It started, fittingly enough, in Ideology and Politics class.

We were talking about populism versus special interest groups, and somehow that lead the prof to get us to all ready this article from the Post about how Justin should have based his cabinet choices on merit and not gender.

See, Justin made a campaign promise to have a 50/50 gender split in his cabinet, and to his credit, he has made good on that. What the columnist for the Post, Andrew Coyne, argues is that if Justin wants to really signal that his is a new kind of government, he should base his cabinet appointments on actual merit, not gender.

And I agree. And…. I said so. Um, a lot.

I tried to stay calm, I really did. I was cool with it at first. Sure, it’s not fair if jobs go to people who are not the most qualified based on the genitals they are packing, but as this is not a matter of permanent policy and a heck of a lot of good can be done for women by this move, I was prepared to let it slide.

But once it became a discussion about affirmative action, the angry ideologue who gets really, really passionate about ideas could be held back no longer, and I was off the chain. I argued with the prof back and forth about it for like, the last half hour of the class, and a little bit after, and so I am coming into this blog entry with a full head of steam.

So here, in no particular order, are the reasons I hate affirmative action and the entire line of reasoning that supports it.

1. It’s unfair. In order to illustrate why it is unfair, I have written the following vignette :

Min : You shouldn’t hire people based on X! Hiring should be based on merit only!
Maj : My goodness, you’re right! From now on, only merit counts!
Min : OK, now I should get hired because of X.
Maj : But you just said we shouldn’t hire based on X!
Min : That was before I realized it could benefit me.

See what I mean? Either X should be taken into consideration or it shouldn’t. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t just pick whichever one benefits you or your group at that moment. Either it is perfectly fine to hire (or choose) based on X and therefore all possible values of X, or X should never factor into the equation at all.

And if you take up any variant of the “X counts” position, you are a bigot, regardless of who benefits.

2. It’s patronizing. By enacting affirmative action, the majority is basically saying this :

Maj : We know that because you Mins are inherently weak and inferior, you could never ever achieve equality of merit, so we’re going to artificially elevate you so we can all pretend like you’re equal and feel better about ourselves.

And I vehemently disagree with that. By artificially elevating any minority group based on their minority status, we are endorsing the view that said minority will never have enough merit to get that position meritocratically.

And that is a position that I absolutely refuse to endorse.

3. It casts doubt. By artificially elevating any member of a minority group, you cast doubt on the merit of the entire group. Even if you got to where you are entirely based on merit, the door is now open for the whole world to sneer at you and say you only got your job based on your membership to said minority. Thus, affirmative action, in the name of equality, instead creates doubt on an entire minority group’s merit while benefitting only a few of them.

It’s just not worth it. It costs more than it benefits.

Full disclosure : I’m a white male. That, in many people’s eyes, puts me permanently in the “majority” column. But I am also gay, and we homosexual males make up less than two percent of the population. I also suffer from depression, and depressives are a minority. I am morbidly obese, and for now at least, we obese people are a minority.

And I would not any of those factor, or any of the others I have not bothered to mention, be a factor in me getting a job. I want to get a job because I will be good at it, period. If I found out I got a job primarily because I was gay, or fat, or whatever, I would be pretty damned angry about it.

Not angry enough to quit, of course. I’m not made of stone. But really mad otherwise.

I asked the prof what she would think if it turned out that going by merit, Justin would end up with a cabinet that is 75 percent female. And you know what she said?

“That would never happen. ”

And yet, she clearly thinks of herself as a feminist! I’m the one who thinks that women can make it on their own, and she is the one that thinks they can’t, and yet she’s the feminist?

Now if you want to break down artificial barriers placed in the path of a minority, I am right there with you. There is absolutely no reason why a member of a minority should have to work twice as hard to get half the recognition. That’s bigoted and unfair. The only way society can be equal and fair is if merit is the only factor considered.

And yes, I know that merit is not evenly distributed. People don’t have equal access to education, good nutrition, pro-learning environments, or quality day-care. Bigotry throws up barriers that the majority never face. The world is not fair.

But meritocracy is the closest thing we can currently hope for in terms of fairness. Anything else is bigotry. At least with meritocracy, the person who gets the job is someone who can actually do it.

Can you imagine the immense damage, both to the person and their cause, would arise if a member of a minority group was elevated to job for which they are not qualified at all?

That would be exactly what the bigots and the haters want : A public example of minority inferiority.

It’s just not worth it.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.