Affirmative Action for Conservatives

I stumbled upon a great example of hard-line conservatives ferociously opposing government social engineering. . .until it becomes politically expedient. Veterans’ issues are becoming a minor issue in some Congressional races, and a few candidates have come up with this intriguing idea for helping veterans and raising awareness:

The Straniere Pledge is to hire at least one-third of his congressional staff from the ranks of American’s wounded military veterans or members of their immediate families. The Wounded Warriors Workplace Initiative is open to all wounded military veteran families regardless of where or when they served.

An interesting preferential hiring program, and one worth considering, but its supporters are hardly who you would expect. 31 candidates have now taken the Straniere Pledge, 27 of whom are Republicans. I only recognized three of the names offhand, all hard-line right-wingers. There’s Allen West, an African-American conservative who accused Barack Obama of “taking race relations in America back some 30 years.” There’s Roland Straten of New Jersey, a ferocious small-government man. And there’s Duane Grassell, a doctrinaire right-winger from my home state. I looked up a few of the other signees (Mumpower, Copple, and Lopez), and they seem to hold similar views.

The arguments put forward by the Straniere Pledge candidates are reasonable enough. Wounded veterans face tremendous challenges reintegrating into civilian life. Though still capable of working, many employers won’t hire a wounded soldier for fear of physical/mental health problems, the hassle of adapting the workplace for a disabled person, or simple discomfort. That’s not right, and we have an obligation to fix it. Since we, as a nation, put them in harm’s way, we owe them a fair chance to lead a decent life.

The catch, of course, is that this is the same sort of argument that I would make for affirmative action, which most of the Straniere Pledge candidates vehemently oppose. Minority candidates for jobs and education are at a persistent, unfair disadvantage due to generations of systematic, nation-wide discrimination. That’s not right, and we have an obligation to fix it. The only philosophical difference between the two policies is that Straniere targets a key demographic for Republican campaigns.
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