# Let's segregate the races - new liberal solution **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 25, 2015, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-segregate-the-races-new-liberal-solution/720798 "2015-05-25T15:21:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2015, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-segregate-the-races-new-liberal-solution/720798/101 "2015-05-26T23:59:24Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > No, actually, not like that. This has got to be the single worst attempt at argument by analogy in the history of this board, and I’m including “let’s marry a washing machine” in that assessment. Of course, because in an “enlightened” mind, there is good racial discrimination and bad racial discrimination. And the good racial discrimination will somehow, eventually, in a few hundred years, if diligently applied, I am sure, eliminate racism. Somehow. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-segregate-the-races-new-liberal-solution/720798/102 "2015-05-27T00:00:38Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Of course, because in an “enlightened” mind, there is good racial discrimination and bad racial discrimination. Of course there is. Argue against it. Note that I edited the post after you responded to it, btw. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-segregate-the-races-new-liberal-solution/720798/103 "2015-05-27T00:05:53Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Of course there is. Argue against it. Note that I edited the post after you responded to it, btw. Evil is evil. Whatever mask you put on it. Discriminating against someone because of the color of his skin is evil. Doing evil pretending it is in the service of good is still evil. Most evil in the world is done with some pretense of doing good in the long run. Yes, in medicine you may cut out healthy tissue in order to eliminate the diseased tissue. In life, you don’t get to racially discriminate against innocent people in order to cure some perceived societal ill. That’s evil. Deal with it. You may think it is necessary evil. I disagree. But at least don’t pretend it’s not evil. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-segregate-the-races-new-liberal-solution/720798/104 "2015-05-27T00:07:31Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Evil is evil. Whatever mask you put on it. Discriminating against someone because of the color of his skin is evil. Doing evil pretending it is in the service of good is still evil. Most evil in the world is done with some pretense of doing good in the long run. A series of declarations is not an argument. Evil is evil is a tautology. Whatever mask you put on it is a sentence fragment. Your third sentence is the meat of your argument, but all you do is repeat it; you don’t offer any evidence whatsoever to support it. So again: why is “discriminating against someone because of the color of his [sic] skin” evil? ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-segregate-the-races-new-liberal-solution/720798/105 "2015-05-27T00:11:35Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > So again: why is “discriminating against someone because of the color of his [sic] skin” evil? To me it is axiomatic. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-segregate-the-races-new-liberal-solution/720798/106 "2015-05-27T00:13:02Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > To me it is axiomatic. That’s a stupid axiom, then. You’re lucky you didn’t look for work as a casting director; you’d feel like Himmler every time you turned down Brad Pitt for the lead role in Selma. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-segregate-the-races-new-liberal-solution/720798/107 "2015-05-27T00:16:43Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > That’s a stupid axiom, then. You’re lucky you didn’t look for work as a casting director; you’d feel like Himmler every time you turned down Brad Pitt for the lead role in Selma. That’s a stupid response, then. That’s not an example of racial discrimination. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-segregate-the-races-new-liberal-solution/720798/108 "2015-05-27T00:17:21Z")
I, for one, am excited to see what we find at the bottom of this rabbit hole. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-segregate-the-races-new-liberal-solution/720798/109 "2015-05-27T00:18:39Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > I, for one, am excited to see what we find at the bottom of this rabbit hole. Again, typical liberal MO - looking for “gotchas” instead of actually posting something substantial. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-segregate-the-races-new-liberal-solution/720798/110 "2015-05-27T00:19:02Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > That’s a stupid response, then. That’s not an example of racial discrimination. Do tell how rejecting an actor for a role based on his skin color is not “discriminating against someone because of the color of his skin.” Perhaps you’ve defined every word in the language to mean something entirely different from how others use them. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-segregate-the-races-new-liberal-solution/720798/111 "2015-05-27T00:21:17Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Do tell how rejecting an actor for a role based on his skin color is not “discriminating against someone because of the color of his skin.” Perhaps you’ve defined every word in the language to mean something entirely different from how others use them. As I said, if you want to engage in “gotcha” stupidity, you won’t find a partner. Ask some 60s civil rights activist why it is evil to discriminate based on skin color. See whether you will get a detailed explanation. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-segregate-the-races-new-liberal-solution/720798/112 "2015-05-27T00:21:29Z")
The point, of course, is that racial discrimination is a secondary evil: it very often leads to suffering, leads to reduced opportunities for people to achieve their goals, and it very often does so in a systematic, one-sided fashion such that one group of people is significantly less able to achieve their goals than others. What’s evil is participating in a system that systematically denies a person the opportunity to reach their goals without damned good reason. When racial discrimination does that, it’s evil. Not because of some idiotic axiom about skin color (that’s like building your ethics on the axiom of “petrochemicals are bad”), but because it leads to a bad effect. But racial discrimination doesn’t always lead to that sort of bad effect. When it doesn’t, it’s not necessarily bad. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-segregate-the-races-new-liberal-solution/720798/113 "2015-05-27T00:24:49Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Ask some 60s civil rights activist why it is evil to discriminate based on skin color. See whether you will get a detailed explanation. Forgive me from going obscure here; it took a long time to find any civil rights activist who might support discrimination based on skin color. > [@Dr. Martin Luther King](#): > > A society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years must now do something special for the Negro. edit: this is setting aside, of course, the aforementioned Reparations Bill introduced annually by John Conyers, whose 60s civil rights activist credentials are second to none. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-segregate-the-races-new-liberal-solution/720798/114 "2015-05-27T00:24:57Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > But racial discrimination doesn’t always lead to that sort of bad effect. When it doesn’t, it’s not necessarily bad. Of course. The people against whom the racial discrimination is used are not hurt if it is the “good” kind of racial discrimination. Right? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-segregate-the-races-new-liberal-solution/720798/115 "2015-05-27T00:27:57Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Of course. The people against whom the racial discrimination is used are not hurt if it is the “good” kind of racial discrimination. Right? How ass-backwards can you possibly get? You’ve got it exactly wrong. If the racial discrimination: a) does not lead to a system in which the discriminated-against group has fewer opportunities overall than other groups; and b) does lead to a system in which another group is brought closer to the equilibrium of opportunities available to them; then it’s the “good” kind of discrimination. The definition follows the effects. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-segregate-the-races-new-liberal-solution/720798/116 "2015-05-27T00:28:14Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > something special for the Negro. If it hurts no one to “do something special for the Negro”, sure. If you’re doing that “something special” at the cost of hurting those who have and had nothing to do with doing anything “against the Negro”, yes, that is evil. And I am sure not what King meant. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-segregate-the-races-new-liberal-solution/720798/117 "2015-05-27T00:33:32Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > If it hurts no one to “do something special for the Negro”, sure. If you’re doing that “something special” at the cost of hurting those who have and had nothing to do with doing anything “against the Negro”, yes, that is evil. And I am sure not what King meant. What on earth makes you sure that’s what King meant? Discussing his proposal for a “massive program of economic aid, financed by the Federal Government, to improve the lot of the nation’s 20,000,000 Negroes,” he spoke about its potential cost: > [@](#): > > King: About 50 billion, actually—which is less than one year of our present defense spending. It is my belief that with the expenditure of this amount, over a ten-year period, a genuine and dramatic transformation could be achieved in the conditions of Negro life in America. I am positive, moreover, that the money spent would be more than amply justified by the benefits that would accrue to the nation through a spectacular decline in school dropouts, family breakups, crime rates, illegitimacy, swollen relief rolls, rioting and other social evils. Unless you believe his $50,000,000,000 proposal was to be funded with money-trees, of course he was going to do it at the cost of those who have had nothing to do with doing anything “against the Negro.” I really don’t think you’re in a position to cast yourself on the side of 60s civil rights activists, nor do I think you know much about them. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-segregate-the-races-new-liberal-solution/720798/118 "2015-05-27T00:33:41Z")
> [@robertliguori](#): > > So either we can order suffering, and we can say that Jews should get some multiple or fraction of affirmative action reparations for the historical actions of plunder against them, or we can say that we can’t order suffering, and that we can’t offer any reparations because we can’t say that anyone’s suffering is worse than anyone else’s. You’re the one arguing that benevolent race-conscious policies should be analyzed as reparations, not me. But as long as we’re on the topic, I wouldn’t measure reparations solely by the suffering a people has experienced in some time in the past, but instead base it at least in part on the connection between that suffering and present conditions. Perhaps all the injustices that Jews have experienced at America’s hands are still very much affecting American Jews socioeconomic standing in 2015. And if so, any program of reparations would have to include them in the program or–and this is the important or–draw the line at a higher level of injury. We draw lines and distinguish levels of suffering all the time. You can sue me for punching you even if I don’t injure you, but you can’t sue me for insulting you even if I cause you deep social anxiety. You can sue me for falsely claiming you have syphilis, whether it harms you financially or not, but you can’t sue me for falsely claiming you’re a Nazi without proving economic harm. It’s not a fatal problem for a system of justice to say that we’re not going to provide recompense in a particular situation or category unless the harm done meets a certain threshold, or to draw lines based on common sense and lived experience. Finally, it’s worth noting that Jews were paid reparations from Germany well after the end of World War II. As recently as 2009, Israeli leaders have demanded further reparations. Perhaps that is a good model? ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-segregate-the-races-new-liberal-solution/720798/119 "2015-05-27T00:33:54Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > How ass-backwards can you possibly get? You’ve got it exactly wrong. If the racial discrimination: > a) does not lead to a system in which the discriminated-against group has fewer opportunities overall than other groups; and > b) does lead to a system in which another group is brought closer to the equilibrium of opportunities available to them; > > then it’s the “good” kind of discrimination. The definition follows the effects. Cool. So - there are two water fountains. One for the “coloreds” and one for the “whites”. (a) one group has as much opportunity to drink as the other (b) gives a water fountain to “coloreds” where before there maybe was none. This is the “good” kind of discrimination, right? ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-segregate-the-races-new-liberal-solution/720798/120 "2015-05-27T00:37:24Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > What on earth makes you sure that’s what King meant? What do you think King would tell you if you asked him why it is evil to discriminate based on skin color? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-segregate-the-races-new-liberal-solution/720798.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-segregate-the-races-new-liberal-solution/720798.md?page=7)