Eliminating Affirmative Action will Improve Race Relations Long-Term

Author: bmdrocks21

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#31
Greyparrot
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@badger
 fairness and equal opportunity. 

Let's talk about these mythical constructs.

Everyone's opportunities in life is a set finite number based solely on chance. Even if you were to engineer the perfect society with cloned people and "equal opportunity" policies, the world simply won't allow absolutely equal opportunities due to the natural laws of entropy. 

Knowing that everyone will always be a victim to chance regardless of the society you construct, there is no actual "fairness"

Add on to the fact that people will often choose to remove opportunities by making bad lifestyle choices, the fiction of equal opportunity further dissipates as you would also have to remove free will to attempt to make that happen.

So don't sell me on your mythology when people in the real world struggle to come to grips that life isn't actually fair, you make the best of it, and learn to be grateful for anything you manage to accomplish in this wasteland of a universe. The mythology crap about fairness and equal opportunity is the worst drug out there out of all the opiates available should you choose that route.

#32
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@Greyparrot
That's a really stupid post, mate. It's very easy to choose for fairness and equal opportunity at least as a foundation. My country has done it. Yours hasn't. That's it. 

In your country, the poor should eat the rich. Where you haven't chosen for fairness and equal opportunity, they have nothing to honour. You can write your shitty little internet posts until your heart disease renders your fingers inoperable, but it changes nothing. You have no arguments. All of your politics is in bad faith. You're just moving money around.

In Ireland, by guaranteeing education and healthcare, we have a people. 
#33
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@badger
What purpose is there to acquirement, if it does not effect one's circumstances?

Supposedly people with college earn more money, why should I have to pay off the fees they freely accepted, Biden?

If I live a healthy life, save my money, why should I be forced to pay for the aid of those who did not live such?

You pretend as though when the state 'forces an action, you are choosing it yourself.

And as someone said earlier in the thread, no avoiding circumstance,
Even if the college is free,
Is the rest of life made free?
Can someone dirt poor 'afford to go to college easily, even if 'college is free, there's the rest of life to live and pay for, housing, food, kids,
Though maybe I underestimate how much the Irish give it's people?
I don't think so though.

In America one can enter the military, get the GI Bill,
One can choose to go to a cheaper community college,
Or prove themself early on in life, be a Valedictorian, perhaps a scholarship,
Go to a trade school.
#34
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@badger
In your country, the poor should eat the rich. Where you haven't chosen for fairness and equal opportunity, they have nothing to honour. You can write your shitty little internet posts until your heart disease renders your fingers inoperable, but it changes nothing. You have no arguments. All of your politics is in bad faith. You're just moving money around.

In Ireland, by guaranteeing education and healthcare, we have a people. 
I mean, you can say that all you want, but America probably has more opportunities than any other place on the planet, yet people choose to fuck it all up by getting fat, not exercising, etc. America is the most unhealthy place in the world precisely because everything is so easy here, people just expect to be taken care of.
We just went through a Covid pandemic that absolutely blew the fuck out of fat lazy American people because they thought good medicine and good healthcare was a substitute for bad choices. What a wakeup call.

When Ireland has all the wealth and prosperity of America, you will see people doing dumb shit too to fuck up their own lives simply because they haven't worked for a goddamn thing and take everything for granted. There really is no free lunch in this world, and if there is, it's absolute poison to the human spirit in the form of apathy, neglect, and bitter resentment.

Like the Chinese curse says "may you be granted everything you wish for"

In Ireland, by guaranteeing education and healthcare, we have a people. 
The only thing that guarantees is a population of entitled people, something America has in spades.

#35
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 You're just moving money around.
You should take a deep dive into how bad people's lives were absolutely wrecked and fucked up beyond all belief when they suddenly won the lottery. Something to consider when calculating the actual costs of "free lunches"


#36
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Even if the college is free,
Is the rest of life made free?
Can someone dirt poor 'afford to go to college easily, even if 'college is free, there's the rest of life to live and pay for, housing, food, kids,
Though maybe I underestimate how much the Irish give it's people?
I don't think so though.
Free enough. College paid for. An allowance at about half the minimum wage as a baseline and grants besides. 

