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.
> 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.)
Daniel Ust
http://mars.superlink.net/neptune/
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