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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!decwrl!spar!michael
From: michael@spar.UUCP (Not Bill Joy)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.politics
Subject: Libertarian Dogma in net.women?
Message-ID: <372@spar.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 28-Jun-85 09:05:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: spar.372
Posted: Fri Jun 28 09:05:11 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 1-Jul-85 06:33:46 EDT
References: <496@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> <274@kontron.UUCP>
Reply-To: michael@spar.UUCP (Tiab Guls)
Organization: Schlumberger Palo Alto Research, CA
Lines: 107
Xref: watmath net.women:6170 net.politics:9662
Summary: 

> = Clayton Cramer

>> Barry Fagin writes to the effect that it is ludicrous to suppose that
>> anyone has a right to compel an employer to change his hiring
>> practices.  But it is ludicrous only on the assumption that the
>> Non-Coercion Principle on which Barry's objection is apparently
>> based is self-evidently true.  The confidence of libertarians in the
>> NCP is matched only by their inability to convince anyone else of it.
>> To me it is ludicrous to suppose that employers have the right to
>> discriminate against minorities and women because of their irrational
>> prejudice against them, and AT THE SAME TIME no one has the right to
>> make them stop it.
>> 
>Tell me, Mr. Carnes, if you don't believe in the non-coercion principle,
>what is the basis for your objection to rape? murder? robbery?  If the
>objection is based on law, then a government that repeals those laws
>has taken away your objections.

    Somehow net.women has become a receptacle for those of the Libertarian
    faith to dump huge quantities of dogma.

    Mr. Cramer, your non-coercion principle is most reasonable; nonetheless,
    some people have other first principles. Please understand this.

    If you sincerely pose practical solutions to the problems women face,
    then your continued presence in net.women is encouraged. Some of the
    most serious criticisms of Libertarianism concern its inability to
    comprehend the problems faced by members of minority groups.

>>> AA is fully implemented, and we can't buy the home of our choice or
>>> send our kids to a good school, etc. all because *I*, a WHITE MALE,
>>> though completely qualified, can't get a job.  They give them all to
>>> equally qualified "minorities". -- SJ Berry
>> 
>> I thought of writing a satirical response to this and similar
>> postings, but the above already sounds like satire to me, and I would
>> need the talents of a Mark Twain to do an adequate job.  I was going
>> to say that I was founding the NAAWM and requesting all WM's to send
>> me their tax-deductible contributions so that we could fight for the
>> rights of this oppressed minority, but lots of you would have taken
>> me seriously and sent me your checks -- come to think of it, it might
>> be worth a try sometime.  Wake up, fellow white males!  They're
>> trying to take away our GOD-GIVEN RIGHT to be on top of the heap!
>> Let's organize, march, demonstrate....
>> 
>Not "our GOD-GIVEN RIGHT to be on top of the heap!"  The right of every
>individual to be treated as an individual.  Your comments suggest that
>you either aren't reading what people are saying, or you are purposely
>and knowingly distorting and twisting the objections to affirmative
>action.

    Mr. Carnes DID call it `satire'. And his distortion was hardly worse
    than SJ Berry's ridiculous implication that AA requires ALL jobs to go
    to minorities.

    You are being inconsistent, Mr. Cramer.

    And though being treated fairly as an individual is a fine thing, there
    are other things that some of us feel are important, too.
    
    Perhaps this fixation on individualism is why many who think as you do
    refuse to understand that:

       Our society's present domination by white males of blacks/women was
       unjustly caused.

       Discrimination still exists.
       
       Doing nothing about the effects of discrimination effectively
       maintains the existing dominance by white males.

       Government action driven by minority group pressure has repeatedly
       proven to be the only effective tool against majority oppression.

    It is clearly in your favor to deny these things. I hope you see
    why people doubt your sincerity.

>> Suppose we abandon AA, or suppose it was never applied.  Then we're
>> back to the good old days when many blacks and women, though
>> completely qualified, couldn't get a good job or a promotion or a
>> good education.  Do you think that the comfortable white males who
>> are now howling their outrage about the "discrimination" AA inflicts
>> on them were howling as loudly in the good old days about the
>> discrimination and oppression inflicted on minorities and women, an
>> oppression incomparably more severe than any that white males will
>> ever experience?  Take a guess.
>> 
>The bad old days of discrimination came to an end because a great many
>white males were disturbed by it --- EEO came into place from a Congress
>dominated by white males.  (You don't really think blacks had enough
>political pull to do it by themselves, do you?)

    This has a hateful sound to it, Mr. Cramer.

    The real reason legal discrimination ended was massive nonviolent group
    action by the oppressed themselves, inspired by the magnificent example
    of Mahatma Gandhi's efforts in India.

>> --Richard Carnes
>> I have striven, not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them,
>> nor to hate them, but to understand them. --Spinoza
>
>Spinoza tried to understand, Mr. Carnes --- you don't.

     Or else you are attributing your own flaws to those around you.

-michael