"We need some deep truth-telling when it comes. We don’t need another commission to look at evidence, I appreciate what Congressman O’Rourke has said. It is time for us to simply realize that this country will not heal. All that a country is is a collection of people. People heal when there is some deep truth-telling. We need to recognize when it comes to the economic gap between blacks and whites in America. It does come from a great injustice that has never been dealt with. That great injustice has had to deal with the fact that there were 250 years of slavery followed by another 100 years of domestic terrorism. What makes me qualified to say $200 to $500 billion dollars? I’ll tell you what makes me qualified. If you did the math of the 40 acres and a mule given that there were four to five million slaves at the end of the Civil War and they were all promised 40 acres and a mule for every family of four. If you did the math today it would be trillions of dollars. And I believe anything less than $100 billion dollars is an insult and I believe that $200 to $500 billion is politically feasible today because so many Americans realize there is an injustice that continues to form a toxicity underneath the surface and an emotional turbulence that only reparations will heal."
Said Marianne Williamson at last night Democratic Party candidates' debate, quoted by Eugene Scott at
"Marianne Williamson makes the case for reparations in her breakout debate moment" (WaPo)(Scott writes "million" for
billion in this piece that went up 6 hours ago, and no one at the Washington Post has noticed yet).
Scott writes:
Reparations has not polled particularly well with the American public, but the topic has seen renewed focus this year as many presidential candidates have been asked to address it and the House held a hearing on it earlier this summer.
From the comments over there: "Reparations is the dumbest idea democrats have ever had. If you want to motivate republicans try this bs." I guess that means it's a "dumb" idea because it's politically dangerous for Democrats. It's not a dumb idea in terms of moral reasoning. It has some practical and legal problems. And it might be a smart idea politically if your goal is to impede the progress of excessively left-wing candidates.
Anyway, I give Williamson high marks for rhetoric and delivery. She's on fire.
Posts
344 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 344 of 344By the way we are missing a key part of the promise (not a law, hence my Snopes comment.). The 40 acres was clearly defined along the SE seaboard and Georgia Islands.
No generic land of cash. Move every mothers son out of that 30 mile swath and split the rest up among AA's.
Now let's see the hornets swarm.
>>Ann Althouse said...
What if $500 billion were spent to improve Baltimore?<<
It would be Wakanda.
And before long it would have slums, trash heaps, and rats.
Actually, it is dumb for moral reasons. You cannot just call the fact that no one living is guilty but will be punished a practical problem. You cannot just say that the poor will be taxed to pay the rich on the basis of skin color just a practical impediment, but that will happen.
But "we" aren't past the "what is moral".
And the Dem's think the wall is immoral, despite campaigning FOR that very issue not too many years ago.
She doesn't CARE if there is a what is moral argument, she doesn't even care if it's a "hows it going to work" argument. What she wants is the topic! It elevates her. She's making it so it can't be ignored. Not by saying "it needs to be studied", but by saying it should have been done, and the DNC is at fault (because we all know the RNC is full of racists). Just like Trump used the wall to attack REPUBLICANS not Democrats.
BTW, notice how Trump HASN'T touched on reparations? Most he has said is he doesn't "see it happening". He also said it's "interesting".
Marianne is trying to grab the high ground: "Slavery was immoral". Trump doesn't want to let her, but also doesn't want to talk about it. She's the only democrat up there that see's a weakness in Trump's armor, and is positioning herself. Best argument from the Republican side is to agree slavery was immoral and maybe the US does owe reparations and then let it die in proposals. Not fight it out beforehand about how it won't work.
It's what the Dem's should have done with the wall. Let him build the wall and then point out all the places that a wall couldn't be built. Instead they fought him on the wall and now the fact there isn't a wall isn't his problem.
If you are a Trump supporter you should definitely NOT dismiss her. She has a shot.
How much are the 400,000 northern lives spent in the Civil war to end slavery worth? How about some reparations to the north who gave those 400,000 (mostly white) lives to end slavery? Does the north get a 'reparation' discount? How about taxing people for reparations who had no ancestors in the country before 1880? That isn't right. Obama's relatives owned slaves. Does he pay reparations? Or does he get paid?
Wait until the Hispanics discover that for purposes of paying reparations they are absolutely white.
Blacks today don't deserve reparations. Any more than I deserve payouts for the sacrifices my family made in the Civil War (see above).
“It's not a dumb idea in terms of moral reasoning.”
Seriously? I should be forced to pay a debt I don’t owe to people to whom it is not owed and that’s morally reasonable?
Try this: The African-American community should be required to pay reparation to taxpayers for the cost of welfare that has been disproportionately absorbed by them. Or this: The AA community should be required (forced) to pay reparations for the costs of crime that have been incurred as a result of the disproportionate criminal actions of young black males including restitution to their victims.
Of course, leftist racism tells us that the latter would be unreasonable because young black men can’t help themselves, or something.
my born-in-Ireland great grandfather and great uncles (on both sides of my mother's Irish family) all fought for the Union in the Civil War: two were KIA, two were severally WIA and functionally disabled, and one died of diptheria. My family has paid enough.
Two of my great uncles died, one after being wounded at Vicksburg on May 22, 1863 in the last attempt to take the city by storm, an attack Grant regretted. The other, only 18, died in camp of measles which was an epidemic in army camps like flu in 1918.
The reparations thing is fear that Trump will get black votes.
Michael K:
My people all served in the armies of the West, under Grant and Sherman. They enlisted in Decatur IL volunteer regiments. Decatur was a big railroad hub hence heavily populated with Irish immigrants. It's conceivable that your great uncles served shoulder to shoulder with my great grandfather and great uncles. Do you know what regiments they served in?
Big Mike said...Wait until the Hispanics discover that for purposes of paying reparations they are absolutely white.
--
Doh!
The other thing about Baltimore is that Tom Clancy described it in his novel "Without Remorse." One of his better ones and it was published in 1993.
It was just the same. I was accepted to the internship at Johns Hopkins in 1966 but the area was so bad my wife would not go.
Actually, it is dumb for moral reasons
It doesn't matter if it is dumb or smart or anything. Not at this point of the game. Saying it's dumb is ceding the high ground to her.
She's pacing and leading the African-American community. Their problems aren't because of their actions. She's going to make it better. And not through amorphous things like healthcare, or free college, or even black unemployment rate, but rather cold hard cash.
She's also assuaging the guilt of white liberals. Yes, it will cost money, but really it will just be paid for out of the Trump tax cuts and it will help the racial divide. She's acknowledging the fear of the entire Democratic party about Trump. "He's going to beat us without her".
Look at all 10 of their closing arguments. Most looked scared. Angered. Vote for me please. Marianne projected a image of "Love will beat Hate". Hillary tried it with "Love Trumps Hate" but that's the wrong message. And nobody looks at Hillary and thinks of Love. It's off-brand.
Note what Marianne doesn't do. She doesn't say "elect me because I'm a woman". She doesn't say "I'm the smartest politician up here". She says I'm an expert at love.
A media person should ask her if she believes in witchcraft. That might tank her candidacy. Or maybe just if she knows any witches.
If she gets nominated though, it will destroy the DNC. Especially if she's elected President.
