Jesse Jackson was on campus today here to speak about Prop 209, the controversial proposition that will end affirmative action in California. It is supported by about 70% of the voting population according to some polls I've seen. Anyway, there were a few speakers before Jesse. Most of what was said in the speeches was this ultra-liberal nonsense. I mean some of it was so illogical that it was just unbelievable. Now, I certainly would not say that on every issue the liberals are wrong, or even that everything they said today was wrong, but there was a lot of nonsese out there.

They have this whole idea that the govt is out to get them, that Pete Wilson, the governor of California, is out to get them, that his intentions are bad, etc. The thing that one of the speakers said that stands out in my mind most is the following. It was the LA chapter president of the Nation Organization for Women. She was trying to convince everyone that the beuarocracy is out to get her and all that nonsese. She seemed convinced that her profs gave her midterms on election day so that she wouldn't vote. I mean what kind of stupidity is that? It takes 10 minutes to vote. After the midterm, you go vote. The polling stations close at like 8 pm or something. What does it make any difference if you have a midterm or not? Everyone has a busy day and everyone can find the time to vote. I can't believe how stupid that is.

And there was other similar nonsense and idealism. Jesse Jackson brought up the idea that we should all have better health care. Sounds good so far, but wait a minute. There is only so much health care to go around. If everyone had the best health care, well, basically, it's not so easy and that's something to consider. And Jesse went on about how everyone should be equal and all this idealism. Yes, ideally everyone should be equal. But they are not and we can't do anything about it. Some people are smarter than others and some are bigger than others. I'm not talking about races here, but individuals. People are not created equal and affirmative action is not going to change this. I'm sure his intentions are good, but he didn't convince me of anything. I think affirmative action was a good thing and brought about good social change. I don't think ending affirmative action will reverse this change. I just don't see that happening. Affirmative action has served it's purpose but it does not belong here permanently.

People aren't just going to say, "ok minorities and women, we don't legally have to hire you any more so we're not going to." It won't be so drastic. The idea that we should strive for all jobs being 50/50 male/female or white/black is nonsese. What if there are more males who want to be firemen than females who want to be firemen? What if more whites want to be doctors than blacks? Why is it such an awful thing if different kinds of people have different aspirations. All people should be encouraged to go into all professions, but may be most qualified person get the job, without consideration of their race or gender or whatever. If the requirements for being a fireman are that you have to be so strong or big, then if women are less big and strong, then I guess they can't be firemen. So what. Short wimps can't be firemen either. Are they going to insist that they were discriminated against? They were, but that's good. We want to have the best firemen, who cares what gender they are.

These pro-affrmative action people make it out as if everyone is on their side. This is not the case. They may have a slight edge among students, but among the voting public, they are outnumbered more than 2-1. Check out Students Against Discrimination and Preferences.