An article I wrote

[Radon3k]

I wrote an article on affirmative action. You can read it here. If you want to send me feedback there's a contact form or you can join the forums and discuss it there (that place really needs members). If you post something in this thread just be sure that your post is polite as topics such as this are always a hot bed for flame wars.

[Sxooter]

Actually, I'm all in favor of affirmative action, just not based on race.

It should be based on social status.

There is currently a "monied versus unmonied" system in action that occurs mostly behind the scenes. It just so happens that most monied folks are light skinned descendents of other light skinned people.

But, there are plenty of poor people who just happen to be white as well as all the other colors we humans tend to have for our skins.

If your daddy makes $500,000 a year on stock options alone, you can go to ANY SCHOOL YOU WANT as long as you're not dumb as a brick. Daddy just writes a check and off you go.

That's the true unfairness.

If you come from a poor side of town, no matter your skin color, you should have the same chance to get admitted to said college.

I'm not advocating subsidies for tuition here (I'm not against them either, they just aren't what I'm advocating in this argument.) All I'm advocating is a fair shake for poor folk.

Hell, they alread make up the majority of our armed forces because rich daddy's don't want their kids dying in foreign countries for fuzzy objectives.

Did you know that of all the members of congress there are right now, only ONE has a child who is an active duty military member? ONE for chrissake. Aren't they the folks you need to write you a recommendation to get into a military academy?

[Radon3k]

I agree with most of what you said, however my article was geared towards what affirmative action is as it currently stands. 🙂

[Sxooter]

Oh yeah, I got what you were saying. My opinion is that by getting people to pay attention to things like race based affirmative action, whether they're pro or con, the gov't keeps them from paying attention to the real problem, rich people are busily creating a country where being rich means you live under a different set of rules than poor people, and have better access to the government etc...

[Radon3k]

In either case, affirmative action as it stands now isn't good. The military does it right, however. As I said in my article, among other things you're promoted based on years of service and test scores. <shameless plug> You should pop over to the site and shrae your views. </shameless plug> 😃

[Sxooter]

I spent ten years in the Air Force, and I would agree that they got it right, but only for the enlisted side. On the officer side, it's as much about being an acadamy grad (i.e. automatically a regular officer) versus a non-acadamy grad (automatically a reserve officer until x number of years and other "fill in the blank stuff").

I was enlisted, and glad, when I saw how badly the reserver officers were treated. They quite often were older, more mature, and far more experienced with the "real world" than many of the junior jump jet guys who rocketed over their heads for the sole reason of being a part of the "fraternity" that is the Air Force acadamy.

No argument on AA being flawed, honest, just that it's purpose is that of a smoke screen, like so many of the political points of today, to keep your eyes away from the real criminals. :-) The fact that people get helped or screwed by it is more of a side effect.

[Radon3k]

If you were in that long, why didn't you just go for 20? What rank were you when you got out?