Affirmative Action

Who says whites will be discriminated against, and who says there will be favoring, ...On the contrary, if your affluence and position in society is based upon past discrimination and exploitation, you are in possession of stolen goods, and though the blood may be old, it's still there.</font>[/QUOTE] Nope. If government force or influence favors one group over another then discrimination has occurred. Past wrongs are not righted by penalizing people who had nothing to do with them.

I have stolen nothing nor am I in possession of anything stolen.

Nope. I look at reality and what is biblically right.

I grew up in southern appalachia with no more advantage than most of the blacks you claim are systematically disenfranchised. My dad was the 8th child of a tobacco farmer. My mom was the 8th child of subsistance mtn farmers. Both were the first in their families to graduate high school. My dad spent 21 years in the army.

I didn't qualify for college aid. Even 20 years ago, there were many of us who didn't but couldn't afford college outright. My parents and I were devoted to my education so I was funded by their money, loans, scholarships, and my ROTC stipend. The bottom line is that we did what was necessary... that same opportunity exists for virtually every American today.

That you so greatly struggle with a simple moral equation is a marvel of liberal indoctrination.

When someone would rather makes excuses rather than doggedly pursue the opportunities available to them... even if they have to work harder than others... they are to blame.

Why? Why is it a shame to recognize reality? My ancestors' suffering contributed to where I am and I suspect that your situation is the same. I never said that black slave sufferings were just or justifiable... only that blacks living today have benefited due to them.

Keep in mind that success is not determined by where someone starts but by the goal they refuse to fall short of.

Successful people possess discipline, determination, perseverence, etc. When they fall down... or are pushed down... they get up, learn their lesson, and try again.

Failures accept hopelessness and use it as an excuse.

I will let you come to my house and show me what was stolen... if you can prove it I will gladly give it back.

What? Informing you of your social responsibility as God has called me to do? No sir, I will not.</font>[/QUOTE] You are no prophet... show me the scripture that supports your belief in government activism.

This country has more opportunities for upward mobility than any other on earth. The wealthiest group of black people in the world reside in the United States and are direct beneficiaries of the system you claim so badly treats them.

You might want to spice that demagogury with some proof.

Your accusation is based on your conjectures of people who are very different from yourself would do if confronted with a hypothetical situation that isn't even likely... dishonest tactic.

Show me. In fact, I can show you where He said that it was the right of an employer to pay an employee as he saw fit... while using the employer as a representative of God Himself.

Are you saying it is immoral for a rich person to ask a poor person to work for certain benefits... while it is moral for government to use force to take more wealth from the rich man, pay bureaucratic costs, and give the same poor person the same benefits for doing nothing?

The Bible says that if a man won't work, he shouldn't eat.

BTW, Christ never... never espoused enabling fornication, illegitimacy, slothfulness, or any other sinful behavior with charitable giving.

Your type of action related to social responsibility and justice have worked to destroy the moral fabric of inner-city blacks.

His message was go and sin no more. Big government's only admonition is do whatever you want, we'll give you more as long as you ensure that liberals are elected.

Our founders wisely established rules in the USC that declared our rights as sovereign individuals before God.

Who earns what? That answer is so elementary, so biblically fundamental... yet I am no longer surprised that you ask the question.

The one who earns is the one who "sows". The one who benefits is the one whose sowing God blesses... but God none the less says that we should continue sowing regardless of the outcome. We are responsible to work (or else not eat). God never excuses someone who is able and makes excuses rather than working and striving to succeed.

I do. Growing up in a poor mtn county that routinely has NC's highest rate of unemployment isn't exactly coming from an advantaged position. I worked. God blessed. The same opportunity is available to most of the people you think I should be penalized to benefit.

Additionally, the millions of blacks who have succeeded out of the very same environments that others fail in. People who did not accept closed doors, who would not submit to defeatism, who determined that they would work 10 times as hard to overcome whatever racism they faced rather than giving in to it... that's who.

No one. But successful people aren't people who have never been knocked down. They are people who refuse to stay down no matter how many times they find themselves on their backs.

It is a moral character issue. One has a choice of being longsuffering and patient or else of making excuses.

Why do you assume that because I oppose your philosophy of government on the specific basis that I think it steals glory from God, I am less generous or caring toward people than you?

