>>The only problem I have ever had with affirmative action is that it does not guarantee equal opportunity. While the intention is admirable, it does not apply correctly. To me, affirmative action should mean: two people of different race or ethnicity receive equal consideration and opportunity. In reality that does not happen. The individual from a minority with fewer skills, training, or abilities will take the position over the non-minority with greater skills, training, or abilities and almost never the reverse. Especially when it comes to higher education slots. I hope I didn't open a can of worms...
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>I have a real problem with affirmative action programs. Its nothing more than disguised racism. You're telling the applicant's they aren't smart enough to make it on their own, they need extra help.

I don't think it is nor should it be about that at all. To me it is simply about trying to help capable people coming from environments with less resources. On a more global scale, it is not unlike helping a country rebuild after a war or a natural disaster (Japan, France, Italy, Bosnia, New Orleans, Thailand...) When a country or a person is down because of lack of resources (for whatever reason), it behooves for the surrounging community to try and help them out. The flip side of this is, of course, that when you direct resources in a finite resource pool from one area to another, somebody will have to do with a little less, be it money or opportunity, at least in the short run. I strongly believe, however, that in the long run this benefits everyone much more than if we did nothing.

The key question to me always is: Is the object of help doing their darnest to the best of their ability to help themselves, as well? If that's not the case, IMO the "object" is not worthy of anybody's help. And unfortunately the harsh reality out there seems to be that those who are down need to work a lot harder than the others to prove their mettle.

Then there's the whole other question of "ongoing assistance inertia" -- when a certain level of self sufficiency has been reached, the help must be directed elsewhere. People in general have a very hard time letting go of "freebies", and tend to justify their need way past what is reasonable.

Many years ago the University of California established a quota for Asians, among others, for some very good reasons. Today, the "flagship" campus, UC Berkeley, has a majority of Asian students, which is now totally out of proportion to the surrounding demographics, and so UC has done away with that quota. The Asian demographic group, for the large part, has risen well above the "newly arrived poor immigrant" -status and doesn't need the quota boost any more. And because of many of the Asian cultures valuing education almost over anything else, this help has landed into a very fertile ground and tremendously benefitted the entire society as a whole.

Somehow to me these questions always seem to boil down to the question of how much "tribal interference" (government meddling) is desirable or necessary. In economics, for example, it was empirically clear after the 1930's depression the the government needed to create work programs and to start "artificially" speeding up or slowing down the economy in order to regulate pure market forces, lest they get out of hand. The times of Adam Smith's "invisible hand" and pure capitalism were over (and the bodycount of the unregulated environment went way down, as well). Same goes with affirmative action, equal opportunity, and many other social engineering projects vs. the "bootstrap thyself" -approach.

I have been personally involved with building houses for Habitat for Humanity in South America, and I have seen firsthand what huge results you can get by giving a poverty stricken family a little ("little" in our scale of thinking) boost -- in this case simply a roof and a locking door so that the kids have a safe and a dry place to study and rest. Left to their own devices these families simply could not reach the tipping point from hopeless grinding poverty to hope for a better future at least for their children, and thus the entire society. I view this as "global equal opportunity", which is basically the same idea as other equal opportunity efforts in this country.

There is an intersting dichotomy in North America -- on the one hand self sufficiency is very highly valued, while on the other hand the spirit of volunteerism and neighborly help is also extremely strong -- more so than in just about anywhere else in the world, in my experience. This combination built this country to what it is now, and for the most part it has worked very well. I personally come from a Scandinavian background and point of view, where it is the government's work more than anyone else's to take care of the less fortunate, and to provide equal opportunities for everyone. But in the end, the government is the people and the resources it uses in the various projects are given to it by the people, so in the final analysis it is not that much different.

All in all, I see affirmative action and equal opportunity efforts as an extremely valuable extension of the "American spirit", and without them this country would be a lot worse off than it is today.


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