Controversial Question(OT

[diego]

Lets take a town somewhere in the south, the mayor is white, and his family and two others that are friends, thier offspring have been in this town circa since it was founded.
5 more familys, run the banks, 3 runs the church, etc...now we all know abit of the souths history of segregating, and the whole fact they stole the land"wich is the key behind my equation".

so its the year two thousand and two; Now the the mayor has a blackman as one of his main advisors, the signs are off the waterfountains, and only the homies ride at the back of the bus no anyway...schools are intermixed in the suburb area, but thier is still the rundown black section wich is 30 miles, originally was the slaves nieghbourhood...its your average ghettoe, drugs and firearms rampant, pooreducation, etc.




now heres my thing.


you have a white man and a blackman, the blackmans greatgreat-great and grandfather slaved for this whitemans greatgreat etc.
this blackman is crazy f'n ignorant can only get to the 18thletter, but knows how to count tens and twentys on the corner.
the whiteman is harvard material. the blackman sells dimes and collects welfare and child support for his three kids at age 19...they both 19.

they both 30, the blackmans doing 3-8 for armedrobberry,
whiteboys, campaign promoter for that mayor, earns 70g, but his family is worth two bill.

Shouldnt they have sent the blackman to harvard with thier son, as they put them in that block, with its school system, and nightmares of future hope or ambition, Now in this case scenario he two would have worked with the mayor, and instead of doing time and his now 6 kids, lil joey age 11 just got shot for breaking into a house with some olderdudes, wanting to get a vcr so they can get some liqour and weed, instead of sniffing glue, to kill the hypertension from sugarwater and generic cheerios; They all live next door to the whiteman, and they play Golf on sundays!.

so in general, thier is many truths in this story relating to america, and i can also understand i mean im white only a little native, not enough to really cliam if i didnt grow up with natives of norelation... I cant feel sad possibly didgusted if my grands were bigotrascists, as im not, However in this scenario, its the whitemans grands fault the blackman aint calling him to bring they kids to see starwars:-)
as whiteboys grands dragged his ancestors from they home, and made them work.

so should the whiteman if were are going to talk about true american virtue" by the way would you describe what that really means, and what historical footnotes manifested this type of thought" should he have to give this man welfare etc, or since he aint rascist its not his fault, but if were are going to talk about am virtue, in his heart and intention its not his fault, reality wise all he owns, and what led to his bieng IS?

What you think?

[diego]

the ends all wierd, this is a reply i sent two a liberal and republican discussing state of affiars, so if your going to reply and it looks like i asked you about your american virtue you dont have to fill in that part:cool:

i just cant work out if he should pay and how to make it work!.

[Merryprankster]

I am not responsible for the actions of my ancestors. I am definitely not responsible for the actions, be they good or bad, of any adult person, other than my own.

I can work to try and improve conditions. I can work to try and improve society. I can contribute, in my own way--it may be as simple as being a law abiding citizen who raises decent kids.

I refuse, however, to be held responsible for the choices another adult, not raised by me, has made.

End of story.

[respectmankind]

i should not be praised for ancestors actions, or judged by them. aside from merrypranksters respons, i would add that instead of can try to work to improve, i would say, no matter what social, economic ect.. position you are in, it is your responsability to a) improve on the world(help in progress), b) maintain the world, c)deal with your sacrafice and hardships, no matter how different yours is from anothers. Although there are many, I am too tired and thoughtless at teh moment to type them out because I am an alaskan boy and 70 degrees is killing me.

[diego]

Yes merry, that is what they are ranting about on the forum i first posted this. Please deal with the scenario not the headgames in america.

the whiteman is succsessfull because his ancestors became rich off the blackmans ancestors work!.

so your reply, and i respect your opinions from your posts, has nada todo with this scenario, as what you said merry the whiteman in this story his family created the conditions from the last century wich led to the blackman and everyone else he hangs with to be as they are written...the point behind the story if he had the same choices the whiteman got from his familys money wich was made from the labor of the blackmans family, at this moment of him rotting in his cell, the blacknwhite would be at the 9th hole already.:)

[Merryprankster]

I'm dealing with the scenario, and I'm dealing with it in the here and now. It has nothing to do with mindgames and EVERYTHING to do with taking personal responsibility for your own actions.

That underpriviledged black man had a choice--he COULD have gotten a legitimate job, worked hard in school and tried to become something, or apprenticed himself to a trade, or joined the Army, but instead sold dime bags on the corner.

Or would you have me believe that his current hypothetical state of affairs was socio-economically inevitable? Sorry, but I tend to believe in choices, and as such, personal responsibility plays a big role in my outlook. I am not blind to the fact that socio-economic status is a contributor to bad choices--but in the end, it's a choice, not a fate, and that absolves the white descendant from responsibility--especially this many generations removed.

Mitigation is one thing. Absolution is another yet again--and trying to place the blame on a third party--long since dead--is unconscionable.

[respectmankind]

i guess i totaly missed the question. i am going to get sleep lol

[Mister Hansome]

I 100% agree with Merry. It's all about choices. Even if my ancestors were slaves and then freed with nothing does that mean they should continue on with nothing? No, make something out of yourself. Look at the vietnamese, the irish, the jewish families who have also faced the same fate. Maybe they weren't slaves, BUT they started out with NOTHING, with discrimination and racism breathing down their necks. They faced the same situation, even though getting their from a different means (blacks were slaves and released with nothing, the jewish had everything stolen and used their last pennies to get to north america...etc). Now why are there still prosporous vietnamese (their population is smaller then the chinese in america but hold the second highest number of asian lawyers in america, losing to the chinese population by a small margin, A LOT of famous doctors also are vietnamese, like surgeons, even though alot of their best professionals died they still had a lot of them left from the war) and also jewish population (good lawyers, also controls a huge chunk of the film industry)? It's because they worked hard, and sometimes people say they got what they have easily, because of an advantage, even though it is sometimes true, is it always true? Even if i was a newly released slave, does that give me an excuse to rob people? No, i should work hard, as hard as i can so that my children's fate will be different, send them to school and such.

There are many well off black families who have worked for their present success. You can't blame someones five generations back for the decisions you have chosen.

[Mister Hansome]

Many exeptions still exist, and that's just my view.

[diego]

:cool: This is what i am trying to work out, did he really HAVE A CHOICE?.

as i eluded all the way to his grandfather his family is tied to the whiteguys family, so in 2002 he is thirty, the story started around 89, he is a 70s kid, only the thing is, in his nieghbourhood as a shorty, he wasnt riding his bike and going fishing, his school system is bunk, his grandfather and father are abusive drunks, wich came from the grandfather, after he saw the whitemans great?whatever uncle rape his wife, and besides abuse for punishment is how master taught his pappy, mixed with thier good wholesome christian righteousness, get your elbows on the table your gonna get whipped!.

so this kid every night screams, every morning his moms another blackeye...by the way thier school is ****, dusty books and the teachers read the paper and the students play cards to kill the time" and this is true, check out that kid from the hurricane carter story, and what he had to say about lowincome schooling in ghettoes, then he was saved by the canadians".
so age 11 he sees his older brother who pimps with jewellry flyride and all the nieghbourhood honeys, then he sees his father hit is mom frequent, also his dad lost his job as a gardner for the whitemans cousin, cuz he ****ed his wife...so the blackmans pop his a drunk abusive father and the whole family is on welfare.
one day a fight ensues and the pimpbrother kills the father, and gets life!.

its 1985, crack is rampant his mother is now a alky/crackhead parttime prostitue-welfare recipient, the boy looks at his dad and what a loser he was and how the whiteman played him, as the farmers wife ****ed him to, hm yah i forgot to mention they kicked his ass also for that, wich the boys mom got back 2am that night.

then the kid looks at his bro, who is now a drugkingpin cuz he made out of state connects in prison, and while he is locked up he now runs the streets where this kid lives.

so what is he suppossed to do

go back to school and become a janitor, they say he is in grade 8 but he cant remember showing up more then twice a week since grade3, or does he goto work with his boys for his brother


what would you do

and this is some real ****, i know so many native kids i ran with who are now 20-30, some of them had kids and got it together, but some are so head****ed from past ghosts, like my one boy audi/adrian, him and his mom would just go at it for hours, then twenty minutes later its all hugs and i luv you, next morn you lil ****..screw you mom? like wtf

and this guy he is the nicest, give him some alchohol, i had my lil whiteboy friends all hiding in my baclpocket, like when we going home leave the rez.

its like dudes have complexes they grew up in **** its **** near impossible for them to go work in the real world with its etiquettes?sp, like some of these kids i know they are junkies doing 2-5 years, and im like this is rediculous, they are eligible here in canada anyway, a free house on the rez once thier a adult, free college/university and they get checks every month
i mean if your not a richkid, can you imagine free uni? frig i would go study to be a doctor lawyer and video game designer if thier willing to pay for it, and some of my friends, how/where they were raised, it aint even a thought; like its not in thier vocabulary!.:confused:

[diego]

but if you were a released slave pertaining to this story, would it be wrong if you turned around pulled a gun and took even half of the money your master earned off you=i dont think so really

is it wrong to take it from his son, who wasnt alive when you were captive but after his father dies he gets his money, is it wrong if the slave takes that money from the kid instead=maybe-what if the kid is shamed at his father= im not sure, how do you work this out?.:D

[Merryprankster]

Yes he did have a choice-you laid it out.

