Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site spar.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!decwrl!spar!ellis From: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) Newsgroups: net.women,net.politics Subject: Re: Discrimination and AA Message-ID: <369@spar.UUCP> Date: Thu, 27-Jun-85 10:26:44 EDT Article-I.D.: spar.369 Posted: Thu Jun 27 10:26:44 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 29-Jun-85 23:43:01 EDT References: <483@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> <189@fear.UUCP> Reply-To: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) Organization: Schlumberger Palo Alto Research, CA Lines: 71 Xref: watmath net.women:6149 net.politics:9644 Summary: > Robert Plamondon >> Richard Carnes >>> Geoff Sherwood >>> If you pursue racist policies against racists, it is still racism. >> >> So what? This is what I have repeatedly asked without getting a >> straight answer. Supposing that affirmative action is "racism" >> according to your favorite definition of the term, how does that >> prove that AA is wrong? > >Many people believe that using immoral means in a good cause is immoral. >Or, in more childish terms, "two wrongs don't make a right." We, using our government, `take' things from many groups of people and `give' them to others, using methods as diverse as social security, special services for the handicapped, free school lunch programs, subsidies to farmers for NOT growing crops, welfare, and so on. Are these methods truly `immoral'? And what is `immoral'? When FDR first tried to implement graduated income tax, it was viewed as `immoral', or at least illegal, society's equivalent to `immoral'. Going back further, so was the organization of workers into unions for purposes of withholding labor from their employers. The first strong forms of AA were, by definition, `immoral', ie. unconstitutional, I suppose, as a result of the Bakke ruling. Our society was doing something new here, and no doubt there will be many who will see things both ways for some time to come. I, for one, believe the necessary legal and social framework can and will be created in the interest of a higher social justice. Then strong forms of AA will be `moral' again. No doubt, those who are rigidly `rule oriented' are certainly appalled by such thinking. So be it. Perhaps your viewpoint will win out in the end. But our government forces me to do many things I consider immoral, like paying taxes to an evil war machine. Yet by definition, being government sanctified, my forced contribution to such an evil cause is not `immoral'. Now you claim that the present castrated form of AA is `immoral'. Which do you mean? 1) AA violates your personal moral code 2) AA violates society's moral code, established by consensus, called law If (1), then our personal codes differ, and we will argue forever. If (2), you are wrong, because the current weak form of AA IS law. Period. >> But to look >> for a rational argument here is to miss the point. The only reasons >> I can discern that net-posters keep saying that "AA = racism" are: >> (1) to score debating points on the net (no difficult task), and (2) >> to annoy liberals. To quote Ayn Rand out of context: "Philosophy: >> who needs it?" >> >Cute. But the whole concept of affirmative action is based around >fallacies. One is that passing laws is going to eliminate racism. I >suspect that laws to eliminate racism will be just as effective as >Prohibition was at eliminating drinking, or the immigration laws at stopping >illegal immigration. Any advocate of AA who believes that the program will cure existing bigots of racism/sexism surely has rocks in their head. And opponents who claim this is the goal of AA are simply demolishing their own silly argument. The goal of AA is to compensate for the EFFECTS of racism/sexism. -michael