That idea is right there with eliminating the estate tax to save family farms and ending frivolous lawsuits to cut the cost of health care. Gosh.
Yeah, because health care costs have started falling ever since Texas passed tort reform. Congrats on falling for the health care lobby spin and ignoring the reality!
The idea he was quoting is actually a relative popular and moderate idea. The ideas he linked them to are both misguided and based on misinformation.
I used to work part time at an urban school here in Austin. Kids here don't have a choice as to where they can go. You can't just pick up and move to another neighborhood. People have jobs and livelihoods invested in the area in which they live in. They have little choice but to stick with their location, even if it isn't optimal. But that leads us to schooling, so you agree that the system blows and is entirely unequal, that suburban schools are privileged with every possible educational opportunity, but that urban schools have jack ****. Students have no chance at competing with suburban schools in a world where they don't even have the opportunity to take AP Classes, have access to extra-curricular activites, hell just having teachers that give a **** and not having corrupt administrations routinely place their own interests before their students. This sounds like some classic Ayn Rand response, just work harder doesn't always work. A friend of mine graduated from an urban school in Kansas City. 70% of kids drop out, his best friend's brother was shot and killed in school in broad daylight. The administration has a 1 to 1 ratio between students and administrators. His mom passed away and his dad is a flake. (He lives with his grandparents) What in the world does that kid do and how the hell does he overcome that? Just graduating from high school is incredible and going to college is unheard of. He has two choices. In your world, he's NOT getting into college. (community college at best), despite the fact that I promise you he worked harder than I did in high school. He knows he got into (ironically) the University of Michigan on affirmative action because no way in hell he gets in normally. If your kids have every opportunity out there, then they should maximize it as well. I can apply the same pseudo-self reliance logic on suburban kids and say that since they had every educational resource available to them, they should have gotten straight As and just flat out done better than urban kids, so there would be no doubt that they deserved to get in. Like I said, affirmative action should be done across economic lines instead of a purely racial lens. But it has merit. Discrimination still exists, barriers to equal opportunity still prevail and change is a must. Our country has done NOTHING to fix our school system so unfortunately, programs like affirmative action become a reality. It's not fair, but then again what is fair? Just go work and visit in an urban school for a little while and then come back to me with an answer. I'm going to start working at a school in Austin where two kids were stabbed and killed in the hallway last year. I couldn't imagine going to a school like that and we should all be thankful we don't have to.
So people should be condemned to a lower tier of schools because society and our schools treated them like garbage? Our best schools are only available to those who have the most resources?
But it also works the other way too. Just because someone has resources they shouldnt be turned down. Many people grow up with great oppourtunities but dont make good use of them. If they worked hard just like the people with less resources, they shouldnt be rejected or condemned because of their opportunities either.
Fair enough and I even made this point. If two kids apply to some state school, and the poor minority gets in, you can blame the privileged child for not working harder because state schools aren't the ceiling. I understand that this argument is more applicable to Ivy League schools were wealthy kids do all they can and still get rejected and that is an issue but my criticism was directed at schools a notch or two below the top where there is room for improvement.
They're not condemned to a lower tier of schools; they just have to earn some core curriculum credits in CC, then they can transfer to a regular state school. There might be a case, however, for increased state and federal funding of community colleges and/or trade schools.
I'm not sure if it's sarcasm or not, but I'm in favor of the estate tax since it forces or encourages people to spend money that they would otherwise hoard. frivolous lawsuits are a big problem, but i don't think healthcare costs would go down if you eliminate frivolous lawsuits. the healthcare industry will just likely come up with another excuse to keep raising premiums.
basically Like insurance Texas put in Tort Reform with the premise that insurance rates would drop that sh*t ain't happen . . they just started making Record Profits Rocket RIver
i dont have the numbers to back me up. but i believe only about 1-2% of the cost of healthcare is due to lawsuits.
Sorry if my sarcasm wasn't clear. While I feel there are many good arguments for and against AA, the rich black kid on AA is just a red herring in my opinion much like the family farm/estate tax issue and frivolous lawsuits impacting health care. Someone earlier talked about the idea of inherent advantages or fairness and how white males don't have that but the reality is just different. What we really have are white students in general receiving a higher quality education in a better environment with more family support than black students at every level of public schooling. In the end, is it realistic to expect them to compete for acceptance to the same schools? The detractors of AA never get into this issue. Some of you talk about using socio-economic factors over race when giving preference to students. I find that illogical for one big reason. Race is the prominent reason why this educational imbalance exists. White kids don't have parents who were denied the right to vote, they don't have grandparents who suffered through segregation, and they don't have great grandparents who were slaves. How can any solution to this problem ignore that? The element of social justice is always missing in these debates which is a shame because it is part of what MLK was all about.
Sorry about missing the sarcasm earlier. In regards to this, the problem is that "being black" is just a proxy for the people that we are trying to assist. There are many black kids who immigrated here 20 years ago. They weren't denied any of those rights, yet they benefit from AA. Same with hispanics, who benefit but many weren't denied those rights since they immigrated later. If you look at the secondary rationale of AA, it is to help those who haven't had a fair shot have extra opportunities to succeed - that's why people talk about the fact that the inner city has worse schools, etc. But in that scenario, why not also help the white kids who had those crappy schools as well? Using socio-economic status instead of race is simply another proxy for determining those who need help - one that is much less divisive, and also truly focuses on people that need the most help.
Ultimately, if you were to try to come up with a measure to determine which kids have had the fewest opportunities, I think you'd find that socio-economic status is a much better measure than race. Plus, it automatically updates itself - you don't have to update or correct it as things change. 20 years from now, the poor will still be the ones with the fewest opportunities. Blacks may not be, if they make the progress people hope.
Before blaming that chick, I would hope that your friend knew FOR SURE that there were no other students admitted with worse credentials than him. He better be damn sure that she was the only one....
I'm sorry you missed the memo As of 1964 - the slate became clean and 100% even History didn't matter anymore and the problems created by that history just *poof* disappeared and Every person was Equal and treated equally and Put on even standing. . . Dude you should have seen it. . it was so . . so . . .instantaneous no one had to work or sacrifice for it to happen 400 Years of degregation and subjegation just disappearing with the stroke of the pen Rocket River . . . my sarcasm make just broke. . .