He could have been a janitor, rather than a drug pusher. Heck he could have joined the army if he was in reasonable health, but there has to be a committment to changing the life you have in front of you, be it janitor or military or apprentice pipefitter.

The best of all possible worlds? No. Absolutely not. But a far sight better than being a drug pusher. Would it have been an easy choice to make? No. Just like it's not easy for an abused child to not abuse others or the child of an alcoholic not to drink.

But life is not about easy choices, necessarily. Sometimes, the choices suck, and sometimes, the ones with the biggest payoff in the future are the hardest to swallow in the present.

It's harder to make those decisions without proper guidance and a proper role model--I'll admit that. But in the end, nobody forced him at gunpoint to sell dime bags.

[diego]

really what i am saying behind all this is, idealy we all should move on and thats great when you look at north america as a map and freedom loving concept

the reality is if you start breaking north america up town for town, thier is storys like this taking place, wich all rides back to the hindu caste system, meaning certrian individuals are held down by past imperfections with present barriers that are **** next to impossible to move forward, only back.


for instance i could go on a rant about greenpeace
and you could say run for office if you want to make a change, thats all dandy in some towns, Yall know the ecoscientist david suzuki from documentary fame, he was going to run for office, and think what a cool politition he would be for this earth, He got deaththreats and someone conducted a driveby on his house.
and so you get ranting hipsters shouting about greanpeace, and fools telling them to run for mayor so the mob can quite them?:mad:

[Merryprankster]

Human society isn't perfect and our history is a checkered past?

Well, wonders never cease!!!

And yet, somehow, we keep inexplicably slogging to a more enlightened future....

[diego]

merry did you celebrate happy christmasses, i did.
dont forget the kids been stoned for who knows how long, the town is owned by familys, many still bigoted however rascist, the father was fired and beaten for sexxing the farmers wife, and he became a alky on welfare...why

is he such a loser like the devil was in him when he was born
or did the farmers immediate family have a huge rep in this bourgie godfearing communitys, possibly the wife was shunned from the town, and the blackmans father couldnt get anymore real work cuz its all owned or is friends with the whitemans family.

so this kid is stoned out of his wits consistent say since he was 6 started with nicotine, glue to reefer and then it got dangerous and the traits from his area, he became more dangerous.

he has friends making in four months what doctors make in a year, and they only 18, hes 15 years old, with a probable grade3 education, getting high is like drinking water, he has never seen one man show him what its like to be shall we say gracefull

his kids belly is full, he had his first age 13-15-18 all from differant mothers, by the time he is locked up at 30 he has 250g stashed for when he gets out, in 2 if they accept his parole so hes syked to get out and with the connections he made in prison hes amped to get out and be an even smarter gangster....-he has real dreams now.

so he is a happy man, his brother runs the prison and the streets, so he basically on vacation.

so now i have turned this blackman into a evil *******, he doesnt care about his kids persae as he never got anylove to know how to give, he just makes sure his girls are happy so his babys are fed.


So, i write two storys, one lack of choices due to bieng of the forbidden caste turns out tragic, in prison, his brother was killed in a gangwar years ago, and when he gets out he becomes hooked on herion and dies a bum, the other his brother became even more succsessfull, and now when this guy gets out he and his soldiers are going to create havoc.

The thing behind all this it didnt have to be, and if you had a good childhood you prolly cant answer this. I had both so im tripping off this subject somewhat, as these sort of topics seem to keep coming up.


basically how im seeing it its like cliche americans act like america was gods plan, and here we are; but its like i dont think the plan was that well thought out, now im ranting
PEACE

[diego]

:D also any responces or this looks like its just ranting, this is meant for another board i just want your guys ops on the original story, uno dpov

[Merryprankster]

Actually diego, the problem is that you're confusing opportunity with action.


It's not HIS fault that the opportunities I had weren't offerred to him.
It's not the fault of the mayor's kid or whoever, either.

A confluence of a lot of things caused that.

What IS his fault is the path he chose to pursue. Socio-economic disadvantage might be a mitigating circumstance, but does not absolve him of the results of his choices.

Again, I never said that doing the right thing was easy. But not doing the right thing has real consequences.

[diego]

but im saying it his thier fault, they enslaved his grand who went nuts and beat the father who turned out as a ****head, and the boy was grown as a lost cause, not one person tried to teach him about honor and dignity. you see the familys ran the town, and this one family was restricted to this one block, and were both white i presume so we cant fully relate, but not only because of this family was the blackmans clan house in this one nieghbourhood...by the time they were free, they already had know culture left, and they have been through horrors, so its like they dont know anything alse but to be a victem, all they have known was how to be a victem wich makes for a ruthless criminal, unless he gets help, cuz the same hand that held him down, is the same way/dao he learnt how to flip, make a fist and pull the trigger,...nothing else he doesnt know about the baby jesus, and the marvels of mickeymouse, or watching saturday morning cartoons, i mean his moms smoked the tv,etc:D

[diego]

**** im not fully reading your replys and your not really reading my posts.

the point is is it fair this white kid got to go to harvard of the sweat of this blackkids ancestors, and he doesnt?...when it was all tooken from the indian.

i mean it seems mean if your white to say, they dont deserve something.

[diego]

really read that last part, and this is some crazy ishness fashizzle:)

[Merryprankster]

I realize you are playing devil's advocate, to some extent, but to sum up briefly:

You're wrong.

Your view is fatalistic. It assumes we can never be more than the sum of our environments--that we do not have the potential to transcend our more humble--or downright awful--beginnings. I believe this viewpoint to be both cowardly and disrespectful of human dignity.

Yet, humanity is littered with examples of individual who went beyond their humble beginnings to improve themselves, their quality of life, and the quality of life for those around them, just as humanity is littered with examples of people who, with all the cards in their favor, wrecked themselves good.

I'm fully reading your posts. I know exactly what you are saying. I happen to disagree with it. YOUR life is what YOU choose to make of it, limited by your capabilities in the long run, and your present day opportunities in the short run. To believe otherwise is to let somebody else choose for you--and by your argument, you're letting a white man, long since dead, choose the fate of this modern day black man.

Absurd.

Again, I'm not denying the impact that socio-economic status has on available short term opportunity. But it's still an issue of choices made by the individual--not something laid down as his fate three or four generations ago.

Now, is it FAIR? It's not "fair," if by fair you are discussing equality of opportunity--it's clear that the black man in question has had less opportunities to advance his status than the white man.

However, you seem to want to phrase the question thusly: IF it's not fair, then the black man should get some recompense for past injustice, at the expense of the white family in question, that led to this unfairness, Yes or No?

The question itself assumes that future generations of the family are to be held accountable for past transgressions--as measured by modern day morals. It also assumes that the current situation of the black man in question is the "fault," of the original slaveowner. I find both of these assumptions to be unacceptable, in that a great many forces were at work in all the respective successes and failures.

I especially find it galling when we make moral judgments about historical figures based on modern standards--but that is a slightly different, albeit related argument.

[Leonidas]

No excuses, especially if you live in America in the year 2002. People are in charge of their destinies

[David Jamieson]

Hey do you think you could go ****her off topic? What the heck is this post doing here? :rolleyes:

Besides, this is all dragging up mud. Only you can prevent you from being a jerk or a racist or whatever. People will be what they are. You will be what you are.

Now, I'll give you a shiny new dime if you can bring this topic back around to Kung Fu.

peace

[Merryprankster]

For instance, both persons could have benefitted from a good Kung Fu instructor, and learned about hard work and discipline and perhaps seen that much of life is what you make of it.

:D

[KC Elbows]

OK, I've got to get working, so I haven't had time to read more than the beginning of this thread, so here's my response to the original question.

I believe that the choices of the early white americans directly benefitted the whites of today, or why else would there be a vast white majority in virtually all positions of power throughout America(and much of the western world)? Therefore, I think some benefit is gotten out of the early situation by the modern white man WHETHER THAT MODERN WHITE MAN ACKNOWLEDGES THAT OR NOT.

