I applied to college a few months ago. Here are some of my qualifications:

* Graduated third in my graduating class of 800
* Logged over 350 hours of community service
* Scored a 2280 on the SAT
* Eagle Scout
* Senior Patrol Leader of a large troop
* Many extracurricular activities

However, I was rejected from Stanford. The rejection alone was not a surprise at all, because there are many other very well qualified applicants like myself. Also, Stanford admitted one of my close friends, an African-American. In comparison, he has a somewhat underwhelming record; he's under 85th percentile gradewise and has no outside activities to put on a resume aside from band. Stanford proudly proclaims that it practice some form of affirmative action. Yes, I'm white. What the heck is this? Do we, as a culture, really need to have equality of outcome for all races, rather than simply equality of opportunity? Should universities, employers, and other organizations really be so pressured to appear politically correct that they slip into reverse discrimination?

I may be inferring too much from too little information, but I don't that's likely; what factor, other than race, could have admitted him and rejected me?

Racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. are all very serious problems in America, as evidenced by the Presidential election, but how is affirmative action or anything like it ethical or just? Both racism and affirmative action influence someone's judgment on the basis of prejudice, that certain groups of the population should be given extreme abnormal disdain or privilege for something they had no control over. Instead of fighting prejudice with prejudice, wouldn't it be better to address the root causes of the problem? That is, we should address harmful internet sites, inadequate education leading people to mis-infer that correlation implies causation, certain environments and subcultures that encourage racism in the young, and of course ensuring equality of opportunity for as many people as possible.

But enforcing racial diversity for diversity's sake behind force of law, institutional ruling, or simply underlying prejudice is wrong, for the same reason that enforcing a single "pure race" behind the KKK or a Hitler is wrong; diversity or non-diversity are not underlying principles that should be appealed to. Rather, justice, and individual merits, skills, accomplishments, and talents are what should be taken into consideration.

Otherwise, if we as a culture continue to judge people based simply on what group they can be classified into, we will just become ever more divided, which will further unjust prejudice, to the detriment of the nation.


Oh, and to presuppose an objection, I'm not looking for sympathy. I got into a good school anyway, and besides, my own personal circumstances mean very little in the broad scheme of things. Rather, I'm looking for someone to give a good logical defense of why affirmative action may be a just policy. I surely wouldn't want to persist in a false belief without giving anyone the opportunity to convince me otherwise :)

Some may think of criticizing me for not explaining how hundreds of years of slavery, systematic discrimination, and racism can be addressed, so here are some positive suggestions. The way I see it, affirmative action tries to address the effects, which are lower income levels and higher unemployment, rather than the causes, which is generally lower educational potential due to systematic inequality/racism. Since AA tries to fix the effect rather than the result, it is only as permanent as long as the employee manages to hold onto the job, which may be short, especially given the current economic situation. Since AA doesn't treat the causes, it would have to be practiced close to forever to retain its effectiveness, because as soon as it stops, we're very close to the original situation again.

The solution is not to say or make people act as if a particular African-American's qualifications are greater than they actually are. The solution is to make it so that African-Americans' qualifications ARE the same as others, on average. I suggest that, rather than treating the symptom through affirmative action, we treat the disease itself. For instance, in my state, funds for local schools come from taxing the surrounding properties. If one lives in a poor, primarily African-American neighborhood, your school will also be quite poor. This is obviously an idiotic policy, which serves only to further inequality among students and schools. In addition, I have heard that some subsections of African-American culture, greatly influenced by popular rappers, is somewhat self-depreciating and does not carry all that much respect for the most important thing, education, nor so much for getting a job and working. I don't know how correct these rumors about some subsets of AA culture is, but it may be something to help fix. I don't know. Or, there exists in my neighborhood an organization which seeks to pair up poor, typically unmotivated minorities from unprivileged neighborhoods with a more well-to-do mentor, who helps them with schoolwork, encourages them and gives them advice, and most importantly, helps them to become motivated to fully attend college. We need more programs like that, which help future families to fervently seek success on their own, without any outside help necessary.

Better to correct and encourage those, which help to permanently treat the causes of inequality, than affirmative action, which is temporary, unjust, and shortsighted.