 

I don't. I blame them for not succeeding in a system that is more fair to them and provides them more opportunity than any other in the world. You won't find these types of opportunities available in Haiti or western Africa.

You have not established your contentions based on scripture much less overturned mine. You have not demonstrated a grasp of the philosophical, moral principles embodied in the founding ideals of our country. You haven't even shown a mastery of the facts nor statistical evidence concerning this issue.

I don't know the total of your experience. You mentioned being a teacher. You certainly espouse the views of liberal academics.

I have lived all over the country. I have gone to school with blacks, served in the Army with them, worked with them, lived with them, gone to church with them, shared holidays with them, and loved them as close friends. While in Seattle and Chicago, my wife and I found that we had more in common culturally and experentially with the black people we knew than the whites from those areas.

I have known blacks from the highly successful to self-destructive failures. I have been associated with 100's if not thousands of black people. I have listened to them and heard them espouse the same criticisms of their own people as I do here. My views weren't formed in the vacuum of a college classroom. They were formed by experience and by truly caring to listen to those around me.

Nope. You will not find where the Lord advocated Christian use of force to make the wealthy give to the poor. You will find where He commands that we love and care for those around us on an individual and church basis.

You cannot show me where Christ commanded Christians to support the formation of a secular state whose caring for the poor gives glory to politicians rather than God.

It is not I who has self-righteously appointed myself as the judge of whether others are using their God given blessings in accordance to the way "I" think they should. You have done just that.

Why don't you put your money where your mouth is? Take a second job, say at McDonalds, and give the proceeds to someone who you consider exploited and oppressed but I contend is slothful and irresponsible. It won't be long before the reality dawns on you.

Unfair you say? How is it less fair than your desire to take benefits that others earned and give them to this same "exploited" victim?

Nor is it your place to pontificate to those who you think aren't generous enough.

Good grief!!! I just noticed. You think respect is an entitlement!!! Respect, friend, is a hard earned privilege... not a birth right.

I don't worship the market... but only recognize it plus Christian charity and ethics as the best means for accomplishing a civil, just, universally prosperous society... in complete contradiction to what could rightly, not figuratively, be called your worship and glorification of human government.

Nope. That is manifestly and completely untrue. The next bite you eat, the pants you wear, and the computer you are looking at are direct benefits to you from the market society.

I posted a link to an article that details what poverty actually means in America. By the objective world standard, our poor are embarassingly wealthy, ie. tv, cable, own home, no hunger, running h/c water, washer/dryer, two cars,... Only in America and only due to the "exploitation" of the market would you find such people classified as "poor" and "exploited".

"One of these things is not like the others... One of these things just doesn't belong..." Abolition was in response to public protests and bad law. The strongest abolitionist forces around the time of the Revolution were southern patriots who wanted to deny Tories their slaves for both righteousness and retribution's sake.

Nope. Americans for most of our history simply helped and depended on their neighbor. This countries success and justice was not a product of liberal activism.

King's greatest triumph was that he changed hearts and attitudes, not that he changed social welfare and made blacks government wards.

My confidence isn't in individual good will so much as the God who convicts us to have individual good will and whose plan it is that this should be the way that Christians approach the poor.

Have you asked them to help personally? Why, instead of assuming that people are callous and selfish, don't you approach people with money and educate them of the needs of others and see if they are willing to contribute? No bureaucrat needed. You can give the glory to God- to whom it belongs. And both you and the recipient can be grateful to the giver... quite probably motivating them to give more rather than attempting to resist and avoid paying more through taxes.

It isn't your God given responsibility to a) dictate what someone else's social responsibility is and b) decide whether they are meeting it or not.

How many people do you employee? What if they think that it is one's social responsibility to operate a successful business that employs people? What if they think that you should continually grow your business so you can employ more people? Why isn't their test as just as yours? Fact is, it is more just than yours.

The private sphere in America has done EVERYTHING to remedy these conditions. It produces the wealth that makes our little debate even possible.

Churches and families once ensured that the poor, disabled, and elderly were compassionately cared for. The best the "nanny state" can offer is impersonal funding of sustainance.

Liberal thought has distorted Christ's message to all.

That's not the debate. The question is how should Christians biblically approach those in need. The Bible does not prescribe nor support your ideal.

By the Word of Christ, those are moral responsibilities of individuals. Any and every attempt to turn them on to someone else is disobedience to His command and example.