Therefore, I believe in some form of affirmative action, as people do not voluntarily give up power even when they know that the power, which was handed to them by their ancestors, was gotten off of another man's back.

As long as there is such a thing as inheritance, this will be true. You not only inherit the money of your predecessor, you also inherit the reputation, and if its blood money, being a nice guy won't be enough restitution for receiving a lifestyle you have not fought hard for.

There. I said it. Down with Whitey!:D

And, Kung Lek, I'm a swedish/Irish/German, the whitey thing is partially tongue in cheek, so don't ban me.

[KC Elbows]

In otherwords, if you went to better schools cause you lived in the predominantly white suburban neighborhoods, how is it you have not benefitted from the continued existence of inequality?

If you have inherited from a family that had good prosperity since the time of the slaves, that prospered under the inequality of the past(which most of us didn't really, but there's probably a few), how are you not benefitting from an inequal, if improved, system?


Sure, disenfranchised folks can rise up on their own just fine, but this has nothing to do with the responsibility of those who benefitted from the system that made them that way. Two separate issues.

On the flip side, in my experience, the experience of rising up seems to produce some really amazing individuals, very strong people, whereas the affirmative action stuff does it on a more general basis, and so increases the affluence of less qualified people. However, that is fair, since a huge number of unqualified whites hold decent jobs/lifestyles. If you don't believe this, go to the corporate sector and start counting people at meetings attended by executives. There are a ton of such meetings held at one of the buildings I'm responsible for, and it couldn't be confused with equal representation. On top of that, most of those people couldn't wipe their butt without directions, and they'd still probably get half way through when they realized they'd used the directions to do it.

Now, how did they get those jobs, and why are they mostly white, if there isn't at least the remnants of an unfair system? And how are they, as white individuals, not benefitting from that system? Yet they aren't responsible, because, on a one on one level, they are not racist, they just hold better jobs than most of the minority individuals at the same company, yet are less qualified than most?

Enough ranting, better post this before the thread gets deleted.

[Merryprankster]

KC Elbows--I don't deny that remnants of the society are still skewed to favor one group over another. I can't confirm it either, but I can't deny it.

What I specifically object to is holding individuals personally accountable for the actions of their ancestors.

The remediation of societal wrongs through legal means, should that be required, is the province of government.

(Although I have my reservations about governments meting out social justice as well--but that, again, is another topic)

[NYerRoman]

I'm not sure what this thread has to do with Kung Fu. I can try to stretch the concept to compassion and respect for humankind. That's it.

But, whatever. Can't ignore the past. Can't assume one will be like you. Can't dwell on the past as well. Never forget it. Learn from it.

The only thing I can say is all is put in a simplistic package in America. Things are much more complex and deeper than they are presented.

ugh..I'm falling into your trap. And kung fu??????

[TenTigers]

okay, here's some food for thought: One, my family came over from Russia, so we weren't part of the US slave issue. Two, My father grew up poor in the Bronx, supported his family while going to City College at night, became an electronic engineer, eventually moved up the corperate ladder from engineer, to production mgr, to plant mgr, to director of corperate facilities, retired with a house, a 40' boat and investment portfolio bringing in more than his salary. I started a small school, did construction work all day and taught classes at night, took every job I could get, untill I built up my school. Jewish families were denied many rights, but overcame the obstacles through strong family structure, and values, and education, and a good work ethic. Korean families came here, opened up delis and worked them 24 hrs a day, seven days a week, until they were able to buy their homes in cash. Chinese do the same thing-they open up take-outs, have their entire families working with them, uncles, aunts, kids. Don't cry about your problems. Do something. Take action. Get off the welfare line and get a **** job. It's been how many years, and still nothing to show for it. How come you're the ONLY ONES????Sorry, get over it. Those days are gone and have been for quite a while. Time to stop blaming the bad 'ol white man for keepin a brother down, and take responsibility for your own actions and destiny. Pick up the tab, or stay in the gutter. It's your choice. Anyone can get a high school education, GED, and go to college. If you work at it, you can be eligable for loans, grants, scholarships. If you are strong inside, then you can overcome many obstacles. or you can just wallow in your own misery, like an infant sitting in a soiled diaper and just cry, waiting for someone to pick you up. Sorry, no sympathy here.

[Stranger]

What if you are a white American, but not one of your ancestors lived in the US during the age of slavery?

What if a person's ancestors were poor and persecuted where they came from and now you want that indiviual to foot the bill for somethin his/her ancestors didn't do?

Why are you lumping every white-American in the same pool as a whipcracking overseer on the plantation and his sheet-wearing descendants?

It doesn't seem fair.
Until it does, it is wrong to ask for reparations from a population that is not necessarily linked to the crime in question.

Plus, you are overlooking the fact that slavery was a thriving institution in Africa before the arrival of Americans and it remained a thriving business after Americans abolished slavery. Racism and predjudices also exists internally among both Africans and African-Americans.


Who do you hand the bill to that will make everything right?

[Sharp Phil]

You Can't Live Yesterday
The Folly of Land Claims, Reparations, and Historical Revisionism

------------------------------------

Reason magazine's November 2000 issue includes an article entitled Stale Claims: How long should the law nurse old grievances?. Included in the article was the following passage:

Statutes of limitation and of repose, and their parallel doctrines in other branches of the law, have been around for a very long time. Thus time deadlines combined with adverse possession to help lay rest to uncertainty over land rights. Claims arising under the old system of equity (which grew up alongside common law) had to be pressed diligently or would be subject to the defense of "laches." And a "doctrine of acquiescence" meant that incorrectly drawn political boundaries could be rendered correct by the peaceful passage of time. "The best interests of society require that causes of action should not be deferred an unreasonable time," explained a court in 1871. "This remark is peculiarly applicable to land titles. Nothing so much retards the growth and prosperity of a country as insecurity of titles to real estate. Labor is paralyzed where the enjoyment of its fruits is uncertain; and litigation without limit produces ruinous consequences to individuals." [emphasis added]
Litigation without limit produces ruinous consequences to individuals. Repeat that sentence a couple of times, because it is true, and because our popular culture has forgotten it. The single greatest threat to modern society is the omnipresent divorce of individual responsibility for individual action, and the judge presiding over this divorce could not be better represented than by the ugly, grasping assaults of Native American land claims.

For years now, Native Americans have pressed their hysterical claims to land long owned by people who are not the descendants of long-dead Native Americans. The alleged rationale behind these claims is that since segments of the United States -- indeed, most if not all of the country -- were unjustly taken from individuals who lived 200 years ago, descendants of those wronged individuals should be awarded the land as it exists today. Never mind that the individuals wronged are dead, that their children are dead, or that their children are dead; never mind that the descendants of the Evil White European Aggressors have also logged several generations worth of dead relatives. No logic need apply; it is enough that one group of people long ago did something we now consider unjust to another group of people long ago. The Political Correctness of the present day is deemed enough justification to right the wrongs of the past.

This, obviously, is self-destructive folly, and it is the result of viewing people as groups or categories instead of individuals. The only people responsible for killing Native Americans 200 years ago have been dead themselves for most of those 200 years. Attempting to correct the past through the lens of the present may be attractive to proponents of "social justice" (a concept that seeks politically-correct justice regardless of the number of innocent individuals hurt by discriminatory reparations to categories of people), but it cannot and will not result in anything other than the destruction of our entire society. For that matter, many of those who seek to take the property of others using centuries-old injustices as a weapon are simply acting out of envy and bitterness. They want to possess what others have, and this is an expedient means to that end.

Envy aside, the problem with reliving the past by today's standards is that it never ends. Contemporary culture changes constantly, and the actions and standards of our ancestors seem increasingly primitive or unenlightened. I believe we do learn as a people, and in general, we improve from generation to generation regarding what we know about ourselves and the world around us. But to attempt to administer reparations to people living today on the basis of their ancestors' tribulations is to invite the deconstruction of all that we have achieved.

Most land today belongs to someone, be it an individual, a corporate entity, a government, or some combination thereof. I've heard it said that ownership of land is morally wrong because to own land, you first must take control of it and deny its use to everyone else. Even if that's true, the point is moot. Initial control of all land in our country was taken tens or hundreds of years ago. Today, if you want land, you must buy it. The owners of land today are legitimate by virtue of the intervening decades or centuries; even if they came by that land illegally or immorally a hundred or more years ago, their claims are valid because they are "rendered correct by the peaceful passage of time." To render those claims invalid now would be to destroy hundreds if not thousands of lives, to force innocent people from their homes, and to place huge areas of property in a destructive state of permanent uncertainty.

