X-Envelope-to: POLITICS@OHSTVMA.ACS.OHIO-STATE.EDU
X-VMS-To: IN%"POLITICS@OHSTVMA.ACS.OHIO-STATE.EDU"
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Date:         Wed, 6 Jan 1993 15:54:45 -0400
From:         The Integral Differential <DEMON@DESIRE.WRIGHT.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Discriminating minds want to know...
Comments: To: POLITICS@OHSTVMA.ACS.OHIO-STATE.EDU

>Brett' says:
>>        I wouldn't say there is a *right* to discriminate, but I would say
 it's
>>not the place of government to define discrimination.
>>        It was government, after all, that gave us slavery, separate but
 equal,
>>Jim Crow laws, etc.  It was the people--protesting, lobbying, etc.--that
 fought
>>for the repeal of government mandated discrimination.
>
>Who is the government? While the government may or may not accurately reflect
>the *interests* of the great masses of "the people," it certainly does reflect
>the opinions and prejudices of them...

        Let's look at slavery: about half the states (delagations, that is)
wanted to keep slavery.  The authors of the constitution, working for
compromise, took out the anti-slavery portion of the constitution.

        Did this reflect the interests of the people?  Only about half, at
best.  What it was really representing was the compromise necessary to get a
constitution approved by all the states.

        Now, did Jim Crow reflect the interests of the people or merely the
interpretation of the current law vis-a-vis slaves as property?

        What about Iran-Contra?  The interests of the people?

        I don't think the government == the people by any stretch of the
imagination.  The government is simply a group of people, some of them elected,
doing what they think is best.

>Wouldn't it be more honest to say that there were different groups of people
>with differing opinions of their real and imagined interests, that arrived
>at a series of temporary agreements through the medium of a government?

        The compromises are between those in government, and not between the
government and people, or between groups of people via the government.

        Is a progressive tax a compromise between rich and un-rich or a
system imposed on the rich by the majority?

>Compromise is necessarily a process wherein neither side is truly satisfied
>with the result and usually not the rapidity of the process either, this
>does not mean that the process is useless or necessarily the worst of the
>alternatives.

        No, it's not a bad form of government, nor optimal.  That it works as
well as it does speaks volumes.
        However, there are areas in which the government has proven
ineffective: namely in trying to legislate what goes on behind closed doors
between consenting adults.
        It's when government does things "for our own good" that it starts
messing up.  For the good of whom?  Did the government poll everyone first?
Who decides?  The religious right?  The citizens of Berkeley?  How about just
me? :)

        It's my position that issues between consenting adults be handled
without the "help" of the government.
        And what constitutes consent?  Clearly you cannot take something from
someone without their consent.  Should the government impose a law that says
you have to give something up if another offers a trade?  Goods and services?
Sex?  Children?  Where do we draw the line and why?

        Person A wants to buy goods X.  Person A is:

        A poor credit risk
        A person of different background
        A stranger
        A minor
        etc.

        Which ones are we allowed to refuse service to?

        We're getting deeply into philosophy here but I think the government
has a poor record of protecting the rights of the individual.

>>        And it's very ironic that what is largely a phyrric victory (quotas
 and
>>such) is being touted as the reason why government should be given (really,
>>"keep") such powers.
>
>What I find as ironic is that despite the persistence of the claims made about
>quotas and the damage that they are doing to a variety of groups; no one ever
>seems to provide any figures of quotas that are/have been in use or any
>statistical evidence of a decline in the earnings/wealth of the "harmed"
>group that can be tied to these "quotas."

        You're missing the point.  Quotas were supposed to enable minorities
proportional access.  According to an earlier post, black professionals still
have a low (2.2%) participation rate in some professions.  After 25 years of
civil rights laws, shouldn't it be closer to the population division of 12%?

>Can Brett' tell us how many minorities he has been forced to hire by the
>government in the place of a more competent white male? What percentage of
>Brett''s workers "must" be minorities?

        I'm not an employer.  But if I was...

        Say I had a business in a 90% black area.  Yet the quotas say I "must"
employ at least 10% blacks....  If I was racist, that would enable me to *only*
hire 10% blacks, even though the area I live in has a much greater proportion
of blacks living there.  The government mandated system enables racists to use
quotas as a shield.

>>        What has 30 years achieved?
>
>Not enough; few argue that we have acheived "true" equality of opportunity.

        Exactly.  Time to get a new solution, eh?

>>I'd say that's time enough for the current
>>"solution" to have worked.  Toss it and try again.
>
>I'd say that it is time for an honest assessment of the results in context
>of the goals and an assessment of the vigor with which the solution was
>applied. Perhaps we might even examine the effects of other contemporaneous
>changes in government policy (like the "Reagan Revolution") had upon
>the progress of these programs.

        The Reagan Revolution resulted in females making large gains in income.
Both due to more jobs and the tax code, which no longer extracts painful
amounts of tax from a second income.

>>I'd suggest letting the people decide.  (Gasp!)
>
>Didn't they already decide that they wanted to promote equality, or are
>you asserting that we should take a step back and reassess the resolve
>of "the people?"

        They wanted equality, the government gave them quotas.  Are they the
same thing?

        And if we are really going to honor the will of the people, then why
have laws saying the people can't decide?

>-other Andy
Brett'
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU