We can thank AA for the dumbing down of America.Thanks to AA we have people in positions of power who were D plus students.So called minorities were given an extra 20 points when takeing preemployment tests.Which means even though a white man may make 100% on a test,the bonehead sitting next to him who got 83 points would get an extra 20 which gave him/her 103%.Welcome to the Fire/Police Dept.All AA wants is to be a little MORE equal.AA was the worst thing that has ever happened to this Coountry. Good luck.Dan

-- Dan Newsome (BOONSTAR1@webtv.net), March 01, 2000.

8th, gotta give kudos to your English teachers. Your grammar and spelling are better than many posters to this forum.

-- canthappen (n@ysayer.com), March 01, 2000.

LL alert!

-- not again! (ll@lmost.got.by), March 01, 2000.

not again!

Ain't it the truth, though. Amazing how 8th grader writes just like the hamster imposter who wanted to poll the forum about our identities!

-- (TrollPatrol@sheesh.now), March 01, 2000.

No. The Declaration of Independence addresses the freedom to "pursue happiness" - it most emphatically does not "guarantee happiness."

That is each person's inalienable right - the pursuit of his or her dreams, not the granting of arbitrary "wishes" from an imperial, bureacratic government.

What one person demands - from a business, from a government, from another person - can only be paid for by demanding (forcing) another person to surrender their money and freedom!

Thus, one person "wants" affirmative action so they "feel" better. The only way I can satisfy that "demand" is to take tax money from another person, or deny them a job, or write laws that demand I hire one woman every time I hire a man, or, as is happening now, close down one man's sports team since I cannot afford two.

The result? Less freedom. You are denying my freedom - to hire, to fire, to pay salaries, to admit people to schools - just to try to make another person "feel" better - regardless of the receiver's qualifications.

So, are you saying that the color of somebody's skin matters? You are if you demand I hire a person just because of his race. You are demanding a school close one team because it can't pay for two. Isn't that unfair to the people on the current team? You are demanding I count each person by skin color when I hire - to be certain I get the "right" balance.

I don't want to do that. I want to hire the best people for the job. I want to allow a university to get the best students into medical school, not the students who score worse on exams or who have worse grades.

Is it fair to admit a future doctor because she is tall and thin with blonde hair and good looks?

Or would you rather be treated by a much smarter brunette who needed braces in middle school? And who still wears glasses when she studies?

I am saying that each person needs to be judged based on their own qualifications and desires. Not on color. Not on religion. Not on gender. Not on hair color.

On qualifications.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), March 01, 2000.

And keep up the good work in math.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), March 01, 2000.

8th Grader,

If I was writing your paper, I'd try to powerfully present the *questions* about AA. In politics, the *questions* are the *problems*. In politics, its hard to always know the perfect answer to a problem. But if we can know 'the issue' or problem, then we will be able to find the best answer that we are able to.

Teaching others about 'the issues' [or problems] in politics, means that you have to understand not only what **you** think and feel the *issue* to be, but also what **other people** feel that the problem to be.

It is because some problems are everyone's problems, not just yours or mine personally, that we call them "political".

So, if I were you, I'd write a paper stating what the different sides see as the problem. But to do that, to *really* understand 'the issue', I'd need to be able to see it from each side. To understand why so many people get so mad about something, I'd need to understand what they see and what they feel, just the way that they do.

That might sound hard. But all I'd need to do is like and respect others enough to understand *just what* they are really saying. And if one can develop that powerful skill, then one has half the skill that a true judge or statesman or leader must have to be effective.

The other half is the ability to *decide* or judge which side is *best*. But if we can't learn to really *listen* we'll never learn to really *decide*.

I hope this project goes well for you. America really needs effective leadership.

-- tim phronesia (phronesia@webtv.net), March 01, 2000.

8th grader,

Looks like you have a lot to sort out, the responses are both "thought provoking" and excellent source material for you to get that "A" you are striving for.

Use what you find here and the link I provided earlier, to create a report based on "research" YOU do on that page. This way, the "A" you get will be earned while YOU learned, rather than repeating other peoples thoughts.

Sounds like you are off to a good start already, good luck!

By the way, let us all know how you did, also, why don't you post it here under a new question, would be a very good topic as you can tell from the responses above.

