Subject:
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Re: Rush: "Lego is a Tool for 4 year olds"
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 3 Feb 2000 21:25:16 GMT
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Reply-To:
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lpieniazek@noveraANTISPAM.com
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Viewed:
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1116 times
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Frank raises some good points. But if I am careful I will find myself
disagreeing with him...
I think it would be naiive in the extreme to say that past history has
not seen injustice suffered by some groups at the hands of others. Name
an ethnicity/religious group/creed/you name it, and if you root around
you'll find some other group that oppressed them, and some other group
that they oppressed. No group can survive that scrutiny.
But, and I ask this question innocently, is there an obligation for us
to atone for the wrongs of our ancestors, across the board, without some
proof of direct culpability? I don't think that in general, that's the
case. (if my father robbed you personally, and I benefited from the
spoils even though it happened before I was born, it's legit to come
after me for redress, since I inherited everything when he died... but
don't ask me, a latecomer to this country, to make up for the 24 dollars
worth of beads deal that got Manhattan for the dutch, if you see what
I'm saying)
And that is the argument against affirmative action. Discrimination by
public facilities is wrong, and you can't fix it by discriminating in
the other direction later.
But Frank is right. To merely rail against AA without saying how you
would improve the lot of those that have been unjustly discriminated
against may not be the best way to argue against it.
So what can we offer in its stead?
We can offer the promise that we will not allow discrimination by public
facilities. Ever. Period.
We can offer the promise that we will not allow artificial barriers to
entry to arise that would prevent healthy competition from effectively
checking discrimination by private facilities.
We can offer the promise that we will not let public charity money, with
its stifling bureacracies, chase out good and healthy private charities
which successfully work to help people who currently are struggling to
better themselves.
We can offer the promise that we will allow lots of schools to flourish
without subsidising some at the expense of others.
We can offer the promise that we will enable lots of different
mechanisms to predict how well students will do in school, so that lots
of different schools can arise and use lots of different techniques to
reach children who may not come from the homogenised whitebread culture,
but who nevertheless have to figure out how to succeed in it.
And we can ensure that everyone is afforded equal protection under the
law. Justice must be blind.
Will that be enough? I believe so, but I might be wrong. Certainly what
we have now seems to be fostering a permanent underclass. We have lost
the Great Society War on Poverty, just as we have lost the War on Drugs.
--
Larry Pieniazek - larryp@novera.com - http://my.voyager.net/lar
http://www.mercator.com. Mercator, the e-business transformation company
fund Lugnet(tm): http://www.ebates.com/ ref: lar, 1/2 $$ to lugnet.
Note: this is a family forum!
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Rush: "Lego is a Tool for 4 year olds"
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| (...) Well, for what it's worth, I don't disagree with any of what you say below, though I suspect that in a Libertopia, we might find ourselves supporting some different causes. That's fine with me, I don't expect everyone to have the same (...) (25 years ago, 3-Feb-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Rush: "Lego is a Tool for 4 year olds"
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| (...) Ok, if the only discussion is about affirmative action, tell me, do you believe that currently blacks and women as general classes of people have the same opportunities as white males as a general class of people? If you do, then what is your (...) (25 years ago, 3-Feb-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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