No one cares if you're indebted to them. No one is asking you to feel indebted. However, this country rests on the ideals of a fair shot for everyone and the way things are does not offer that. You ought to be willing to try to fix it, whether you feel indebted to anyone or not, in the same way that you ought to be willing to help fix problems like student loans because it starts many off on an unfair track even though you aren't indebted to random college kids in any way.

And just exactly how are reparations going to "end inequality based on skin color" or provide a "fair shot for everyone"?

"You have a responsibility, as does everyone, to end inequality based on skin color."

No, I don't, and neither do you or anyone else. You will never have a level playing field for every person in the world. Life isn't like that. They have equal rights legally, that's all we are responsible for.

"However, this country rests on the ideals of a fair shot"

This country rests on the ideal of freedom and liberty and equality, yes. But that doesn't mean equality in the "all are the same" mentality. It means everyone has equal rights, there are no royalty or nobility.

I am willing to work towards fixing it, but don't tell me I have a responsibility or a duty to. This is a free nation and forcing Americans to do something is the surest way to see it undone.

We need to try to make people equal based on skin color, because we believe in the fundamental equality of all. Simple as that.

So you're fine with maintaining a hereditary upper class. It just can't be called nobility. Thanks for being willing to work towards fixing it. You do still have a responsibility to. Moral responsibility doesn't care about this stuff.

"but the blame game is a dangerous and slippery slope"

Exactly you cayoun't just say it was the black people and be done with it.

Try not to blame in the message in which you criticize the blame game next time.

"And just exactly how are reparations going to "end inequality based on skin color" or provide a "fair shot for everyone"?"

Reparations could be used to bridge the income gap, kill housing segregation, or god forbid better fund education and stimulate businesses in inner-city slums.

"It means everyone has equal rights, there are no royalty or nobility."

Then you ought to be happy to tax the rich, provide equal pay for women, and help black youth work toward equal opportunity.

"I am willing to work towards fixing it, but don't tell me I have a responsibility or a duty to. This is a free nation and forcing Americans to do something is the surest way to see it undone."

The US is no more free than any other civilized nation. You're either living in or living under a single class of people who have declared themselves above the rest in our social lives and in our government. As a nation, we're just like Western Europe, Scandinavia, Australia, and the other notoriously "free" places in the world.

Moral responsibility is very subjective and clearly different between us all. My morals don't tell me I have to right the wrongs of someone else's ancestors.

"Moral responsibility is very subjective and clearly different between us all."

Correct.

"My morals don't tell me I have to right the wrongs of someone else's ancestors."

It's a problem of now, not of then. You aren't exercising your morals; you are being closed-minded. Closed-mindedness is the reason people refuse to talk about this. Closed-mindedness is the reason HR-40 has failed so many times - we can't even get a freaking Congressional study to happen.

http://conyers.house.gov/index.cfm/reparations

"Then you ought to be happy to tax the rich, provide equal pay for women, and help black youth work toward equal opportunity."

The rich should (and are) taxed, but we need to fix how corporations are able to skimp out on their bills by moving overseas.

The gender pay gap is not nearly as wide as reported. I think krellin would be able to find sources easier than me, as I'm not a source-hoarder, but the common 73 cents per dollar figure doesn't account for how many hours are worked on average (more for men) and it includes professional sports players (paid a ton and almost exclusively men).

As for opportunities and such, that is a more complex issue I don't know much about. One thing is that we need to fund our schools better, but even with high funding we don't perform well compared to other countries, and I'm not sure why.

I think it's hilarious how there seems to be more outrage here about how the black community is protesting "incorrectly or inappropriately" than there is willingness to discuss what they are upset about in the first place.

No need to discuss it YJ. Eric Garner's death was a tragedy and the police should be prosecuted for murder. No one is doubting that.

"the common 73 cents per dollar figure doesn't account for how many hours are worked on average (more for men)"

Maybe. I would like some sources. If you want to leave that to krellin, just remind him not to waste 20 minutes of his time berating me for having different political views from him first.

"it includes professional sports players (paid a ton and almost exclusively men)."

Yeah, it also includes CEOs (paid a ton and almost exclusively men).

There are a few thousand professional athletes that make a fuckton of money - most of them are paid quite well, maybe into the millions, and plenty in a sport like baseball who make $10,000 a year and retire at 28 because they can't afford to try for their dreams anymore. They don't significantly skew a sample of nearly a hundred million men.

There's also fields like construction, trade skills, etc. which are high-pay and man-dominated, as well as STEM fields which are man-dominated, and medicine to a lesser extent.

