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[obamacon]

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[umd blue devil]

i havent read any of his books, yet. but i do read his articles as often as i can. i agree he is the man. so brilliant and truthful and not afraid to say anything. he's always a good read

[John Galt]

tag

[magnumalv]

Sowell's an interesting fellow. He's not always right, but I still like reading him.

[magnumalv]

He's not always right

In other news, life isn't always fair, puppies arn't always cute, and posters don't always expect impossibilities.

Are you trying to invite discussion or simply be an ass?

[philibusters]

Sounds like he only looked at the negative data.  Out of the four things he said:

1)   They encourage non-preferred groups to designate themselves as members of preferred groups [i.e. primary beneficiary of affirmative action] to take advantage of group preference policies;
2)   They tend to benefit primarily the most fortunate among the preferred group (e.g. black millionaires), oftentimes to the detriment of the least fortunate among the non-preferred groups (e.g. poor whites);
3)   They reduce the incentives of both the preferred and non-preferred to perform at their best — the former because doing so is unnecessary and the latter because it can prove futile — thereby resulting in net losses for society as a whole; and
4)   They engender animosity toward preferred groups as well as on the part of preferred groups themselves, whose main problem in some cases has been their own inadequacy combined with their resentment of non-preferred groups who — without preferences — consistently outperform them.

how big a deal are any of those?  So a few whites claim to be a quarter african america-big deal or large impact?-No  So AA benefits the privileged more often than disadvantaged, that doesn't mean whole communities don't get advantages, for example if the fortunate of the group go to urm communities the community benefits from having educated leaders who they can identify with and who will identify with them to a larger degree than a non-urm leader would, and even if they don't go back to their communities as long as it helps some disadvantaged it does osmething, and it helps the legal profession by making it more inclusive.
3) Yeah f*cking right-only a marginal few of the majority will be affected, and there is still a lot of competition in the minority, its not like every minority gets is promised a seat in T14
4) The whole problem was that the majority originally had animosity towards the minority so why blame AA for more resentment, also that statement seems to blame the urm's for the whole AA problem themselves, like the majority gains absolutley nothing from AA.

I am not saying that he doesn't make points, but none of his points seem convincing to me.

[redemption]

Some of my favorite people read and enjoy Sowell.

He generally makes poor arguments, however, which is why he's affiliated with the Hoover.

On #1. Yes, at the margins. So?

On #2. Affirmative action is designed to redress institutional racism, and not to redress socio-economic inequality. Also, since he doesn't believe in redressing socioeconomic inequality (read his other "works"), this is a disingenuous claim for him to have made.

On #3. Inherited wealth, inherited benefits of being white, etc - all of the things that he worships, in fact - have the same effect (even if we stipulate that it is in fact true that AA causes people to be lax), but more broadly in society.

On #4. This may be true. So? He sure does talk a lot about groups, doesn't he, for a rugged individualist conservative thinker. I would have thought that since he imagines that the psychic costs of AA are so great to the member of the preferred group, he would be very surprised that they would still somehow choose to enrol at Harvard, Princeton or Yale. And yet they do. Over and over again. Not learning their lesson, they graduate from Yale Law and take their place at Cravath. Very, very puzzling.

Is this what passes for reading, nowadays? Sowell's work is trash. Think will reading it and you'll discover it for yourself. Alternatively, skip the thinking part and take my word for it. 

[redemption]

1.   It isn’t at the margins. There was a 60% increase in American Indians from 1960-1980 (age range of 15-19 year olds and then 35-39 year olds 20 years later). Unless people were miraculously born in that range that’s an impossibility (barring reclassification as a minority group). In India this is so common that the original minorities that were to be protected are now a tiny fraction of those who receive positive discrimination. Same with the aborigines in Australia and with the minorities in China (who get to have multiple children if they aren’t Han Chinese).
2.   Where did you get that from? At various points it has been about many things including redressing socio-economic inequality. How is this at all disingenuous? He claims that AA mostly benefits benefit the Rich, which if you read the clip I typed (2 pages in a book of several hundred) in is very difficult to argue (successfully with. In this particular book he rationales for AA are beyond the scope of the question. It is simply about the results of AA worldwide.

3.   You do know he’s black right? Do you have any proof that inherited benefits of being white do anything along the lines of what AA does? Are you aware that both Jews and Asians (both historically persecuted minority groups) put whites to shame in just about any current field of endeavor (business, academics, etc.)?  How is that possible if they aren’t white (and by definition devoid of any white privilege) and at many points have been strongly discriminated against?
4.   It’s difficult to talk about AA without referring to groups. India and Malaysia are prime examples here, with several Indian provinces (Assam and Andhra Pradesh for example) having conflicts between prosperous minorities and idle majorities, and AA for the majority Malay against the prosperous minority Chinese.

Your intelligence blinds you to your complete lack of useful information to debate Affirmative Action with. You made no references to facts, no appeals to sources, but managed lots of character assassination and innuendo. I’m going to guess that you’ve read exactly zero Sowell books (or perhaps that economic issues arn't your strong suite), and further that you’ve spent little time reading on positive discrimination in general. You’re smart, but cut the rhetoric and read a bit more on the subject. Stuff like “He generally makes poor arguments, however, which is why he's affiliated with the Hoover.” is hopefully beneath you.

Is the bolded part a joke? Yes, I know he's black.

As for the rest, no - it's not beneath me. It's a shortcut way of asking you to read his work as though you were an educated person, i.e. critically. Either way, it doesn't much matter to me.

[redemption]

In order to do what? 

[magnumalv]

My best guess is that you have the typical opinions and a typical amount of research to back them up, i.e. none whatsoever.

Oh dear. You're new, aren't you?