If the slaves in 1865 had been given 40 acres and a mule, you wouldn't notice any difference today. A trillion dollars in reparations today will have no effect on what the world looks like even 25 years from now. That is why reparations is a stupid idea, and it is made even worse because there really is no way to determine who gets reparations and who doesn't. How many whiter than white people of today have an ancestor who was a slave in the Americas? Probably a lot more than you think, so if you deny it to them, then what is the standard used- two ancestors, three, four? How do you prove it- a DNA test?
I am named for a man who rode with Bedford Forrest (mother's mother's father), and my mother's father's line (my middle name) left limbs and lives all over the Southland. No Virtuous Ancestors Merit Badge for me--maybe my kind should pay more? (Maybe we'll find all the gold they buried, and get back the plantations--then we could pay up, no problem!)
OTOH, the later generations served Uncle Sam, especially my father the son of German immigrants (oops!)
Narr
0 for 2!
Crack: Because, you know, hiding the truth - from yourselves - is how whites have been doing this shit for centuries.
Good old Crack, back and as full of shit as ever.
Maybe you can explain what exactly it is that whites are "hiding from themselves". Slavery? Jim Crow? Do tell, who here is claiming these things never happened?
That whites, including presidents of the U.S., disparaged blacks (American and African) as monkeys and savages? Are we supposed to be shocked? Honey, there's a lot more where that came from - it'd probably be easier to find prominent white politicians from the past who *didn't* denigrate or patronize blacks in some way, than to find any who were scrupulously non-racist. But is anybody denying it? No.
Tell us something we don't know. There's nobody on this board who isn't as historically knowledgeable as yourself, and absolutely nobody here is denying anything about that history. They know everything you know, they are not hiding anything from themselves, and they have concluded that "reparations" is bullshit and won't change or solve a damned thing.
To repeat: There's nobody on this board who isn't as historically knowledgeable as yourself, and absolutely nobody here is denying anything about that history. You can engage in good faith with that disagreement, or you can continue with your pompously self-regarding "I'm the smartest guy in the room here and no honest person in possession of the facts could possibly disagree with me" bullshit. Your choice.
Seriously? I should be forced to pay a debt I don’t owe to people to whom it is not owed and that’s morally reasonable?
You haven't been asked to pay anything. The pro-reparations argument is that the United States of America owes something. You don't owe the debt, they do.
Under that framing it's not immoral. Don't disagree with a plan you haven't heard yet. Disagree, once the bill is coming due. Don't cede the high ground: "Slavery was immoral".
Reparations are unworkable, it's impractical. But only in the details, not in the overarching theme: a great injustice was done.
FDR decided not to do anything about the death camps in Europe during WW2. Does that entitle me and other jews to reparations?
Michael K, your comment talks of things no one talks about, huzzah, reminds me of @ScottAdamssays yesterday: @realDonaldTrump going after cummings with baltimore is talking about things we are not allowed to talk about, or at least have not been allowed to talk about until the last 48 hours. Huzzah.
Terry di Tufo said...
"I don’t understand the moral reasoning, not in the slightest"
Well, that's the nice thing about moral reasoning. There aren't any rules you have to follow, you just use your feelings.
Do the offspring of black immigrants, like Kamala Harris and Barack Obama, get reparations? What about the many decades where a disproportionate share welfare money was spent on black recipients? Do we, the taxpayers, get a credit for that against whatever reparations our government proposes to dole out?
“Anyway, I give Williamson high marks for rhetoric and delivery. She's on fire.”
She’ll never get the Democratic nomination. Democrats are not that gullible.
Yancy Ward:
Brings to mind Mark Twain's great (and insightful) novella, "Pudd'nhead Wilson."
My oldest son is black (mixed race, but he calls himself black). On his dad’s side, both grandparent’s can trace their families straight back to plantations. His paternal grandmother had a great-great grandfather who was an Irishman—impregnated a slave. My son would clearly qualify for reparations. And *I* know my son. I raised him. He has not suffered any harm from being black. Neither has his father. Why should I transfer money to them?
Now, his grandparents...his grandmother sat at the lunch counters in Winston Salem. She is a true heroine of the civil rights movement. And she is a successful, middle class, home-owning woman. A formidable woman. She sneers at reparations. She does not want your money.
What we owe black people in this country is the courtesy of recognizing their ability to live up to the same standards of behavior that every other group does. We owe them equal treatment under the law.
The problem with giving people money is that it is human nature not to value that which is handed to us without our having done any work to earn it. That which is not valued is wasted. The best thing we can do for any human being is encourage him and teach him to be productive—taking care of oneself nourishes the human spirit.
You haven't been asked to pay anything. The pro-reparations argument is that the United States of America owes something. You don't owe the debt, they do.
Yes you have. What part of "of the people, by the people" don't you understand?
The Crack Emcee said...
The first three comments are decidedly racist, and the fourth is by someone who may have read Ta-Nehisi Coates' "The Case For Reparations" but didn't understand it.
So - I'm out.
I'm greatly amused when the existence of racists makes other racists self-righteous. This reinforces that our world is fundamentally ridiculous.
i am thoroughly enjoying Marianne W! (ok except for the parts where she is wrong, like that people like me are part of the dark side, hahah) ok, so let's talk about reparations, what does it even look like? isn't that what elections are best for?
i was surprised at your early take, Althouse, that the opening statements were a bore. it is true that Everybody Else around her was Oatmeal compared to the outta the park start she said right there. Gold Medal Big.
Do you know what regiments they served in?
55th Illinois Volunteers. William J Kennedy (His father was William) was from La Salle and he and some friends were called "The LaSalle Boys." He is buried in Memphis which was where the wounded from Vicksburg were shipped (by night as they had to pass Vicksburg) and he died June 2. His wife was informed of his death by letter from the sister of the man in the next bed. The dead were buried in coffins with the name and unit written on a slip of paper. The day he was buried, it rained and the name was washed off. I am trying to go to Memphis (maybe in August) to look at the "Unknown" graves to see if the unit and date are listed. His wife could never see his grave. His brother, also in the 55th, is buried in LaSalle and I have been to his grave.
William survived Shiloh and I think was in Sherman's division.
I think it's fair to say that slavery, Jim Crow laws, and racism have given American blacks a jaundiced view of our society. I think it is also fair to say that reparations will do little to absolve past wrongs and may do more to aggravate everyone's sense of injustice. It's a bad idea.
"She's on fire."
Burning at the stake, perhaps?
Brian: It doesn't matter if it is dumb or smart or anything. Not at this point of the game. Saying it's dumb is ceding the high ground to her.
No, it isn't. (That's a dumb thing to say.)
Once again, you're assuming that everybody belongs to the "we" that is susceptible to the question-begging "moral reasoning" that impresses Althouse.
That it's politically smart or dumb "at this point of the game" depends very much on how badly it's going to alienate the non-susceptible, as it does on how appealing it is to the susceptible.
"At this point of the game" I think the "fed up with this shit" demographic is considerably larger and potentially more significant than it used to be. Even among reliably Dem voters. Which is why I want all the Dem candidates to go whole hog on it. I could be dead wrong, but I guess we'll find out soon enough.
Blogger Howard said...