What does this mean? It means people aren't always nice to each other, and if my ancestors treated your ancestors badly 200 years ago, that sucks, but there's nothing you can do about it now. That is simply the nature of reality: you cannot relive the past, no matter how convinced you are that they were wrong and you are right.

Dismiss the concept behind statutes of limitation and you create an anarchic state in which no one dares produce anything or build anything, because no one knows when a past injustice could be used as justification to take what has been accomplished by others. The entire moral concept behind capitalism is that people are entitled to the product of their own labor. Use the past to deny that, and you create injustice rather than cure it. Imagine the destruction that would be wrought if all property rights were declared void overnight. Realize that land claims and similar attempts to relive the past by the standards of today threaten to do just that, piece by piece.

Reparations for slavery in the United States, or indeed reparations for any injustice perpetrated by one group against another group, are another example of the injustice of reliving the past. You do not "cure" unfair discrimination, for example, by shifting discrimination to another group of innocent individuals. And that is what Whites living today are: INNOCENT of the crime of enslaving Blacks. Unless you own a plantation stocked with slaves, you are NOT guilty of the crimes of your ancestors. Justice is NOT forcing the sins of the mother on the daughter, the sins of the father on the son, or the sins of the ancestors on their great-great-descendants.

Was evil committed in the past? Yes. Can we do anything about it today? NO. All we can do is learn from history and do our best as human beings not to repeat the crimes of our ancestors. Slavery is wrong. Therefore, we do not keep slaves today. Taking people's property is wrong. Therefore, we do not take people's property from them today.

Justice deferred is justice denied, as the old saying goes. And like it or not, justice was denied to slaves and Native Americans in the past. Life is about dealing with what is, not what we wish it could be. And while the past contains valuable lessons for the present, it must not serve as the justification for committing injustice against blameless individuals today. The impulse to relive the past is ultimately self-destructive, and will do nothing but harm us.

You do not placate groups by harming individuals. You do not create justice by committing further injustice. You do not use the billy club of the legal system to deprive the innocent of their property in order to send the message that force is wrong.

If you do, you are guilty, today.

[guohuen]

Social, economic and intellectual violence is a drag, but still widely practiced. (I live near an ivy league school). That said, I have met plenty of spoilt rich kids who are drug dealers and thieves. We are what we make of ourselves.

[Radhnoti]

Also, how far back are you going to take this "we were persecuted" thing? Does the English government owe me something because of my Scottish ancestory? I've seen Braveheart, I know the bad stuff! ;)
Want to go into Africa and find the descendants of the specific tribes that helped the slave traders?
Descendants of the Roman Empire (Italy I presume?) because they were BIG into slavery.
Every group has been enslaved or persecuted if you travel far enough back through history. The same African-American descendants of slaves you seem to feel should be given unearned advantages probably have an ancestor that owned slaves as well.
You can't hold individuals responsible for the sins of thier ancestors. And that's what you're doing when you give "the government's" money to any group...because...BIG SURPRISE coming...that money is ACTUALLY taken from each individual citizen.

[JWTAYLOR]

Here's a smaller scenario that may be easier to deal with.

My father hacked a man to death with a hatchet.

That man had a son.

That son grew up without a father and a mother who couldn't take care of him.

That son was poor, malnourished, had drugs and crime around him in his household as a child, never had someone to stand up for him or tell him he was loved.

That son became violent, drug addicted, and abusive to women and his children.

What do I, the son of the man who killed that other son's father, owe that son?

Oh, and I PROMISE, this gets right on back to Kunf Fu. Just wait.

JWT

[KC Elbows]

A few points:

-My posts largely addressed those who benefitted from slavery and similar discrimination, not necessarily those who perpetrated it. There can be and is a difference.

-Getting involved in politics is not necessarily a solution, as politics is largely involved with logistics and money, and since most of the areas that underpriveledged groups were alloted and since have remained in have very little money compared to other communities, the problem still remains.

-Stealing land from new landowners is politics just the same. The problem with saying "Reparation is naive and the wrong answer" is that you set up the scenario where the BEST solution is for the government to "acquire" lands from the newer owners, and give it to the most qualified(rich/lucrative) minority members, since the government need not worry about the need for reparations to the now disenfranchized former land owners. Really, it would only be fair if there were more white projects, and it would improve race relations oh so much.

-If people are in charge of their own destinies, then take a sample of priveledged white upper class families, ones who have definitely benefitted from largely white suburban schooling, safe neighborhoods, etc., take their land and throw them into the projects. IF they really made their own destiny, they should be able to make it again. The argument should work both ways. IF they can't rise again, then did they only achieve what they did because of priveledge?

Merry,

I'm not talking about the descendants of slave owners. I'm talking about people who reap benefits RIGHT NOW that they do not deserve. Have you looked at congress lately? Funny how they will apply racial quotas to everyone but themselves. In addition, by making public school in many areas tied to particular locations, doesn't this sort of guarantee an individual a poor overall education in some areas in poor districts, and a rich one in other districts? I may be wrong on the inner workings of public schools, but that sure does seem to be the end result.

Then there's places like Kansas here, who voluntarily try to add things to the science curriculum that aren't science, but now I'm way off topic.

Stranger,
Again, I'm not talking about descendants of slave bosses. I'm talking about those who benefit now.

Guohuen,

Yes there are white kids selling drugs, but how does the count compare in the general prison population? Meaning, there's more drug dealers in poor areas, there's more minority representation in poorer areas, etc. Is this because minorities don't rise up as much, or because they are still having to rise up from a much lower standard of living than the vast majority of whites?

JWT,
Good argument. I suppose we'll disagree on this one on general politics. I think society and government is in place to help us ALL rise up to a higher level. However, I also think that those who don't contribute shouldn't be entitled to a higher standard of living than they earn. The problem is, in the past, this has equated to "If this welfare recipient doesn't do anything to better him/herself, that's their problem". Where I feel this scenario breaks down is that the same rule will NEVER apply to the upper end of society. No one is gonna say "This rich kid's worthless, let them end up in the projects", because, unless their parents just cut them out altogether, they will still be in the upper income level.

Thus, we knock those who can't rise above a pitiful standard, who have never been above that standard, and might not have had much access to the knowledge that could help them improve their lives, but we keep in influential positions total idiots whe had every chance to get all the knowledge they might need in life, but decided they didn't feel like being useful, when, in fact, they should be living in slums and shooting up with hookers more than anyone else.

So, its my opinion that the country should have structures in place to help the son who's father your father axed for sufficient time for him to recover, and I'm sure we disagree on that.


As for the poster who brought up the Scottish, go sue england, we're talking about america here.:p

[fa_jing]

JWT - you don't have to help this guy, but you should. Same with black people in America. The condition in which people live in this country is not taken into consideration when defining public policy. There are many equitable steps that the government could take in an effort to enable victims of the lingering effect of institutional racism. For instance:

1. Legalize drugs.

2. Pour a higher percentage of money into the inner city schools.

3. Reduce welfare opportunities.

4. Socialize health care and education.


What your ancestors have done, can have an impact. For instance, should public policy be designed to help a black american, who'se grandfather fought in WWII for our side? Whose ancestors contributed, without compensation, to the economy of this nation, which we enjoy today? Or a black african, recently immigrated. (Just an example.)

I don't think we should personalize or racialize public policy, but making general changes such as those I described above, that's something I would welcome.

BTW, I don't morally agree with the concept of countries, or of money. But, given that we have these things, I still feel justified in having an opinion regarding their place in society.

-FJ

[JWTAYLOR]

JWT - you don't have to help this guy, but you should.

Dead on target there Fa Jing. As a human being, I have a responsibility to help out those around me.

But, also as a human being, I should not be forced to help someone else just as I should not be held responsible for others' actions.


JWT

[KC Elbows]

JWT, do you think taxes should be voluntary as well? Should you have to pay for a school system, a military, college funds, etc? Or should you be able to choose to?


I just don't have any faith in sufficient numbers of people voluntarily contributing to their country. Maybe its just me.

[JWTAYLOR]

No taxation without representation.

In other words,

I'm cool with being taxed for something, as long as I have the real ability to have a say in what that something is, and how much I'm being taxed. It's part of the social contract of being an American. Again, it's back to choices.

JWT

[Ford Prefect]

I'm just going off the first 10 or so replies, so forgive me if I miss anything after that. I agree 100% with MP. It is a choice. My great grandparents and grand parents were treated like non-human peices of dirt when they came to this country. The lived in poverty. They were the ones in the ghetto's. They worked ungodly hours for next to no pay. Am I to sue the ancestors of those factory owners? They obviously exploited my poor ancestors causing a few of them to die early deaths. Don't I deserve some of the money that my relatives made for them?

