Thanks, but I still think I'll get all up in arms about the reparations part. If Keyes wants to promote reparations for those two generations removed from slavery then fine. But only if the tax burden to pay for it falls exclusively on those one or two generations removed from slave ownership. If you can get any of these southron types to admit that their ancestors owned a slave that is.
Dollar wise it would be a small tax cut in perspective. Dangerous road to go down. Eventually people will come to understand that financially, the only thing worse than paying taxes is not making money to owe any.
You want to make this a North/South issue, Non? Today your yankee tax dollars are legal tender just like my Southern dollars. I would rather not see them spent on reparations. I'm surprised Keyes would advocate this.
"If you can get any of these southron types to admit that their ancestors owned a slave that is."
Considering that the war was 140 years ago, I would guess all but the eldest forum members would have to go back 5-6 generations to find ancestors who were adults pre-'61 (and thus possible slave-owners).
At 5 generations the theoretical number of ancestors is 32, and at 6 generations it's 64...in reality in many cases these numbers would be smaller due to intermarriage (i.e. marrying your third cousin, etc, which is not uncommon at all in a rural, pre-industrial society.) Additionally, MANY white southerners have some indian ancestry, and that would need to be taken into consideration as well.
Finally, many of those 'southron' types (myself included) are at least partially descended from the irish and scottish-irish immigration in the mid to late 19th century. Many Irish immigrated and joined both armies in the civil war, and the predominance of anglicized gaelic names (scots or irish, as well as welsh) in many communities speaks volumes about this. Those of us whose *traceable* ancestry (usually by last name) leads to an immigrant, such as mine (scotch-irish, sullivan) cannot even claim to have had adult ancestors in the south prior to the civil war, though it is very likely some unknown other branch of the tree was here.
How is someone supposed to know about the slave-owning status of their great-great-great-great-grandancestors x32 or whatever? Can you tell us about all of your direct ancestors alive in 1861? Some of them may have owned slaves. Are you descended from a 'southron' type?
Otherwise agree with your reply....one interesting consequence of your proposal would be if immigrants from modern-slavery countries (i.e. sudan) were found liable for the slaveowner descendant tax.