 

Just to throw this out there, would black people be better off had they never been brought here as slaves?

Are real Africans making money, living long lives, living in free, Democratic societies?

Black Americans, even the poorest, are richer than most Africans.

What about the indentured WHITE servants who were the first slaves brought to America? Should their descendants be compensated as well?

Slaves were those captured by their own countrymen and sold to the slave traders. If they want reparations, they ought to be going after the Africans who captured and sold them into slavery in the first place.

No person stole anything from a slave. Under the law, slaves were the property, so you can not say we illegally took anything from them. You can not take something that was legal, make it illegal, and then punish those who did it when it was legal.

EX. Before prohibition it was legal to drink. Then the law was changed and made it illegal. Would it have been right for the government to imprison us for drinking when it was legal because now it is illegal?

It does not follow and the argument for 're-payment' for stolen goods is flawed.

I can promise you, even though some of my ancestors did own slaves, I in no way profited from it. My dad was raised in the streets with the Blacks and Mexicans in east Dallas. Just as poor as them. His dad was a gas station attendant. My mother's family were all sharecropping cotton farmers. They owned no land or money. My grandmother used to tell how they depended on the church a number of times for food. The farmhouse they lived in was 2 bedroom for 10 kids. They had newspaper covering their walls. Their nearest neighbor was a black family. My dad worked his way up from a helping position and worked 60 or more hour weeks for many a year before he finally was able to buy his A/C company, and worked even longer hours after that to keep it running.

I get so sick and tired of people claiming they are owed money for something that no one in the world living today was even around to experience. It's called 'lack of work ethic'. These people want a handout, they couldn't care less about what their ancestors went through.

Get a job and make your own way. Stop the thinking that everybody owes you something.

 

Bro. Reed makes a good point. If you want to break it all down to material possessions, and start a racial bettle over it, perhaps blacks should be paying out to whites for the next generation or two.

But like Bro. Reed, I don't advocate that. I value people of all races as individuals, and have no desire to continue to divide people along lines defined by skin color.

Too bad some want to reverse all the progress made in the past 50 years, and return to racism.

 

Without racism, at least 50% of the liberal agenda is smoke & mirrors; er--maybe 90%!(?)

 

Scott J

Excellent post!

 

Sigh... repeating myself is tiring; I've stated my reasons here and elsewhere, and scriptural support in my article. Again, it seems as though there are serious conventional disconnects and miunderstandings of what programs such as AA do and do not do (for instance, quotas have not been a part of the system for over 30 years, and the assumption that blacks hired in this proces are unqualified is profoundly racist).

I find it puzzling though that someone would lambast government assistance and denigrate those who take advantage of its saving graces is also someone (and someone's father) who made use of government benefits through the GI bill. I also find it puzzling that I am being criticized for being rightous by someone who acts and says the same. The comments about 'immoral ghetto blacks' is also disheartening...

I find it paticularly distressing apparent ignorance of the laws and progrmas that have been put into place over the years to remidy free market abuses and shortfalls, without which we would be much the worse for wear (labor law, anti-trust law, the New Deal, Great Society, etc), as these critical services and protections were NOT being fullfilled by the private sector or churches unfortunately . If they had been, these programs would not have been implemented in the first place; they were enacted in spite of private aims to the contrary.

I find the lack of broad-mindedness in regards to the interconnections of socio-economic forces troubling; socially hurtful and/or helpful choice do not end with the person's life... they echo on in the accomplishments, good or ill, for centuries to come. A person who's grandfather profitted off of slave labor, and inherits the property of said grandfather is in possession of stolen goods (and yes, I believe enslaving someone and extracting labor from them is theivery, regardless of the leagality of it at the time.) Systematic discrimination over many decades has a chilling effect on the culture being oppressed... trust and hope erode when thier accomplishments and opportunities evaporate even today, when a desperate people are easier to use for cheap labor, thus the lack of choices and the punitive costs of standing up against a system maintained for the good of those far above you (this is an obvious point which is lost on most of you, methinks).

And again... I am dissappoited that my experiences are being question, even though before I was a teacher, I lived and worked among the poor for over a decade, working a variety of jobs with various kinds of people... I have seen how hard they work, and how little those above them give for their labors, how much is taken from them by poor health, the authorities, regressive taxation, etc.