The full faith and credit of WT Sherman then.
Dig him up and make him pay, then. Or perhaps his heirs. My impoverished ancestors - I myself am only one generation separated from literal dirt poverty - don't owe anyone a fucking dime.
Do the offspring of black immigrants, like Kamala Harris and Barack Obama, get reparations? <
How about the descendants of slave owners, like Harris and Obama?
Do the offspring of black immigrants, like Kamala Harris and Barack Obama, get reparations? What about the many decades where a disproportionate share welfare money was spent on black recipients? Do we, the taxpayers, get a credit for that against whatever reparations our government proposes to dole out?
Those are the questions for later. The devil is in the details. But don't cede the high ground.
There is a immoral problem, with only immoral solutions. The issue is that people won't see the immoral solutions. They'll only see unicorn fantasies.
If you ask someone, the government has wronged you and is going to give you $10,000 will you take it? The answer will be hell yeah.
If you tell the person that the $10,000 will come from their neighbor, or their co-worker, or their best friend, then all of a sudden the response may change.
The problem with arguing with the second part of the question is that they will assume there is some other solution out there that you just aren't thinking about.
"Mexico will pay for the wall".
Alternative history time. Are the descendants of slaves in America better off or worse off than their hypothetical equivalents would be in a history where the trans-Atlantic slave trade never happened?
Thanks, Michael K. Fascinating. Two great uncles are buried in mass graves near the Chickamauga battlefield, exact locations known but to God. I could provide more detailed info about my people, but must go to work.
I could be dead wrong, but I guess we'll find out soon enough.
They won't which is why she picked the issue. Same way the RNC didn't go for the wall. It differentiates her from the pack. It's great politics.
The general electorate is 3-1 against reparations. So you are probably right that it doesn't get her a presidential win. But it's something like 50-50 among DNC voters.
If she's the only one saying it... She wins with 50%.
If I ask you to believe in the Mahdi, the notion makes no electric connection with your nature,--it refuses to scintillate with any credibility at all. -- William James
In his classic speech "The Will To Believe", William James speaks of "live" and "dead" hypotheses. I think that for many Americans, including myself, reparations are a "dead" hypothesis. Nothing about the concept even makes sense to us. I'm no more going to read Coates' book than I'm going to read the religious tracts my mother in law sends me. I can't imagine an argument that would convince me. On no level: moral, political, or practical, do reparations even make sense to me. They're a non sequitur. On the moral level: no one involved is still alive. On the political level: almost no policy I can imagine would be more divisive. On the practical level: I can't imagine a policy that would make any real difference to anyone.
Ask me to help make America a better place for poor Americans. I'm listening. You probably shouldn't bring race into it; the whole notion of race is an outmoded 19th Century concept as far as I'm concerned. Dead as phlogiston. Talk about "reparations", and you've lost me already.
On a slightly separate note: to answer Althouse's question about dumping $500B into Baltimore, I concur with previous posters that the vast majority of the money would just wind up in corrupt politicians' pockets. The way to make Baltimore better is to make it richer (see today's New York City where the bohemians can only afford to live in Jersey). From my observations, this is already under way as high tech industries are enticed into downtown Baltimore (my chemist wife works there) and the money spreads naturally outwards.
If the slaves in 1865 had been given 40 acres and a mule, you wouldn't notice any difference today. A trillion dollars in reparations today will have no effect on what the world looks like even 25 years from now.
The best thing we could do to help blacks economically is improve schools. Democrats refuse because the education system is first a jobs program and second a political power base. Any attempt to improve education risks these accomplishments so they stonewall reform. Reparations are offered as a solution so we don't talk about real solutions the Dems don't want but can't be seen to oppose to openly.
Brian: Under that framing it's not immoral. Don't disagree with a plan you haven't heard yet. Disagree, once the bill is coming due. Don't cede the high ground: "Slavery was immoral".
Reparations are unworkable, it's impractical. But only in the details, not in the overarching theme: a great injustice was done.
I guess there are still a lot of people out there who don't understand what "question-begging" means.
Give it a try, Brian. Can you spot the phoney-baloney assumptions underlying your comments, above? It shouldn't be difficult; they're pretty obvious.
Ann Althouse said...
What if $500 billion were spent to improve Baltimore?
*******************
Americans who DON'T live in Baltimore and DIDN'T contribute to its decrepitude should not be taxed to fix it up.
Elementary fairness.
Myself, I want reparations from the goddamn Italians, for letting their Roman ancestors drive my ancestors out of their Normandy homeland centuries ago.
Cough it up, Luigi!
marianne williamson is a very healthy development for america, not exactly in the same way as Donald Trump, but terrific in her own way.
Trump should immediately appoint her to oval-office-proximity because she'd be terrific and listened to by all.
too bad she is not so highly evolved that she believes people like me are part of some "dark wave". if her and her powerful allies -- like oprah and rev. michael beckwith -- could rise above that hysterical trope, how sweet the 2020s could be for so many.
may a true lovefest be at hand: that @realdonaldtrump's magic hands dunk this madness of the left into the Ammonia it deserves, & meanwhile rinse out corruption like baltimore and puerto rico and LA while he's at it.
to a #goldenAge 21st c style, clink!
I think it's fair to say that slavery, Jim Crow laws, and racism have given American blacks a jaundiced view of our society.
My experience with West Indian blacks, as students, is that they have little or none of the pathology that infects American blacks, even though they have a similar history of slavery. I also think much of then current rage and resentment stems from the Great Society and the conviction of the political left that they are inferior and need Affirmative Action.
There certainly was white racism in the 1940s which movies like "Devil in a Blue Dress" depict. That's great movie by the way. By 1990, the situation had almost reversed. Blacks were favored out of proportion to the harm they had suffered in the past. My brother-in-law could not make Sergeant in the Chicago PD even though he has a Masters in Public Administration. He gave up finally. All promotions were blacks.
"On the political level: almost no policy I can imagine would be more divisive. On the practical level: I can't imagine a policy that would make any real difference to anyone."
Au contraire;
"Even if you believe in the moral justice of reparations, the political reality is that will hasten the process of white people viewing themselves as an interest group, with collective interests that need protection from the government (and other groups favored by the government)."
So, as a consciousness-raising exercise for Whites, it could be very effective. And we're not talking about raising anyone's taxes. It will all be paid with "borrowed" money, which means with inflation. Let's do it!
True reparations would be compensation and free transport back to Africa. But I doubt very many would want that.
The best thing we could do to help blacks economically is improve schools.
This might be a factor in the difference between West Indian blacks and American blacks of similar family life. I don't know the incidence of out of wedlock birth in places like Jamaica.
First, it is the duty of black men to judge the South discriminatingly. The present generation of Southerners are not responsible for the past, and they should not be blindly hated or blamed for it. Furthermore, to no class is the indiscriminate endorsement of the recent course of the South toward Negroes more nauseating than to the best thought of the South. The South is not "solid"; it is a land in the ferment of social change, wherein forces of all kinds are fighting for supremacy; and to praise the ill the South is today perpetrating is just as wrong as to condemn the good. Discriminating and broad-minded criticism is what the South needs,—needs it for the sake of her own white sons and daughters, and for the insurance of robust, healthy mental and moral development.
