice to disobey God. Why am I being punished for the sins of people I've never even met?" We dismiss this idea readily, but some of us seem to readily take it up again when it comes to AA. The contradiction is obvious.

For me, AA has never really served any purpose but to make people lazy. Granted, I'm sure there are some very intelligent black students getting into good colleges because of AA despite their less than adequate secondary schooling and all that, but for the most part it is giving people an easier time based upon their race or gender. This is reverse discrimination at its most basic level. AA is meant to be a "great equalizer" but this is in no way the admirable goal it seems to be.

Unfortunately, nothing in life is equal. No matter how much we pour into our welfare systems and programs like AA, there will always be some people who are richer than others, more talented than others, etc. What we should strive for is equity, where each has an equal opportunity to use his talents to the maximum of his ability, whether that leads him to be a wealthy CEO or an assembly line worker. AA does not accomplish this. Programs to improve our schools and the quality of life in inner city neighborhoods (among other things) would. However all AA does is identify people from certain backgrounds and give them preferential treatment. People have tried to claim this as a cure for the social ills of our country, but it is merely a painkiller. It treats the symptoms but not the causes of the illness, and not even all that well.

(Btw, this account as oooold, and I haven't used it in awhile. But when I came back to lurk a couple of months ago, lo and behold I could still log into it, so I'm going to use it again. Nice to meet everyone)

Loren Pechtel

Originally posted by vixenell
How much harm is it doing? Not many whites are being displaced by AA... if anyone, asians are bearing the brunt as far as college and grad school admissions are concerned.

Just because it's hard to point to the harm doesn't mean it's not there. Consider:
A white that doesn't make the cut because of AA doesn't get as good an education and therefore is likely held back a bit for life.
The blacks, however, who do make the cut because of AA are far more likely to drop out and thus get hurt even worse.

Furthermore, in the workplace it means incompetents are hired to make quota. (Yes, the law says nothing about quotas. Quotas are the only defense against lawsuits, though.)

By keeping AA, reforming it and essentially phasing it out, it will provide a sizeable portion of a population with an opportunity that would likely be unattainable without some preferential treatment.

At this point I think it harms everyone except the incompetents who get a free ride from it.

(and our children's children's......), then AA is the best solution we have today. Flawed, yes, but its good enough for the time being.

I believe they would be better off if AA was scrapped.

It can't be done without educational reform, and educational reform will be initially ineffective without some form of AA. It may not appear to be "doing any good," but we'd be alot worse off if we were to do away with it now without doing something to fix the root problem.

Why? It isn't deliberate discrimination that's causing the educational problems. Thus AA isn't needed to remedy it.

Loren Pechtel

You're pointing to a much more real cause of the white/black disparity than discrimination. So long as we have AA saying "blame whitey for your problems" they won't have the incentive to fix it, either.

lunachick

To start with, not all atheists used to be Christians. Secondly, the sin of Adam and Eve is a myth. There is no evidence of it, there is no evidence of it's punishment, it is a fairytale. The wrongdoings of our forefathers are comparatively recent; the effects are visible today; and are known, without a shadow of a doubt, to be true.

Germany pays dearly to Israel for it's wrongdoings, for example. Yet, very few of the original wrongdoers are still alive (if any?). Should that now just end, as it is the younger German workforce who are picking up the bill, and they were not born during Hitler's Third Reich?

Do you have any statistics for this? What is your proof? Or is this just one of those pov's that get thrown around like "take away unemployment welfare benefits, and those lazy beggars will get off their asses and get a job"?

emphryio

Koy
I don't have a better solution. I agree with you.

lunachick

They are more likely to drop out? More likely to than their white counterparts? Got proof of this?

Not necessarily.
In the '80's (and probably still today), record companies were very male dominated and chauvinistic. I wanted the sales managers job for Sydney. I had the background, with knowledge of how retail works, how wholesale works, how radio station programme directors work, and how musicians work. I had the best sales records in the company at that time, and was often called upon to help out with disputes and train new staff. I also had a background in advertising and record promotions. I had the respect of my peers. Did I get the job? No. A guy with little experience, but who was a complete brown nose got the job. He lasted 6 months before he was demoted again for incompetence. Why didn't I get it? Basically, because I was a chick, and you never know when these chicks are gonna run off and have babies. Besides, management is a MANS job. (Things have changed somewhat, now - but that is largely to the women's movement and employment laws).

There is no reason whatsoever that a Black or Native, given the right kind of "leg up", would not be as competent as anyone else. In fact, I'd probably say they'd try harder as they have greater incentive. Blacks, Natives and Women don't make up the total level of incompetence in the workforce, Loren - plenty of white males do, too.
A free ride?

How?

No. It's your government's educational policies and pissy budget that causes educational problems. Stop blaming Minorities all the time.

Then what would remedy it?


But as Koy is getting frustrated at his topic being taken endlessly off-topic (my own post included; sorry, Koy ), I'll get back on topic and answer his reparations question with a resounding YES! But I would take it even further than AA.

Monkeybot

I don't have much problem with affirmative action, but I think it should be part of a "whole-package" effort to improve things. For example, improving inner cities, revamping the education system from the elementary level, and properly enforcing fair lending legislation are all other policies I think should be used in conjunction with AA.

vixenell

I agree... if only one of our presidential candidates would make this a priority.

Lohan

Well, first of all it makes no difference whether you were formerly a Christian or not, the question remains the same, and I think we've all heard it regardless of our personal religious backgrounds.

True, the actions of our forefathers are more recent and applicable to modern day, I can see that. Point conceded. However, that still doesn't mean AA is the best solution.

First of all, I'd have to ask what exactly Germany pays since I had not heard that before. Must be I've been living in a closet or something ? But, in the case of the Holocaust, it happened 60 years ago. I firmly believe that unless you are personally responsible for something, you should be allowed to go your own way. So how do you justify whatever reparations Germany is still paying? And why do you think the Israelis need them? It's a little bit different of a question, since the Israelis now have their own country and government.

Maybe, but there are some things that numbers just can't quantify. There is no laziness index that I can point to, and no way to tell what would happen to these people made lazy by welfare or AA if we suddenly took that away. This is just what I believe happens under AA based on my own common sense and whatnot. I can't really statistically or numerically substantiate it.

Yeah this is the position that makes the most sense to me, although I think AA really inhibits the effectiveness of quality of life/education improvement and everything that entails by making it so that you can still not work as hard at your education and get where you want to go because of companies and universities needing to fill their quotas for minority applicants. This would, in my opinion, mitigate the benefits of improvement programs. And after these programs have been put in place and proven successful, we would have no more need for AA anyway.

Loren Pechtel

Originally posted by lunachick
They are more likely to drop out? More likely to than their white counterparts? Got proof of this?

Yup--more likely. The greater the disparity between white SAT scores and black SAT scores at a given college the greater the disparty between dropout rates. A nice straight line graph even.
Unfortunately, I'm not recalling the title of the book.

Did I get the job? No. A guy with little experience, but who was a complete brown nose got the job. He lasted 6 months before he was demoted again for incompetence. Why didn't I get it?

Or because you weren't a brown-nose. I see no reason to ascribe this to gender.

No. It's your government's educational policies and pissy budget that causes educational problems. Stop blaming Minorities all the time.

I agree that we don't handle education right but that's not the *CAUSE* of the problem. The schools are failing to fix it but that's all.

Then what would remedy it?

More emphasis on helping them when they are young--when the damage is being done.

That oreo bit Repoman mentioned is certainly part of the problem. I first heard about it 20 years ago.