Badtux the Snarky Penguin

In a time of chimpanzees, I was a penguin.

Religious fundamentalists are motivated by the sneaking suspicion that someone, somewhere, is having fun -- and that this must be stopped.


Monday, January 08, 2007

Discrimination is evil

In a reply to one of my posts below, a poster says that affirmative action is discrimination, and thus evil, even if it's an attempt to counter other forms of discrimination. I thought about it for a while, and he's right, discrimination IS evil!

Because of that, I have decided to free my mind of that evil discrimination stuff. For example, there's two sides regarding the Iraq stuff. The first side consists of retired military generals, people who've spent their lives studying military history, and Middle East scholars. The other side consists of draft dodgers, residents of the American Enterprise Institute, and Israeli agents. The first side says that Iraq is a mistake and we need to leave. The other side says that Iraq is an important front on the war on terror and we need to send more troops. Now, previously, I was giving more weight to the opinions of military and Middle Eastern scholars than to the neo-cons of the AEI. That's wrong. I should give just as much weight to the opinions of AEI scholars or of Joe down at the garage who says we ought to nuke Iraq. Anything else is DISCRIMINATION, and thus evil!

Next: I have some bad aweful allergy problems. Lots of stuff just gets me sniffling and sneezing. Now, doctors (folks who've spent dozens of years studying and getting licensed) tell me I need to take anti-histamines. They've spent years studying allergies and have some scientific evidence that shows that anti-histamines will reduce my allergy symptoms significantly. But over there are some "alternative medicine" guys who got a certificate from Joe's Trade School who tell me that all I need to do is take the right herbs and stuff and I'll be fine, and that the anti-histamines are actually poisoning me, and when I ask for scientific evidence, these guys say that science is an anti-humanistic conspiracy so they don't do it. Should I believe the doctors, or should I believe Joe Herbologist? Well, if I believe the doctors just because they have, like, training and scientific evidence and stuff, that's DISCRIMINATION. I shouldn't discriminate against Joe Herbologist just because he has,like, no education or training in biology and no science backing up his claims! That's wrong, and evil!

Now, getting along to discrimination, I understand that Democrats have a majority in Congress this year. But why should the opinion of Democrats count more just because the majority of people voted for them? This is DISCRIMINATION! Democrats and Republicans should get equal say in Congress! Forget all that "democracy" stuff, democracy discriminates against the minority,and thus is EVIL!

So anyhow, that affirmative action stuff -- it's been shown that given the choice of hiring a white criminal and a black man, most small business owners will hire the white criminal first. But doing anything to counter that discrimination would itself be discrimination, and thus wrong! We should look at solving the real problem -- the mindset of small business owners -- rather than simply setting up a system where black men get a fair chance. Because remember, it's a lot easier to change ingrained racial prejudices on the part of crackers and bigots than it is to set hiring quotas.

Similarly, it's been shown that the SAT over-estimates college performance for whites, and under-estimates college performance for blacks. But adding additional points to blacks to compensate for that would be discrimination! Err, hold it. Let me rethink this. Oh, I know -- the SAT is *ITSELF* discrimination, as are high school grades, and should be banned! Everybody should have an equal chance to get into the University of Michigan, regardless of whether they're dumb as a rock or the smartest genius alive! And grades... boy, when professors give grades to people, they're DISCRIMINATING against stupid and lazy people! So we should ban grades, too! And...

Boy, I sure am glad that discrmination is wrong! That relieves me of the need to differentiate between bad discrimination (discrimination that is based on nothing but prejudice and bigotry), and good discrimination (discrimination that is based upon achieving a particular goal, such as an educated populance or equal opportunity for all with the talent to succeed). Thinking is HARD, and having to think about the difference between "good" discrimination and "bad" discrimination makes my head hurt! No no, better just to call ALL discrimination "evil", and not have to think about it anymore. And hey, y'know, I'm being discriminated against by blog readers because they don't come to my blog as often as they come to Atrios's blog. Maybe blog readers are evil, too? Curious penguins want to know!

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
(Tongue firmly in beak).

Posted by: BadTux / 1/08/2007 08:02:00 PM  

Comments:

Yes. We are, in fact, evil.

Mixter
# posted by Mixter : 9/1/07 3:42 AM  

Hello, Badtux. I feel as if I have achieved a milestone in the blog-world, having provoked a post from Badtux the Snarky Penguin. (Go me!) I assure you, I am duly flattered.

At any rate, I never said affirmative action was evil. I said it was not a long-term solution. The example of attaining piety through impiety was given only as an illustration to demonstrate the logical results.

Of course, the problems you state are serious problems, and I'm glad someone is giving some attention to them. So how's about trying to think of what a real solution might look like instead of reaching for an easy answer?

And I think you're confusing "discrimination" with "discretion" in this post.
# posted by Progressive Traditionalist : 9/1/07 9:51 PM  

discrimination? discretion? good? evil?
waaaaaah! Too much thought for me! Can't I just get a beer and trust in George W. Bush to do my thinking for me?

I mean, Who would Jesus Bomb?

d.
the lazy, stupid republi-con
# posted by deuddersun : 11/1/07 7:18 AM  

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