Today even the attitude of the Southern whites toward the blacks is not, as so many assume, in all cases the same; the ignorant Southerner hates the Negro, the workingmen fear his competition, the money-makers wish to use him as a laborer, some of the educated see a menace in his upward development, while others—usually the sons of the masters—wish to help him to rise. National opinion has enabled this last class to maintain the Negro common schools, and to protect the Negro partially in property, life, and limb. Through the pressure of the money-makers, the Negro is in danger of being reduced to semi-slavery, especially in the country districts; the workingmen, and those of the educated who fear the Negro, have united to disfranchise him, and some have urged his deportation; while the passions of the ignorant are easily aroused to lynch and abuse any black man. To praise this intricate whirl of thought and prejudice is nonsense; to inveigh indiscriminately against "the South" is unjust; but to use the same breath in praising Governor Aycock, exposing Senator Morgan, arguing with Mr. Thomas Nelson Page, and denouncing Senator Ben Tillman, is not only sane, but the imperative duty of thinking black men.
From: The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/408/408-h/408-h.htm#chap09
If you hate someone enough to want to ruin them, just tell them they are a victim and give them some money for nothing. Wait, we already did that. How much do we have to hate Blacks to give them a second dose of that poison? Most of the murder, crime and dysfunction of Black communities today is directly attributable to racism - the racism of treating them like pets to be cared for. We should stop that evil shit, not do it harder.
Ah dubious he seemed to make every mistake a well credentialed person could make endorsing Wilson dabbling with fascism, going whole hog tiwars Marxist ultimately endorsing Kwame nkrumah
Okay, what about women? Surely they too are due reparations for centuries of denial of their rights to vote, own property, equal guardianship of their children, control their own finances. Women had no legal status/standing without permission from a father and/or husband. As late as the 1960's women were still excluded from certain professions (see RBG and SDO) and employment discrimination, unequal pay exists today.
I'm serious. Half the population was denied their civil rights. Do they not matter? Why not?
Native Americans have an even more serious grievance than African-Americans.
Then you have the various immigrants; the Irish, Italian, Poles, Jews, Mexican, Japanese, Chinese (who, by law, were excluded and not considered human in California - See Angel Island).
This is a Pandora's Box that once open can never be shut.
Face it: This is just buying votes. The Dems are concerned about losing black voters. Most of the black people I know voted for Trump [some of whom originally supported Sanders] and there is a growing trend away from the mendacious Democratic Party. And the Dems aren't really worried that the legislation would really pass so they can be as generous with their promised as they deem necessary.
My family has a wonderful symmetry.
Through me, my children have ancestors who owned slaves. Those ancestors also manumitted those slaves well in advance of the Civil War, in the late 1790's, and gave them property. My grandmother knew some of their descendants who still lived on those plots and who still worked for her father as laborers and sharecroppers. Both sides of my father's family, although generations removed from slave holding by 1861, still sent sons, uncles and nephews to die in the Civil War, fighting for Virginia and North Carolina, men who left no descendants, only bereft mothers. Those two families lost pretty much everything in the aftermath of that war and my grandparents, born 50 years after the war's end, grew up knowing that the world they lived in was diminished and broken, a fragment of what once was. From their perspective it was an injustice, a cruel and mean spirited destruction of their homes perpetrated by vengeful and arrogant Yankees. There is the story, often recounted, of how my a Yankee scavenging party almost burned down the family farm because my great-great-grandmother tried to hide a little bantam hen she kept as a pet from their clutches. Think of that. 155 years later the trauma of a little girl in rural North Carolina is still alive, still hurting.
And I say fair enough. My grandparents (b. 1907) were still too close to the events to be objective. So was my father (b. 1929), to a large degree. For myself, (b.1965) I can look at their suffering and say, well... you lived in a slave society that oppressed and degraded an entire race for 200 years. Thomas Jefferson wasn't wrong when he feared God's justice. You kinda had it coming. But this is the thing. They did pay. They paid. In blood and treasure my family paid for the sin of slavery at the time slavery was abolished. In 1865 they had been in America for about 165 years and all they had accumulated, all the wealth and much of the property was simply destroyed by the war.
Through my wife, my children have ancestors who never owned slaves. First as Philadelphia Quakers and later German Anabaptists never condoned the trade in slaves. Those ancestors, as early as the War of Independence, gave money and belonged to societies that promoted Abolition. When the war came, her 4 X great grandfather volunteered and fought from Bull Run all the way to Gettysburg where he was dreadfully wounded, went home to NJ and ultimately died young, broken by his time in war and leaving his family penniless and were it not for the kindness of church and family, homeless. Ask his children, growing up impoverished without their father, if they paid for the sin of slavery, a sin they never committed and a sin their family had railed against for generations. They paid, too. His life was given up to pay for the crimes committed against the enslaved. And, if we conceive of slavery as a sin perpetrated by the US as a whole, you have to say, fair enough.
A generation of young men in the family were lost, or scarred, or left with memories too horrible to recount. If that wasn't enough, and if the ongoing Welfare state hasn't been enough and if all the progress we have achieved since MLK isn't enough... then nothing is enough. Nothing will ever be enough. Enough doesn't exist. How do you argue that position? $500 Billion? It is a pittance. If I was a descendant of slaves I would be insulted someone could imagine my history could be redeemed and the sin of slavery expunged for so little.
The problem with giving people money is that it is human nature not to value that which is handed to us without our having done any work to earn it. That which is not valued is wasted. The best thing we can do for any human being is encourage him and teach him to be productive—taking care of oneself nourishes the human spirit.
Well stated, Anne.
The dignity of the human spirit is far, far more important than a temporary payout.
wholelottasplainin' objects: Myself, I want reparations from the goddamn Italians, for letting their Roman ancestors drive my ancestors out of their Normandy homeland centuries ago.
Well, I want compensation from the Normans who invaded Britain where my Briton ancestors lived. So there!
The blather about reparations is just boob bait. Suppose such a law were passed.
How many lawsuits would be filed? How long would that issue be in court?
What is the constitutionality of the payout/payee scheme?
It is never gonna happen, regardless of what happens in politics.
Most Searched (on Google) Democratic Candidates Before and During the Debate
So many questions!!! How exactly would it be determined to whom reparations are paid? Is it limited to descendants of American slaves? Plus descendants of those who lived under "Jim Crow" laws? Do we exclude Caribbean/Haitian blacks who are descendants of British or French (but not US) slaves? Should people of mixed race backgrounds get less money? Would someone like Barack Obama be excluded because his Kenyan father was not affected by American slavery at all? What if a person had to have DNA testing to qualify -- would that be unconstitutional? (it would create a giant database for solving a lot of old crimes).
There's a lot of bummer, negative vibes on this thread. I have three Union vets in my lineage and they all survived and had an adventure the boys back on the farm didn't. I'm not looking for a discount.
In the American spirit, let's try a smaller program and just give reparations to Native Americans, sit back a generation and see how it worked out. While this is happening all African-Americans could be enrolled the tribe and we could sort them out. Families that have passed as white and mulattos might be a special case but there's time to do it right.
Win-win.
