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Affirmative action

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No2statism Posted: Sun, Jan 16 2011 9:15 AM

Is it really true that it has helped ethnic minorities?  Or has it brought them down?  Do some whites like it becasue they think blacks are intellectually inferior and need special help?

As a libertarian, I'm against it, and I feel it's prevented us from being a color-blind society--it basically perpetuates the racist form of collectivism.

Why should the government hold a gun to someone's head and say, "if you don't hire a minority over a white, then I'm going to shoot you"?

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Gipper replied on Sun, Jan 16 2011 9:20 AM

It brings them down. I don't know how many times I've heard that "minorities" have been accepted into graduate school and then they end up dropping out either because they were accepted based on their skin color, or they just weren't prepared because they were just pushed through school.

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Walter Williams has written a lot on this topic

Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid

Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring

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So did Richard Epstein. Forgot the book title, though. 

The state is not the enemy. The idea of the state is. 

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Sieben replied on Sun, Jan 16 2011 9:55 AM

I don't think its a good idea to argue the history of AA. At best you can get opponents to concede that it needs to be "reformed" because in principle, it is possible that it can help minorities become more equal.

You need to approach it as just another redistribution of wealth argument. It isn't categorically different.

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What's wrong with not being colorblind? To paraphrase Walter Williams: "I chose to marry a young black woman."

To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process.
Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!"
Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."

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Affirmative action seems like an implicitely racist piece of legislation.  We must help teenagers who belong to minority groups go to college, because otherwise they would be uncompetitive in an equal environment with whites.  Why can't minorities compete on the same level?  By the way, I'm a minority, and I use affirmative action whenever possible. ;)  Although, San Diego State University, I think caught the loophole.  I am, according to my birth certificate, hispanic, but San Diego State University asked me to clarify between Latin American and Spanish.

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BramElias replied on Sun, Jan 16 2011 2:56 PM

Well even if a lot capitalists would be racists, eventually other greedy capitalists start to hire minorities

because they are cheeper due to supply and demand. Racism in job applicants can't last to long, because

the incentive for cheaper labor would prefent it.

English is not my native language
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Jonathan, you should have told them that you have an American citizenship/residentship and that you speak a language derived from Latin.

To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process.
Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!"
Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."

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Well even if a lot capitalists would be racists, eventually other greedy capitalists start to hire minorities because they are cheeper due to supply and demand.

You mean to say "even if a lot of capitalists were racist". No one will become racist due to affirmative action being taken down. The same people who are racist now would be racist then. In fact, fewer people may be racist if affirmative action were to be taken down. When many people hear that they're force to hire minorities, they get mad at minorities instead of the government. It promotes racism.

Racism in job applicants can't last to long, because the incentive for cheaper labor would prefent it.

That's only assuming two things. (1) That every single person has equal job skills. I'll only hire someone for cheaper if I know their relative production level is equal to that of my current employees. Otherwise there's no point. (2) That non-minorities always cost more to hire than minorities. It's the minimum wage laws, not the race of the employee. When I was in high school, a few of my neighbors had their landscaping done by illegal immigrants, so I asked them how much they charged, and it was outrageous. Then I told the neighbors I'd do it for like half price, and I made a ton of a money.

EDIT: The character is a bit racist himself, but he does put it well during the conversation. Great movie, too.

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This is what I love about immigrants, they don't need no affirmitive action, they climb that economic ladder with no bitching and throw everyone else in the dust, meanwhile most of the welfare recipients are "native" folks.

Freedom has always been the only route to progress.

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This is what I love about immigrants, they don't need no affirmitive action, they climb that economic ladder with no bitching and throw everyone else in the dust.

Haha, that is really true. I have to say that, out of all the illegal immigrants I've seen, they work harder than most everyone I know.

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The arguments for affirmitive action and people complaining about the exportation of jobs seem to be very similar. No? Outsourcing is the white affirmitive action.

Freedom has always been the only route to progress.

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Outsourcing is the white affirmitive action.

You mean the opposition to outsourcing?

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BramElias replied on Sun, Jan 16 2011 4:23 PM

Yeah I meant ´were´. My English grammar really sucks.

English is not my native language
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Yeah I meant ´were´. My English grammar really sucks.

My apologies, then. I thought you meant something else.

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^Yes opposition. And yet the democrats are on one side and the republicans on another.

Freedom has always been the only route to progress.

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By the way, I'm a minority, and I use affirmative action whenever possible.

Spanish is an official language in Portland, judging by the looks of it.  It's like in Canada where everything is in both English and French, despite few people speaking French outside of Quebec.

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