Philosophical question: What's the difference between "fair and balanced" and "affirmative action"?

[Bucky]

It seems like the two terms are just used by different people trying to achieve essentially the same results: a seat at the table for people who have been historically disincluded--ethnic minorities on one side and the intellectually anachronistic on the other.

[MajorChode]

1. As I see it, the two aren't even remotely the same

You should remember that affirmative action is still discrimination based on race. I believe affirmative action was and still is necessary, but the goal of affirmative action should be to end affirmative action because it really isn't "fair and balanced". It's simply correcting a wrong with the other side of the same coin and it simply gives bigots fodder and allows them to play the victim.

The problem with public education in this country is we don't treat kids fairly from the very first day they enter school. So long as one child gets a better education simply because they live on the better side of town, there will always be inequities and there will never be fairness. The problem I have with affirmative action as the ultimate solution is it attempts to correct a problem after it has already been allowed to exist for 12 years and that will never happen. Affirmative education should have been a temporary stop gap measure and should have ended decades ago after the inequities of public education were addressed, but they never were and we're really not that much better off in that regard than we were 50 years ago, and that is the really sad part.

[DURHAM D]

2. Huh? fair and balanced is just a marketing slogan with no actual meaning