The buzzword now is “equity.” The left now seeks equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity. All such initiatives are oppressive should be rejected outright.
Also, separating outcome and opportunity is tricky because it's a feedback loop.
I don't disagree with you, I just want more precision [edit]: and nuance.
Is it just me or has the quality of commentry on political topics gone substantially downhill on HN in the last five years?
To expound on my previous comment, those on the left calling for ‘equity’ should be viewed critically. The calls for ‘removing barriers’ should alarm everyone, because ultimately it only serves to control and dumb everyone down. The alternative is to encourage public policies that seek the empowerment of all individuals and groups. One concrete example is the debate in NYC schools that math and honors courses are ‘inequitable’ and racist. Voices on the left are calling for the abolishment of such classes, thereby denying students the opportunity to be challenged according to their ability. The other undiscussed side of this issue is that such calls for ‘equity’ result in basically giving up on poorer students who won’t be given the support they need to meet the higher standards. In short, anything involving ‘equity’ should be viewed as a race to the bottom for everyone.
But really, it does nothing to enforce your argument. You complain about 24 hour news and social media eroding Democracy (and presumably discussions about the politics of Democracy), yet you use these terms so loosely and end up reducing anyone Left of you to some or other policy you deem to be essential to that position.
This is kind of an outside perspective - America as seen through the news - but I would say that a lot of the stuff I see espoused by the Left and Right in the US is much more extreme than in Germany for example. Germany has laws that allow for positive discrimination, but I can't think of any such extreme measures as in the US here, where chances are diminished for one race by a factor of 10. Even having race on the application form would be unthinkable here.
On the other hand we have many more social programs that would be unthinkable in the US. We have 4+ (usually 5-6) weeks vacation per year, etc.
The American Right on the other hand is also in many ways more extreme than in Germany, nobody would consider Republicans as right-leaning centrists here, e.g. building a wall would be a bit taboo, although maybe more due to historical reasons. Denying people health-care, because they're poor would also probably not count as centrist here.
I don't think positive discrimination laws in the US has as much to do with an embrace of Leftist ideology as it does with an attempt at attracting previously disenfranchised voters. I realise this seems very cynical, but my argument is that having a few policies that seem Leftist doesn't mean that the underlying ideology behind those policies is; correlation does not imply causation etc. So I'd argue those laws are reactionary, much in the same way they are in Germany and also in places like South Africa, to varying degrees of course. They're exactly the kind of toe-dipping you'd expect of parties who are more driven by quests for power than ideology. That's why, even with several Democratic presidents, for instance, the US still doesn't have proper vacation and parental leave: it's bad for business.
If I had to plot it, I'd say Germany's political landscape is also quite huddled up around the Center, but slightly Left (with more outliers than the US), where the US is huddled around the Center and slightly Right. This would explain why the Right in the US feels further Right than in Germany. These configurations are probably not even that strange for developed and developing Western nations, though most have more outlier parties than the US even if they're not generally in contention during elections.
I just feel that the binary-narrative - even though the spectrum is quite large and nuanced - is something that has spread from US political commentators to other nations and is watering down the discourse.
- the New Deal excluded black people
- The GI Bill excluded black people
etc...
Slaves built a huge part of the economy for free and americans benefit from that work for which they were not compensated, so yes there absolutely should be reparations. I think this should be done in several ways:
- monetarily: by funding scholarships and other projects to remedy the injustices perpetrated and help black americans accumulate some of the generational wealth they have been denied. Although at the end of the day, no amount of money will ever compensate for the hurt, death and atrocities, its a start.
- education: teaching kids at school what slavery was really like, instead of what some of the schoolbooks teach (that slavery wasn't that bad for example). Teaching kids about systemic racism that persists to this day.
- policing, housing, prisons: watch 13th documentary (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krfcq5pF8u8) its free on netflix
(edit: spelling and formatting)
Reparations within a country between different ethnicities a good way to increase animosity. Because people would complain rightfully, that the wealth transfer is unjust.
I doubt you find any book in education that says that slavery wasn't bad. Every ethnicity on the planet has suffered from it and < 1% were slave owners. Yes, I know the argument that people profited passively... it isn't too convincing given the huge wealth distribution discrepancies western nation exhibit.
I don't think you are advocating for justice or equality here.
That’s almost certainly not the case.
Any economic gains from slavery were more than wiped out by the civil war.
Does that mean white Americans and Black Americans were on economically equal after the civil war?
Where are you going with this line of questioning?
They aren’t economically equal now in 2020.
https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/8/16/20806069/slavery-ec...
Even if it was the case that the civil war wiped out the gains from slavery, it doesn't change the case for reparations as well as the other injustices that were being committed are are still being committed to this day
I wasn't talking about wealth transfer. I was mainly talking about stopping discrimination and providing loans and scholarships to a section of the population that has been discriminated against to redress centuries of oppression.
"Reparations" is basically code for wealth transfer. If you mean crafting a more just, fair society, you probably want a different word.
If you agree that the New Deal and GI bill helped spur economic development (though they were not perfect) and lifted poor white people out of poverty, why not do that today for black people? Black people were systematically left out of that help, so time to give them the help they are owed.
I have listened to people explain how Fox News is “liberal” and “true conservatives” must watch OANN.
The only ppl I see aim for that are republicans that don’t know the difference.