[309] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: Affirmative Action
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Michael E Rolish)
Sat Apr 28 21:43:30 2001
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Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2001 21:42:25 -0400
From: Michael E Rolish <merolish@MIT.EDU>
Here we go again...
Aimee L Smith:
>Always think twice before doing what a man asks you to do...
>particularly when it is "relax." Your letter was on mark,
>Nnennia. The Tech has a history of being, shall we say,
>less than sensitive to issues concerning women...
>Mike should talk about relaxing... look how upset he got at
>the mere mention that he *looked* like a skin-head... I
>am sure he would take structural sexism against men
>(if it existed in this country) with calm and patience...
Well, no, I wasn't pleased that you called me a skinhead and
a fascist, just as I'm not pleased with this subtle comparison
of me to a rapist. But this is irrelevant.
You should try harder to conceal your hatred of men. It's a
little too obvious. Anyway, the Tech had that pullout
section on Women's Issues, and they made their case for a
Rao/Devereaux ticket. You're just inventing sexism where it
doesn't exist; that is, unless you can successfully explain
otherwise.
>This "agitator" believes that actually the majority of men
>are *extremely* sexist based on a study that found 51-60% of
>college men said they would RAPE a woman if they knew they would not
>be caught. I used to subscribe to the "most men are nice"
>theory, then I read this and a few million other things...
>Rape is the extreme expression of misogyny. What lesser
>abuses are the remaining 40-49% ready to perpetrate?
I ask everyone to check these claims against their personal
experiences. If these statistics were accurate, then we are
a bunch of restrained animals who, if freed from the rule of
law, would devour each other in a frenzy of rape, pillage,
and murder. Sounds like you're trying to find excuses to
impose socialism on us, to "protect us from ourselves."
>Of course, many men and women *are* nice, we just tend
>to perpetuate the stereotpyes that are all around us
>inadvertently (even "leftie agitators" are not immune--
>we do not have 100% control over our thoughts and
>actions, much as we might like to think, I have also
>been programmed by my socialization to be sexist against women
>and have only partially unraveled that sickness...) Don't think
>people at MIT are "above all that." (The best one I heard is
>"MIT students don't have time to rape." Deep thinking, really...)
Thank you, Aimee! I knew that eventually you would state your
premises, and now I see where you're coming from.
We don't have complete control over our rational faculties?
We're "socially programmed"? This is on par with Vest's
reference to a "collective soul." I disagree totally with
these assertions, and I'd love to discuss it on the MIT
Objectivist Club list.
><more stuff>
>The govt sponsors racism. 70% of people on death row are people
>of color. Black people make up ~13% of drug users, 30% of
>those arrested for drug related infractions, 50% of those *convicted*
>for such infractions and 70% of those incarcerated. If this isn't
>structural, govt sponsored bias, what is? Throw in the fact
>that Black males (whether American or foreign) are MUCH more
>likely to be summarily executed by police than another other group.
>Driving While Black, walking while Black all seem to be offenses
>in the US...
I won't try to argue with this. Instead, I will point you to
Capitalism Magazine:
www.capitalismmagazine.com
Look for articles by black conservatives Thomas Sowell, Walter
Williams, and Larry Elder in particular. They address these and
related issues. By the way, I think drug laws suck and should be
eliminated.
>In summary, Gonna have to go with Zhe on this one, my TRUST is also a bit
>worn thin... structural racism and sexism are alive and well. Doing
>nothing to counter is AFFIRMATIVE ACTION FOR WHITE MEN. How
>does that make you feel, white men, to know that you may very well
>have gotten in to MIT and had many other opportunities opened to you
>on account of being white and/or male? ...
So white males may have gotten into MIT simply because they were white
males? Isn't this the exact opposite of their admissions policy? I
think you need to explain how this "affirmative action for whites" works,
and how it succeeds despite this almost universal obsession with being PC.
><more stuff>
I'm having trouble following this, but you seem to suggest that a) those
of us alive today are tainted by past atrocities and b) we're all as
racist/sexist/whatever as our ancestors. Again, I ask you to clearly
explain yourself, because as far as I'm concerned this is total bullshit.
>By the way, Ayn Rand was also in denial... and she makes fiction that
>depicts a woman who enjoyed her own rape... I have NO trust in her
>view of humanity... and I don't have much trust who put all their faith in
>*one* human being as their fountain of truth, but that's just me...
Thank you for that enlightening interpretation of _The Fountainhead_, and
for suggesting that I have unquestionably accepted all of Rand's ideas.
You still haven't clued me in as to your political "solutions." You
disagree with Rand's heroic view of mankind, so I'm wondering what you'd
do with political power.
-Mike Rolish
--
Michael E. Rolish, MIT '04
Course VI-3 - Computer Science
Course VII - Biology
merolish@mit.edu
"Serenity comes from the ability to say 'Yes' to existence.
Courage comes from the ability to say 'No' to the wrong
choices made by others."
-Ayn Rand, "The Metaphysical Versus the Man-Made"