To make an analogy, A and B are twin brothers and have to take a test tomorrow. Imagine that B was assigned a lot of homework for other classes and so didn't study much for the test, and got a B. Brother A has more time to study and gets an A. Brother B doesn't know the material very well, so does not deserve an A. However, that happened because he was denied equal opportunity; he had little time to study for the test. Would the just thing be to give him an A regardless, even though he doesn't know the material well? Of course not. The just thing would be to make sure he doesn't get much homework from other classes on test days. Same for AA; if one is less qualified one shouldn't be as likely to get a job. The solution is not to give them the job; the solution is to provide for equal opportunity so that the subjects would be equally qualified next time, on average.


I also forgot to mention this at the top: other important components of an application are recommendations and the "creative essays." Some of it might be explained by my not doing that well on those. It's hard to make something "creative" when there isn't really a concrete topic or known concrete expectations... at least, that's how it is for me. That's why I like forums or regular assignments much better. But my personal experience doesn't matter; my point is that affirmative action is not right.

We should stop coddling white males. That is the biggest affirmative action program ever in history.

You are making a racist right wing argument here. I am challenging your argument, by the way, not persecuting you or labeling you as a person.

Household income? Trust fund? Is your friend trying to practice his music while he's hearing gunshots outside his window?

As for affirmative active being ethical, I would say given the situation it is the least we can do as a nation. Is it ethical that most of the property in this country is controlled by a very limited number of people? Is it ethical that there are only a few women running Fortune 500 companies? Is it ethical that people are losing their jobs and homes through no fault of their own and living in tents for shelter?

Sympathy? I save mine for actual victims.

Legacy admissions are basically affirmative action for whites, to be specific, and I think they're even worse than normal AA. At least race-based AA had a reasonable-ish, noble cause in mind. But legacy admissions only serve to further entrench the existing aristocracy of social class.

If you think that AA is a just policy, then what do you think about what I said, that we should address the causes of inequality rather than the effects? AA is only a temporary solution, one that loses most of its effectiveness when it stops being practiced. Read my second post.

I believe that the super-rich holding most of the nation's wealth is unethical. I was not disputing that; I'm definitely not a Republican, the party of Palin-lovers and Rush dittoheads.

The inequality is unjust, as you said. I completely agree with you. That's why I said we should treat the causes of the inequality rather than the effects.

that is valid. But it's more than just legacies (family connection, your dad goes to Harvard you get in fairly easily too - especially if there's a wing named after Gramps), there are also the privileges that come with being white no matter what your economic standing. Whites have been the primary landowners and leaders (high leadership posts, running companies etc...) since the founders, with women and minorities really only entering the picture in any substantial way in the past 50 years (and that's generous). Not speaking about you personally, obviously, just speaking in generalities. White males are more likely to come from a higher socio-economic status, "better" neighborhoods, have more highly educated parents, more likely to have inherited some or a lot of wealth. These are gross generalities, and I know on a personal level it is hard to deal with a rejection when you are a top student, but the admissions folks are trying to put together a diverse class. If they are hypothetically accepting 1000 students, and the top SAT's are all from fairly well-off white males they are not going to get much diversity. So, they dig in deeper, read the essays and look for other distinguishing factors. Test scores are not all that make up a person after all...

which I believe we can pretty much trace back to capitalism (the discussion of slavery benefiting landowners to start with - the civil war was fought over economics). Are you interested in looking at that?

Doesn't matter to me whether you are republican or democrat - two sides of the same coin as far as I'm concerned.

Legacy admissions to schools is but a small part of white privilege, which permeates the entire society.

By the way, rural whites benefit from various affirmative action programs for college admissions.

Affirmative action has been an unqualified success, and we have all benefited from it.

The conditions are the cause, not the effect. Addressing the conditions IS addressing the root cause, and affirmative action addresses the conditions.

It is irrelevant and of no consequence whether or not you personally identify with Palin or Limbaugh, you are making the same argument that they do.

