Affirmative Action

“The ratio of the average black workers' earnings to the average white workers' earnings increased significantly in the 1940s, increased slightly if at all in the 1950s, increased significantly between 1960 and the mid 1970s, and declined somewhat since the late 1970s.”

“There has not been an improvement in the employment-population rate of black workers relative to whites since the 1960s. If anything, there has been a deterioration in the relative employment-population rate.”

“There is near-unanimous consensus among economists that the government anti-discrimination programs beginning in 1964 contributed to the improved income of African Americans. Nevertheless, it is difficult to draw conclusions about which specific anti-discrimination programs were most effective. And it may well be that the programs collectively helped even though no single program was overwhelmingly effective.”

The Affirmative Action Review prepared for the Clinton White House

http://clinton2.nara.gov/WH/EOP/OP/html/aa/aa-index.html

Obviously, Affirmative Action stopped helping Blacks improve their status by the end of the 70s. There is no conclusive evidence that Affirmative Action ever helped Blacks at all. While the entire body of anti-discrimination actions of the government did help Blacks beginning in the 60s and continuing through the 70s, that gain has stopped.

In this survey over 30 years or so you have two different population groups. Discussion of the Flynn effect demonstrated how much one population group can differ from another in IQ. Other changes in environment effect culture and also produce changes. Prior to the anti-discrimination acts of the 60s, Blacks expected anything but a free ride. When offered an opportunity they were prepared to fight for it. When this cohort was given the opportunity provided by the elimination of discrimination, they took advantage of it. This period produced improvement in the economic status of Blacks.

Affirmative Action appears to have changed that. Instead of fighting for a fair chance, the younger generation grew up expecting a guaranteed result. This change in Black Culture has actually produced a reduction in the advancement of Blacks in society. Blacks are suffering, not profiting from Affirmative Action. Or so President Clinton’s report on Affirmative Action suggests. This Cohort has seen a loss in progress, despite programs like Affirmative Action.

The fundamental principle of Natural Law which underlies the right to property, the right to liberty, the rights to Free Speech and Assembly, and Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand” is that there must be a strong relationship between action and result, between merit and reward. Affirmative Action clearly violates this fundamental Natural Law.

Affirmative Action can be compared to Slavery in a number of ways. It subjects Blacks to an environment where what they get is not related to what they do, just as Slavery did. This is culturally destructive and leads to a general degradation of Black Culture, making them into a Pauper Class. Slavery provided the illusion of cheap labor, but in truth the labor was tremendously expensive because it was inefficient and associated costs in policing and holding a people subject raised social costs to extremes. Affirmative Action provides the illusion of opportunity, but because of the perception that all Blacks who graduate as Doctors, etc. are Affirmative Action babies, it denies those Blacks who truly merit their degrees the respect and opportunity which their degrees should give them and it offers other Blacks lacking the merit or ability needed only a guaranteed failure at a later point.

By giving Blacks the illusion of a guaranteed place, it discourages Blacks from putting the effort into study and personal development which would make them actually earn their way. This lowers the number of Blacks actually qualified for advanced positions and lowers the Black Community as a whole.

Probably no two Government programs have done the Black people more harm than Welfare and Affirmative Action, because they both violate the most fundamental of Natural Laws, that of the need for valid feedback in the same way. They reinforce the worst elements of Slave Culture surviving in the Black Community.

Racial Quotas create racial tension and prepare a rebirth of racism. Hobbes in Leviathan said,

Hobbes is deriving his Natural Laws by describing those actions of men which cause other men to revolt and destroy the Social Contract. His Natural Laws forbid those actions which will destroy the Natural Contract. Affirmative Action is a form of Pleonexia. A desire for that which has not been earned. A right for Blacks which Whites do not have. It violates Hobbes Ninth Natural Law which was quoted at the end of the section on Race and IQ. By violating that law it creates dissension and strife and leads to the dissolution of the Social Contract into a state of War between the Races. Two wrongs do not make a right.

In the section on the 3^rd Amendment it was noted that the Framers of the Bill of Rights were concerned with laws and the customs which they create. People accept as customary and right what they have grown up with. A generation of Blacks which has grown up with Affirmative Action do not see it as a program designed to be temporary to help them overcome the disadvantages of segregation, but as a Right. It is not and cannot be a Right because it is a violation of the natural law of feedback and of Hobbes ninth Natural law of equality. The longer it continues in place, the greater the power of custom will make it seem a right. This violates the intent of the Bill of Rights because it conditions the Citizens to accept legalized inequality as legitimate. This in fact is a violation of the clause in the Constitution forbidding grants of Nobility.

Titles of Nobility varied tremendously, along with the privileges that they conferred on the holder. Affirmative Action was essentially a title of Nobility granted to the entire Black Race allowing them preference on the basis of their blood and birth before members of other races.

As a temporary measure designed to help overcome problems which Blacks had suffered from a reverse situation in the past it is quite plausibly justified. As a permanent measure it is an abomination which corrupts society as a whole. It destroys the character and strength of Blacks and causes hatred between the races. If enforced by Law long enough, it would carry with it a sense that permanent Racial privileges by right of blood and birth are legitimate in a Democracy. If such enforcement should be attempted without sufficient force, it leads to bloody revolution. It is incompatible with any valid definition of Democracy. This is doubtless why it is a platform of the “Democratic” Party.

Any good that Affirmative Action may have accomplished was done by the end of the 70s. Keeping it in place institutionalizes values in society which are inimical to true Democracy and this violates the intent of the Bill of Rights that the Federal Government will not be allowed to pass laws that condition the population to behaviors inimical to Democracy as developed in the section on the 3^rd Amendment.

When treating AIDS, if one set of drugs stops being effective, Doctors stop using those drugs and switch to another kind of treatment. When treating the Social problems of Blacks, when one set of programs has ceased producing any kind of positive effect and started producing negative effects, it is past time to stop using them and look for other solutions. Affirmative Action should have been terminated at the end of the 70s or 80s.