Validity of Racism and Affirmative Action

(Q2) "its very common for those traits to be re-purposed." Interesting you should say this... what about the people who do not have any traits that can be re-purposed for fit our society? Q3) "We have uses for all different qualities. There is no reason, to praise some traits over others, when the uses of each depend so heavily on situational need." - I followed you until this. I agree variation is good, but necessarily (by your argument) all qualities are not good (since by changing them, we are rejecting the contrary quality). The truth is, our genetics are binary. You either have taller or shorter, fatter or skinnier, smarter or dumber, stronger or weaker, darker hair/skin/eyes or lighter hair/skin/eyes. You seem to be arguing that differentiation is better.... BUT integration makes for SAMENESS! If we continue on our separate paths, our divergence will only become greater. If we integrate, we will become MORE like each other, and the separate traits which we desire will be assimilated to a singular. 1. "Integration (ie: non-segregation) is not harmful and can in fact be positive." - You give many reasons here why the past reasons people gave for segregation/racism are wrong (diseases, species) you don't actually give reasons FOR desegregation or integration, which is part of having the BOP. "If you take the skin color out of the equation and focus only on the characteristic and physical differences that remain, it is likely that that gap between any two people has nothing to do with race." - Skin color is NOT the only thing differentiating between races, it is the most obvious one, for sure... but there is much more than just skin color; listed in my argument. "Further, segregation takes an active and often violent effort to enforce" - While this would possibly be true today, it was a much more violent path to desegregation (600,000 in the Civil War) It would be hard to convince that the Civil War somehow SAVED American lives. In other words, there were more deaths caused on the path to desegregation than if desegregation was never aspired. Additionally, I'm not convinced that if segregation was re-instated, that you would see a "race war" or anything of the like in America. The whites might fight the whites on it, and possibly the blacks fight the blacks as well.. and I don't think the Hispanics would fight at all... I think the amount of fighting between the races might actually DECREASE with segregation. (I'm talking true segregation, not just water fountains, bathrooms and restaurants ... i'm saying as low down neighborhoods and possibly all the way up to the state level) 2. "There is NO benefit to differing groups fighting each other based solely on their differences." I never once said this... the closest thing I said was "we should be actively against one another", to be actively against does not mean fight a war or something of that nature, but to keep them not only separate, but un-equal. The civil strife that may result from this action could not be called a war (lest you count the Civil War, which was crafted and fought predominantly by people of the same race on behalf of another). This discounts your entire counter-argument to (2). I also think it's measured that after declaring that LD is my favorite style of debate, you use an policy style extreme disadvantage against me resulting in the extinction of the human race - "At the end of it all, if (and it's a HUGE if) we hadn't cleared the earth of every human life, those that were left would have only smoldering tatters from which to rebuild humanity". Typically, that's only used as a disadvantage of someone's proposal, not making up a proposal of your own and discounting it:a strawman. With all that said, onto my side: For starters, you seemed to act as if the only difference between the races is the color of their skin. This was either ill-intention or misinformed, i'll assume the latter. For starters, bone structure is different so much that they can tell the race by skeletal structure alone. Additionally, intelligence across races is undeniable. http://en.wikipedia.org... People argue what the reason for it is, but no one denies that it exists. Apologists will say socio-economic reasons, but I think the link that I provided (and corresponding chart) shows quite clearly that socio-economic reasons don't explain everything. This is just the same as differences in athletic abilities http://en.wikipedia.org... These are things you already know, even if you ignored them in your arguments, so I'm not sure why I'm restating them. A concept you may or may not have heard though is comparing the abilities of humans to the abilities of dogs. Now, you could say "we're different than dogs!", but as someone who believes in evolution... this should not worry you. For one, mixes breeds often leads to the mixed animal containing the worst features of both dogs http://www.canismajor.com... Outside of that, lets compare. Dogs are across-the-board regarded as having different temperaments, different intelligences, different abilities, yet they can breed with each other. People of different races are the same way. All of that doesn't matter though, because I realized through your arguments that I'm never going to actually be able to convince you of anything with regards to this... no matter what evidence I would show because it isn't something that is perfectly clear by logic. I'll admit that. Logic doesn't prove either side. You have to use studies and base things off your own experience, which... admittedly, both sides can use to say whatever they want. And no matter what the differences are between the races, it would be hard to take the jump from those differences to the conclusion that we ought to be racist; especially since you seemed to stop talking about racism and started talking about "equality" like it could possibly be achieved while still maintaining separate races and talking about race wars. The truth is you can believe in segregation and racism without thinking we are superior or inferior, just different. "You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into" also http://www.youtube.com... So, all of that doesn't matter and I want to change up the debate... if that's alright with you? I'd like to now discuss this ===> Should government policy regarding race relations be handled by the Federal Government, the State or by the People. This is kind of a changing it back to a "affirmative action" debate, because it's one that we don't hold as strong convictions. And I don't want to arguing on what the policy should be, just who should handle it. Whaddaya think?