Yes, you can walk into a college dirt poor and be afforded a time to study and walk out of that college with an education owed to you. I mean luxuries are for after when you're a contributing member of society, but you get your education. And it's one shot, you don't get to fuck around with it. But that's a people. 


#37
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@Greyparrot
You should take a deep dive into how bad people's lives were absolutely wrecked and fucked up beyond all belief when they suddenly won the lottery. Something to consider when calculating the actual costs of "free lunches"

Just shut up dude. You really are such a moron. 
#38
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@Greyparrot
You're just an eyesore of a human being tbh.
#39
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@badger
See, there's that resentment. I guarantee your ancestors that took the time, blood, and sweat to make something as simple, yet lasting as a stone wall would have more appreciation for it than someone who was just driving by taking a selfie.
#40
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@badger
And yet, the poor go less often than the middle or rich, I 'think?
Not a sarcastic I think, but me stating my uncertainty, I'm bad at sources.
What about inclusion of disadvantaged people also? What message does that send?
The current system results in the following:
Students from the most affluent parts of Dublin are up to 14 times more likely to progress to university than their counterparts from some schools in the city’s most disadvantaged areas, the annual Irish Times “Feeder Schools” supplement shows.
The survey reveals that most schools in better-off parts of the city – such as Dublin 2, 4 and 6 and 14 – had progression rates of 90 per cent or more. By contrast, individual schools in more deprived parts of the capital – such as Dublin 10, 11, 17 and 24 – had progression rates as low as 7 per cent.
It is really bizarre that a majority of this thread talk about free fees to insure there are lower income students in College without realising there are basically fuck all to begin with. Fees are not the issue. It is shit education in working class areas and a lack of support for these students to go to third level
But I guess optics is more important than ensuring students can go to College...

. . .

Walk around one of the main Dublin universities (UCD, DCU, TUD or UD), and listen to the accents of most people around you. By and large students are middle class, and come from middle class backgrounds. The official stated aim of free fees was to increase social mobility and open up higher ed to people from worse-off backgrounds. Not just to be a giveaway for people who realistically would already have found a way to get to college, somehow or another. Free fees have been a huge failure on the social mobility front; people from disadvantaged or working class backgrounds still can't afford to go to college, even with free fees, because they can't afford to not be working/on the dole during all that time.

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#41
bmdrocks21
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@badger
A foundation of compassion, fairness and equal opportunity
So what you people have to honor is some goofy liberal buzzwords?

Most neo-Western countries say that is their creed

That's what free college and healthcare buys you. Without it all of your arguments are in bad faith.
What does this even mean? Giving out “free” things allows you to argue in good faith?

All you do is reduce everyone’s take home pay and reduce their discretionary spending.

Your OP shites on about relations while trying to deprive a poorer people of a benefit.
This isn’t a question of poor or rich. It is race. A poor white person under this system would be rejected in favor of a rich black person. That’s how Affirmative Action works. If your goal is to help poor people, argue that family wealth levels should be considered for college admissions, not race. 
#42
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@Lemming
Dublin is a fuck up because of a housing crisis. I got doctor buddies can barely afford to live in Dublin. It's the 8th most expensive place to rent in the world according to this article: https://www.businessinsider.com/most-expensive-cities-worldwide-to-rent-an-apartment-2019-5?r=US&IR=T#4-zurich-switzerland-22

I mean I can see why it fails in Dublin, but it's a sizable investment into every single person and it gets people through college. I agree that more could be done about Dublin.

There's no argument there for throwing out free college. 
#43
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@badger
You made the point of the Irish caring and loving 'everyone Irish,
By pointing out Free College enrollment,
Implying College for everyone,
And yet, doesn't 'seem to be College for everyone.

New Fees,
" In the mid-1990s, Ireland abolished tuition for full-time undergraduates to expand access to higher education and address social inequalities. Under this “free-fees” policy, 90 percent of full-time Irish undergraduates do not pay tuition (which most Europeans typically refer to as “tuition fees”). However, students pay other fees that policymakers have increased substantially since the free-fees policy was put in place. This “student contribution” is now €3,000 ($3,600) per student, per year, although many low-income students receive grants to offset it.
Some observers argue that Ireland does not really have a free-college policy, because student contribution levels are now significant."

