Comments on: affirmative action – communism?

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 01:42:56 +0000

The first 3 days of CNY were really quiet, I was almost bored to death.

Nothing much to do, no places to go, stayed at home for days, gosh, this is the worst CNY I have ever had.

Anyways, today back to work again, the roads are pretty clear, no jam at all, office is quiet too, many are still on leave.

Cut the crap, just dropped by to say “Happy CNY” and “Gong Xi Fa Cai”

By: SpanishDeafmute

SpanishDeafmute — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 17:06:49 +0000

The first intention of helping previously discriminated groups, perhaps, but it was accomplished through the means of racially proportionate results. Not much difference.

And as for how Finland works, what if the people there are just that good? It’s possible that they may have genuinely moved beyond competing for material goods. The Finns are a democratic culture who willingly pay very high taxes (over 40%) to maintain a nice place to live for all their people. Maybe it has something to do with their education system, I don’t know. But somehow they have instilled civic spirit into all their citizens. Our closest analogy would be the ideal of a Classical Republic, where citizens value the common good above their own.

I suggest you do some research and find the answer for us. Happy President’s Day.

By: Claire

Claire — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 16:55:44 +0000

My goodness, you’re crazy. First, I know you don’t like affirmative action either. Second, why is your comment longer than my actual post? It’s become about creating racially proportionate results over time, but the first intention was to help out previously discriminated groups, so that they could have similar opportunities to the majority. If it worked out that way, then I might be okay with it. All it’s doing now is helping out the academically inferior (I don’t mean to be rude to anyone who falls in these categories, because the individual is more important than the group. In fact, I wouldn’t mind being you guys. I know for a fact that there are people of every race smarter than I am).
One more thing, the Finland thing isn’t working right now. You told me about this, but I still have trouble trying to determine what keeps people there from becoming lazy and only working a couple hours per day.

By: SpanishDeafmute

SpanishDeafmute — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 23:21:01 +0000

I only gave you the communism argument and not the affirmative action one, so here it is:

“Equal opportunity” as you define it, does not exist today except maybe at state colleges. At the “good” schools, every applicant is judged by different standards depending on their background and especially their alumni relatives.

Affirmative action is not about giving compensation to victims, it’s about creating racially proportionate results. Groups that were more successful than their population proportion are thus penalized. Even if they did get discrimination as well, they (e.g. Asians) obviously did well in spite of it, which means they don’t NEED to be favored, even if they probably should be. No one disputes that reverse discrimination is a flaw of affirmative action; the question is whether it’s worthwhile to help those groups who DO need the help (e.g. Africans, Hispanics).

Also, I looked up the Finland rankings again and the #1’s are: Environmental Sustainability, Technological Achievement, Program for International Student Assessment, World Press Freedom, Corruption Perceptions Index, and World Democracy Audit. Look at the full range of #1’s, top-5’s, and top-10’s at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_rankings_of_Finland.

And, more importantly, look at the other countries which are tied with Finland and/or similar rank – then look them up and see what form of government makes the best countries!

Have a nice weekend, and please find a non-material motivation for your career! (I know I’m wasting my time preaching to you but sometimes, it’s just really tough to admit defeat and give up.)