You're absolutely right. That's why I'm against race-based affirmative action. It's discriminatory and, as you said, two wrongs don't make a right. Affirmative action based on economic necessity is the only thing I've advocated. If you want to characterize such programs as a form of "reparations", then I suppose you'd call all social welfare programs reparations. But I haven't really been trying to advocate any one position so much as to get you to clarify your own. You've made it perfectly clear that you don't think the state can or should do anything to make up for past wrongs. But is that because you don't believe in welfare in general, or because you simply don't want to acknowledge that the state shares any responsibility for the poverty suffered by some people? When you say things like "perceived misdeeds" it makes me wonder. So, again, it seems you're saying...

"Yes, the state denied equal opportunity to millions of Americans, and actively prevented them from bettering themselves for almost two centuries. But now that those laws have been repealed, all Americans now have equal access to education, an equal chance for success, and the state bears no responsibility for the disadvantages of some."

Do I have that right? Do you agree with that statement or diagree?

And if you agree, how do you explain the disproportionate poverty and crime that afflicts the black and native American communities? Why don't other ethnic groups who suffered equal levels of discrimination -ie Asians or the Irish- suffer from those same problems?

And if you don't mind me asking, who did you vote for in 2008? Because if it was Bob Barr, I'd like to thank you for helping to defeat McCain/Palin.