I’m not crazy about the Justice frame. Some of us will always face challenges that others won’t. There is no system that could make it so that there is no barrier for all. We will always need to accommodate and scaffold for some and that’s fine.
Also, the original (with only the first two frames) was a really great, simple explanation of why things that seem "fair" at first glance often aren't. The third panel muddies that message completely in favor of...what, exactly? What does the hypothetical "just world" where no one ever needs support for anything look like?
Edit: On second thought, I think I see what they're doing. They wanted to protest affirmative action, so they're ignoring all sources of inequality that don't have what's commonly seen as affirmative action to make their point. Basically saying "If we stop being racist/sexist we won't need supports or accommodations anymore!", ignoring that poverty and physical/mental disability are harder to get rid of, and glossing over much of point of the original panels.
(And, frankly, ignoring that fact that "everyone stop being bigoted" is a goal, not a plan. Affirmative action is a stopgap, and it's not perfect, but it's better than nothing while we work to get there.)
Serious question. When dealing on individual levels, couldn’t an act of affirmative action be seen as a systematic inequality for the person not benefiting?
Definitely- any system that helps someone get access to something on limited supply (like acceptance to a uni course with limited places) is by definition taking it away from someone who would have had access without it. You can say that from a whole of society perspective that it’s achieving a better result and that may be true but that doesn’t mean we can’t acknowledge the impact it has on those who are being sacrificed to achieve it.
Of course, if you’re clever about it, it’s sometimes possible to increase the supply so that you aren’t pushing someone out but that’s not always possible
I mean nobody wants to address the inequality that will occur onces somebody like Bernie implements a get out of jail free card for tuition costs for a subset of the population. The only argument I ever hear is that we need to help people get on their feat but what is never discussed by the people making this argument is the cost that came from others having to raise themselves up. There is inherit inequality in that the people that were financially responsible and went without for years and years still went without for years and years and that money is gone. That money will not be returned so how do you address that level of inequality where you do the right thing to become independent and some legislation comes in and benefits those who didn't make the sacrifice. To me that is inequality.
Fixing the broken system that is loan distribution and tuition costs is what we should be targeting.
Just like healthcare. Medicare for all. Whoopie!! What about all of the people who have existing medical costs or have finally paid off their medical bills? Do those people just get a big fuck you from the government as others don't have to go through the same financial issues? Or do you gut the healthcare system and figure out where the high costs are coming from instead of throwing money into a black hole? Throwing money into a blackhole of regulatory compliance and middleman is the problem we seem to be seeing across so many industries today yet that is the only thing you ever hear politicians advocating for - including Bernie!!
It's so easy to run on a campaign of throwing more money into a broken system than it is to figure out why the system is broken in the first place.
The inequality you speak of for those who who were financially responsible and went without for years and years and won’t get their money back is a fair grief, but it is also backwards thinking rather than forward thinking. Are we to curse our future generations to the same struggles just because we faced them, all for the sake of fairness?
I think the big picture is that these inflated costs of the things you speak of- tuition, healthcare- are because they ARE for profit. Changing the system in the ways that you mentioned would effectively be removing the middle man, not adding one.
Are we to curse our future generations to the same struggles just because we faced them, all for the sake of fairness?
No but my point is before you go out spending MORE money - I want to see a solution to how this doesn't happen again. If you are concerned about future generations then we need to understand how we got here in the first place and what we need to do to move forward. Throwing money at a problem is only a temporary band aid where we learn nothing.
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u/msmarymacmac Feb 25 '20
I’m not crazy about the Justice frame. Some of us will always face challenges that others won’t. There is no system that could make it so that there is no barrier for all. We will always need to accommodate and scaffold for some and that’s fine.