response 105 of 232:

Jan 22 03:49 UTC 2003

I think if Affirmative Action opponents were conecntrating on fixing the
problems John mentions in the second sentence of his last paragraph, they'd
be getting a lot less opposition from Affirmative Action supporters.  That
they generally aren't shows their claims to be supporting racial equality to
be pretty hollow.

However, having spent some time tutoring kids in a middle school in a rather
rough neighborhood of Detroit, I will take issue with John's second to last
paragraph.  I don't think I encountered any cases of kids not wanting to
learn.  I did encounter lots of cases of kids thinking they couldn't learn
various things, and being very excited to find that they could.  There's a
huge difference.

re 97, 99, and 100:
        The Equal Protection Clause is in the 14th Ammendment, which was added
to the Constitution during the post-Civil War Reconstruction.  It doesn't have
to be reconciled with slavery, because slavery had ready been eliminated. 
It did take another 80 or so years before the courts started striking down
other forms of discrimination based on that ammendment.

Still, it would be nice if klg would stay on top of his own argument enough
that I wouldn't have to make it for him.  He's been handed an easy to rebut
argument, based on a part of the Constitution that he had either just looked
up or had memorized, and yet he completely missed it.