From: Zero Powers (zero_powers@hotmail.com)
Date: Sun Mar 19 2000 - 00:17:51 MST
>From: "Technotranscendence" <neptune@mars.superlink.net>
>
>On Saturday, March 18, 2000 9:24 AM Zero Powers zero_powers@hotmail.com
>wrote:
> > >This does not even touch on the issue of whether voting districts
>should
>be
> > >neutral to all these differences. I believe they should be -- viz.,
>that
> > >the government should NOT legally recognize races, ethnics groups,
>etc. --
> > >though I do not here offer an alternative plan.
> >
> > The obvious alternative plan is to completely *ignore* race. The color
>of
> > your skin should have the same impact on your voting district (as well
>as
> > every other right, privilege, opportunity, etc.) as the color of your
>eyes
> > and hair.
>
>Didn't I write that above!?! Reread it. Let me retyped it:
>
>"I believe... that the government should NOT legally recognize races,
>ethnics groups, etc."
>
>My saying I did not offer an alternative plan meant that I do not have a
>plan for districting. What this means is, Yes, I'm against basing
>districts
>on race, ethnicity, and the like, but this does not tell me or anyone how
>to
>make districts. Should they be based on what districts were in the past?
>Should they be random? Should they be geographical? Should people living
>in, say, Manhattan be placed in the same district with people in the Bronx?
>How should all this be decided?
>
>Being against racial and ethnic voting discrimination does not magically
>conjure up a plan.
Oh, so you can't figure out how to reconfigure voting districts irrespective
of the racial component of the constituents? Me neither.
> > Although I must admit that I'd be in favor of granting certain
> > historically exploited peoples (native americans, slave descendants)
> > "reparations" in the form of reduced (or even free) college tuition for
>kids
> > who academically qualify but cannot afford the tuition.
>
>I would be against this. Native Americans should have as much land
>returned
>them as is possible and can be found to belong to them. Slavery was over a
>long time. Can't undo the past and there's no justification to tax people
>who had nothing to do with it -- such as, e.g., the descendants of
>Europeans
>who immigrated to the US after the Civil War. (Not to mention, if you want
>to talk slavery, When will the Irish sue the English for reparations? How
>about all those peoples the Soviets dominated for all those decades? What
>about Mexicans and Cubans litigating against Spain? Etc.)
>
>Instead, I advocate rabid individualism and foaming at the mouth free
>markets to overcome all these problems. (Of course, this won't overcome
>all, but it will do much better than wealth redistribution and new welfare
>programs. Look, after all, at what the War on Poverty did for the people
>it
>was supposed to help.)
Sure, a lot of folks could gripe about "somebody done done me wrong." And I
suppose many people would argue that they are just as entitled to some
handouts as Indians and blacks. I'm sure there are a million and one points
to be made on each side of the issue and admittedly I haven't thought them
all through. But to me it would just feel right giving poor Indian and
black kids an educational leg up. But, then again, I suppose that with the
new tuition free Cyber-University we'll soon have...tuition?!? We don't
need no stinkin' tuition!
-Zero
"I like dreams of the future better than the history of the past"
--Thomas Jefferson
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