" Would someone like Barack Obama be excluded because his Kenyan father was not affected by American slavery at all?"
Obama is descended from slaveholders on his mother's side.
...enrolled in the tribe [or tribes]...
$500B is $12,500 per African American person in America, and only costs the rest of us $1700 per person. - Left Bank
Nothing's stopping you from cutting a check right now.
Walk the walk.
Give it a try, Brian. Can you spot the phoney-baloney assumptions underlying your comments, above? It shouldn't be difficult; they're pretty obvious.
I see it, but we aren't talking about me. These aren't my assumptions, they are hypothetical assumptions voters will be making. Subconsciously. We are talking bout the electorate. The electorate in Iowa and NH first, but eventually the entire DNC electorate, and then the entire 50 state general electorate.
Are they supposed to not make phony-baloney assumptions too? Because if 2016 taught us anything its that facts don't matter. 2 Movies, 1 screen. In your movie MW is a dolt and a hippie chick and rainbows and unicorns, but in the electorate's movie she might be the second coming that will lead us out of the horrible nightmare that is the Trump Presidency. She talks love and peace and harmony, how can you be against that?
You might not agree with the framing (I don't) but the framing will be there. Will it be there for enough people? Will it be enough to overcome the structural issues with the DNC nominating process? Maybe.
I would point out that Scott Adams talks about his hypnosis training as allowing him to see the "master persuader" in Trump. MW led what some called a quasi-religious group in LA during the AIDS crisis for gay men. I wouldn't be surprised if MW has some hypnosis training, or just used similar techniques back then.
Set up a voluntary series of reparations funds. These don't have to be related to events in America, because cultural effects follow people when they migrate. If people believe that they have been unjustly enriched by something their ancestors did, they can contribute to a fund. If someone thinks they have a cultural claim, they can apply to be a recipient from a fund. Administrators of each fund will do two things: determine eligibility and cut annual checks paying out the money that comes in. No grants, no loans, just cash paid out to recipients.
the press painted Hillary as the kindest most wonderful person in the world, and they excised any line of copy, that counteracted that narrative,
https://www.redstate.com/bonchie/2019/07/31/atlantic-unearths-new-audio-claims-ronald-reagan-racist/
Face it: This is just buying votes.
But it's buying votes without any dollars! She's using emotion. She doesn't have to ever actually deliver 40 acres and a mule. Just like Trump didn't need to deliver a 2000 mile big beautiful wall.
Bernie tries the same thing with his health care plan, but with fear (bankruptcy because you had to go to the hospital). Vote for Bernie and he'll give you freedom from the fear of high medical bills. We all get sick at some point.
MW is using the emotion of "love". Vote for Marianne and I'll solve the racial crisis in America by loving our AA brothers and sisters by righting the wrong that was done against them.
It's hogwash, but it will work. She's selling. And the only one up there last night that was selling a non-fear based product.
BTW, its a very "anti-elite" message as well. MW doesn't come across as the elite at all, but her competitors are ("I wrote the damn bill").
This whole thread is ridiculous. The best thing for the Republicans to do is to ignore it. Trump won't, he probably can't help himself but if he is going to tweet about then he should remind everyone that the Democrats were the party of slavery and Jim Crow and if reparations are to be paid it should only be paid by registered Democrats. Indeed that ought to be the position of every Republican running for any office if asked about reparations: Democrats are the responsible party and they are the one who should pay.
rhhardin any more Jew jokes for today?
Crack let us know how you reconcile Williamson's new age nuttery and her calls for reparations. Do they cancel each other out or do you have a weight for each?
Trump is going to have to work very, very hard to lose the election. A lot can happen between now and the election but seriously do the Democrats really think Communism Lite and pitting the races and ethnicities against average whites is a winning position?
Obama is technically not an African-American [nor culturally much either]. He would pay, like we all will, in taxes. Michelle and the kids can cash in, though. The question is, do the kids get a full share.
Also, with 40&M, it was per family, so maybe 1.25 million households qualified. Please adjust all above calculations accordingly.
The best thing for the Republicans to do is to ignore it
Agreed, And Trump said the same thing: ""Interesting idea"
Well spoke, Anne @11:37
Crack used to be entertaining, then he became a blatant race-baiting asshole, so I generally ignore him. But I do like the question posted by CubanBob. So Crack, now that you've thrown your lot in with the insufferable "spiritualist" Williamson, does that mean you've evolved on other issues?
Side note: I worked in a New England bookstore in the Nineties when Williamson was big, and her fans were invariably the most insipid, demanding and annoying customers we had. Whenever a new book by her came out, we knew what to expect. Cat-ladies that smelled like patchouli and teenagers with no clue about the world, thinking that a "Bestseller" must have all the answers.
Francisco D said...
"The blather about reparations is just boob bait. Suppose such a law were passed. How many lawsuits would be filed? How long would that issue be in court? What is the constitutionality of the payout/payee scheme? It is never gonna happen, regardless of what happens in politics."
Good argument, but I will point out that it already has happened.
https://www.agri-pulse.com/articles/4200-pigford-payouts-to-black-farmers-reach-2-3-b-will-there-be-more
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/irs-pays-30m-in-slavery-credits/
there will be more of this sadly:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/california-wants-to-teach-your-kids-that-capitalism-is-racist-11564441342
Apologies if repetitive because I'm late to the thread and just read the second page of comments. This is language directly off Williamson's campaign website:
"For that reason, I propose a $200 billion - $500 billion plan of reparations for slavery, the money to be disbursed over a period of twenty years. An esteemed council of African-American leaders would determine the educational and economic projects to which the money would be given."
Not a penny of this proposal is intended to be given to anyone except the existing black leadership. $25 billion per year for 20 years.
"It's not a dumb idea in terms of moral reasoning."
Taking money from people who have done nothing wrong to give to people who have no right to it is "not a dumb idea in terms of moral reasoning"?
True, it's not a dumb as saying that we should allow the snuffing out of human life so that women can exercise their moral faculties, but still.
Tonight. Tonight my friends, the fireworks will start. It will be beautiful.
"they were all promised 40 acres and a mule"
Was is a promise or a proposal? Even if a promise, did former slaves act on this promise as though it were contractual? And if we are going to say promises are binding, what about the promise to return all blacks to Africa? Should we retroactively return all people descendant of slaves to Africa?
And what about those of us whose ancestors never owned slaves, avoided the Civil War (by moving to Utah) or who came over after the Civil war? Once we go down the rabbit hole of collective guilt, what else can we get reparations for?
Also, wouldn't reparations be unconstitutional? In part they appear to violate at least two parts of the 14th amendment.
Do I get reparations for family members who died fighting for the North? How about I am a second generation American on my fathers side? Do I get a rebate on what will be paid? Moral case my ass.
And, to be blunt, if Ilhan Omar get reparations, there will be hell to pay.
Brian: I see it, but we aren't talking about me. These aren't my assumptions, they are hypothetical assumptions voters will be making.
I am talking about you and your assumptions. To wit, you assume that everybody fundamentally agrees with the "moral reasoning" behind the push for reparations, even if they think paying them wouldn't be feasible.