He11 NO!

That's the way the cookie crumbles. Instead of complaining about what is owed to them, they busted their humps to make a better life for their kids. Same can be said for the next generation. Finally, my generation is the first not to start out living in a ghetto. It is off the combined hard work of previous generations that I had all my oppurtunities. I have no sympathy for people "trapped" in the ghetto because they think it's above them to slave as a janitor or as McDonald's manager for crap pay. That's what every single other group in America did to get where they are now! It's a choice plain and simple.

Should I make the best out of my situation and begin my family's ascent up the social ladder?

or should I just decide that I'm so opressed and it's not my fault, so I need to turn to a life of crime?

[guohuen]

KC, It's still about the haves making sure the havenots stay that way. For instance if you check the prison records of inmates in Vermont you will notice that white males go to prison on their second offence. Minority males go to prison on their first offence. White females go to prison on their eighth offence. Minority females go to prison on their fifth offence. The playing field is still not level.

[Sharp Phil]

Calls for socialization in order to "level the playing field," or to grant the "have nots" an advantage in the name of compassion, are misguided at best. One of the most comprehensive books I've ever read on the topic is A Life of One's Own: Individual Rights and the Welfare State, by David Kelley. The following review of his book addresses the major arguments made for socialization -- for the expansion of the welfare state"


We have examined the nature of welfare rights, their history, and the philosophical case for them. We have examined the arguments for believing in such rights and seen how the many issues they raise can no longer be resisted: the concept of welfare rights is invalid. There is no warrant for claiming rights to food, shelter, and medical care, to income maintenance, child support, and retirement pensions, at taxpayer expense. Such rights cannot be justified by appeal to freedom, to benevolence, or to community. They do not expand but curtail freedom -- that of program clients as well as of taxpayers. They make charity compulsory, undermining any genuine benevolence donors might have toward the poor. They replace the voluntary bonds of a society of contract with the coercive power of the state, undermining genuine community. The concept does not provide a valid rationale for the welfare state; it provides a mere rationalization for the coercive transfer of wealth.

...[N]o government programs can achieve the same degree of diversity and flexibility as private ones. More important, however, the coercive "philanthropy" of public aid presupposes that the donors are owned by the recipients. Voluntary philanthropy is the only system compatible with the fact that individuals are ends in themselves.

The welfare state's crisis of legitimacy is real. It is profound. Behind the social crisis of perverse incentives and disabling pathologies, behind the financial crisis of exploding costs, it is a moral bankruptcy. The welfare state rests on a false moral foundation. And we can see the outlines of a sound alternative, one that is built on a foundation of real freedom, real benevolence and community.

Some will say, "So what?" As a vast engine for transferring wealth, the welfare state has created vested interests. Lobbies for the elderly will never agree to let Congress cut back Medicare or Social Security benefits. The poverty bureaucrats will fight to the death any major change in the industry that feeds and clothes them. It is naive idealism to think that the lack of a moral justification represents any sort of danger to the welfare state.

Maybe so. But the cynics have been proven wrong time and again, most recently in the collapse of communism. That system was backed by forces much more powerful than lobbies and bureaucratic inertia. The Soviet state had its secret police. It owned all the media; indeed it owned the entire economy. Yet it collapsed when the central sanctifying myth -- the myth of a workers' paradise to be created by collective ownership and economic planning -- had lost all credibility. The welfare state has likewise been sustained by nothing more than a myth, and it is likewise vulnerable to collapse.

So concludes David Kelley's A Life of One's Own: Individual Rights and the Welfare State. With his usual calm, gentle tone and methodical reasoning, Kelley takes on every major argument used to justify and expand welfare programs. Always fair, even when examining ideas he finds abhorrent, Kelley's book is essential ammunition in the war of ideas over the moral legitimacy and economic feasibility of socialism in every form.
Throughout, Kelley's arguments are predicated on the philosophical concept that individuals are ends unto themselves. Because no human being can live another human being's life, and because individuals are discrete biological entities, people are born with the inalienable property right to themselves and to the products of their labors. The welfare state runs counter to this concept, of course -- and this book is an excellent treatise on precisely why this is so.

Kelley first examines what rights are, contrasting classical liberty rights with the new "welfare rights" that advocates of collectivism believe humans possess.


Every right involves some claim that one person or group is entitled to make on others. It is this element -- the moral claim at the heart of any right -- that gives rights their special character. ...The dignity inherent in claiming one's rights is a primary reason welfare advocates have insisted on treating benefits as rights rather than charity.

Welfare rights differ from the classical rights to life, liberty, and property in the nature of the claim that they embody. They differ in what is being claimed as a right, in the obligations that they impose, and in the way they are implemented...

The primary difference is one of content, a difference in what it is that people are said to have a right to. The classical rights are rights to freedom of action, whereas welfare rights are rights to goods...

Liberty rights set conditions on the way in which individuals interact. Those rights say that we cannot harm, coerce, or steal from each other as we go about our business in life, but they do not guarantee that we will succeed in our business. Thus, the Declaration of Independence attributes to us the right to pursue happiness, not to happiness per se. Society is responsible for ensuring the freedom to pursue happiness, but the responsibility for success or failure in that pursuit lies with the individual. Similarly, T.H. Marshall, a leading theorist of the British welfare state, noted that liberty rights "confer the legal capacity to strive for the things one would like to possess but do not guarantee the possession of any of them. A property right is not a right to possess property, but a right to acquire it, if you can."

Welfare rights, by contrast, are intended to guarantee success, at least at a minimal level. They are conceived as entitlements to have certain goods, not merely to pursue them. They are rights to have the goods provided by others if one cannot (or will not) earn them oneself. Thus, they are quite different from the classical conception of rights as rules governing the process of producing the goods and services people want. Welfare rights require that the outcome of the efforts of productive members of society be distributed in such a way that everyone enjoys certain goods.

Kelley goes on to describe the difference between negative versus positive obligations:


One person's right always involves corresponding obligations on the part of others to respect it. The moral claim inherent in a right would be meaningless if no one were obliged to respect it. Liberty rights impose on other people on the negative obligation not to interfere, not to restrain one forcibly from acting as he chooses.

...In this framework, the positive obligation to provide another with a good or service arises only from one's own consent or voluntary act.

But welfare rights impose on others positive obligations to which they did not consent and which cannot be traced to any voluntary act. If a person has a right to food, come what may, then someone else has an obligation to grow it... A welfare right is by nature a right to a guaranteed positive outcome that is not contingent on the success of one's own efforts. It must therefore impose on those who can produce the goods the obligation to share them.

Considerable space in the book is devoted to Kelley's analysis of the emergence of the concept of welfare rights. Kelley blames an intellectual revolution of anti-individualism that popularized the collectivist ideas that drive the welfare state today. The "new liberals," as Kelley calls them, redefined concepts such as freedom and coercion.

Classical liberals viewed freedom as the absence of coercive interference with one's choices -- choices among the opportunities and alternatives available to the individual. This is the "negative conception" of freedom -- the absence of interference. The new liberalism brought us the positive conception of freedom, which takes into account the opportunities and alternatives available. No longer was the individual responsible for choosing, to his or her best ability, from among the available choices. Those who believe in positive freedom sought (and seek) to alter the field of alternatives through coercive state action.

...continued below...

[Sharp Phil]

...continued from above...

The positive conception of freedom also saw the development of a new definition of coercion as described by Kelley.


Just as the new liberals expanded the concept of freedom to include the enjoyment of various economic goods, they employed an expanded concept of "economic coercion" to include deprivation of those goods. Coercion was no longer limited to the use of force by one individual against another or by government against citizens. It now included any action...that the new liberals felt unduly restricted the weaker party's opportunities.

Kelley links this idea to a third concept: environmental determinism.


Despite the claims of the new liberals, there is an evident difference between the power of a government to throw one in jail and the power of an employer in a free and competitive market to refuse one a job. The new liberals' refusal to accept that distinction may be traced to a third assumption. The doctrine of environmental determinism held that human beings are so shaped by their circumstances that they have no more genuine choice in the face of economic restraints and inducements than they have in the face of literal physical force.

Kelley goes on to make some very good points. The industrial revolution changed the nature of risk in the modern world. Economic risks replaced natural ones, in greatly expanding the number of human beings who could survive and even thrive in a given area. While it is normal and expected for people to seek protection from these risks, Kelley argues over and over again -- providing numerous statistics, charts, and footnotes to back up his claims -- that private insurance cooperatives, private and voluntary charity, and free market solutions invariably provide better protections than government welfare programs. Private institutions also enjoy much more freedom to alter their programs and coverage to meet changing needs among diverse consumers -- something that is very difficult for government bureaucracies to do.

