Re: BAMN Debate
Seth David Schoen (schoen@uclink4.Berkeley.EDU)
30 Mar 1998 18:38:41 GMT
George J. Lee writes:
>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.
The government has been mandating large private corporations to hire certain
proportions of certain minority groups, too.
Libertarians say: the government should not engage in this practice, and it
should not either compel or prohibit private entities from engaging in it.
Some private entities want to engage in it, and some don't.
... and we can make private normative judgments about what these actions
mean.
>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."
We could probably find any number of other statements BAMN wouldn't agree
with either, if we wanted to.
--
Seth David Schoen L&S '01 (undeclared) / schoen@uclink4.berkeley.edu
Magna dis immortalibus habenda est atque huic ipsi Iovi Statori, antiquissimo
custodi huius urbis, gratia, quod hanc tam taetram, tam horribilem tamque
infestam rei publicae pestem totiens iam effugimus. -- Cicero, in Catilinam I