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Path: utzoo!watmath!watnot!watdcsu!dmcanzi
From: dmcanzi@watdcsu.UUCP (David Canzi)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.flame
Subject: Re: The Suffering of the Overprivileged or White Man's Burden
Message-ID: <1417@watdcsu.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 26-May-85 21:21:51 EDT
Article-I.D.: watdcsu.1417
Posted: Sun May 26 21:21:51 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 27-May-85 00:41:29 EDT
References: <354@iham1.UUCP> <250@spar.UUCP> <1391@watdcsu.UUCP> <260@spar.UUCP>
Reply-To: dmcanzi@watdcsu.UUCP (David Canzi)
Distribution: net
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 57
Xref: watmath net.women:5294 net.flame:10134
Summary: 

In article <260@spar.UUCP> ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) writes:
>I am amazed at the perverse uses people out there have found for `guilt':

The truly perverse use of guilt is trying to make people feel guilty
for the actions of other members of their race/sex/etc.  It's fairly
common.  I've reread your article, and found that you were not, after
all, doing this.  Why did I think I saw that kind of argument in your
article?  Because I've come to expect it.  Call this a knee-jerk
reaction on my part.

>    This is self-serving horse-shit, Mr. Canzi.

Actually, I never stopped to think what effect affirmative action might
have on me.  So, my opposition to affirmative action is not self-serving.
By the way, might it not be considered self-serving for women and/or
blacks to demand affirmative action?

>    The point of my original article was very clear:
>
>	The Overprivileged innocently possess that which partly should have
>	gone to the Underprivileged (STOLEN INHERITANCE). The Overprivileged
>	then noisily protest at the slightest effort to achieve
>	recompensation, typically crying `unfair'. 

I doubt that the majority of those overprivileged on the net who
disapprove of affirmative action are in such a position that
affirmative action could affect them in the near future.

>    Guilt is a primitive and inefficient way to run one's life, Mr Canzi.

I know.  But it's a very efficient way to run somebody else's life.
That's a major reason why I oppose it.

>    `Affirmative Action' is not REWARD or PUNISHMENT; it is a simple attempt
>    to help those in dire need -- like graduated income tax, welfare,
>    government funding to minority students and businesses, $c. -- but I
>    suppose that you're probably against these as well. 

Don't assume I'm a knee-jerk conservative just because I disagree with
some article of the liberal religion.

>    You favor doing nothing. I wonder why?

That's not quite the truth.  I'm against affirmative action.  Why?

Because affirmative action is discrimination.  Because affirmative
action is a program for redistributing misery, not for curing it.
Because it requires the creation of yet another government program,
when the government is already unable to balance its budget.  All
that's accomplished, at some cost, is to make a different set of people
miserable than those who would have been miserable without affirmative
action.

-- 
	David Canzi

"The Indians got revenge on the white man.  They gave him tobacco."