Is tolerance intolerant?

[bennyboy]

. What I don’t agree with is forced, unmerited equality.

Which isn't affirmative action 

Establishing merit is very difficult indeed.

For example, who deserves more merit-- the one of thousands of Asian middle-class kids who study 8 hours a day, or the relatively small percentage of poor kids who manage to get good grades and get (reasonably) competitive test scores, who probably wouldn't have had time to study that much due to harder circumstances?

That's part of the problem, though-- without a good definition of the merits which deserve acceptance, schools will twist that definition to their own needs.  My guess is most schools will take a couple of token black academic students, most likely rich ones like the Obama kids, and a bunch of black athletes, and pat themselves on the back condescendingly for being such good sports. The rest will probably fall through the cracks due to poor SAT scores.

To me real affirmative action starts at about age 3 and goes up to about age 10, when more than half of adult intelligence is in place. After that, I think it's probably a cultural issue-- falloff in academic interest due to a general disrespect toward learning in poorer communities. "I think we got ourselves a BOOK READER!" *kid gets pushed in a mud puddle because of sweater vest and bowtie*