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From: cramer@kontron.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.politics
Subject: Re: Discrimination and AA
Message-ID: <308@kontron.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 1-Jul-85 13:00:24 EDT
Article-I.D.: kontron.308
Posted: Mon Jul  1 13:00:24 1985
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> > Robert Plamondon   >> Richard Carnes   >>> Geoff Sherwood
> 

> >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.
>     
You equate "illegal" with "immoral", rather the way Moral Majority believes
that anything "immoral" should be "illegal".  The law is powerful force
for good and evil (but mostly evil).  I would think it wise to avoid
trying to make everything illegal on the spur of the moment.

>     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. 
>     
Is your argument: "I can't stop paying taxes to support an immoral war
machine, so I'm going to use the coercive instrument to make even more
people have to do something immoral."  Wouldn't it make more sense to stop
*forcing* everyone to pay for the government, and allow it to be funded
voluntarily?  Why not extend this idea of voluntarism and peace to allow
voluntary peaceful action concerning discrmination, and keep the government
and its coercion out of it?

>     Yet by definition, being government sanctified, my forced contribution to
>     such an evil cause is not `immoral'.
> 
If the government started to round up innocent people and kill them,
would government sanctification make it "moral".  Hitler's actions were
completely legal (at least, within Germany and Austria).  They sure weren't
moral.

>     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.
And you wish to impose your moral code on others by forcing non-aggressive
people to do what you want.

>     If (2), you are wrong, because the current weak form of AA IS law. Period.
> 
The current form of affirmative action isn't law; it is administrative
decisions that in some respects seem contrary to the laws passed by
Congress.  Nonetheless, if you really want to argue that "law" is all that
matters, remember Hitler.

>     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

If it won't cure existing bigots, then it can only be compensation.  Who
does it compensate?  Real victims, or only people with the same sex or
race as real victims?