I'll stop doing this (starting response threads), but it's the only way I can post for the time being....

quote:

Does anyone really believe that affirmative action is "state-sponsored racism as odious as Jim Crow," as Webb believes?

I think it's safe to say that government-mandated segregation of the races was a bit more odious than giving preferential treatment to a historically disadvantaged minority group in, say, college admissions. That's a pretty stupid statement.

I think the position that all state-sponsered racism is equally odious is a reasonable one. Bad choice of words though.

quote:

That's not a salient point, though, because that's always been true for some people to varying degrees. It isn't a sea change. It's always been a factor.

We didn't invent it or discover it.

Just because it isnt new doesnt mean it isnt salient. In fact, I already noted that it's an argument and phenomenon older than me. "To a varying degree" is exactly my point. People cherry-pick labor statistics to match the argument they are making. For example, measures of "stagnant" individual wages often ignore the "varying degree" to which women were joining the work force in the past 40 years. Between '75 and '00, the rate of working mothers increased from 47% to 72%. This resulted in much higher median household income - a 41% increase from '70 to '06 (I'll note that the jump during the Reagan years was greater than that during Clinton...), but lower individual income as a result of the increased labor supply.

I dont have the numbers to know if the original poll I posted is trending up or down, but there is some evidence that "the varying degree" does explain some of the current situation. The % of mothers are looking for work and households that have two earners are both trending down. That would fit the narrative of people starting to favor family and free time more strongly.

I'm sorry to introduce any evidence to the discussion, as that somehow makes me an evil shill for the wealth creating companies that our government has refused to nationalize (and, of course, the Saudis), but there are a variety of reasons for the wage gap that so many are clammering for the government to close. We dont hear about the fact that price changes have increased the buying power of the lower class (as a result of the actions of big bad business), or that the most significant income gap is between the top 1% and the rest of the top 10% - because it is more exciting to use the top 1% vs. the rest. We pretend that absolute wages are the only measure of standard of living - as if the lower class is living in the same condition now with a desktop computer, car, 3 tvs, cell phones, etc as they were when the Civil Rights Act was passed.

I'm not saying that there isnt a difference between rich people and poor people. In fact, I celebrate the fact that our society allows for that. But if we are going to allow the half of the middle class that votes Dem to demonize capitalism and decide how to force the top to care for the bottom, let's at least force out a full discussion of the facts. Let's consider all the evidence, even if only so that we can predict how (in)effective the new redistribution will be.

Who cut Tupa off? What is happening to you? State-issued computers? I don't get it.

And I'd also quibble with you (and Webb) about affirmative action being "state-sponsored racism". I don't think that's what it is.

If you're simply saying that all state-sponsored racism would be equally odious I'd agree. But I think you're saying that affirmative action is a form of state-sponsored racism. I don't think that would be true.

It's certainly a racial preference system, but the goals of it are not born out of racism. It's to extend opportunities to historically disadvantaged minority groups, redress past discrimination, or more recently to promote diversity.

None of those are racist goals.

Jim Crow was born out of the idea that blacks were inferior and needed to be separated from whites in education, on buses, at the restaurant, the drinking fountain, etc. Separate being inherently unequal, as they say.

Affirmative action isn't alleging that whites are somehow inferior and therefore we're going to prefer minority candidates instead.

A system of racial preferences that disadvantages some whites? Sure. State-sponsored racism? I don't see that.