why america is screwed up...
 

Don't ask for cliff notes...
This something that is 100% true...
I wrote this up... and even cited sources...

Topic... affirmative action...
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The United States is known as the land of opportunity. Up until a short time ago, every U.S. citizen was given equal opportunity in education and employment regardless of race, sex, religion, or disability. This enabled everyone to be the best that they could be. However, during the mid 60’s, this began to change. Bob Dylan warned that “The times, they are a changin’.” He sang, “The line, it is drawn, the curse, it is cast” then he prophesized that, “the first one now will later be the last” Now, the white male majority is discriminated against.

The better Jobs and Education opportunities are awarded to individuals who are a minority. Now, scholarships are no longer given the most successful students, but to students who are minorities. Someone may be awarded with a job, not because they were the most qualified, but because they are classified as a minority. How can this be allowed? Didn’t Thomas Jefferson say that, “…all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness…?” It seems to me, that in employment and education, all men are not treated equal, and that their rights are being violated by affirmative action.

Employment and Education opportunities that are reserved for someone of a particular race is discrimination. In 1990, a Hispanic student filed suit against the University of Maryland. The student’s mother was born in Costa Rica. He had a 4.0 grade point average and scored 1340 on his SAT’s. His school performances had exceeded that of every other applicant except two. However, he was disqualified for the Banneker Scholarship, which only required a 3.0 average and a 900 SAT, for failing to meet the criteria of “being black.” The Judge ruled in favor of the school who awarded the scholarship to someone less qualified merely because they were “black”

Not only has the U.S. government failed to protect the rights of all citizens in employment and education, but White Male discrimination is encouraged. The government encourages its contractors to practice white male subcontractor discrimination, by ways of providing compensation for doing business with minorities. This was proven true when a Colorado prime contractor, after rejecting a white male’s low subcontracting bid on a highway guardrail job, gave the contract to a Hispanic owned firm and received a ten thousand dollar bonus from the federal road program. For some reason, minorities are considered disadvantaged under federal law. The federal road program, if a subcontractor subs out ten percent of its jobs to “disadvantaged” business enterprise, a 1.5 percent affirmative action bonus is awarded to them. How are these types of discrimination allowed? Doesn’t our constitution prohibit this type of discrimination?

Our constitution clearly does illegalize all types of discrimination. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin. Section 703 clearly states that,
“It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer -
(1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin…”
In fact, the Civil Rights Act of 1991, this, among other things, provides monetary damages in cases of intentional employment discrimination. How can employers and the government manage to get away with these acts of discrimination?

The Pendleton Act of 1883 presented competitive entrance examinations for public employment seekers. The Act gave birth to the merit selection principal. A concept by which members of an organization are selected based on his or her personal achievements. These achievements are measured openly through fair and competitive competition. The white male majority, who founded this nation, prospered and left others behind.
The prospering white male majority and the merit system were then accused of writing “white man’s” laws. It was alleged that employment had been structured with “artificial barriers” in place to impede the advancement of minorities. So, the government decided to lower the standards for individuals who were classified as a minority. Now the best were no longer the best due to their accomplishments, but merely because they were a minority figure.

In March of 1961, John F. Kennedy signed Executive order 10925 which created the President’s Committee on Equal Opportunity. President Lyndon Johnson went on to publicly introduce affirmative action in 1965 as a discrimination neutralizing endeavor for “disadvantaged” groups. Preferential programs were introduced to override the merit system.
These preferential programs were made to ensure success to minority groups. Now a person no longer had to work to become successful, they only had to be black, female or some other type of minority.