They don't, as a perusal of this thread will demonstrate. But by the logic that follows from your implicit (imo phoney-baloney) assumptions, the people that don't buy into the Williamson/Althouse chain of "moral reasoning" must believe that slavery was *not* "a great injustice". This is silly (circular, question-begging) nonsense, as I hope you recognize, but it follows from the assumptions on which your assessment of how the electorate will react is based.
The claim I'm disputing is that "the general electorate" (not just a large chunk of Dem voters) accepts that this Williamson/Althouse "moral reasoning" occupies the moral high ground. That's *your* assumption, which you attribute without question to voters in general when hypothesizing about their probable response to calls for reparations.
"they were all promised 40 acres and a mule"
I was promised $33 million just last week in a long string of broken promises. And all I had to do was hold money in my accounts for a few months!
The price for ending slavery has already been paid in blood. The Civil War resulted in the death of somewhere between 618,000 and 700,000 Americans.
Additionally, government programs supporting minorities have resulted in enormous expenditures since the 1960's, most of which have failed. Employment and educational quotas, illogical busing of students and sub-par mortgages are some programs that have failed. Toss in the Great Society giveaways and the income tax refunds for large families with little reported income and government spending and national debt has exploded.
Continuation of present government spending levels will make the walls come tumbling down a la Argentina.
It turns out that economic outcomes over the 155 years since the Civil War ended is far, far more complex than simply attempting to isolate wealth using racist measures such as skin color. I would guess that real government fix-it goofs have cost far more than 40 acres and a mule even at todays cost of land - which was given away for free in our westward expansion in the 19th century!
It turns out that economic outcomes over the 155 years since the Civil War ended is far, far more complex than simply attempting to isolate wealth using racist measures such as skin color.
gadfly, is that you ? Common sense from an unusual source in my experience. Good for you !
Good post, gadfly @ 3:26!
Brian: Marianne is trying to grab the high ground: "Slavery was immoral".
Yeah, any candidate who's lukewarm or equivocating on the subject of the immorality of slavery is going to be completely BTFO by this audacious gambit.
Why, she may even....start a conversation on a subject that has been completely taboo lo this last half century, and we may finally get some sort of social and educational policies aimed at addressing the racial disparities that we have all been so assiduously ignoring since the 1960s.
I'm not too worried about this. My grandparents came from Ireland in the mid 1920's, so I'll be exempt, right? RIGHT?
"they were all promised 40 acres and a mule"
The abolitionist radicals cancelled this when they cancelled Sherman's agreement with Johnston. Sherman and Johnston wanted to end the war and Sherman was relying on his meeting with Lincoln and Grant a few days before. Sherman had just gotten notice of Lincoln's assassination and he showed the telegram to Johnston. This immediately convinced Johnston that he should accept the terms. Stanton refused Sherman's agreement and sent a notice to newspapers that Sherman was a traitor for trying to be soft on the Confederacy. This ended any chance for a soft ends to the war and resulted in bitter animosity that contributed to the Ku Klux Klan. Sherman washed his hands of any role in the peace.
Years later, when Sherman died, Johnston who was in poor health attended even though the weather was bad. When his aide remonstrated with him for risking his life this way, Johnston said "Sherman would have done it for me." He died a few weeks later.
Two honorable men on opposite sides of the war, Johnston never won a battle with Sherman's army.
Not sure about reparations, but Marianne is on my Facebook feed asking for donations. Should I chip in $3? Think of all the insane communications I’d get if I did that.
Not interested in chipping in for reparations. Doubtful any of my folks were either slave owners or involved in the trade. Maternal side from Maine, good chance they were actively abolitionist. Pennsylvania volunteer for the Union on paternal side.
The maternal name traces back to the area around York, so I would like to see something from the Norwegians and Danes for that raid by Halfdan and Ivar the Boneless back in 866. Bank routing number available on request.
so unconditional surrender, isn't good under any circumstances,
"If (IF!) this year, we give EVERY person that claims black descent $12,500...."
As I have pointed out on this blog before on an earlier discussion on this issue, i am 64% British Isles, have some Scandinavian (Viking, I think) and German for most of the remainder, but also about 1% West African (Nigeria and Ivory Coast)! Yep, this old Georgia cracker had a great-great grandmother in the 1840's who was African. Confirmed independently by two different DNA tests. And there are probably a few million more people across the country who have similar ancestry, descendants of slaves but don't know it. Will we be covered?
How about people who are descendants of slaves, but not American slaves? I know quite a few people from Puerto Rican, Brazilian, and Caribbean island families who live here but were not here at the time of the Civil War. Do they get something?
What about the descendants of free blacks. There were about 170,000 of them in the South in the 1860 census. Lots of them owned slaves, some quite a few. Some free black males would go to the local slave market to buy a wife. Are these people disqualified?
This could get really messy.
OK, I'm ready to pay reparations, as soon as I get my money back from the African slave traders.
I'm fine with having Democrats pay reparations, for defending slavery, for attacking the United States and starting the most destructive war in our history, for refusing to allow black citizens to vote, for lynching, for the KKK, and most especially, for never having apologized to America or black citizens for all the evil they have wrought.
Let's say, sure, we'll talk about reparations, as soon as the Democratic Party apologizes.
Dr. Michael K-- if you are coming to Memphis, let me know. Serious offer.
The old National Cemetery is on land that belonged to Mrs. Luxton, you-know-who's widowed and remarried mother.
Narr
My home ground
Policraticus:
Thanks for sharing that very poignant story of your ancestry and what they paid for slavery. Most convincing I have heard.
I am serious. No reparations for anyone until the Native Americans are paid off. Otherwise it is racist, colonialist and imperialist. This goes for black people too if they haven't championed paying off the aborigines first.
I am ashamed for most of you.
What about reparations for Native Americans who were displaced and/or enslaved by other Native Americans?
Points off for siding with the Confederates, the British or the French. Casino monopolies would have to count as early reparations for all tribes benefitting.
Yeah, this sort of thing REALLY appeals to rich and well-to-do White Women. I wonder what the REAL psychological basis for it is. Its certainly NOT concern for the downtrodden. It it was that, these women would be spending their own time, helping the poor, needy, disadvantaged. And giving THEIR OWN MONEY. Mrs. David French for example, adopted a Ethiopian Child, why not an African-American child or a white American Child?
It reminds me of Charles Dickens, "Mrs. Jellyby". Mrs. Jellyby is a philanthropist who is so obsessed with getting Africans "Top Hats" and setting up settlements in Africa that she neglects her own home, spouse, and children.
So, there's some long-standing weird Middle/upper class "Becky" white woman thing and pushing reparations or turning themselves into black women, or obsessing about helping Africans or helping "The other".
Maybe its an example of "cheap grace" or the thrill of spending other people's money. But you can be sure of one thing, none of these women and that ESPECIALLY includes Ms. Williamson will suffer one bit because we give African Americans $500 billion.
Black people GOT REPARATIONS.
We fought a Civil War that cost $1 Billion dollars and 600,000 white lives. And for the last 50 years they've received quotas, set-asides, affirmative action, and billions in various kinds of racially based aid. Does anyone think Obama would've become POTUS if he'd been white?
Only a Democrat would believe that money makes everything better - even slavery and Jim Crow.