"the admissions folks are trying to put together a diverse class. If they are hypothetically accepting 1000 students, and the top SAT's are all from fairly well-off white males they are not going to get much diversity."
So much for the much-lauded "need-blind" policies... :(

True, the admissions committees are looking for a diverse student body; they want diversity of thought, culture, background and experience. Many universities and businesses subscribe to the idea that such diversity adds to the value of the institution or business. It is believed that such diversity fosters creativity, insight and understandings that provide great dividends for students, faculty, employers and employees. Is this the kind of diversity you're talking about? If so, then I completely agree with you, with one clarification; it is not, strictly speaking, the skin color of the applicant that is important, so much as the culture of the applicant. For instance, I've been friends with the guy I mentioned since middle school, and we've grown up in the same culture, in the same neighborhood, with similar experiences. The Supreme Court nominee's infamous "wise Latina" comment made sense in its original context, for the most part, but it made sense because of her unique experiences and of the cultures she had been in, not so much because of her race. In her case, it's not her skin color that matters; it's understanding poor impoverished Hispanic culture that matters. Wouldn't you agree that aiming for "diversity" in this way is good because of the cultural differences that are valued, not because of the color of the applicant's skin? Though it is very true that culture and ethnicity are very often intertwined.

Yes, white privilege does permeate our entire society, and that's not really good; skin color should have no role in how successful one is in life. When the troops stopped the African-Americans from entering the school back in the 1960s it was pure racial discrimination, which is unjust; they were judging them simply based on the color of their skin. But AA is racial discrimination too, in the opposite direction.

Also, though you may say "we have all benefited from" AA, I would be inclined to believe that I have been more hurt as a result of AA than I have been helped. Wouldn't you think?

I'm more concerned about what perpetuates inequality today. That is, I'm more concerned with the direct causes of inequality than the causes of the causes of inequality.
Slavery, historical white capitalism --...--> low educational potential for modern African-Americans ---> lower social class, income for modern AAs

Oh, I don't consider myself a Republican or Democrat, I'm an independent. Better to decide issue by issue than by ideology.

"The conditions are the cause, not the effect. Addressing the conditions IS addressing the root cause, and affirmative action addresses the conditions."
It's not permanent, though. For jobs, as soon as the job is left, it's gone, and the next job might not even have AA to help out the minority applicant. Admitting an African-American to Harvard over a more qualified applicant doesn't mean the AA would be more likely to succeed; on the contrary, if s/he was admitted over a more qualified applicant, s/he would actually be less likely to succeed. I understand that a good job is necessary for a good education and that a good education is necessary for a good job, but there are better ways of encouraging permanent racial equality than AA.

"It is irrelevant and of no consequence whether or not you personally identify with Palin or Limbaugh, you are making the same argument that they do."
I am not making the same argument they would make. I would be extremely surprised to hear either of them advocate public support for either of the concrete positive suggestions I made to address inequality. If you wouldn't mind, we should try to focus on the issue at hand rather than on the wingnuts that coincidentally happen to take a similar position on one of the points of the broad issue. But if it's any consolation to you, I lean more to the left than to the right overall.

That is the first thing you need to understand.

Secondly, outcomes are the way we measure equality of opportunity.

Thirdly, the choice is never between the "most qualified applicant" and "diversity." The talent pool among those denied opportunity is, logically and obviously, better than that among the privileged group, so diversity means availing ourselves of more talent, not less. That helps all of us.

Only by ignoring those three things does your argument appear to have merit. If you ignore those three things, you are ignoring the problem and have therefore undermined any credibility you have for criticizing remedies.

Address those three points, and then we can debate the merits of various remedies. Otherwise, you are denying or failing to understand the problem.

Your arguments deny the problem. We cannot debate the relative merits of solutions of we don't agree on the problem.

There are some false assumptions in your little story that you are trying to slip in without them being examined.

First, the person was not promoted above y7ou because they had a Black skin. They were promoted above you because of the disadvantages they had experienced as a result of having a Black skin, and the admissions office made the determination that if those advantages you had were taken away, and the disadvantages of the other candidate removed, that the other applicant was a better candidate than you were.

Secondly, you were not necessarily the "more qualified." The rigid and prejudicial attitudes you are expressing here could well be a more important d3etermination of your qualifications than any test score would indicate. Were I hiring, I would rather hire the person with more humility and drive then the person such as yourself with higher test scores, but an attitude that you have earned your privilege and that the world owes you something because of that. Low test scores might be a consideration, but attitudes such as yours are a much more powerful reason for disqualifying you. That isn't "bleeding heart" that is hard-nosed objective reasoning, for the good of the institution or business.