This new type of Affirmative Action had diversity power. Recruiting, scholarships, and retention programs began to favor minorities. To help diversify work forces, Test preparation courses, test modification, and test elimination strategies emerged. Affirmative Action quotas resulted in race base selections. In the 1980’s, aptitude tests were introduced with ethnic point spreads.
These programs were discriminatory and very expensive. Not only did they limit what the white male majority could achieve, but they were paid for by the U.S. taxpayers. The Wall street journal released an article that stated, “Estimates have put the annual cost of affirmative action in excess of $100 billion.” Affirmative action is very discriminative and costly to the citizens of the USA.
In June of 1997, the Christian Science monitor reported a case of affirmative action in higher education. Cheryl Hopwood, a very successful student with high grades and test scores applied to the University of Texas law school. However, her application was denied while others with lower grades and test scores were accepted because they were minorities. Cheryl went on to file suit. After years of fighting the school’s decision in court, she won the case and Texas went on to prohibit considering race as a factor for admission and/or aid. Why was there ever a program ever introduced that allowed admission to a law school, not because of school performance, but because of race?
Affirmative action is discrimination and limits the ability of those who are not a minority. Affirmative action polices are used everywhere in employment. What will happen if affirmative action is used in the recruiting process of this country’s police officers, firefighters, and medical technicians? Those important people who are selected to protect the safety and well being of this county’s citizens may not be the best that they can be. Now, a police officer may not have received his or her job because they scored better then everyone else on their proficiency exams, or because they performed better then everyone else in the police academy. They may have been selected merely because they are a minority. While they are protecting us, someone more qualified may be on the unemployment line.

It seems that now, the United States of America is the land of Opportunity only if you are a minority. Presidential Candidate Alan Keyes said, ”We are supposed to be judged as individuals, based on what we are able to achieve.” However, with affirmative action, you do not have to do well or accomplish much, you only have to be a minority to accomplish anything.
“…our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal…,” Abraham Lincoln stated in his famous Gettysburg Address. America was founded as a place where everyone is treated equal, however, Affirmative action promotes unequal treatment. America is no longer a place where, if you work hard, you can achieve anything. As an attempt to diversify working America, affirmative action has succeeded. But, its overall effect is much worse. The cost of affirmative action alone has been a burden to the country. However, when someone fails to receive a chance in education or employment that they worked for and may rightfully deserve, then affirmative action is appalling. And when affirmative action pokes it’s head into employment fields such as law enforcement, fire fighting, and medical practice, then it claims more victims outside of employment. Affirmative action is a violation of our Constitutional Rights and it is discrimination.

“Equality consists in the same treatment of similar persons.”
(Aristotle)

sources

BOOKS

• Whitaker, William A. WHITE MALE APPLICANT : An Affirmative Action Expose’ Smyrna DE: APROPOS PRESS, 1996.
• Multiple Authors. DISRIMINATION : OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS. California: Greenhaven Press, 1997



GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS

• Thomas Jefferson. The Declaration of Independence
• Multiple Authors. The US Constitution : The Bill of Rights


HISTORICAL SPEECHES

• Abraham Lincoln. The Gettysburg Address


Internet Recources

• Alan Keyes. www.fightthisbias.com/Quotes/alan_Keyes.htm
• Aristotle. www.giga-usa.com/quotes/topics/equality_t001.htm

:stupid: WOW, thats a lot of writing, Very good Greg, I havent read it all but i will make sure that I do after work

Coming from the guy with a rebel flag in his signature...

And?

Great writing Greg. I agree 100 percent. I was in a class last semester and the arguement of AA came up. One student tried to explain that AA was designed to "somewhat make restitution" for the hardships and disadvantages that colored people had in the past. Crap like that infuriates me. I had to work just as hard, and to me, a program like AA does NOTHING but promote laziness and basically says, dont worry, you dont have to work as hard because you are a minority. Slack off, dont work as hard, because 50 years ago, minorities werent given the same opportunity. Im sorry, but I dont live in the past, now is now, and you bet your ass you better be working just as hard as I am to get into schools and get scholarships. Another thing that pisses me off is that, if I tried to start a scholarship fund called, "The United Caucasian College Fund," you bet your ASS I would have Jesse Jackson on my doorstep yelling discrimination. Hope I havent offended anyone, but the way our world is today, I just dont care

/rant

Have a nice day everyone :D

;) :D Kinda funny huh

While I agree with your post greg, I don't see it as nearly as big of a problem as you are making it out to be. The MAJOR majority of managers, CEOs, bosses, owners, etc are white males. Of course there are minorities and females but not nearly the number.

So you're saying all minorities are lazy?

Affirmative action is needed to some extent, it's not a minorities fault we have so many racist ****s around here today that won't hire them.

