On 22-12-2010 8:05, Warp wrote:
> andrel<byt### [at] gmailcom>  wrote:
>>>> I think it is a common concept that a democracy has to do what the
>>>> majority wants while at the same time protecting the rights of minorities.
>>>
>>>     While protecting the rights of *everybody* equally.
>
>> Yes, that is what that means. Many people find it useful to stress it
>> this way to make clear that even in a democracy there are bounds to what
>> is acceptable to put into laws even if you have 50%+1 of the votes.
>
>    The problem is that when some people stress that notion too much,
> they start showing preferential treatment for some groups of people,
> effectively discriminating others. When this happens to a politician
> passing laws or judges passing verdicts, it's a problem.
>
>    And yes, that *is* happening. It's not purely theoretical.
>
Indeed preferential treatment (but not discrimination*) is happening and 
that is as it should, reread e.g.Darran's posts to understand why.

Last night I was thinking of starting this thread from scratch, perhaps 
it is more logical do do it here.

-------------------fresh start-----------------
Assume you have a village in a hypothetical country with two 
highschools. A: a general one with 40 student per class in an old 
building in the middle of town. And B: one with one staff member per 10 
students, a sporting facility, a laptop computer for every student etc. 
It turns out that most students from A go and work in a factory or on 
the land, only 10% go to a university and on average perhaps only one of 
them to a high ranking one. From B 60% go to a university half of them 
to a good one.

The yearly fee per student is just the total cost (salaries/maintenance) 
divided by the number of students. It turns out that B is 5 times as 
expensive as A. You, me nor anybody else is surprised that the net 
effect is that only kids from middle and high income parents are going 
to university.

Someone proposes that that is not fair and also intelligent kids from 
poor parents should have a chance to study. That there should be a 
passing exam for school B and that the fees should depend on the income 
of the parents.

Somebody else complains because this is preferential treatment and 
discrimination of the rich as their chances to go to university will be 
lowered.

Moral of the story: In a society with different social groups you can 
either have equal treatment or equal chances.

Observation: most, if not all, civilized countries go, at least 
officially, for equal chances.

------------------------------
*) The goal of a non-discriminatory society is often worded as: treat 
equal cases equal, and non-equal cases non-equal. What you seem to 
advocate is a much more rigid interpretation: treat all cases equal 
regardless of whether they are equal or not.

Post a reply to this message