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Racism? Really?
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jsteele
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In today's system, insurance company executives get rich by siphoning off your premiums and ensuring that as few services are provided as possible. The result is higher premiums for fewer services (and richer executives). A public option would allow you to continue enriching those executives if you so choose, but would also provide a government run option. The government run option would not have executives making outlandish salaries and annual bonuses who are incentivized to deny you service. Since this would result in more services at a lower cost, the private insurance companies are afraid they could not compete (they wouldn't be able to provide the same level of service while also paying extravagant bonuses). So, if you are worried about middle men getting rich, you should support the public option rather than being scared of it. |
Anonymous
Some type of preference is often given for family members of military academy graduates or retired military. This isn't a big secret. McCain's father and grandfather were both four star Admirals in the Navy so it is safe to say their service helped him get in. I have no problem with this given family life in the military and probably 90 years of collective military service to this country. |
Anonymous
I share your regard for his family's service to the country. However, this did take a place away from someone else who might not have been a screw up. Granted, McCain turned his life around and became a better person. But what if he hadn't? Would it have been all right to take a place from somebody more deserving and give it to someone who was less than outstanding, even if his dad and grandfather had been great guys? I don't think so. I also say this as the daughter of a man who got an easy ride in the Korean War era because my maternal grandfather pulled strings for him. I loved my dad but he was a screw up for a big chunk of his life. He eventually sorted things out and made a decent career for himself in the theater (of all places) in his 50s. But he didn't deserve special treatment just because of who he married. Maybe someone else went into combat in his place while he got to cruise the Mediterranean. Anyway, my point is there are all kinds of "affirmative action" out there for the rich and powerful. If we're going to examine one kind, let's look at them all. |
Anonymous
So you would like zero legacy preference? It is not always the 'rich and powerful' tho. My mom was a full Vassar scholarship student who grew up in a slum. I got in - I'm sure with some legacy weight as well - though I chose not to attend there. But if you wish for zero legacy done--especially if we can do away with affirmative action at the same time. |
Anonymous
| any reasonable person knows that some people need a helping hand in life, and that is ok as long as it doesn't discriminate against others. Any AA program needs to be class-based, and not race-based. Race-based is so ripe with mistakes who knows where to begin? First, who qualifies? How do you determine who is black and who is white and who is asian, etc? Do we go back to the one-drop or one-grandmother rule of the horrible Jim Crow era? Do we go by self-reporting? Its just absurd when you think of it. There is no such thing as a "race", we are all humans and more and more different ethnic groups are marrying making it even more jumbled. Second, once we determine who is black and who is white, do we give AA preferences for rich blacks too? Grant Hill would need AA for example? Obama's kids? Maybe that was silly to say back in the 70s, but the gap has shrunk considerably since then. If anyone needs help, its the poor rural whites who just have a vicious cycle of poverty. I have tenants in southern maryland who would feel at home on Jerry Springer. They need help. |
Anonymous
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Yup. Back to my mom in the slums who received what they used to call a 'scholarship' to college based on her astounding academic record and prowess....
Her sister (first generation Eastern European immigrant with every possible financial and linguistic obstacle) did NOT gain aid to law school despite strong academics. Her eventual husband did, due to his "Spanish" surname. He was a second generation American with complete linguistic ease, from a wealthy Spanish from Spain family--hence also European. Who was the more needy? These stupid affirmative action rules completely melt down in the face of reality. Yes, give a hand up to the poverty stricken who have tried their best in the face of adversity. Merit based is a value I can get behind. And I will get behind that if you made 'B's' and walked to school every day, you made as serious an achievement as the child chauffered who got A's and breakfast. Not to belittle the rich. They suffer too. |
Anonymous
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I grant that the rules had some silly consequences. The strangest example I knew was a grad student who came from an old Rhode Island family of Portuguese extraction, who got a hispanic-surname fellowship.
However, all the anomalies do not negate the fact that there is a large black underclass (and a large rural white one as well) that this country needs to address. I also think that the existence of such anomalies does not justify thinking that every successful black owes everything to affirmative action. |
Anonymous
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nope, not racist at all....
http://www.americablog.com/2009/09/its-not-racism-its-being-american-gop.html |
Anonymous
I agree. Lower class whites are also urban and suburban. |
Anonymous
Dearest pp, please reread what I said. Let's look at them all. I didn't say I wanted zero special preferences (whether based on race, wealth, religion, geography, athleticism, or legacy status, just to name a few). I'm just tired of people pretending that only minorities get some kind of leg up in attending university. All kinds of people get special preferences. If we're going to talk about race, we'd better talk about them all. |
Anonymous
I'm really sad that I just looked at that. How can anyone, Democrat or Republican, think that's ok? Or pretend it doesn't exist? |
Anonymous
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What exactly are we arguing about? Does anyone claim that there are no racists who dislike Obama because he is black? Does anyone claim that there are no conservatives who have no problem with his blackness but hate his politics?
The answer to the original question is "Sometimes yes, sometimes no, sometimes partially." |
Anonymous
| Underlying racism is exploited by those who want to derail these changes. Instead of engaging in a discussion about the real pluses and minuses of any of the proposals, the conversaton is kept at the level of caricature. |
Anonymous
| What does that have to do with racism? The discussion of most of Bush's policies were at the level of caricature. It's not due to racism. People are just intellectually lazy, most have their minds 'made up already' due to basic stance, and they are hardly going to write a thesis when a slogan will do. Am I wrong? |
Anonymous
ugh. That's so awful and a disgrace to our country. Are these all in the midwest? |