Other people's money, that is.
rhhardin any more Jew jokes for today?
(director to actor playing Shylock): Try not to be too Jewish. We're not playing Fiddler on the Roof.
- Inspector Lewis (2009)
Expected outcome:
Society: Here's $500 Billion.
Black Folks: Thanks. But that's not enough. You think you can buy us off?!
Society: Well what about $1 Trillion?
Black Folks: OK, we'll take your dirty white/honkey money. But we reserve the right to demand more in the future.
As others have stated, there's no reason for Black Reparations to be paid for by tax money.
Lets start a foundation/charity. "White people for Black Reparations".
Lets see how much Williamson and Althouse kicks in.
We fought a Civil War that cost $1 Billion dollars and 600,000 white lives
An unparalleled sacrifice of blood and treasure, and ongoing stand against redistributive change, retributive change, diversity, and other forms of bigotry.
until the Native Americans are paid off
Which "Native" Americans? The ones that were prosecuting genocide, slavery, torture, abortion, sexism, diversity, redistributive change, or their victims?
Reparations without consent are depredations. We have the recent example of Zimbabwe to see how such things turn out. The blacks took back the farmlands that whites had confiscated from the original owners. After these acts of reparations everybody lived happily ever after in a land where justice had been restored. There's no reason why we cannot duplicate the example of Zimbabwe with proper guidance and a proper will......Marianne should go the full Marianne. Next debate I'd like to see her holding a rainbow flag and with one breast bared. No speechifying. She should just sing something from Les Miserables.
Every black person should be give their weight in Cotton.
Every Irishman who ancestors saw "No Irishman need apply" will be given their weight in Corned Beef and Cabbage.
Discriminated against Germans will be paid in Sauerkraut. Jews will be paid in Virginia Ham. Or if they dislike that, Matzah balls.
Indians will be give Casinos.
Chinese will be given their weight in Chop Suey and Japanese in sushi.
WASPs will be paid in white bread. With free Miracle Whip.
One Confederate family story-- my mother's father (who died twenty years before I was born, when my ma was a little girl) was a public school principal and school superintendent in this area, and a bit of a jerk apparently.
His mother-in-law (my great grandma) who lived with them had been a girl during the Woah, and had no pleasant memories of it. My grandfather thought it great fun once in a while to glance suddenly out the window and yell "Oh no! The Yankees are here!" Gave the old lady conniptions.
Funny?
Narr
You be the judge
Why are we not surprised Althouse is all in on the feminist loon and one of the most morally offensive ideas ever?
We have the recent example of Zimbabwe to see how such things turn out. The blacks took back the farmlands that whites had confiscated from the original owners.
Actually, the "original owners" were the jungle.
South Africa is about to try the same experiment. White South African farmers are to have land taken without compensation. The Boers were there before the Bantu, which is the source of the black population. The British had a pretty good fight on their hands with the Boers. If they succeed in driving them out, SA will become Zimbabwe and they will be begging white farmers to return in 50 years.
One more reason reparations make no sense, but that has never stopped Democrats.
Hmmmm it seems to me that since the Democratic party was the party of slavery and the Republican party was the party of the abolitionists, then morally the $500 billion should be paid exclusively by the Democratic party.
This is the most insidious and evil BS ever dreamt up in the modern USA. Want to drive a lasting and bitter wedge between black Americans and everyone else? Pay reparations. Watch as every other ethnic group in America starts hating on blacks because "Why do they get something and we don't?"
Reparations is in fact a dumb idea in terms of moral reasoning. Thomas Sowell points out that if we personally could not have prevented a crime (for example, for lack of a time machine) then we cannot be guilty of that crime. Slavery is certainly in that category. We have enshrined this in law: children cannot be hounded for debts of their parents, for example. As others have pointed out, many of us are descended from those who arrived after the civil war or fought for the Union.
The general claim that whites as a class have benefitted from discrimination as an institution
(after slavery) also is morally suspect. There has been 70 years of trying to make amends for that discrimination with job carve-outs, welfare, college admission preferences, etc. When would all that be considered to enough? Never, apparently.
As to a "conversation"--such a conversation would never satisfy the Left. They view whites as inherently racist with no cure for the stain on their existence. You can grovel all you want, white people, but you will never be forgiven. My conservative black friends do not need a conversation.
the people that don't buy [....] theory of "moral reasoning" must believe that slavery was *not* "a great injustice"
I never said anything of the sort. I'm saying that a potential voter, when being "for" reparations sees a candidate (of any party) being "against" reparations their mind will subconsciously make their personal position the "righteous" one. That's human nature.
Our brains won't let us think we hold wrong views. We take a position, then try to find evidence that backs it up and ignore evidence that goes against our preconceived position. The base theme of reparations is that slavery in the US was immoral and was not properly resolved.
That's *your* assumption, which you attribute without question to voters in general when hypothesizing about their probable response to calls for reparations.
You're assuming that voters respond to logic and reason. They don't. As I pointed out above, in a poll played on MSNBC last night, almost half of Democrat voters were for reparations, already. Only 1 candidate called for reparations on stage last night.
Will she be successful? Time will tell. But it mirrors Trump's position on the border. Border security was something the voters wanted, but the politicians (e.g Gang of 8) didn't.
Reparations is something voters (half of Dems) desire, but the politicians (all 9 of them last night) see as a minefield because it's unworkable so they avoid it (calling for studies and the like).
Full disclosure, I'm against reparations (for any ethnic group) as public policy.
As to a "conversation"--such a conversation would never satisfy the Left
Agreed, which is why the proper response to such a call for reparations is "Interesting idea". No conversation is needed.
Then if a proposal is put forward you can shoot down the proposal.
In South Africa, they had a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. They talked and talked. Were all the wounds healed? hahahahah of course not. Now they are trying to take the white farmer's land.
How would reparations work for mixed-race families? Do the black and brown faces get money but the white faces don't, even though they have the same parents and thus the same lineage? Or will there be a one-drop rule so that white faces with African-American bloodlines can qualify? Given all the inter-marriage that has occurred since the end of Jim Crow deciding who qualifies for reparations would be troublesome.
Who gets to decide who is African-American and who isn't? Already there are black leaders saying that some brown and black faces are not really brown and black enough. Reparations would intensify this kind of talk. The only thing reparations will succeed at is setting people against each other.
$500 billion for slavery and discrimination? Kind of insulting.
How about at least:
10% Off during Triple Tuesdays at participating IHOPs "To show how sad we are for enslaving your people, wiping out the Black Family, and trapping generations of black kids into welfare dependency to the State... you can get 10% off your breakfast order the 3rd Tuesday of each month!"
Mark my share paid in full by my paternal great grandfathers. Privates in the Union Army.
Brian: I never said anything of the sort. I'm saying that a potential voter, when being "for" reparations sees a candidate (of any party) being "against" reparations their mind will subconsciously make their personal position the "righteous" one. That's human nature.
If you'd limited your observations to potential voters who already buy into the "moral reasoning" we're discussing, I wouldn't have taken issue with your assertions.
