Base comparisons trivialize real issues

Wise is a third-year political science and public policy
student.

By Jason Wise

It seems to me like the Viewpoint section of the Daily Bruin has
been a bit cynical lately. With columns such as “Sports
recruiters should seek diversity, not skills” by Adam Epstein
(Daily Bruin, Viewpoint, April 6) and “Progressive taxation
root of issue” by David Drucker (Daily Bruin, Viewpoint,
April 12), we have been barraged with witty comparisons between
serious complex issues and trivial childhood situations.

Fortunately, most people see through these poorly formed
arguments against affirmative action and the current progressive
tax plan, respectively. The point is not whether you agree with
affirmative action or not, or if you support a less progressive tax
or not, but about your willingness to do something to solve the
problems found in education and economic inequalities. It is easy
to prove that inequities exist but extremely difficult to agree on
a solution.

Both columns choose to ignore their respective problems and
attempt to discredit them with naive comparisons.

Of course, we can all agree that no one person has the specified
“right” to play on UCLA basketball team, but is playing
basketball the same as receiving an education, as Epstein suggests?
We could talk about the inequalities in our education system that
put people with lower incomes at a disadvantage.

We could discuss taxpayer-subsidized public schools, like UCLA,
and argue that all taxpayers who pay for the school should be able
to attend it. We could consider that education determines not only
one’s job placement possibilities, but also makes one a
well-rounded person as well.

Playing basketball is just a game, while education is the basis
of life; calling the two equal ignores the innate complexity of an
unequal education and provides no solution to fixing the obvious
problem. Perhaps, instead of spending time ridiculing affirmative
action, Epstein should come up with a better way to correct the
inequalities of childhood education.

I am sure that most people would agree that Drucker’s
proposed “grade tax” system is one that would never be
supported. It’s obvious that we would not want to change all
our A grades to Bs for more equality.

But are taxes and assistance to the poor the same as the grades
we get in school? I do not recall a time when a grade in
Communications 10 could ever be compared to a mother’s
struggle to buy food for her children every week. The differences
between the As and Fs of our tax system are much further apart than
the simple 4.0 grade scale. Trivializing the economic inequalities
in society with a comparison to a GPA as Drucker does once again
ignores the complexity of the issue.

Perhaps, instead of degrading a long-used tax system, Drucker
should show his readers a system that will allow the rich to keep
their money while allowing poor families to remain in livable
conditions.

Both columns show how clever we all can be. They take on issues
that affect the future of large portions of society and parody them
using immaterial examples. If they try hard, they can continue to
oversimplify everything and turn life into one big joke.

It’s clear that there is a large amount of creativity
flowing through the pages of the Daily Bruin Viewpoint page.
Perhaps that creativity could be used to solve the problems in
question instead of ignoring them.