I feel for them... they are the 'least' I am called to succor as Christ commands (Matt 25:31-46) That you would prefer to twist the Word to starve them is sickening.

 

George, you are a racist.

 

Please point me to your article. I have not read all your posts but in all my interactions with you I don't recall a single scripture citation.

I am not assuming that blacks are not qualified... nor am I assuming that it is my place to tell a business which candidate is most qualified or that they must not hire the most qualified candidate if they aren't a certain skin color... that would be racist.

[/qb] I didn't. By the way, the GI bill was earned... a country has a profound responsibility to care for those who fight to defend it.

Again, "one of these things is not like the others... one of these things just isn't the same..."

Anti-trust laws protected the legitimate rights of people to enter the market. Some labor laws were also necessary but most were taken too far.

I find it your lack of broad-mindedness equally distressing in that I thoroughly answered these objections and included moral principles and real world proof for my contentions.

Since you seem to think this experience makes you a universal expert on these issues, please tell us what these jobs were.

When these folks stand before God, who will He judge for what they have done?

Your false accusation and apparent willingness to falsely demonize someone for not agreeing with your narrow worldview is what is sickening.

It is likewise you that has twisted scripture and I specifically pointed out how. I challenged you to prove your point. You were shown that Christ never commanded what you have assumed but rather commanded individual charity from His followers. Nowhere in Matthew 25:31-46 do we find the command that the followers of Christ were to force the unwilling to give to the poor. We find that He praised and rewarded them individually for giving as individuals to those who they helped during their walk on earth.

They are being judged for what they did with what they possessed themselves... not for what they forced another to do... and certainly not for developing gov't programs that glorify men rather than God.

 

When the topic of discrimination is raised it always ends up referring exclusively to people who call themselves "African American," or some equivalent. Never Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Viet Namese, Italian, Rusian, Polish,Swedish, Thai, Jewish, Moslem, Arab, Irish . . . . There is only one group which has failed to assimilate into "real" Americans.

 

I missed this. Who said anything about "immoral ghetto blacks"?

If you are referring to me then it is obvious that you have very dishonestly mischaracterized my words- which would not be surprising for someone whose arguments fail on substance and experential proof.

 

J&G, why do you assume that your experiences are the only ones that matter?

Do you not think that the rest of us, as I laid out in my porevious post, have had experiences in this area as well.

I have never known one person who benefited from AA.

Do you not know that if you give a man a fish you feed him for a day, but if you teach him how to fish you feed him for a lifetime?

Giving these people unearned jobs, which is the case in many instances, is giving them something without teaching them the lessons that go into achieving something for themselves. It is the same as with an extremely rich and spoiled child who is given a job by his daddy and never grows up. Without the hard parts of life before finding a good job a person will learn nothing. That's part of life and that's what goes into making good people what they are.

You say there are no quotas, but what you fail to realize is that if a business owner is 'forced' by the government to hire even one person that they do not want to, then a quota of at least one is being enforced.

Also, regardless of what you might think, and as I was stated in my previous post, in many cases an underqualified person does end up with a job better suited for someone else. In the case of the fire department that I mentioned, this can lead to serious consequences. But of course, if you want to be fair, let that AA recipient at the fire department come put out the fire at your house when your family's lives are in danger.

The only way to have an equal society is to make EVERYONE equal. Equal means not elevating one person or group above another based solely on one criteria, whatever it may be.

 

Affirmative Action as originally intended was exactly like teaching a man how to fish. It's a shame what has become of it, but it's design was to equal the playing field and give minorities the chance to compete on a level footing.

For the record, we are only a generation removed from forced segregation, and I think that the African-American population has made some strides since that time. However, I echo the remarks of Dr. William Cosby (Bill Cosby) who said that the greatest enemy of African-Americans is the violence that is occuring between their own race. I hope that the NAACP considers placing Cosby as their leader now that Mfume has stepped down.

 

Before the Civil Rights Act of '64 the "Negro" communities had everything that the white communities had, but at a lower economic level. They had black doctors, lawyers, preachers, teachers, and businesses. The poor blac kid went to school and church with the rich black kid.

After '64, the professional black people - including the preachers - moved into white neighborhoods and the vacuum in the "negro" communities was replaced by hippies and white trash. Ergo, "Black culture" is now white trash culture.