The remainder of the book is divided into three sections refuting the three major arguments for welfare rights. These are the arguments from economic freedom, from benevolence, and from community.

Economic Freedom

The argument from economic freedom states that it does one no good to have rights if one cannot exercise them. We must therefore enjoy certain basic guarantees -- comprising freedom from want -- in the society envisioned by the new liberals.

Kelley demolishes this argument fairly easily. It is a fact that goods must be produced before they can be enjoyed. Those who believe in positive freedom, and thus in welfare rights, are attempting to evade this fact of reality. If we all are to be guaranteed that which must be produced to be enjoyed, it must be coercively transferred from those who produce it to those who do not.

The same goes for those who attempt to justify socialized medicine by claiming that good health is a prerequisite for the exercise of one's rights. Disease and physical infirmity are facts of reality that cannot be changed. Medical care is comprised of goods and services produced by others. To claim that medical care is a right is to demand the coercive transfer of what is produced from those who produce it to those who do not.

Benevolence

To argue from benevolence ultimately produces certain problems for the advocate of welfare rights. Compulsory benevolence isn't benevolence at all, and actually undermines any feeling of genuine compassion individuals might have held for those in need. Kelley advocates private charity in the pursuit of benevolent goals, arguing that these programs provide better service and greater flexibility for those who need them. He admits that there is no way to predict the level of aid that would be given in a private system, but states that this is not the issue:


Our point of departure, morally speaking, is not the needs of recipients but the generosity of donors. It is the donors who set the terms. Recipients do not own those who support them, and thus do not have a right that must be met, come what may. Those who would privatize poverty relief do not have the burden of showing that all poverty would be dealt with as effectively as it is today by government programs, although the considerations [that Kelley discusses before concluding this section] make that extremely likely. The burden is on those who support government programs to show why they think the poor are entitled on altruistic grounds to the aid they are receiving.

Compassion and generosity are virtues, and the charitable help they prompt us to provide the less fortunate is, for most of us, a part of what it means to live in a civilized society. But compassion, generosity, and charity are not the sum of morality, nor even its core; and they are not duties that create entitlements on the part of recipients. The poor do not own the productive, nor are the latter obliged to sacrifice the pursuit of their own happiness in service to the poor. If individuals are truly ends in themselves, then charity is not a duty but a value we choose to pursue. Each of us has the right to choose what weight charity has among the other values in our lives, instead of having the government decide what proportion of our income to take for that end. And each of us has the right to choose the particular people, projects, or causes we wish to support, instead of having government make that decision for us.

Community and Contract

Kelley views the free society as a society of contract: one in which individuals enter into voluntary agreements governing what they will do. The rule of law as administered by the state preserves the rights of individuals to act as they choose, provided they adhere to the negative conception of freedom and do not interfere with the actions of others.

Those who argue for welfare rights from a sense of community, Kelley says, believe we have moved too far from our tribal roots. In primitive societies the community was all, and individuals' desires and needs were secondary to the demands of the tribe. The society of contract produces a destructive atomism, say the communitarians, and thus welfare rights must be recognized to preserve the "family" that is the state and its citizens.


Communitarians advocate a return, at least in part, to a society of status: a pre-modern, pre-liberal conception according to which an individual's relationships to others are not chosen but predetermined or imposed. According to this conception, we look to society rather than our own efforts for our support; we are responsible to society for working and supporting the social good; we belong in part to society, not fully to ourselves. But there is no warrant for this return to pre-modern principles. Our identity as individuals is not so shaped by social influences as to make us perpetual dependents. Our debts to others are not so open-ended as to give them property in our persons. As self-movers and self-owners we have rights to life, liberty, and property, and the social expression of those rights is a society of contract, not status. Henry Maine was right: the society of contract and the society of status reflect two fundamentally opposed principles.

Man is a social animal, and a society of contract is a genuine society. It is chiefly a civil society, a world of commercial enterprise and voluntary noncommercial organizations, with the political sector playing the minimal role of maintaining order and adjudicating disputes about the boundaries of rights. Everything that is true and appealing in the communitarian vision is available in civil society. Freedom breeds a spirit of genuine solidarity among people who independently embrace the same values. It breeds a spirit of responsibility among people who know they cannot drat others, by force, to enroll in their projects.

But nothing in the communitarian vision that goes beyond civil society -- nothing that presupposes positive political rights to welfare goods, nothing that requires the state as a primary agent -- is either true or appealing, or workable. A modern society does not and cannot function as a giant family, and the effort to make it do so has destructive effects on everyone involved. It breeds political struggle among interest groups for control of the levers of power. It produces unintended consequences that cannot easily be corrected. And, as the looming crisis of Social Security illustrates so clearly, it encourages people to act irresponsibly in the expectation that others can be forced to clean up the mess.

Conclusion

I enjoyed this book immensely. In clear and engaging language, Kelley has written an essential tool for arguing against collectivism and the welfare state. Unfailingly polite and always honest, he has created another must-have for the bookshelves of those who believe in rational self-interest. David Kelley's work is always worth my time -- and I think it will be worth yours.

[JWTAYLOR]

Dude, you are seriously smoking the crack rock if you think people are going to read all of that.

JWT

[Sharp Phil]

Platitudes are quick, short, and easy. The facts of reality -- particularly those refuting popular notions held by far too many people today regarding the role of government and socialization of the economy -- take a little longer to relate.

The book I just reviewed contains arguments addressing -- literally -- every major argument made in favor of the welfare state and its expansion. This includes the socialization of any aspect of the economy, as well as "affirmative action," reparations, or any other form of government discrimination.

[KC Elbows]

JWT,
I knew if I posted long enough, you and I would agree on something.

Apparently I don't smoke enough of the crack rock, as I read nearly all of it.

The major problem I saw with the piece is the assumption that it is solely the welfare state that guarantees business success in place of merit. Sure, it gives some benefits to specific individuals, but, as I have stated, there are individuals who, by a trick of genetics and birthplace, reap the same benefits with no more merit than the crack mother. THAT was the problem that the welfare state was supposed to solve, and by pointing out that the welfare state creates similar results to the system before it through different methods doesn't exactly equate to things being better before it.

I can grant you that the welfare state sytem could create a mediocre class that is elevated above where their true status should be. However, IF it does create such a class, it is a class that is demographically different than the preexisting mediocre class that is unworthy of their status, and gives the more meritorious minority members a base of morons with money to influence politics in an equal way that the white "ruling class" that is already entrenched in the system uses their own useless white folk with a little money to influence things. Which sounds pretty much like a level playing field to me.

Phil, JWT proposes a solution, individual culpability, and while I don't necessarily agree with him on it, I know he has enough experience that whatever vision he has of it probably has its merits. Those articles merely attack the liberal position and propose no solution except to go back to some bygone era that never really was.

Civil rights and affirmative action didn't come into being out of nothing, they came about because, if nothing was done, things were gonna get real ugly real quick. Things COULD NOT remain unaltered, they were very clearly failing, and the original system could not (and should not have) remained the same just to preserve some ideal that did not suit the reality of modern America.

If someone has any familiarity with any conservative alternative that was posed to the inter-racial problems in the US during the fifties/sixties, it would be very interesting to see them.

[Sharp Phil]

Yes, people are born into different circumstances in life. No, it is not the appropriate role of government to attempt to change this. The use of government coercion for the achievement of egalitarian ends invariably creates more harm than benefit, more injustice than justice.

For further reading on this and related topics, I humbly suggest the Objectivism (http://home.att.net/~philelmore/objectivism.html) page I maintain.

[KC Elbows]

"Freedom breeds a spirit of genuine solidarity among people who independently embrace the same values."

No offence, but I think that's just wishful thinking, or Alabama would have been a black man's paradise in the fifties.

I'm not meaning to be a jerk, but I just don't think people get along all that well, and if you want millions of them to behave on the honor system, well, that's fine, just do it somewhere I'm not.

[Sharp Phil]

The conflict is that of the irrational versus the rational. Rational men and women respect one another as sovereign entities and thus do not seek to dominate one another; they do not initiate physical force and they genuinely respect others for the rights they possess as individuals.

Irrational men and women, by contrast, do none of these things; theirs is a war of all against all, divided among pressure groups lobbying for the favors bestowed by coercive and invasive government bureaucracy.

No, irrational men and women will not behave on the “honor system” – but neither must they. For a government that recognizes individual rights is created for the sole purpose of protecting those rights. It protects the “negative conception of freedom” as described in the book review I posted. It preserves from coercive force the individual’s freedom of action. (This contrasts sharply with the expanded “positive” conception of rights as claims to the goods and services of others.)

