The Low Ground
According
to the American Association for Affirmative Action (AAAA - no joke!), "Civil
rights laws were enacted to redress both systemic and individual discrimination
based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age or disability."
That's a good thing. So, how did Democratic leaders in this free country of
individual rights set out to fix the problem being redressed by civil rights
laws? By stripping other individuals of their civil rights, of course.
Believe me, I am a strong supporter of women's rights. I'm a strong supporter of minorities' rights. I am a strong supporter of majorities' rights. How can this be? Don't I have to choose? NO! NO! NO! I don't have to choose. The Constitution of the United States of America grants all these people the same rights regardless of whether they are women, men, minorities, majorities or any combination. They get the same rights. Isn't that a reasonable idea in a free society?
My Case FOR Affirmative Action
Now for some personal secrets. I can't walk and chew gum (sometimes
I can't walk all that well, forget the gum). You see, I fall into a
well known, but discriminated against minority group called clumsys. I am
a good person, I'm clumsy and I want to be a juggler in the circus.
Affirmative Action is for me! I can prove I have been discriminated against
because of all the successful jugglers in all the circuses in all the world,
non is clumsy. And, every application I have submitted to every circus
has gone unanswered as soon as they discovered that I was clumsy. Now, that
just isn't fair!
Well, discrimination just isn't all that funny. It's morally wrong and it's a stupid social tendency that wastes talent, costs money and demoralizes a lot of people. Oh yes, I almost forgot, it's also prevalent and it's never fair.
Now Let's Fix It
Why not fix it by implementing Affirmative Action? Because Affirmative Action
is morally wrong and it's a stupid social engineering idea that wastes talent,
costs money and demoralizes a lot of people. Oh yes, I almost forgot, it's
also never fair. I think I'm never going to be a juggler. In practice,
affirmative action has the potential to change the balance to some degree,
but it doesn't work. It creates more discrimination because it makes
the very people who are supposed to benefit from it look less capable and
it makes them feel less equal. Who really wants to be the person who
got the job because the boss was forced to hire them. Even if you can
do the job, no one believes it.
Affirmative action is unfair to the people it is supposed to help and it is unfair to the individuals who are pushed aside when affirmative action is implemented. Every advocate of affirmative action points out that it provides equal access and equity for minorities and women and so on. Really? They also acknowledge that it is preferential treatment used to offset the effects of prior discrimination So, through preferential treatment we get equity? By being unfair, we get fairness? Does it follow that by being dishonest, we get honesty? I submit that such arguments are all about equally sensible.
My Case FOR Affirmative Action
According to the Glass Ceiling Commission's, Glass Ceiling Report, 95 percent of senior managers of Fortune 1000 industrial and Fortune 500 companies are men (I want more of them to be women). Of the 95 percent, 97 percent are white (I would like to see more balance). In Fortune 2000 industrial and service companies 5 percent of senior managers are women, and of that, only 5 percent are minority women (I want a better chance at this). You may say, "So what?" I happen to think it's not such a good thing and that there is some discrimination going on there. At the same time, I'm shocked that anyone would think that forcing the hiring of people by race or sex is going to fix anything. I know from personal experience that many affirmative action hires in many companies have been strictly token in nature. Companies simply make sideline jobs with big titles and high salaries and dump the poor affirmation action sod into it. The company's numbers start to look good and they can say, "We did our part." One minority gets more pay, but others suffer as the opinion of coworkers and the stories they tell spread bad feelings like a plague. Everyone loses.
Republicans and conservative are right on target when they fight affirmative action. It is anti-freedom and anti-American.