I speak from experience, hiring people. The woman or person of color, with the less impressive resume, almost always turned out to be the better employee than the white male with all of the credentials. Better in all ways - smarter, more loyal, harder working. White males - especially those who take their privilege and advantages as something they earned or should get credit for - too often expect more for doing less. They can get more for doing less, so they are unappreciative of opportunity and are experts at using their privileged status to skate and bullshit their way along. They think they know more than they do, they think they are better than they are. You are expressing that attitude of privilege, and were I the personnel officer, I would not hire you. In fact, you would be the last person I would consider. Not because you are white, but rather because of your attitude. Not because the other person was a person of color, but rather because they would likely be the better candidate and more of an asset to the organization.


...

It is the conditions of segregation and divide-and-conquer fear mongering by the ruling class that cause the attitudes of racism, it is not the attitudes that cause the conditions.

Seeing racism as a matter of internal emotional feelings or attitudes gives whites a free pass to ignore and deny racism. That is the exact way that the fear mongers and race baiters on the political right promote racism. No matter what you call yourself, and no matter what you claim your internal state to be on the subject of race, you are promoting racism with your arguments here.

It is also boring as hell, because this is the same old same old tired and worn out and dishonest argument defending white privilege and denying racism that we have all heard a million times, right down to the supposedly revealing and illustrative personal anecdote. It is a slimy and sleazy way to covertly promote racism. Do you really imagine that we have heard this same line of reasoning 100 times a week for the last 40 years? Do you think you are coming up with some new and brilliant insights on th4 subject?

You said "I'm looking for someone to give a good logical defense of why affirmative action may be a just policy."

I did so. You are ignoring that. That raises questions about your sincerity.

That's a pretty big assumption you're making.

Of course we measure equality of opportunity by seeing how the outcomes are. If the outcomes are not equal, then the opportunity is not equal, for the most part.

"The talent pool among those denied opportunity is, logically and obviously, better than that among the privileged group"
The slaves were of course denied opportunity, to say the least, right? Yet one wouldn't say that they were more talented than the colonists.

If minority A is denied equal opportunity by being forced (via systematic racism) to go to a really poor, crappy school, and subsequently gets a very low quality education, does that mean that he is more highly educated or more talented than those who went to better schools? Of course not.

"First, the person was not promoted above y7ou because they had a Black skin. They were promoted above you because of the disadvantages they had experienced as a result of having a Black skin,"
Although the original reasoning behind AA was to help what resulted from skin color rather than because of skin color itself, the admission committee only knew my friend's skin color, not the disadvanatages that resulted from his skin color.

"and the admissions office made the determination that if those advantages you had were taken away, and the disadvantages of the other candidate removed, that the other applicant was a better candidate than you were."
I'm not so sure. First, how do you know that that was the committee's actual thought processes? Especially in sensitive issues like these, universities and employers rarely go into specifics as to how their internal determinations work, because of the controversy it could cause. Secondly, I find it unlikely that they ever had the opportunity to judge our applications side-by-side, so they couldn't have directly weighed us in comparison. But even if they had seen the applications together, the evidence at hand sure makes it seem that they would have judged mine more qualified.

"The rigid and prejudicial attitudes you are expressing here could well be a more important d3etermination of your qualifications than any test score would indicate. Were I hiring, I would rather hire the person with more humility and drive then the person such as yourself with higher test scores, but an attitude that you have earned your privilege and that the world owes you something because of that."
Ho ho, so you think that my desire to address the root causes of racial inequality is rigid and prejudiced. Well then.

I have a sneaking feeling that you may be more concerned with attacking me than with rational discussion.

Yes, I do feel that I've earned my qualifications, for the most part, although my ability to do that was of course enabled by being born into a middle-class family. Still:
I was responsible for deciding to study and do homework many nights rather than participate in other exciting things happening, such as basketball games, parties, and movies
I was responsible for fighting and learning my way up to the top of my class (3rd of 800)
I was responsible for volunteering, for helping food banks, cleaning up parks, organizing donation drives, for helping build new playgrounds in poor communities
I was responsible for buying multiple SAT prep books, using money from my part-time job to buy them, and for going over them meticulously until I was sure I had mastered the material well
I was responsible for putting in multiple hours each week for years with my Scout troop, for organizing my Eagle project, for being trustworthy, loyal, and friendly (etc) enough for my hundred or so peers to elect me as the leader of my troop over 7 other candidates

And so on. Yes, TA, I do feel that I have earned what I have put in hundreds of hours to accomplish. I could just as easily have become a lazy jock or something and achieved none of these things, but I chose not to. Most of the people at my school, including my friend, could have done the same thing, had they had the initiative and dedication to do so.

