People can never be regarded as equals

Yes, thank you for the debate as well. "The flaw in such a reasoning is that this principle can only apply in an ideal world. In reality treating people as equals would be maintaining the status-quo, which is not built on the principles of equality. In the early 17th century, slavery began to rear its ugly head in North America and up until about 1964 after e advent. .. " In Sentence 2, forgive me if I mistake you, but treating people as equals means that there is no discrimination from person to person. In the current status-quo, we do not have much discrimination for segregation. This can be seen from Barack Obama, even though he is African-American, he ran for presidency in 2008 and won because he convinced America, that he could lead the country so we trusted him and voted for him. If there was segregation or sexism in the US today, I truly doubt Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama would have made it to the top two presidential candidates of 2008. Yes, although back in the 1900s, slavery indeed was a major issue, but not today. People like Martin Luther King Jr. spoke out and helped America end the segregation. Today, we do not see "white only restrooms" or "white only restaurants", the children live in an equal society. You also stated that if we had black slaves, our society would have functioned better, but I would like to disagree. African American people work hard today as well in order to make a living. They help innovate society, technology, the economy, as well as participate in sports for people's entertainment. Famous black people such as John Hopkins and Barack Obama have saved millions of lives with their contributions to society, because they are no different from us. If we give them the correct tools to succeed, many will. "A better example and one I am more familiar with as it is closer to home, well my home atleast, is the situation in South Africa prior to independence and post independence. As a result of apartheid (just to be fair i'll add a link, just in case you don't know what i'm on about- . http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu......) Non Europeans where essentially disadvantaged economically, in terms of. .. " These Non-Europeans were disadvantaged at one time, but that will transgress through future generations if we don't do anything about it. I came from a poor Chinese family which has been poor for many generations. It is hard to pay for a good education when the main focus is survival. My family constituted of bottle collectors, farmers, construction workers, etc. As a child, it was necessary for me to help out my parents do work to earn money. During my time period, I was lucky enough to have a public school open up in my region. I walked for roughly two hours every day just to come to class. I, however focused hard on both my studies and making a living at a young age. Most of the time I would stay up very late studying for tests. In China, we have something called the "Gao Cao", which is a large test that will determine your future. It is the results of the test that colleges look at, depending on them, you can get a full scholarship and be able to get into a good college and support your family with a good job, or you can fail and live the life of working as a farmer. I studied hard and passed the exam and ended up attending Qing Hua University, the best in China during the time. My kids today do not have to go through the struggles I went through since I can afford to provide them with a good education using my money. The point I'm trying to get across is, there needs to be a BREAK IN THE CYCLE, or else for many generations to pass, your family will be poor. This is similar to the Non Europeans and African Americans, most of them came from a poor family due to the government, but the government now wants to correct its mistake as much as possible and temporarily, give these people more benefits than regular citizens. In the future however, their generations will all have equal opportunity to regular citizens. "If equality was applied universally, the non-European in South Africa would continue to be in a subordinate socioeconomic position because of the basis of his/her disadvantaged background (he/she would not be afforded the same opportunities)" See my above argument. ^^ "Shifting away from race let's look at wealthy people and poor people. Regarding these two as equals in all sense would mean that they should be taxed equally. Let's assume person A earns 15000 a month and person B earns 1000 a month, if the tax system recognizes them as equals it would only fair if they were taxed. .. " It's not about the money, it's about how much they are affected by it. Using a percentage tax would make everyone feel equally affected from the tax. Say we have Bill Gates and Mr. Hobo. Bill Gates earns approximately 3.5 Billion Dollars a year. Mr. Hobo earns 30,000 Dollars a year. If we use a set tax, say 50,000 Dollars a year, Bill Gates won't even feel anything while Mr. Hobo gets wiped 5/3 of his money. Mr. Hobo will now start the next year with a 20,000 Dollar debt and it will continue snowballing until he declares bankruptcy. Considering in today's government, the top 10% actually pay 70% of federal tax. If they all pay the same set amount, those rich won't hurt as much while the middle and lower class will be harshly affected. This is actually advantageous to richer people because taxes won't affect them as much while poor people, suffer a hard blow to their money. That is not fair treatment of people. If we have proportional tax however, rich people will be treated equally to poor people because they will be affected equally by the tax. "Now I look at the social aspect of it all. Should we treat those weaker as equals to those who are stronger. If we are to treat a disabled man as an equal we should not build ramps for them because what we would be doing is paying extra for their needs, which doesn't sound like equality to me" If ramps are not built, the disabled man would be at a disadvantage compared to the regular pedestrian. They will be unequal in their society to regular, able-to-walk people due to their lack of public access. It is necessary to remember, these disabled people are paying taxes within our current society as well. They help pay for staircases that they can't use. As staircase : people and ramps : disabled people, ramps are just as much of a important means of transportation as staircases are to regular pedestrian. If only staircases are built however, that would be an unequal treatment to these disabled people. "Should we also treat prisoner's as equals to those who are free, if so shouldn't they be allowed to fully exercise their right to equal treatment, people in the outside world have the right to movement. If you are not in prison, you have the choice to go anywhere (within financial and physical limitations) you please. Whereas a prisoner. .. " All prisoners originally had equal rights that were the same as those of common society. Everyone is treated equally, so if the people do not break laws, they will not get sent to prison. We are disallowing certain rights to prisoners within a prison such as the right to movement, but it is their punishment for breaking the laws and in exchange, we are protecting the safety of the people for the common good. These prisoners are still respected as human beings though, for they have not had their unalienable rights, the right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, taken away. Con argues that people should be treated equally for a betterment in living and society. If we do not treat others equally, we are missing a great deal on their possible potential and contribution to society. Education is needed for all people in order to progress and innovate our society, economy and technology to new levels and better the lifestyles of us human beings.