All in all, the most qualified person should get the job, but whatever. I'm not worried about it.

I'll do what I gotta do and I WON'T bitch about it.

Like 04Dark said, It's not a huge problem (it's not really a problem at all). You are making it bigger then it is. *rebel yell* :rolleyes:

i completely agree with everything said.

Where did I say ANYTHING about ALL MINORITIES BEING LAZY. Give me a break. I said, and I quote,

"a program like AA does NOTHING but promote laziness and basically says, dont worry, you dont have to work as hard because you are a minority."

I know for a fact, there are just as many white people that are lazy as there are minorities, but WHY DO THEY NEED A PROGRAM FOR IT. You say one thing, but the program you are defending does the complete opposite. You said it yourself, the more qualified person SHOULD get the job, but thats not how it works, and a program like AA does nothing but make that worse.

And another thing, you mean to tell me there arent racist MINORITIES!?!?! Why is it that because Im white, some people assume Im rich and smart, cause I know its been said to me before. Racism isnt just a white thing you know...

Of course racism isn't just a white thing, I went to a racist school where I was the minority, and Im white. I know how it is, I have seen it from both sides.

AA would never be needed if we didn't have racism and we know that will never happen.

My initial thought was "Wow, a dude with a rebel flag in his signature and a lynyrd skynyrd avatar just posted this crap, just wow"

AND he says "This is something that is 100% true" That's incorrect, It's 100% true in his own little world. Don't expect to post something like that on a public forum and not have a debate on it.

Don't get me wrong though, Skynyrd has some great music :)

So he has an opinion, uses a Confederate flag and like Skynyrd? Next thing I know someone's going to be posting pictures of his head on Hitlers body. That's a huge leap to go from a well thought out and written statement. 80% of the people that find the Confederate flag offensive only find it offensive because someone told them they should be offended by it. I was born and raised in a tobacco farming town where my family settled long before the Civil War. Does that immediately mean my family owned slaves? Most would think so but nothing could be farther from the truth. Stereotypes and things of that nature are the exact same thing as racism and anyone who practices these is in the wrong. There's no place for the practice of stereotyping and racism, there really never was room for it in society but now we've been actively fighting it for over 100 years. Am I saying that it's wrong to have stereotypes in your own mind? No, everyone has their own set of stereotypes. It's when you act upon these stereotypes that it becomes inappropriate.

Off topic completely, but a funny thing about SC's confederate flag. Im sure you all remember us, we used to fly it on top of our State house until about 7 years ago when the NAACP started bitching about it. So, we took it down and moved it right out front of our state house, in PLAIN view of everyone that drives down one of the busiest streets in Cola. SC. Funny thing is, until they moved it, you never really noticed it was there, cause you had to look up as you drove by, but now...you guessed it...eye level baby. LOL Congrats NAACP...you win another one...

I grew up with that flag being associated with racism, and where I live now all the hicks put it on their trucks and a lot of them are racists as well.

Opinions are like assholes, Everybody has them ;)

Part of my heritage, not a racist, just think its stupid that we had to have a flag taken down because they say its racist.

Do you have a job?

I do believe that in Greg's writing he said that a company was given a $10,000 for working with a Hispanically owned company just because he chose the minority group. Those are our tax dollars...

Do you really think that is right, taking money from hard working citizen and giving it to contractors just because they chose a minority company to work with?

Somehwat off topic...

I used to work at a farm market which will remain unnamed and we hired mexicans for 3.xx an hour, and the vietnamese that picked our blackberries got paid .25 to .75 cents per quart. We sold the quarts for 3.75 and up.

They worked harder for $3 an hour than all the people on salary combined lol

Oh yea, I meant to comment on that. That is some crap. Here at work, we would NEVER drop a low bid just to hire a minority group to do the work. Thats ridiculous. Low bid is low bid.

Ok, so if someone posted this with the following how would you have taken it:

American Flag Sig and an Militray Avatar?

What about if they had a picture of africa in their sig?

What if they had a Mexican Flag?

What if they had a GLADD avatar and Gay rights sig?


Being serious here, seems just because he has the rebel flag that you took it to being a racist report?

