01/07/2020
See, earlier, by Joshua Foxworth: Make No Mistake: The GOP is Losing Texas, American Thinker, September 13, 2019
VDARE.com Editor Peter Brimelow writes: In the late 1970s, I believed that Affirmative Action a.k.a. quotas was the key emerging issue in American politics and that opposing it was a path to victory for the GOP/GAP. Indeed, with a fellow staffer, I succeeded in scuppering the Supreme Court ambitions of my employer, Senator Orrin Hatch, by persuading him to enter into the Congressional Record a definitive compendium of the arguments against Affirmative Action, which until then had been generally suppressed. (Hatch, needless to say, subsequently ran away.) Disquiet about Affirmative Action, although unreported, was so intense that the Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg believed it was key factor in Ronald Reagan’s 1984 re-election. But of course it was still ignored, and more recently I myself have been preoccupied by the even more threatening post-1965 immigration disaster. Now, suddenly, not just us journalistic scribblers but some Congressional candidates are explicitly raising the latter — and one, Joshua Foxworth, is raising both. Whaddya know?
“Affirmative Action” refers to the preferences in education, hiring, and promotions, as well as quotas and guarantees in government contracts, and exclusive legal protections which are currently implemented at both the state and federal level. These policies are both an economic drain on America, as well as fundamentally at odds with American legal and moral systems.
It is time to end these policies.
The economic cost of Affirmative Action
A country’s economy can only reach its full potential when it allows its best and brightest to achieve their full potential. The Affirmative Action system ensures that men and women who would otherwise attend college, run a business, or climb the corporate ladder are prevented from doing these things based on a standard other than worthiness. As a result, America’s government and its economy are led by those who are selected by policy instead of merit. This system will inevitably fail to produce as effectively as one designed around competence.
In addition to these costs, there are numerous direct drains. A 2011 study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that the cost of diversity and Affirmative Action policies at that university were $40 million a year — a sum that comes to almost $2,000 per year per student. [In search of the real cost for UW diversity programs, by W. Lee Hansen, Madison.com, November 5, 2011]
The implementation of these policies at NASA has resulted in engineers with advanced degrees being relegated to little more than temp workers who have to pay subcontracting companies for the privilege of working. See my Affirmative Action and NASA, American Thinker, September 20, 2019.
25 years ago, VDARE.com Editor Peter Brimelow calculated the cost of these programs to be 4% of GDP. [When Quotas Replace Merit, Everybody Suffers, Forbes Magazine, May 5, 1993 However, it is not possible to truly calculate the opportunity cost when capable young people are passed over for opportunities in favor of those who are less qualified, but more desirable to the government. One reason for this: These effects span generations as the affected men and women are less capable of starting a family and creating opportunities for their own children. Intergenerational privilege then requires the cancelling of any metric that countersignals the existence of this privilege. [A record number of colleges drop SAT/ACT admissions requirement amid growing disenchantment with standardized tests, by Valerie Strauss, Washington Post, October 18, 2019]
Some examples of these opportunity costs: a 2015 study which found that these policies were equal to a 230 SAT point bonus for African Americans and a 185 point bonus for Latino applicants to universities. [For Asian Americans, a changing landscape on college admissions, by Frank Shyong, LA Times, February 21, 2015]Recently, it was found that Harvard sent out recruitment letters to African Americans and Latinos that scored hundreds of points lower than whites and Asians. In 2011, it was found that at UW-Madison, African American and Latino students were 500 times more likely to be admitted than similarly qualified whites.
The societal cost of Affirmative Action
The societal effects of these policies are far greater than the economic ones. The laws act as government proclamations that one population is irredeemable on its own and government intervention is required to offset this group’s aggression towards the protected groups. These policies therefore codify into law the belief that one people group is inherently unjust.
This mindset has far reaching consequences on the society. These consequences can range from people attempting to mask their identity in an effort to assuage animus and/or to take advantage of some of the preferences and protections, all the way to a general acceptance of economic and physical violence against the group as well as a refusal to report on and the general dismissal of violence committed by the protected groups. [Dallas DA reveals plan for 'ending mass incarceration' for petty crimes, slashing probation and bail, by Sarah Sarder and Cary Aspinwall, Dallas News, April 11, 2019, ,]The assertion by the government that all other groups require protection from one specific group will always lead to the general acceptance of punishment for that group.
Indeed, looking at how Affirmative Action policies are implemented and discussed shows that punishment — not equality — is the primary objective. There are numerous groups that economically outperform whites in America. [Asian women and men earned more than their White, Black, and Hispanic counterparts in 2017, BLS.gov, August 29, 2018] However, equalizing this difference or the difference between these groups and lower performing groups is never discussed. The only inequality addressed is that between whites and lower performing groups and the only cause entertained is malfeasance.
The inevitable conclusion of this is that the only acceptable outcome in America is one where all other groups economically outperform whites and any deviation from this is the result of ill intent. Such a society is neither equitable nor just.
This is not equality and it is not legitimate. It is time to end these programs.
Joshua Foxworth [Email him — tweet him] is a Marine, an aerospace engineer, a tech entrepreneur, and a candidate for US Congress in Texas District 14. His American Thinker archive can be found here.
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