"Low test scores might be a consideration, but attitudes such as yours are a much more powerful reason for disqualifying you."
My attitude is that the causes of racial inequality should be addressed rather than the effects. That is not a reason for disqualification. Please tone down the personal attacks, if you wouldn't mind.

"White males - especially those who take their privilege and advantages as something they earned or should get credit for - too often expect more for doing less. They can get more for doing less, so they are unappreciative of opportunity and are experts at using their privileged status to skate and bullshit their way along."
You think I am trying to get more for doing less? You think that I am not deserving of what results from my hard-won 3rd-in-class ranking? You think I am trying to "do less" by the hundreds of hours I've put in to everything? You think that I didn't put any effort for my qualifications? You think that becoming an Eagle Scout can be done by "bullshitting [my] way along?" You think that one can get into the 99th percentile of the SAT and of subject tests and of the graduating class by "bullshitting their way along?"
You, sir, are mistaken.

I am not "unappreciative of opportunity." If you will read my 2nd post again, you will see that I clearly explained that racial inequality today is a result of minorities lacking equality of opportunity. Then I made a few suggestions about how to fix the system so that minorities would be able to have equality of opportunity. If you think that that is me being "unappreciative of opportunity," then you are wrong. I appreciate the opportunities I had to achieve what I wanted to achieve. I am very glad of my luck for being born into a middle class family and of having the freedom to do what I wanted. Most of my peers I know were in a similar situation; none are dirt poor or seriously limited financially. I even remember the one I mentioned in the OP boasting to me in early middle school that his dad earned more than mine.

If you have to resort to these personal attacks of me being "unappreciative of opportunity" and of "bullshitting my way along" and of being the same as those rich, pretentious idiot whites, then I don't think we can have a productive conversation.

"It is the conditions of segregation and divide-and-conquer fear mongering by the ruling class that cause the attitudes of racism, it is not the attitudes that cause the conditions."
I would think that a racist attitude of, say, a rural Southerner could prevent a minority from getting a job, wouldn't you say? If anyone with any power has racist attitudes, those attitudes can easily lower the conditions for minorities.

"Seeing racism as a matter of internal emotional feelings or attitudes gives whites a free pass to ignore and deny racism."
You're kidding, right? Of course part of racism is as a result of internal attitudes, but that's not all. The insane policy of some states for lower income neighborhoods (read: minority neighborhoods) to necessarily get poorer schools is very close to racism. By no means am I trying to "ignore and deny racism."

If you want to accuse me of being racist because I prefer to address the root causes of racial inequality then I'm afraid we cannot have a productive conversation.

I am not trying to "defend white privilege" by advocating for more equal school funding. I am not defending white privilege by arguing for programs that will increase minorities' academic motivation. I am not "denying racism," nor am I "promoting racism" by advocating for more equal opportunities for minorities.

I am sorry that you are unable to hold a reasonable conversation on the topic without resorting to personal attacks and accusations of racism. If this is how you're going to be then I'm afraid that we have nothing more to discuss.

n/t

Look, no one is trying to attack you if you're sincere. We do get a lot of these types of scenarios presented. I have a spouse who was somewhat privileged himself and we sometimes have these conversations at home. It is something a lot of people talk about.

You'll find on this site that we are leftist, and moving more left daily. Racism is ingrained in this country, and minorities are often faced with more challenges daily than you or I (as a blue-collar white female) will ever be faced with in our lifetime. You're not going to find a lot of sympathy here for doing away with programs like affirmative action. As far as I'm concerned this country hasn't done enough to help out most of us. When are the bail outs for the average Americans coming?

That is the next move - after making racist arguments, when some one calls you on that, switch things around backward and accuse them of persecuting you by accusing you of being a racist (something which would be impossible to prove, and which I did not say.)

Clever trick, well-honed by the right wing propaganda machine.

If calling a person on racist statement is to be seen as a personal attack on that person, then we could never discuss racism at all, could we? No matter what racist argument a person made, they cannot be called on it because they can then turn around and accuse the other person of accusing them of being a racist. That is the intent of the argument you are making here - to disappear racism as a topic for discussion. That is denying and ignoring racism, as I said.