I know a lot of white and BLACK people that would completly agree with what all greg is saying.

In all honesty what do you think would happen if there were an NWACP, Miss. White America? White Entertainment TV? White Scholarship Fund? seriously, it would cause probably a race war if some of this stuff happened.

I personally can't do anything about anything, I have no ounce of racism in me, but when black people bring up the whole "ancestors did this" that does get me going, I didn't have a damn thing to do with that, hell my Grandfather didn't have a damn thing to do with that? Or even things like today with the Mexicans protesting. If you want to be in this country do it the right way, not come over illegally and bitch because we want you to pay taxes.

just my $.02

Political threads always bring about tons of debate and controversy. I usually stay out, I don't know why I posted what I did, Im going through a dick head phase.


:) :) :)

BUT
I see both sides of the argument (not saying it's all right), I just like to debate sometimes. It's fun.

I'd like to post something worthwhile and hopefully be a viable and useful part of this conversation, but you know how lazy us minorities are.

Yes I have a job, I own my own company. I do believe what Greg wrote as well, but I do not think that it happends as often as you think. I Know in all of my dealings with many different companies that I have never seen it before.

I would be upset if I lost a contract to a firm solely because the other guy was a minority. That being said nearly all of the companies I sell for are not the cheapest on the block, but I make a good living selling the more expensive product. I dont know all of the facts behind that example, other that what Greg said. There could very well have been another reason for them choosing the sub they did, I dont know.

We had that with the Ga flag as well. But I still ahve one hanging in my Garage. Is it because I am racist, no! Like you said it's heritage not hate. When people look at it and the first thing they think is racism, that's racist in itself because they are sterotyping. And when you boil racism down it pretty much is streeotyping. Racist look at it like this:

See a confederate flag, first thought KKK

See a black man in baggey clothes with big necklace. first thought gang member.

See a mexican first thought, Illegal.

See a chinese man, first thought damn good at math.

See a white man with long hair and old clothes, first thought trailer trash.


It's sad the way things work out. hell, it's like today I just have an old t-shirt and jeans on I went to the bank and people might think "oh, this kid don't have much money to put in here." noone says anything to me and i do what I got to do and leave, but when i wear a polo and khakis to work and go to the bank i'm a man who's got some money to put in and get asked by the greeter if there is anything they can do for me.

I hope you arent implying that I implied that. I didnt say that. Im sorry if I rubbed some of you the wrong way, but you took what I said the wrong way, actually, I said nothing of that sort.

You should post up man

I'll admit I'm lazy, my fiance is biracial and she works hard enough for 4 people as an RN

I do not think that Greg is a racist or anyone else that has a confederate flag waving, I just thought it was funny or ironic. I have nothing against him or anyone else.

As for your example, why would anyone take offense to the american flag, milirary avitar, mexican flag, or a gay rights flag. None of those are seen as the symbol for racism and slavery. Now I know that the confederate flag was not meant to be that, and I personally am not offended at all. But like it or not some people are, and do see it as representing racism.

In today's world nothing is right and nothing is equal...Its all run like a HUGE corporation! We are just little ants in an enormous mound.

Would any of you be offended if I flew my italian flag every I went? lol

It wouldn't make a whole lot of sense for me to sit here and argue this. As a PROUD member of the United States Air Force, I do my little part each day to help ensure that every American citizen has the right to voice his or her opinions whethre or not I agree with them. However, as a PROUD black man, well, that's a whole different story...I DO have my own opinions on this subject, but my opinions are formed mainly because I EXPERIENCE racial behaviors every day instead of just READING about them.

PLEASE feel free to carry on this conversation without my input...I'm learning a lot about my fellow Mustang owners from this.

D, I know you work just as hard if not harder than any other person. All Im saying is, I did NOT imply that all minorities are lazy. I even went as far as to acknowlege that I know tons of WHITE people that are slack pieces of scum that havent worked a day in their lives. If you have a different opinion of the person I am because I have an opinion on a flawed (strictly MY opinion) system, Im sorry. And yes, I have experienced racial behaviors too my friend, like I said, racism isnt just a white thing.

Understood, I forgot to add that earlier:beerchug:

Like I said, I'm going to stay out of this one.