I am a Caucasian male and I apply for admission to a state university. At the same time a black who has a higher high school GPA, higher SAT scores, and was more active in his high school applies. There is only one slot open. I get it; the black does not because of his skin color.
That is racial discrimination and is illegal.
Now interchange the words "Caucasian" and "black". That is affirmative action and is legal.
Why?
I've had one hell of a lot of advantages, none of which were due to anything I did to deserve them, and it doesn't really disturb me that someone who has not had similar ones might be given a little artificial assistance
Yes, but government in theory should be neutral; there is no such requirement on your parents.
Certainly it's unfair, but a lot of the advantages I have are equally unfair.
Two wrongs make a right?
My personal preference would be to see affirmative action or similar programs directed at providing educational opportunity, rather than employment opportunity, and to have the unfair advantage distributed purely on the basis of economic status,
Shouldn't qualifications, preparation, and ability figure in here someplace?
I'm also not convinced that affirmative action was ever practiced on a large enough scale to make it anything more than a facade, to be trotted out whenever an
administration needed to cater to minority opinion.
It applies to any universities that recieve federal funds; that is essentially all. In education, how large a scale do you want?
What do you think of the defense budget? Does the current level of external threat really justify an increase in what is already - by a huge margin - the world's largest military outlay?
I haven't paid that much attention to this issue lately. I do remember, though, that Russia is still in possession of tens of thousands of nuclear warheads and the means to deliver them. They are not exactly our friend. I think you can count on them exploiting a blackmail capability if they get it.
Also, the military budget has dropped a great deal since the end of the cold war. What capability should we have? |