Governments will always be necessary to protect the rational from the irrational, just as the use of defensive force will always be morally just when rational human beings are forced to resolve conflicts with irrational aggressors. There are only two ways humans can resolve conflict: reason or coercion. Persuasion or force; those are the options. Since you cannot reason with someone who is using physical force against you, you must meet violence with violence. In a free society that is not anarchy, government’s appropriate role is to act as referee and policeman -- but not as the arbiter of outcomes.

[JWTAYLOR]

Civil rights and affirmative action didn't come into being out of nothing, they came about because, if nothing was done, things were gonna get real ugly real quick. Things COULD NOT remain unaltered, they were very clearly failing, and the original system could not (and should not have) remained the same just to preserve some ideal that did not suit the reality of modern America.

Now THAT, is an argument I can sink my teeth into, and I don't mean necessarily disagree with. (God I can't spell for sh!t.)

Anyway, I think what you are trying to say there is that:

A. people act in their own self interests
B. the social condition at the time of say, the 1964 Civil Right Act, was intollerable to the populace


So, the people who recognized that "things were gonna get real ugly real quick" got that it was going to get ugly for THEM, real quick. The political structure (republic) of our country allowed for the populace to impact the social condition of its citizenry without significant bloodshed.

And given that, to paraphrase KC, affirmative action became law because the previous system failing, can we assume that affirmative action is becoming illegal now because the current system is failing? If so, then I would say the time for reparation is over.

JWT

[KC Elbows]

Phil, we'll just have to agree to disagree. I think it IS the role of government. Not very idealistic for a liberal, I know, but there you have it. I don't think people can be trusted that much.

As for Ayn Rand, my opinion on her is that she could have been a phenomonal writer had her works not been so clouded by her own agenda. I've always felt she would have had far more to contribute to the world as a writer than as a philosopher/objectivist/what have you. The philosophy always seemed to me a little too much a justification for behavior than an unclouded observation on how things are.

[KC Elbows]

Don't get clever with me, John Wayne Taylor!:D

I like your assessment of the lead in for the whole affirmative action thing. At the same time, I disagree with the assertion that its becoming illegal. Its scaled back, and it will probably grow and shrink with the moods and influence of the republicans and democrats. At some point, I would hope that we reach the point where the various groups will be more equitably represented in government and business. Thus far, the emphasis has very much been on one group that was treated worst of all the "minorities"(actually, I would imagine that the black population is really not a minority as far as numbers).

The plus of this is that, when you're counting highly capable people, and limit your count to one specicfic race, you'll end up with a much smaller number than if you count all of the capable people, irrespective of race. Thus, senate probably wouldn't represent such an across the boards count(nothing against the senate, if you looked at people in my level of management at the company I work for, that holds true as wel0.

However, somewhere in this ramble, I was getting to the part where I agreed, this will only exist as long as the need for it continues. However, I don't think that need vanishes just because Ayn Rand says so.:p

[Sharp Phil]

Fair enough; Objectivism either resonates with the individual or it does not. No amount of persuasion can change another's heart.

[diego]

When i signed off i realized some mite not have read that clearly, what i meant was due to this child bieng a lost cause, even if he wasted his time and went to school, at most statistically he would end up as a janitor @ the local church up the block.
this was just a story, like a elementary math question for me to better equete all scenarios within the current reality, the main point behind it wich i rewrote on page two, kc built on clearly, and this is a interesting topic thats all, thier was no requests on how do some of you feel about how the whiteman founded this plot, just the harsh reality represented in this one case scenario.

He11 yes he becomes a janitor!!!!
I'm just going off the first 10 or so replies, so forgive me if I miss anything after that. I agree 100% with MP. It is a choice. My great grandparents and grand parents were treated like non-human peices of dirt when they came to this country. The lived in poverty. They were the ones in the ghetto's. They worked ungodly hours for next to no pay. Am I to sue the ancestors of those factory owners? They obviously exploited my poor ancestors causing a few of them to die early deaths. Don't I deserve some of the money that my relatives made for them?

He11 NO!

That's the way the cookie crumbles. Instead of complaining about what is owed to them, they busted their humps to make a better life for their kids. Same can be said for the next generation. Finally, my generation is the first not to start out living in a ghetto. It is off the combined hard work of previous generations that I had all my oppurtunities. I have no sympathy for people "trapped" in the ghetto because they think it's above them to slave as a janitor or as McDonald's manager for crap pay. That's what every single other group in America did to get where they are now! It's a choice plain and simple.

Should I make the best out of my situation and begin my family's ascent up the social ladder?

or should I just decide that I'm so opressed and it's not my fault, so I need to turn to a life of crime?

[Mister Hansome]

That even though our ancestors were exploited during the railroad tracks, for example, were our ancestors forced into this situation? No, they could have just went home, as in many places there were head taxes (for being asian you get an extra tax :p ), but they chose to stay here. These people gave them work, they chose to work, they could have EASILY just went home or starved. It was a choice, and in a way they owe these managers a bit, for giving them work.

Many asian families are poor, but do they give up? No, they still work for a better future, so that their kids can go to school, so that they can have a better job. People who gave up early are the ones who stayed in the ghetto. Look at the asians, they're the fastest growing population and the ones with the fastest growing wealth also, also their numbers in univeristies and colleges are growing by huge %'s.

You can't blame the employer, they actually gave our parents work atleast, even though they were exploited would they have been better off without work? You tell me, jobless or minimum wage.

For abusing your wife issue and kids being abused, did the empoyer lift the fathers hands up and made the guy slap his child and beat his wife? He got frustrated and did it when he didn't have to.

My cousins came to this country with NOTHING, and i mean NOTHING, but did they came here to live off of the welfare programs? No, they worked for money, money that they saved up while living in a rat infested apartment. Money they used to send their kid into university (which at the time proved to have some racist tendencies, like choosing kids because of race), but now he's a doctor. Can you say he had an advantage? No, his family worked for what they have, to better the families future.

These families didn't work, they didn't try hard enough. The father could have worked harder, the accumulated money could have been used to send his kid into trade school (instead of buying pot, or liquor to get banged up and pee on a police car), or have him become an apprentice for a future job, like welding. A small step, but with the money saved the grand kids can go to college.

That's how the asians did it, it's not that we're superhuman, but it's because we worked hard. The options are there. Some have less others have more, but there are always atleast two options, work hard or slack off.

[Wu Wei]

Im in a rush tonight so I dont know how redundant what im saying may be:

Im a very very "white" individual and I grew up in the same nice small town almost my whole life. But what does that mean for me? Im not gay, im not black and im not female so some say im not at all discriminated against. Yet I see natives who get money when they turn eighteen because of something that happened to their ancestors, I see some girls complain their way to success because it works(I would too; and no this isnt a critique of any entire group).
I look at my neighbours who are (as my keen eyesight tells me) a racial minority, and I see their children growing up with all the things I never had. These kids have richer parents with a bigger house and overall more social dignity than my family ever had. On top of that these kids actually know both their parents. Just because im a straight white male doesnt mean I walk on the backs of dead africans.
I try to treat people the opposite way the conquering europeans did a long time ago and I try to treat people with more respect than they show me, yet wheres my check? Why am I not given the good jobs before someone better than me because of my skin colour? My friend tells me that because of new gay tax benefits in Canada hes claiming me as his lover to get more money back. How is this fair?
People always have made excuses to get what they want. They justified themselves when they used black people as slaves and now the so-called oppressed justify their actions when they play families like mine for our money. I look at rich white people just like blacks and natives do, and I wish I could grow up in those nice houses too.
I look at guys who grew up the same way I did and they get special rights because their "natives". What makes anyone more of a native Canadian than I am? I was born here and I've only lived in this same province my entire life, and yet people think im not native to this place?
Unless you literally grew up in the "hood" and dodged gang turf on the way home after school dont whine about "your people". If you did have this life, however, then i dont care if your black, white or spotted, you deserve a hand by society. But this is only an ideal. People have always been born with their lot and I've learned that the only way my kids are gonna have it better than I did is if I dont complain about what I dont have and use what I do have.

For those who have a worse life than I do(and I know theres many) God bless, and love your enemies.

[Mister Hansome]

Lol, i feel for you man, i feel for you.

I'm asian, asians don't get any special benifits (the japanese reconciliation package doesn't count, as they don't represent all of us), it's all in the work ethic. My parents work their asses off, they don't go to school. They came here with nothing, NOTHING, they didn't have the time to go to school because they had to take care of their kids. Frustration? Plenty, but what happened to the abusing you always hear about? None in my family, it's called discipline and control.