I don't really think you're doing any conscious backtracking here. I think you're just wandering all over the place and throwing a lot of verbiage at some straightforward and obvious points to make them sound more complicated and insightful than they are. "Voters who think there is a moral case for reparations are likely to go for candidates who flog the same 'moral reasoning' they themselves use to arrive at that conclusion". I think this deep observation about human nature can be filed under "no shit, Sherlock".
You're assuming that voters respond to logic and reason.
No, that isn't what I'm assuming and that isn't what I'm saying.
I want $500 million from all the Gentiles, including American blacks. Of course, American blacks didn't gas my relatives to death, but then I didn't keep slaves.
What a bunch of hooey! More blacks immigrated to the USA after the Civil War then all blacks living in the USA before the Civil War combined. How will they award the right blacks. This is not about Slavery, it is just hyperbole, by Democrats. They know that they can never pass a bill in Congress because 67% of Americans do not favor reparations, while 29% favor it - 4% have no opinion according to Gallup.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/261722/redress-slavery-americans-oppose-cash-reparations.aspx
Angle-Dyne, Samurai Buzzard said...".....Brian: Marianne is trying to grab the high ground: "Slavery was immoral"....?"
There are no high grounds with "Slavery" it is a Universal Affliction of mankind and has been around since we crawled out of caves. Name me one group [ethnicity] who has escaped the 'Scourge of Slavery' - none - End of Story.
There are roughly 40 million African Americans in the US. Dividing $500 billion by the 40 million means each African American gets $12,500. If in return for that payment there would be an end to all affirmative action programs, racial preferences, set-asides, etc. in favor of African Americans, would it be worth it -- to you? to most African Americans?
Howard said...
It's easy to calculate the present value of 40+mule.
5 Million slaves * ((40acre @$2,000/ac)+(1mule* @$30,000-each))
= $550,000,000,000.
* mule = F-150 truck
7/31/19, 8:21 AM
Per your math, the 40AM was promised to each family of 4. So $550B/4=$137.5B.
But if the comparison and justification is made to the Hebrews' exodus from Egypt...the black people have to leave the US. It would have been silly for the Jews to have stayed in Egypt.
We can knock off Liberia for them again. Easy peasy. Give 'em all the shots they need for sub-Saharan Africa, i.e. every single one. $140B sounds like a bargain at that rate.
Wanna stay in America, do you? Then let's not hear any more clack about what is owed you. You got a US passport out of it. If that's worth $110K to you, that's worth paying:
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
Howard said...
The full faith and credit of the United States Welched on it's promise to former slaves. It's not unreasonable to debate this topic.
7/31/19, 8:30 AM
Begging the question which I raised above. Cite for this commitment?
...
Blogger rhhardin said...
The full faith and credit of the United States Welched on it's promise to former slaves.
The slaves were Jewed out of their take, you could say.
No, rh, you couldn't say. The usual expression is to gyp someone out of something, insulting Gypsies (Roma). You Jew someone *down.*
So to correctly insult the minority you want to insult, "Vood you zettle fur two acres und a dog? Nice dog he is" would be more like it. Don't forget the bulging eyes and hook nose.
As a general rule, children are not supposed to inherit the debts of their parents. The problem with reparations is that we have people who are not responsible for slavery being forced to pay damages for it. And we also have the problem of people who have not suffered from slavery being able to profit from reparations. Every culture has ancestors that have done terrible things in the past. Every culture going back to the dawn of time! Should the modern Germans keep paying damages for WWII and WWI? Should the modern English pay for Britain's imperialism? Should the modern French still for the Napoleonic Wars? Should the modern Italians pay for the misdeeds of the Roman Empire? Should the modern Egyptians pay for the slavery of the Israelites? There is a reason for statutes of limitation.
Here is some truth. The black culture causes them to under-achieve and glorify it. Until they change their culture, they will be the lowest of the citizens in this country. PERIOD.
Michael K said...
"The reparations thing is fear that Trump will get black votes."
He's currently polling at 8% of blacks, and dropping, so good luck with that.
The best thing we could do to help blacks economically is improve schools.
This would be useless without correcting the pathologies of Black culture first. Job one: defeat the idea that doing well in school is "acting White".
OK..who said his name three times?
My money is on Marinanne Williamson. Bankrolled by Oprah. Dr. Phil and Barack Hussein Obama will fall in step, unless Valerie Jarrett vetoes it. Detroit already loves her; she used to pastor a large church in Warren, Michigan - in the early 2000's, I believe.
As for reparations, I learned a long time ago that one can never, ever, do enough for Detroiters. The concept likely isn't limited to Detroit.
One more thing. This is spiritual warfare, and the Devil isn't stupid.
Blogger rcocean said...
Black people GOT REPARATIONS.
We fought a Civil War that cost $1 Billion dollars and 600,000 white lives. And for the last 50 years they've received quotas, set-asides, affirmative action, and billions in various kinds of racially based aid. Does anyone think Obama would've become POTUS if he'd been white?
To which I say, "A thousand AMENS!"
For "liberals" it probably doesn't look like such a dumb idea. If you can buy into State-cultism at this stage of the game, you can buy into anything. It's on a par with snake-handling, only with a higher body count.
Most blacks can't even speak grammatically correct English, but blacks are superior to whites?
Blacks invariably turn decent neighborhoods into violent, Third World, rat-infested sewers wherever they are the majority population, but blacks are superior?
Blacks commit the most crime wherever they are found. Blacks even commit the most crime in London, although being a minority there, but blacks are superior?
The average IQ for Asians is 105, for whites it's 100 and for blacks it is 85, but blacks are superior?
Whites have invented almost all technology including the internet that allows you to spew your colossal b.s. to millions of people, but blacks are superior?
500 years ago whites built cathedrals, built seafaring ships and were beginning to create science while all blacks were living in mud huts, but blacks are superior?.
You have an interesting conception of the word "superior."
Let's see, for the last 60 years the taxpayers have dished out trillions of dollars for low income housing (which blacks normally trash and turn into cockroach and rat infested, drug infested, Third World nightmares like they do to every neighborhood they infest), welfare, Head Start, Section 8 vouchers and special college grants. Some blacks have done well, but the majority are, at best, trans-generational parasites and at worst, violent thugs. No amount of money will make these people civilized because evolution does not produce equal results.
Of course, the vast majority of whites in the U.S. in 2019 didn't have ancestors who owned slaves and many immigrated from Europe in the early 20th century. Add to that the fact that blacks continue to ghetto-ize America, neighborhood by neighborhood and are increasingly committing violence against whites with their flash mobs and knock out game, it's apparent that the audacity of blacks in this country is gargantuan and the stupidity of guilt-ridden white leftists is mind-boggling. If every black in the country were air dropped in Liberia (if only!!!), we'd be living like the Jetsons.
Some blacks are decent people, but the majority are savages, evolutionary dead ends who commit the most crime wherever they are the majority population. In fact, blacks commit the most crime in London (specifically, Afro-Caribbean and Somali blacks) although being a minority there. Every black country in Africa is a violent, Third World sewer. As I said, evolution does not produce equal results.
Absolutely. A debt owed by ALL registered Democrats, the Part of Slavery and intolerance. Any possible debt by Republicans was paid for, with interest with the blood and treasure spilt to stop the Dems the first time round.
How much will it cost to stop the Dem hate machine this time round?
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