-- Michael (michaelteever@buffalo.com), March 01, 2000.

Not Again and Troll Patrol, sheesh you guys are SO paranoid! Do I blame you? Nope.

-- canthappen (n@ysayer.com), March 01, 2000.

8th,

In a public school in the social sciences, saying what's politically correct will assure you of a better grade, so if that's important to you, do it. I confess I did it as an undergraduate a couple of times when I was too lazy to do the work I should have done. :(

To the question, I agree with some of the other posters that *asking the questions* is probably the most important thing you can do. I see it in two ways:

1) Getting an "A" average is much easier if you come from a rich family (presumed white by TPTB) and have no other cares than studying than it is if you are poor (presumed black) and have to say *work* while you are going to school, tapping off your energy. In this case I can't say I disagree with the AIM of AA which is to give everyone an even shot. Unfortunately, what it does is gives rich blacks and poor whites an unfair advantage and the shaft respectively. Maybe a non-racial income based system would be better?

2. OTOH when I go to a doctor or lawyer, I want the best person I can get and don't CARE what color they are. I would be strongly opposed to AA if I thought the result would be me wanting to choose a white or Asian professional to get a more knowledgeable opinion.

Good luck, and IMHO the best thing you can do on your paper is to finish it at least one day early so you can walk away from it, come back, and rewrite it one more time. You'd be amazed at how many subtle changes you want to make on a reread.

Frank

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.cam), March 02, 2000.

8th grader,

Since you have received many replies that argue well against affirmative action, I thought it would be useful for you to understand the arguments for it. Then you can make up your own mind.

When an injustice such as racism is enforced by law (for example, the Jim Crow segregation laws in the South) or by social sanctions (as in most other parts of the USA) then it deeply affects the character of the institutions and society itself. This cannot be resolved by any simple action, but requires a long series of steps to remedy.

For instance, imagine a police department that has never hired a black person in 100 years and where the officers are required to enforce segregation laws. That police department is 100% racist in character.

Now imagine that you eliminate the segregation laws that produced this racist police department. How can you change the racist character of that police department? Naturally, if you let that institution act as it is *inclined* to act, it will continue to be racist, since any non-racist intentions were purged out of it long ago. To change its character, you must change its composition in ways it is not inclined to want or to accept. That is a painful process.

Many people do not fully understand the mechanism of affirmative action. It is confused in their minds with civil rights laws. But affirmative action is fundamentally a policy about how the government spends public money. No company or organization is required to comply with affirmative action goals unless they seek to benefit from public money.

For example, imagine I own a construction company. I can hire whomever I think is the best person for the job - without regard to affirmative action. I can hire nothing but white men who go to my church. This is no violation of civil rights, so long as I can show that the hiring policy of my company wasn't *deliberately* contrived to produce that outcome - such as advertising a job openly to the public and then refusing to even consider qualified minority applicants.

So, my company is perfectly legal. Now I want to bid on a government-funded construction job. Because of affirmative action, the government would look at the fact that I hired all white men and tell me that they won't accept my bid until I hire more minorities and women. They do this, because it is government policy to use the power of tax money to create these specific changes in our society. These changes are deemed socially desirable, fair, and they are intended to compensate for past injustices. These changes may not be something the institutions were inclined to do on their own. And they can legally avoid making these changes, as long as they are willing to forego benefitting from government funds.

So, you can see that there were some good arguments in favor of affirmative action when it was started in the Nixon administration. The arguments in favor of affirmative action are based on the principle of fairness, too. It says you cannot create a society that systematically deprives people of their rights based on unfair categories and then figure that it is enough to say, "Ooops! Sorry about that!", and not make *any* effort to put things right.

The position of affirmative action is very similar to the victim's rights movement that advocates that criminals should pay damages to their victims. Depriving people of their civil rights was a criminal act. Affirmative action is the means we are using to put things right.

I'll let you make up your own mind which argument is stronger: the one in favor or the one against.

(All the most interesting moral questions are the ones where there is more than one "right thing" to do, but you have to figure out how to choose between them - you don't get to *not* choose!)

-- Brian McLaughlin (brianm@ims.com), March 02, 2000.