"I wuz jes funnin.... yall"
Posted on 05/26/2014 5:44:56 PM PDT by QT3.14
Writing in The Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates—you can thank his Black Panther dad for giving him that self-segregating first name—recently penned a sprawling essay called “The Case for Reparations.”...[SNIP to last paragraph]... the word “reparation” is derived from a Latin word meaning to “restore” or “repair.” So if you want to get literal and borderline Aspergery about it, real reparations would consist of returning African Americans to roughly the state they’d be in if they’d never been plucked from their ancestral homelands. If ex-Africans have truly been damaged by being transported to America and increasing their numbers a hundredfold in the process, it would stand to reason that they’d currently be doing better in Africa.
(Excerpt) Read more at takimag.com ...
Many legal experts point to the fact that slavery was not illegal in the United States prior to the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (ratified in 1865). Thus, there is no legal foundation for compensating the descendants of slaves for the crime against their ancestors when, in strictly legal terms, no crime was committed.
[...]
Other legal experts point to the fact that the current U.S. government did not exist prior to June 21, 1788 when the United States Constitution was ratified. Therefore, the U.S. government inherited the institution of slavery, and cannot be held legally liable for the enslavement of Africans by Europeans prior to that time. Figuring out who was enslaved by whom in order to fairly apply reparations from the U.S. Government only to those who were enslaved under U.S. laws, would be an impossible task.
The most effective legal argument against reparations for slavery from a legal (as opposed to a moral standpoint) is that the statute of limitations for filing lawsuits has long since passed. Thus, courts are prohibited from granting relief. This has been used effectively in several suits, including "In re African American Slave Descendants", which dismissed a high-profile suit against a number of businesses with ties to slavery.
Perhaps the most cogent argument against reparations (though this is not a legal argument) is that few African-Americans are of "pure" African blood since the offspring of the original slaves were occasionally the progeny of Caucasian male masters (and a variety of White males) by means of rape, concubinage or threat and forcibly slave-breeding of African and Black female slaves.
Should we assume by DNA linkage or documentation, reparations will be funded by the Descendants of:
By DNA linkage or documentation, the following Descendants are exempt paying reparations:
i would add to the exempt list any whites that emigrated to the United States after 1865, as they would not have been involved in the US slavery issue at all.
Only a slave begs for help...only a beggar begs for alms.
If you slaves want your freedom, act like men and women who are worthy of their freedom. Otherwise, admit that you are nothing but slaves...at best, pets.
Well stated points
One quarter of my family fought for the Union.
One quarter fought for the Confederacy. They lost everything in the war, and ended up starting over with nothing in the west.
Half my family was still in Germany.
American Indians exempt?
What about American Indians whose ancestors were slave owners and American Indians who fought for the Confederacy?
But many whites have both pre and post 1865 ancestors.
I had three ancestors who fought in the Union Army. My family’s “debt” is paid — threefold.
Decendants of african american slaves should pay a tax for being fortunate enough to live here..
Enjoying bathrooms.. running water(hot/cold).. good food.. and white people and businesses they can rob..
In africa they would live in the toilet.. some as floaters..
The floaters are the tribal demigogues they elect or prefer..
Being black in america is almost always tribal..
After a few thousand years of murdering all the freedom lovers..
It is not only cultural but could be genetic.. to some extent..
An american ghetto always looks pretty much the same no matter the location..
The progressives are counting on it being genetic..
Witch doctors of tribal-think..
Coates is right on this one.
The 7.5% comes from the percentage of southern individuals holding title to slaves.
The 25% comes from the percentage of southern families owning slaves. This makes a good deal more sense as a metric, unless you're going to claim Scarlett Ohara wasn't a slaveowner simply because title to Mammy was in Gerald's name.
The nearly 25% is approximately accurate for the South as a whole. In SC and MS the percentage was right at 50% according to the 1860 census.
Very few of mine weren’t Confederate. Less than a quarter had slaves, only a very few had more than a few. None came out of the war with anything more than their land and house, some with not even that. None left. The decades following, Reconstruction, were worse than the depths of the Great Depression. Votes really didn’t count, Federal occupation more or less installed their own. Kangaroo courts were installed as well. The spoils of war were divvied up amongst them.
