Me no vote – Aug 26, 2008

0 Responses to Me no vote – Aug 26, 2008

1. Mike Honcho says:

   August 27, 2008 at 9:24 am

   I’ve never heard anyone make the claim that African-Americans (don’t want the PC police on my ass) are tyrants who are keeping the white man down. That doesn’t mean nobody has made the claim, but I sure as heck haven’t heard it. It may be hard for you to fathom, but many of the people supporting the NCRI just want to give government and businesses the ability to choose the most qualified candidate with no consideration given in either direction towards race or gender.

   Suppose a business owner has two equally, and I mean truly equally, qualified candidates for a job. One is African-American, the other is white (aka Caucasian-American). Is it racist if the white business owner chooses the white candidate? What if the consideration wasn’t made based on race, but because they attended the same alma-mater. Or maybe they both have the same interests and hobbies. That road runs both ways too…maybe the boss chooses the African-American for those same aforementioned reasons. Should the boss be obligated to choose someone with whom he shares no similarities, hobbies, or interests? You don’t have to like someone to work well with them, but I think it helps.

   As far as the state trooper goes…I don’t know what to make of that. Part of me says that, if there’s no evidence that his prejudice affected his work performance, then he shouldn’t have been fired. But on the other hand, as a law enforcement agent and a representative of the Nebraska State Patrol, any perception of racism or discrimination would open the state up to lawsuits…and these people should hold themselves to higher standards. There’s a police officer that lives in Hickman, and outside of his job, he’s a locally renowned waterfowler. I’ve never met him in person, but through various conversations we shared on a hunting forum, I formed a poor opinion of him. In Nebraska, it’s state law that you can’t sell a puppy younger than 8 weeks old, and when people would post puppies for sale in the buy/sell portion of the forum…I would usually make it a point to remind them of that fact. This officer, on the other hand, would often get defensive and accusatory, telling me it’s not my place to play armchair quarterback by trying to enforce the law. I would kindly respond that he’s right, it’s actually HIS job to do so…as an officer and as moderator of that part of the forum. Naturally, he didn’t take it well…having his professionalism called into question. I think the reason he avoided saying anything is because, as a dog breeder himself, he didn’t want to take care of the pups any longer than he had to, and his clients always wanted the pups ASAP. The reason I tell this story is that I see a similarity. Both stories beg the question…what are you? Are you an officer, or a dog breeder? Are you a patrolman, or a racist? I truly don’t see how anybody can separate what they do from who they are…and I would have a hard time believing that anyone associated with the KKK could provide even-handed justice to those who break the law.

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2. neal says:

   August 27, 2008 at 9:28 pm

   Let’s be honest about this, Mike — this ban doesn’t affect businesses. It only affects state institutions, many of which have voluntarily chosen to have these hiring practices put in place because they think they are best for the institution and the people they serve. Nobody is stopping businesspeople from hiring whomever they want. This ban stops institutions like the university from making hiring decisions they have chosen. So your hypothetical situation about the business owner, beyond being nothing more than anecdotal evidence at best, is simply irrelevant. If we want to talk about laws taking the choice out of the employer’s hands, banning affirmative action quite clearly does that.

   What this boils down to is that people think black people and other minorities are unfairly getting the jobs that white people should be getting. You know as well as I do that there are plenty of people who support this ban because they’re convinced that black people only get jobs that white people are screwed out of. If you spent more than 60 seconds around one of the petition gatherers, you surely know what I’m talking about. That obviously doesn’t include all supporters of the ban, but the KKK hasn’t supported similar bans elsewhere because they’ve suddenly become the anti-discrimination organization. This petition drive is helped greatly by resentment that somebody (black) is getting handed something that belongs to someone else (who is white).

   Again, the whole argument that “business owners should be able to hire the most qualified candidate” is good, and if there were some kind of statewide affirmative action policy imposed on all private businesses you’d have a point and I’d most likely agree with you, but that argument simply doesn’t apply to this ban at all.

   That stinks about that Hickman cop. Good for you for standing up to him. It’s very disheartening to see police officers abusing their authority. My wife and I were out one night and saw two cops having a blast trying to convince drunk people to walk into oncoming traffic by lying to them about the walk signs. The cops thought it was hilarious. Fortunately, no one was hurt (at least while we were there). I was also leaving a bar in Omaha one night when a road crew was repainting a crosswalk at 1 a.m. A cop car stopped on the new paint and then peeled out, smearing the new lines and making a mess of the work these guys had just done (not that any of this is relevant to the state trooper).

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