Immigrants offsetting the statistical claims,
"The high attainment rate appears to be more the result of well-educated workers immigrating to Ireland than of Ireland’s own higher education policies. And despite the real progress Ireland has made in increasing access to higher education for a greater share of the population, equity of access by family income and social status has not improved commensurately."

Possible failure of government to preform as well as free market.
"Furthermore, the free-fees policy has at times led to constrained resources and boom-bust financial cycles for Ireland’s higher education system, which may have reduced educational quality. Without the ability to charge tuition or fees beyond the allowed student contribution, public higher education institutions must rely on government funding for the vast majority of their revenue. Many in Ireland argue that the government has not adequately funded institutions in recent years, particularly in response to the rapid enrollment growth the country’s higher education sector experienced.
The resource constraints caused by the free-fees policy have led many stakeholders to conclude that the current funding system is unsustainable."

I am cherry picking the article,
The article is more even handed.
#44
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@bmdrocks21
This isn’t a question of poor or rich. It is race. A poor white person under this system would be rejected in favor of a rich black person. That’s how Affirmative Action works.
Why should anyone give a damn? Where blacks are poorer on average, why care for the poor white person? There's no fairness where a 0 in your bank account means no healthcare and no education and no chance.

Affirmative action might save black lives. You think your shitty little line of rhetoric will make them relinquish that benefit? 
#45
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@badger
Arbitrary physical characteristic being valued,
Implies to 'other arbitrary physical characteristics, that tribes of physical characteristics 'do exist 'do matter 'ought be valued.


#46
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@Lemming
That reads a complete nothing of an article to me. Our colleges definitely have money. I've been to a few of them, across trade school and my degree. They're all super impressive campuses.

The rest is more or less positive. Sure, there's a culture around college too. But it's an open door for anyone to walk through. 
#47
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@bmdrocks21
I think that would be a great policy. It would create more competition to get to those top spots. It would also allow entrance into college based on merit. A small issue I could perceive is that some high schools are much better than others, but as long as it is just an offer to pay for college and not a mandate that they are let in, it wouldn’t matter.
The differential in high schools is actually a benefit to it. A high school in a rich area, is less likely to use that offer. Whereas one in a poor area, the best students from each class have an additional means of escaping the circumstances of their birth.

So yes, I would have it be entrance too... Bare in mind, I am not saying Harvard has to accept them, just a local college. And even then, if they can't cut it, the school isn't forced to keep them. There's always some washouts anyways.

As a reminder, I am not talking about just any student, not even good students, but the crème of the crop.
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#48
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@badger
Why should anyone give a damn? Where blacks are poorer on average, why care for the poor white person? There's no fairness where a 0 in your bank account means no healthcare and no education and no chance.

Affirmative action might save black lives. You think your shitty little line of rhetoric will make them relinquish that benefit? 

I don’t wish to sound rude, but you don’t seem to have much of a grasp on how things work over here. It’s permissible because you don’t live here, but try to tone down the passion on things you don’t understand.

You exposed yourself. “Why care for the poor white person”. You don’t care about poor people getting through college, otherwise you would… well…. care about poor people getting through college. But no, your sole concern is letting in under qualified black students.

If blacks are poorer on average, then guess what- a system that benefits poor students would benefit them more. But you’d rather a black billionaire’s kid go to college than a white kid from a trailer park, apparently.

And no, I don’t expect my rhetoric to make them give it up willingly, although polls show that more than half of blacks oppose AA. It’s quite loony that a white Irishman would support it more than the average US black
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#49
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@Barney
The differential in high schools is actually a benefit to it. A high school in a rich area, is less likely to use that offer. 
I was more worried about the quality of the high school’s education. But if you’re suggesting that we do it only for the very top students, then I don’t think this would be a serious issue.

I like that it avoids issues of grade inflation by only allowing a top few people, rather than the normal incentive to try to make everyone appear to be college ready.

