Affirmative Action

Racism is putting the group ahead of the individualThe principle of all racism is that what you are individually does not count. What counts is your group. If you have never discriminated against anyone, that doesn't matter if your group is deemed guilty. You are then punished. If you have never been discriminated against and don't want to pretend to be a victim, that doesn't matter either. All that matters is that you are part of a group that is deemed a victim group. You are to be rewarded for your membership in the victim group. You don't even have to know you are in victim group. Affirmative action supports the principle of racism,and that's all that's need to determine the outcome of this debate.The counter argument is that racism is okay if the government believes it is justified. Whenever racism is coded into law, the government always believes it is justified. That cannot be a justification. Again as Dr. King pointed out, there harm to both sides. Government in it's role of justifying discrimination holds itself as superior to individuals. It believes it's superior position justifies whatever it wants do. The people cast as perpetual victims are correspondingly diminished and made inferior.Asian-AmericansAsian Americans are discriminated against by being refused admission to elite schools based solely upon their race. We know that because when affirmative action is banned, the Asian student population increased substantially. Where affirmative action is allowed, they remain under represented. I admit I could not understand how Pro's rebuttal was supposed to answer the question of what Asians did not justify discriminating against them. It still seems to me to be a non-sequitir given the facts of the situation.If I understand Pro, that what Asians did wrong was to score well on the SAT. The idea is that the SAT is invalid so that they should not deserve admission. However, data clear showed that students who were admitted with a bonus 200 points subsequently had grad point averages significantly lower than those with the higher SAT scores. So the SAT certainly predicted academic success. Moreover, everybody agrees that being admitted to an elite school is better than no being admitted, since the whole point of the affirmative action was to reduce the Asia population and increase the Black and Hispanic population. Asian students did nothing wrong by working hard to meet the criteria for admissions. The idea that Asians benefited from affirmative action is not supported by the evidence. There was a long history of discrimination against Asians, but an equally long history of Asian culture placing a high value on education. But, for the sake of argument, suppose Pro's contention is correct that Asian-Americans benefited from affirmative action. That implies we should not look at individuals shut out by discrimination, but instead value the past benefits given to the group. It is again the racist principle that the individuals must be subordinated to the group.For Affirmative Action, Only Outcome CountsPro never pointed to any proof of discrimination other than outcome. Affirmative action is justified by accounting for some of the factors that lead to differences in the outcomes among groups, and then saying that whatever is left is "consistent with discrimination." Pro cited the odd paper on bank funding of entrepreneurs, odd because banks do not do much funding of entrepreneurs, that said that differences were "consistent with discrimination. Studies of the reasons why women are compensated less showed that as more non-discriminatory factors were taken into account, the pay gap substantially decreased. Women are more than likely to interrupt their careers for child rearing and that lowers their earnings. Women are also less likely to go into union-dominated trades or higher-paying industries. The pay gap is decreased by every factor taken into account.Pro says that because the gap has not been completely explained by other factors his point is proven. No, it is not reasonable to attribute everything unexplained to discrimination. No one claims to have done an analysis so thorough as to take all factors into account, so what is unexplained may be due to factors other than discrimination. Pro offered no study that specifically identifies discrimination as the cause, the only measure supposedly proving discrimination is that the outcome is not the same. Men make more, that's all that's supposed to count.The logical premise is innocence until guilt is proven. women are discriminated against. We know that because cases are taken to court and it is proven. However, it is unjust to punish men and reward women as groups until such time as women give up taking time off to rear children and give up teaching in favor of timber harvesting. Thomas Sowell's argument that affirmative action casts doubt on credentialsPro claims that Sowell's opinion carries no weight because he is the equivalent of a random blogger. Sowell was identified in the article. He was one of the nation's foremost Black intellectuals. "A National Humanities Medal winner, ... He is currently a Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University." http://en.wikipedia.org... His is an expert opinion well-founded on experience. Pro did not offer a contrary expert opinion.Moreover, the logic is well-founded. If it is established public policy to award credentials on a basis other than merit, it is reasonable to doubt those credentials. That's bad for everyone. The data after affirmative action was abolished in California showed that minorities advanced based solely on merit.Pro questions whether the California experience with affirmative action can be generalized. California is a textbook case because affirmative action was shut off all at once in 1996, so the consequences are easily identified. California is an especially good example because California is an extremely liberal state. Academia is liberal to a fault. it's fair to assume that everyone administering affirmative action sincerely wanted it to succeed. The results showed that giving unjustified advantages did not make people competent or successful, but that they could succeed on their own.Government is not qualified to discriminatePro claimed that the only way to determine fairness is by democracy. If that were true, then Jim Crow laws must have been fair because they were arrived at democratically. The argument is not prima facie. Some put it as "Democracy is the right of the 51% to pee on the corn flakes of the 49%." The alternative is establish core rights by sober process and then have an independent judiciary enforce those rights. If the Constitution does not prohibit discrimination, it should. We also had in evidence that the voters of liberal California voted n favor of equal rights and against affirmative action. Pro offered no example of affirmative action discrimination being approved by voters.ConclusionAffirmative action is unjust, damages both government and the people it is supposed to help, and has not worked as claimed. Pro says that I should lose conduct for ignoring some of his arguments. I admit to being unable to relate some of Pro's arguments to the questions of the debate. They seem unrelated. However, if voters find Pro's arguments compelling and unrefuted, and that they are more important than other contentions argued, then they stand as unrefuted. that's for voters to decide. The conduct category is about insulting the opponent or using obscene language. Debaters are free to judge their opponent's arguments non-responsive. voters get the final say on the validity of the arguments.The central issue of the debate is whether the principle of having government award benefits based upon race, gender, or ethnicity is a good principle or not. It is unjust and ineffective.The resolution is negated.