Re: BAMN Debate
George J. Lee (gjlee@uclink4.berkeley.edu)
30 Mar 1998 01:23:56 -0800
Nesim Sisa <nesim@soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU> writes:
> The debate over affirmative action could get very sloppy and may not
> even be very useful. Does the LP stand philosophically against all
> affirmative action? I assume the speakers dislike government sponsored
> affirmative action. But what about the affirmative action at Stanford or a
> private company. I think it is important that we make clear what type of
> affirmative action is defensible. A possible argument would be that the
> SAT does not accurately predict college performance for certain
> individuals.
As with a great deal of other issues, we are not against its practice
privately; we are against government force. The real libertarian
position is to allow private individuals to hire whomever they like on
any basis, even race. Prop 209 still doesn't address government
anti-discrimination laws, which libertarians feel shold not
exist. This debate is on affirmative action, however, which means
racial preferences by government. We want to end forced racial
preferences. Though I believe private institutions should be able to
hire based on race, I still don't believe in affirmative action. It's
by definition racist and therefore unfair. I won't go into all the
arguments now, but I am against decisions solely on the basis of
race. Sure, SAT's may not be accurate, but one should not decide
admissions just by the ethnicity of the applicant.
> BAMN of course takes the stance that affirmative action is always right.
> But there is some ground that we would agree on. If the debate reached
> this common ground, I don't know what might happen. The debate could
> stagnate into name calling if there is nothing substantiave
> to argue over. I think you have to be careful when you argue with a group
> whose arguments and aims are not well defined or well thought out. It
> might be better if we had a debate with an articulate group of students.
Don't worry, we won't reach a common ground. BAMN will not agree with
this anti-affirmative action statement:
"The government should not make decisions based on race or ethnicity."
George