Failing to see that, or denying it, is an attempt to re-define racism so that you can make your racist argument.

Paraphrasing Dr. King - "I don't care whether or not a person likes me, so long as they do not have the power to harm me."

Without the power imbalance,racism would not be an issue or a concern. Saying it can go both ways, and is merely a matter of personal attitudes is to ignore the power imbalance. Ignoring the power imbalance is ignoring or denying racism, and that promotes racism. The power imbalance occurred before the attitudes - that is historical fact.

Now, if you are sincere, you should have no difficulty seeing and admitting that your line of "reasoning" has been demolished and that your premises and assumptions are wrong. If you are not, we shall see you in your next incarnation through the proxy you are using.


...

It's very transparent and it's everywhere.

Whatever.

And what do you mean by this statement:

[div class="excerpt"]"Racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. are all very serious problems in America, as evidenced by the Presidential election"[/quote]

wtf?

When will white males ever catch a break?

You took my general comments pretty personally there.

but maybe there's a concerted effort among the young conservatives to build up their team for 2012 (with some money behind them I'm sure). I took the poster at his word, but who knows. *shrugs*

"I may be inferring too much from too little information, but I don't that's likely; what factor, other than race, could have admitted him and rejected me?
"

You're inferring an awful lot and there's no use making PI the 15th or so forum that carries this post.

You've opened at least 13 accounts on political forums in July 2009 under the name CNHander. All your threads are this same OP about how your less qualified Black friend got in because of AA and you, the fine, upstanding, patriotic White boy with community service (!) were rejected. When I googled you, the this exact same anti-Affirmative Action post came up everytime.

And your account at PI... There's nothing honest about it. Why are you using a proxy service. Each one of your posts posts has a different IP, one coming from Moscow, another from Lausanne, another from China, another from Nigeria. Every single post has a different IP from a different country.


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Sorry Hander, the following alone disqualifies you from posting here:

[div class=excerpt style=background:#FEFEFF]
I definitely do not support any ideology, or anything of the sort. Sticking with your original definition of "progressive" as "Altruist, Collectivist, Statist," I would only consider myself altruistic, but only marginally so. I consider myself an independent, although I generally lean more to the left than to the right. Important exceptions include the economy and the free market, generally, and cultural issues.

I definitely do not support socialism; the free market is nearly always better.

http://houseofpolitics.com/forum/showpost.php?p=101543&postcount=22 [/quote]

thought it was weird that he was complaining about this issue in late July. Ivy League early acceptance is fall and most find out early spring. Only wait-listed would go this late... Albeit, it's been awhile since I was an undergrad.

and added that you, TBF, gave him

"an idea to think about how diversity is valued, and although I didn't say so explicitly in the post, it gives me a decent reason to support AA because it encourages cultural diversity. I was open to debate."

If this were an open forum, I could understand but it's not so free-marketers need not apply.

His whole e-mail was pretty good and reeked of sincerity.

It ended like this:

"All I was looking for was discussion. Again, I'm sorry if this was disruptive. I will not be back, but seeing the atrocities committed in the Middle East and by bankers and insurance companies here in the US, I do support Progressive Independent's cause. For the most part.

(no this is not an unban request)"

Ok Hander, good luck to you. A few years ago, you could have posted here as a Left-leaning Libertarian but that didn't work out too well for us. That free-market thing is a big block.

I'll e-mail you a few articles about the origin of Libertarianism, written by Anaxarchos, that may get you to rethink a few things. When you do, you'll know where to find us.

He is posting the exact same story word for word all over the Internet - a phony story - Eagle Scout? Come on, who is kidding whom? It is carefully concocted, very carefully, to enable him to insert right wing and racist talking points into discussions. He is spamming all of the boards with it so that Google picks it up and it can be spread that way and gain momentum. Using a proxy, and anticipating all of the arguments, and copying and pasting prepared remarks - this is either a very obsessed individual with too much time on their hands, or else part of some sort of organized campaign.

"Seeing the atrocities committed in the Middle East and by bankers and insurance companies here in the US, I do support Progressive Independent's cause." Okey dokey.

"I was open to debate" and "all I was looking for was discussion." Right. Sure you were.


...

I should read this entire thread. I confess, I didn't read it all.

The proxy thing is indeed troubling.

Organized campaign would be my vote.