Such is life for the losers of every war. At least we’re alive and still here. Loyalists to the British were killed or run off, their properties auctioned to pay for the war effort, here at least. It wasn’t pretty, and the Constitutional foundation of this country began the slow death that we’re witnessing today at that time.
There are a lot of regrets, and a lot was lost. They were cast into a pit of poverty and ignorance that took a century to claw and scratch their way out of. I’m the first to graduate college since antebellum times. We paid a dear price. Over a hundred kinsman dead and buried, scattered across Virginia, most unknown as far as location. No wealth to speak of.
So, those calling for civil war, understand what you may be letting yourselves in for. The war won’t end with the cessation of hostilities. If you lose, it stays ugly for quite some time afterwards, for your children and even grandchildren.
Two items missed in the first response:
Blacks, if they think about it don’t want reparations. Here is why:
1. The word reparations means that the debt is paid. If reparations were ever made there could be no more talk of “White Privilege” There would be no more affirmative action, there would be no minority set asides in government contracts. The debt would be paid and no further claims would be possible. The playing field would be leveled. Whites would owe the blacks nothing further. All the leftist - guilty whites could breath a sigh of relief because they would no longer have anything to be guilty about and thus could display the leftist racism they try so hard to hide. After reparations blacks would need to succeed or fail on their own merit. That is what the word means
2. If the government simply gave every black say, $100,000 or better yet even $1,000,000 (I think this would be 300 trillion dollars) regardless of their ancestry or whether they were even descendants of slaves what would happen? Putting that much cash into society would mean that the price of goods would escalate because of the inflation introduced into the system. That means the money would be nearly worthless and they would achieve little or no long term economic benefit UNLESS they were actually smart enough to immediately invest that money in some form of high interest investment. Welcome to the $75.00 Cheese Burger Jamil. How about the $150,000 Chevrolet Avero and $225,000 Ford Focus? Nice car eh?
The first of those two factor means I’d almost pay the reparations and deal with the inflation and economic upheaval because Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton would need new jobs since they couldn’t pimp historical racism.
Secondly I’d have my money invested properly in things that are tied to inflation and real property like land and end up better off. This may be sadistic but it would also be fun to watch the welfare queens and lay-a-bouts think they were gonna get rich and blow a million bucks on cocaine, booze and bling all of which had quintupled or sextupled in price and then be homeless 9 months later.
People (middle class) who had paid $200,000 for their house might suddenly find it was now worth $750,000. They might like that. The bank wouldn’t because those loans would be nearly worthless
Who they gonna blame then when the debit is paid?
The people that would get hurt by the reparation are the poor, the unskilled and renters. In other words, poor single parent households which are predominantly single the minority community
This isn’t the kind of issue that can be answered with logical arguments. So we can simply state their tribe owes our tribe more reparations to compensate for decades of tribe-on-tribe crime than our tribe owes their tribe for any tribe-on-tribe incidents 150 years ago. :)
Suddenly coming into a great deal of money can be the worst thing that ever happened to poor, ignorant people with substance abuse problems and no notion of putting away money for the future. A lot of them will die an early death, and few will hold onto a single red cent.
If it happens, run, don’t walk, down to the nearest Lexus dealer and get a job selling cars. Buy stock in luxury consumer goods makers. Be prepared to get out quickly when the bubble bursts, and it will.
Ta-Nehisi Coates was on our PBS Moyers this weekend pitching his reparations book.
One of his most entertaining arguments was that we did nothing in repayment by electing Obama, because he is too white (here’s not black enough.)
Moyer didn’t bat an eye.
How does extortion ever end?
There will be another excuse. Profiteering, probably.
“If it happens, run, don’t walk, down to the nearest Lexus dealer and get a job selling cars. Buy stock in luxury consumer goods makers. Be prepared to get out quickly when the bubble bursts, and it will.”
This is exactly what I am talking about. But if reparations were ever made I doubt many those receiving would turn the money over to a funds manager of any kind. They would, at best end up as they started and probably worst off.
The laws of economics are in many respects like the laws of physics and can’t really be broken
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