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Now that I have let this satire sit here a few days I think I’ll draw a few parallels from it.... you all took this as a joke (as well you should have) but there is some striking resemblance between my joke above and the arguments for affirmative action. I myself was never forced to be right handed but many people were, in doing so these people had to struggle greatly in order to live in a right handed world as a left hander. Today there are still many things that are right-handed in the world that left-handers have to deal with. A can opener is one of my favorite examples, I have never found a left handed can opener (but some probably exist).
Left-handers typically have far worse hand writing than right-handers because left-handers cannot see what they are writing without arching their wrist greatly. In many ways left-handers are at a disadvantage to right-handers. But this does not mean left-handers deserve compensation.
Is there anyone alive today that was a slave within the USA? No. Just because your great-great-grandpa was a slave does that mean you deserve money from the people today or special treatment? No. If we give reparations to people because of their ancestors, people who have lefthanded-forced-to-be-righthanded-ancesters in their family line should also get reparations. After all, their grandparent wasn’t as well off as he should have been because they had to struggle with their left-handed disability (or possession by Satan as so many believed).
If you think people should get preferential treatment today because they are a minority and since they are a minority they can’t compete up to the level of the majority (which I don’t believe in for a second) then shouldn’t left-handers of today get special treatment also? After all, they have to struggle every day. I can’t handwrite anything because my handwriting is that of a 4th grader, I can’t submit a document to an employer in that handwriting.
Now I’m not trying to say that left-handers have been greatly discriminated against and I’m not trying to say that it compares to slavery and civil-rights, but the arguments are the same. Affirmative Action is a dangerous road to go down and one I feel we should avoid instead of treating the symptom of minorities being underrepresented lets treat the problem and bring the qualifications of people from the inner cities up to that of the suburbs by increasing their education, teaching them values (not violence). Let’s stop distinguishing people by their skin color and start looking at them as people.
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