And I don’t really have an issue with automatic acceptance either for state-funded schools because it probably wouldn’t make up a huge portion of incoming classes.

I would support this policy
#50
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@bmdrocks21
I don’t wish to sound rude, but you don’t seem to have much of a grasp on how things work over here.
Between yours and thett's threads, I have a good idea. You're trying to leverage an idea of fairness where there is none. Any sensible fairness relies on base securities and opportunity. 

I think AA is a half-assed idea too. It's just farcical to me for you to write about race relations where you're trying to strip a lifeline away from a poorer class. 
#51
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Because that's what it is: a lifeline. You're resenting someone their life. 
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#52
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@Public-Choice
I have some disagreements on your proposed history of racial policies, but in order to not derail the thread, I won’t dive into those here.

Suffice to say, we can agree that historical policies haven’t been too kind to black Americans, whether the policies have malicious intent or not.

I’ve heard much the same regarding emphasis on education, and in fact, it seems more hostile than you let on. I’ve heard from multiple first-hand accounts of teachers that black students who care about school and that perform well tend to be ostracized and abused by other black students for acting “white”. The school violence and peer pressure to perform poorly creates its own set of issues that will take a lot of effort and time to resolve. And fixing the family unit is at the top of the list, as the rate of unwed mothers giving birth among racial groups follows the same pattern for educational achievement
#53
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@bmdrocks21
I don’t wish to sound rude, but you don’t seem to have much of a grasp on how things work over here.

All the people in Europe are only allowed to hear Biden talk about how "poor kids are just as smart as white kids."

They are not allowed to listen to based black Americans.
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#54
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@badger
I think AA is a half-assed idea too. It's just farcical to me for you to write about race relations where you're trying to strip a lifeline away from a poorer class. 
And we could discuss hypothetical policies for ensuring that bright, poor students can go to college. I like what Barney suggested. But this thread is specifically addressing the way that allowing racially discriminatory policies fosters racial resentment and encourages racial scapegoating

#55
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@bmdrocks21
It’s pretty easy to figure out why even black people are split over AA. Half are pro for pretty obvious reasons. I figure that the con half believes AA has a devaluing effect in whatever involves it. There are your Yale graduates… and then there are your minority Yale graduates. It is inevitable that people will rate accomplishment according to skin color… which feeds into the very problem AA is attempting to solve.

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#56
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@Greyparrot
All the people in Europe are only allowed to hear Biden talk about how "poor kids are just as smart as white kids."

They are not allowed to listen to based black Americans.

They tend to get their information from (literally) CNN, so it is no surprise that they tend to have a negative and limited view of life in America
#57
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@bmdrocks21
But this thread is specifically addressing the way that allowing racially discriminatory policies fosters racial resentment and encourages racial scapegoating

So what? You're still trying for fairness. That's argument in bad faith.

Resenting someone a lifeline is pure nonsense. 
#58
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@bmdrocks21
Most of my students are of color. I don't allow them to use skin as an excuse to fail. 
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#59
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@badger
So what? You're still trying for fairness. That's argument in bad faith.
Nothing is ever truly fair. It’s not fair some parents do meth while pregnant and permanently disadvantage their kids. It’s not fair some kids only have one parent.

Striving for actual fairness is a waste of time. But making it illegal for companies and schools to racially discriminate is a step in the right direction. Enough of making a large portion of white and Asian kids second class citizens because others in the same demographic category tend to do well

Resenting someone a lifeline is pure nonsense.
Let’s say you got phenomenal scores on a standardized test and apply to the best medical schools in your country. Turns out, the schools wanted less people that look like you so all your hard work netted you admittance to a mediocre school. I’d say that’s a pretty big reason to be upset. Now when you apply for jobs, you’ll be passed over because you don’t have good enough credentials and will lower your lifelong earnings significantly. All over something you couldn’t control. But your response to these people is basically “tough shit”. Doesn’t matter that people will have worse doctors now because “fairness”
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#60
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@Greyparrot
Most of my students are of color. I don't allow them to use skin as an excuse to fail. 
I’m afraid you aren’t preparing them for the real world, where they can play the race card