Medicine is shifting quickly. I don't know the stats on STEM fields - I'm trying to stay away from them.

There are plenty of fields dominated by women. The fact of the matter is that women could work construction and whatever "dirty jobs" you want to bring up if they were brought up the same way the men are that tend to go into those fields. That's a great example of a sexist tradition even though the people who over the course of many generations crafted that tradition didn't have any malicious intent - women carried babies, after all.

None of these discrepancies justify any significant difference in pay. Whether 75 cents to the dollar is wrongly calculated or not, the actual figure is still quite significant.

They do have a difference in pay. "Women's jobs" as they are (secretarial, office work, cashiers, hairdressers, teachers, just some examples) pay much less than construction, plumbers, etc.

There's the issue. We just have to agree that it's an issue.

I really don't see those as "women's jobs" anyway. Maybe that's a generational thing, but I don't think you're that much older than me if I remember right. I see tons of men in all of those positions. I just don't see women taking on "men's jobs" (for lack of a better word).

OK so here's the difference in what we're saying. You're saying that if two people, one man and one woman, are both doctors, the woman will make ~75% of what the man does. That's not true, they'll make just about the same. The "problem" is that on average, when not accounting for total hours worked, women make 75% of what men make (if you account for $/hr, it's about 98 cents to the dollar) because of their typical profession choices.

That's not choices, that's what they're pressured into. Men tend to be moved into higher-risk and higher expertise jobs that pay a lot more, while women are encouraged to go into stable, low-intensity, low-risk, and low-pay jobs. It's part of sexism.

Why does everything have to be an "ism" or a pressure thing? Men and women are a different at a genetic/hormonal level, it is not necessarily sexist or a cultural thing that women tend to different paths than men on average.

I highly doubt that a man and a woman working the exact same job at the exact same place would apply. They would probably make the same. A woman's benefits package may be lower if she is still at the age where she could have a kid, but that would be the only significant difference.

However, on the whole, taking everything into account, women make 75 cents for every dollar a man makes. I don't know if that encompasses hours worked or not. If it does, I need to see a source.

I am also saying that you can see men in any of the jobs you listed as "women's jobs" but you won't see a woman in the jobs we both agreed are "men's jobs" because the men in those professions choose to hire other men, and as such, women don't often apply for them. I would agree with you if you say that the cause could go both directions - even if men in those areas don't often hire women simply because women rarely apply, it still stands that if a woman were to apply, they would be less likely to get the job because they are a woman.

Many men are excessively feminine and many women are excessively masculine. On the whole, there are probably areas where more men would work than women and vice versa, but society dictates that women should take on less labor-intensive occupations. The military is a fine example. Only recently could women even go into combat in the first place. Yes, genetically, men are in theory designed better for war than women, but it's not like women can't do it, and there are many fields just like that.

Construction might be a bad example. Women just don't (barring extremes) have the muscle mass to lift heavy objects enough. Plumbing, electrician, etc. are better examples.

bo_sox, the military is NOT a good example. Yes, women have only recently been allowed into combat. But roughly 80% of military jobs don't see combat at all. Also, in order to make it "more available" they lowered the standards *for women only* to pass physical readiness tests. In other words, they are letting in women that are weaker than men who were not able to fight due to their lack of strength. *This* is sexism. Not saying there isn't any other, but why do they have to lower the standards to make it easier for women to get into combat forces?

http://www.military.com/military-fitness/army-fitness-requirements/army-basic-training-pft

source for military fitness reqs

Article on the wage gap (I'll find more later, in a live game):

http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/04/16/its-time-that-we-end-the-equal-pay-myth/

I've met women in construction. They may not be lifting 200-pound steel beams but a physically fit woman could still work at most construction sites without limitation, especially on a road or somewhere where machinery does most of the heavy lifting. I don't know what the effect of having a child might have on a career like that, though.

The woman that we hired a few years back to clean our house has also messed with our plumbing a couple of times. She is very good at it. I doubt she is alone, but I wouldn't understand why anyone, man or woman, would ever want to be a plumber in the first place.

Another issue is the overwhelming men-to-women ratio among company executives. It is heavily skewed toward the former.

I wonder what the breakdown of business majors is? Might be a factor.

Another is that companies won't want a CEO who will have to take maternity leave. They also won't want upper management on maternity, which limits upward advancement (leading to lower CEO numbers).

I have never met a CEO, man or woman, of the typical age to have a child. Most CEOs are at least in their 40s and beyond.