There is an American quote that I love, "The Government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always rely on the support of Paul". There is another related French quote, "the art of taxation is to pluck the maximum amount of feathers from a goose with the minimum amount of hissing"
One thing which really gets my goat is affirmative action on the basis of positive discrimination based upon race, religion, etc. That is one of the most stupid, incoherent, intellectually defunct public policy measures that one can ever see. Take a look at who champions this policy, and you will always see that it is politicians who are doing it for a short term reason.
There is no economic reason for a liberal democracy to single out a certain sect, religious segment etc. for specialised treatment without any sunset clauses or a very good explanation as to why a certain section of society is so privileged.
You will note that there is no measurement for judging who is bad and who is good. It is generally based upon self identification (race, religion, sect, colour, language...). And there is generally no clear statement or case for when the preferential treatment will be ended.
Finally, one would note that if somebody does question this entire edifice, the whole panoply of bureacracy, politicicians, the people who are gaining from this, etc. will rush to talk about everything but the issue.
I have written about this before in 2004. Since then, we have had affirmative action riots where one group of people rioted because another group of people were given the same kind of benefits in India.
We have had a case of clear evidence that affirmative action for blacks in the legal education field is spectacularly failing and is actually producing less number of black lawyers than would have graduated without affirmative actions. According to this story in the WSJ recently about black admissions in law schools, UCLA Law Professor Richard Sander. According to his calculations
"Mr. Sander calculated that if law schools were to use color-blind admissions policies, fewer black law students would be admitted to law schools (3,182 students instead of 3,706), but since those who were admitted would be attending schools where they have a substantial likelihood of doing well, fewer would fail or drop out (403 vs. 670). In the end, more would pass the bar on their first try (1,859 vs. 1,567) and more would eventually pass the bar (2,150 vs. 1,981) than under the current system of race preferences. Obviously, these figures are just approximations, but they are troubling nonetheless."
And when he tried to get more data, he was stonewalled and refused any further data for further research. An objection was, "disclosure risks stigmatizing African American attorneys" or that "the State Bar Association will be sued". But not one good, intellectually coherent argument against this proposition that the very policy that is supposed to improve Black performance is actually leading to a loss of Black lawyers.
The Americans do not know how lucky they are, at least the selection of judges, howsoever flawed, is not based upon affirmative action quotas. Take a look at this story. Now the Indian judiciary is also proposed to be based around racial and caste based quotas.
I look forward to when fighter pilot squadrons have caste based quotas, the Indian cricket team has race based quotas, when medical operations on you will be carried out strictly on the basis of religion based quotas, when icecream and burgers will be served to you strictly on the basis of gender based quotas and parking is allocated based upon sexual orientation quotas.
Weep, World, Weep, for the Emperor is naked.
All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!
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