Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site kontron.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!tektronix!uw-beaver!cornell!vax135!petsd!pesnta!pertec!kontron!cramer
From: cramer@kontron.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: The net's favorite form of argument (reply to Cramer)
Message-ID: <162@kontron.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 11-May-85 22:37:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: kontron.162
Posted: Sat May 11 22:37:46 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 10-Jun-85 03:24:00 EDT
References: <452@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP>
Organization: Kontron Electronics, Irvine, CA
Lines: 68

> Clayton Cramer writes:
> 
> >... if anything, there has been a resurgence
> >of racial hatred, at least partly because of the government's racist
> >affirmative action programs. [...]                            ^^^^^^
> > Now in their 
> >particular case, they may have been passed over for promotion for other
> >reasons, but knowing that government imposed racism *is* happening gives
>                                               ^^^^^^
> >them a reason to believe that they have been victimized themselves.
> 
> "Affirmative action is racism."
> "Affirmative action is sexism."  [Clayton forgot this one.]
> "Taxation is theft."
> "Profit is theft."
> "Abortion is murder."
> "Conscription is slavery."
> "Fascism is socialism."
> "Socialism is fascism."
>  et cetera...
> 
> Here we have one of the net's favorite forms of argument:  the
> Argument From Name-Calling.  For those who would like to get in on
> the game, here's how it is done:  Select a practice or belief that
> you don't like.  Next, select a category of actions or beliefs that
> almost everyone strongly opposes, such as racism, fascism, or murder.
> Now construct a definition of this latter category such that the
> practice you don't like fits this definition.  Congrats, you've just
> proved that the practice you oppose is wrong!  For instance, define
> racism as "basing an action on a person's race," or define theft as
> "a transfer of wealth which is or could be enforced by the use of
> force"; you've just proved that affirmative action and taxation are
> unjust, since everyone knows that racism and theft are unjust!  But
> the classic use of this form of argument is to prove that abortion is
> wrong.
> 
> Here's another example which no one has thought of yet.  Let's say
> you belong to a religious sect that believes that surgery is wrong.
> Now define violence as "any action which damages the tissues of a
> person's body."  Therefore, since all surgery involves cutting
> someone up, SURGERY IS VIOLENCE and is thus proved to be immoral.
> 
> The Argument From Name-Calling is a favorite of the feeble-minded and
> of Usenetters, since it relieves one of the necessity for coming up
> with a coherent philosophical argument that the practice you oppose
> is unjust or immoral.  Philosophical reasoning is hard work and makes
> your head hurt; avoid it wherever possible.  
> 
> I'll bet anything that there is someone reading this who can't figure
> out what is wrong with the Argument From Name-Calling.  Anyway, since
> it can't be banned from the net, let's all learn how to use it.
> 
> Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes

Believe as you wish, Mr. Carnes.  When I worked as an employment agent,
I saw, and not rarely, companies specifying the race and sex of the person
to occupy a particular position, because it was necessary to maintain
their government contracts.  I will agree that affirmative action, in
some abstract sense, is not supposed to be racist or sexist; it certainly
works out to be same to thing on a practical level, because there are a 
lot of people in this country who view me, you, and everyone else not
as individuals, deserving individual dignity and attention, but as classes,
races, sexes, and groups.

Affirmative action *is* racism, as it is practiced, and that isn't name
calling; that's any definition of racism you can come up with except the
one I suspect you really mean: "It's OK to discriminate, as long as it's
against white males."