We don't own a mansion, but my family is well over average. They faced discrimination, racism, and sexism, even from other asians.

NOW where's my brother? Is he a janitor? No, he's in university. Now how did a poor family put their first born into university and is planning on putting their other two kids through university? Hard work and sacrifice. My dad worked 16 hour shifts a day for six days a week for ten years until he had enough money to open his own business. That's hard work. He's ready to sell his house to send the last of us to university (literally, seriously, he would). That's sacrifice.

The future is formed by the actions of now, learn from the past, mould your future! Don't waste your time thinking of the past unless you plan on learning from it's mistakes, either then that, mould your fricken future already. Or atleast work towards building your childrens.

Look at the chinese, since they've been here, it took them three generations to have enough money to put their first descendent into university. But did they eventually do it? Yes.

[Ford Prefect]

It doesn't matter how you word it. Reparations are BS. Land Grants to Native Americans are BS. These people need to stop looking for hand outs, go out, and get a job. I'll be ****ed if I'm going to take a tax hit for something that an abusrdly small amount of the population did way before my great-grandparents were alive or had even thought of coming to America to live in squalor in the ghetto's.

If any poor person (be they black, white, yellow, or brown) truly wanted to make a better life for themselves, then they'd go out and get a job. Maybe; just maybe, he can send his kid to school or move to a better town to give his kid more oppurtunities. Of course, welfare much easier than a job.

[KC Elbows]

What about children in poor districts, stuck going to terrible public schools. Don't we hold some responsibility to them?

And aren't some demographics unequally represented in such poorer districts as a carry over from the days of slavery and such?

Are those kids lazy too?

[fa_jing]

Two things: one, self propogating entrenched interests suck for all those who are not a member. If we can push for change to this state of affairs, it would be a righteous thing.

Two: some of you look at things as reparations taking money out of your own pocket. I am against reparations for logistical issues, for the impracticality of determining who is actually the descedant of a slave. But not for taking money out of our pockets. I figure, why not take some of the money that is completely wasted, or goes into politicians and their cronies' pockets, and use that for the reparations.

Let's remember that the current tax system isn't exactly just. So don't make a moral issue out of it. Practical issues are more important here.

-FJ

[Mister Hansome]

Like i said no one five generations back owe us anything. They owe our ancestors something, but how did it end up to us?

Those crummy schools are still schools, if the kids excel in those schools maybe they can become something, not much, maybe a welder or an aprentice, but the chinese went through the same, it took them about three generations to put their first descendents into university. It takes time, but who are going to give money to the ones who actually worked to have their children out of the rut they go into? Now how fair is that? Be lazy and not try, then maybe later on your children might get money from the government. What about he families that decided to work hard, 16 hours a day generation after generation until they got enough money to make a difference.

When it comes to these reparations who will pay for their hard work? If they have to pay for themselves why can't the others.

[Merryprankster]

Fa_jing--You're RIGHT! A JUST tax system would take a LOT more from the rich than the poor. A FAIR tax system on the other hand, would be a flat rate for everyone.

They are NOT the same thing. People throw around Justice and Fairness as though they were synonyms and they aren't at all.

If a 6 year old and a 24 year old, both commit murder shouldn't we sentence them exactly the same way in exactly the same facilities? Clearly not. It would be FAIR to do so, but it wouldn't be JUST. Big difference.

Finally--if you think there is tremendous government waste, I'm here to disappoint you. "Unnacounted for," dollars for the 1995 budget totalled less than something like .1 percent of total federal spending. I'd have to try and find the numbers again to verify, but I did run them once, many moons ago...

Now if you are discussing waste in the sense of unnecessary programs--that's a different issue altogether :)

[fa_jing]

Yes MPS, I meant the unnecessary programs, the wasted efforts, even the cost of campagning, which I don't think the american people get fair value for. Your statistic is relavent, but, consider that some of that money, although accounted for, is not correctly accounted for.

-FJ

[Merryprankster]

Ah--now, I'll buy that :)

No worries, not trying to be a little *****, just trying to clarify :)

I think the biggest problem is that people don't seem to understand that a great deal of regulations exist to protect the people of the US from those that would abuse the system. What that translates to, is a great deal of public money being spent on oversight. It's not as efficient, but without it, people would scream bloody murder.

Now, as far as government priorities not being proper--well, that's pluralism for you. :D

[fa_jing]

Merry, it took several hours, but your point finally sunk in regarding fair vs. just. I think the US government does do a good job of being fair - and that is a good basis for a government.
As for justice, we have Supreme court Justices, the word justice is written into many of our laws - but it is almost outside the scope of desireable government action. Really, people should make up their own minds regarding what is just, and the government should limit itself to dealing with what is fair. It is a lot easier to come to a consensus regarding what is fair as opposed to what is just, and consensus goes well with government.
I think JWT was saying something similar. Excellent point.

Justice League is for superheroes. Fairness league, that's the role of government.

Regarding oversight, yes, that's an oversized piece of the government, in my opinion. I think that those people performing the oversight, are in many cases inventing the need for this volume. All agree to report the situation in a certain way, to justify their own positions. You see this all over the private sector too. Over-reporting of problems and over-estimation of the hours it takes to complete a project. In the case of government, there's even less competition to knock things down a few notches. And government employees vote to keep themselves labeled as necessary. It's kind of like a school board that appoints its own members. Goes back to the whole self-perpetuating entrenched interest thing.

Unfortunately, I don't believe that our society is structured to bring about major social reforms, even if they may be just. On the other hand, this gives us stability, which gives us strength. So it's not all a bad thing.

-FJ

[David Jamieson]

As much as you may think the US is a democracy, it is actually a Republic. There are big differences between the two. I don't know how anyone got the idea that "democracy" is the way of the west. Capitalism, replubics of states and benevolent dictatorships are the main powers in the world of the west.

A lot of you guys are tossing around socialism in here and dressing it up as if it is democractic. Yikes, some of the stuff is even Marxist!
Ahhhhhhhh.

In the end, change can only be inflicted upon oneself. But... the whole of what humanity is, is far greater than any one of it's parts.

That's all I'll rant about. Kung Fu practice will help you to be a better person. You will feel charitable and helpful to a greater extent when you understand how uncharitable and helpful the world really is.

peace

[guohuen]

"People get the government they deserve."-Chinese proverb
Thanks for saying what I didn't have the nads to Kung Lek. Anyone familiar with the electoral college? Apparently even our founding fathers thought we needed babysitters.

[JusticeZero]

Someone wanted to bring this back to martial arts.. okay.. lemme rewrite your story here..

Your sifu has two students.

Roy, as a child, had a long illness that left him overweight. Because of his weight problem, he becomes easily winded. It's not easy to lose weight, and Roy hasn't put in the hard work to burn it off. Also because of his childhood, Roy has a problem with schedules. Half the time Roy either comes wandering into class late, or doesn't come to class at all. Still, when he was young his family never taught him about keeping a schedule, and his parents are even worse. Does Roy listen? Well, sometimes, but a lot of the time he's flirting with the girls in class, and sometimes he argues with the sifu about simple points.

Steve, on the other hand, came from a family of athletes and dancers. His parents were quite strict and demanding of Steve. Every class, Steve arrives early and warms up; he never misses a class. When Sifu speaks, Steve listens attentively and works to correct his form. Because of his parents, Steve has a natural talent at duplicating movements he sees. His physical conditioning is superb, and his understanding of the forms is commendable. Still, this springs from long hours as a child spent in rigorous practice of balance and physical fitness, and it's entirely because of the influence of his parents.

Both have been training for the same length of time, and your Sifu must chose whether to advance Steve or Roy to be his new assistant teacher - he can only chose one. Which should he chose?

....


Shouldn't he chose Roy? After all, it's not his fault that his habits are so bad, right???


..See how silly it sounds when I put it that way?

[JusticeZero]

I'd like to make an observation, as well..

Many people pushing this absurd 'reparations' nonsense are fond of crying "America was built on the back of black slaves!"
..Pardon me, but well... Even AFRICA was built on the back of black slaves. Much of Europe was built on the backs of European slaves. If I recall, significant portions of Asia was built on the back of slaves. Pretty much every group of people in the world has, if you go back far enough, been slaves.

Slavery wasn't some heinous and unusual thing that America pioneered. At the time, it was just how things were done. The recognised way to do things. At a later date, the people of the world, thanks to increasing prosperity and change of the underpinnings of their economies, decided that slavery was unacceptable - now slavery is illegal.

Basing arguments on the past existance of slavery is like being infuriated because George Washington didn't use e-mail.