Posted on 08/17/2004 2:38:57 PM PDT by unspun
By The Leader-Chicago Bureau (admin@illinoisleader.com)
CHICAGO -- Republican U.S. Senate candidate Alan Keyes has just released a statement clarifying what appeared to be a surprising position he took at a news conference yesterday.
"I think a cogent argument could be made for reparations in principle," Keyes is quoted as saying to reporters yesterday, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
The Chicago Tribune expanded:
Keyes gave a brief tutorial on Roman history and said that in regard to reparations for slavery, the U.S. should do what the Romans did: "When a city had been devastated [in the Roman empire], for a certain length of time--a generation or two--they exempted the damaged city from taxation."Keyes proposed that for a generation or two, African-Americans of slave heritage should be exempted from federal taxes--federal because slavery "was an egregious failure on the part of the federal establishment."
The response from conservatives was immediate. "Who downstate will now vote for Keyes?" wrote IllinoisLeader.com reader Randall Mead of Springfield today. "I certainly won't."
This afternoon, Keyes released the following statement, clarifying his position:
I have consistently opposed the effort to extort monetary damages from the American people. As I have argued in the past, the great sacrifices involved in the Civil War represented the requital in blood and treasure for the terrible injustices involved in slavery. In this form the so called "reparations" movement represents an insult to the historic commitment that many Americans made to the end of slavery, which included the sacrifice of their lives.I have also consistently maintained that the history of slavery, racial segregation and discrimination did real damage to black Americans, left real and persistent material wounds in need of healing.
In various ways through the generations since the end of slavery, America has tried to address this objective fact, but without real success. This was at least in part the rational for many elements of the Great Society programs of the sixties, and for the original and proper concept of affirmative action developed under Republican leadership during the Nixon years.
Unfortunately, the government-dominated approaches of the Great Society, which purported to heal and repair the legacy of historical damage, actually widened and deepened the wounds. They undermined the moral foundations of the black community and seriously corrupted the family structure and the incentives to work, savings, investment, and business ownership.
The idea I have often put forward to address this challenge involves a traditionally Republican, conservative and market-oriented approach: removing the tax burden from the black community for a generation or two in order to encourage business ownership, create jobs and support the development of strong economic foundations for working families.
This has the advantage of letting people help themselves, rather then pouring money into government bureaucracies that displace and discourage their own efforts. It takes no money from other citizens, while righting the historic imbalance that results from the truth that black slaves toiled for generations at a tax rate that was effectively 100 percent.
I have also made it clear that while I believe that the descendants of slaves would be helped by this period of tax relief, my firm goal and ultimate objective is to replace the income tax, and thereby free all Americans from this insidious form of tax slavery. It is well known that this is one of the key priorities of the Keyes campaign.
In response to Keyes' statement, conservative Jack Roeser of Family Taxpayers Network told IllinoisLeader.com, "I expect Keyes would say this is one of those interesting subjects to be talked about among people sharing ideas. Reparations is an impractical concept. Everybody in every category has been wronged in one or the other, and you cannot single one out."
Roeser continued, "Keyes is a man of ideas, and I expect he gets into discussions like this that are proper in their proper place, but that he would never vote for reparations. The problem with American politics is that people don't get into deep discussions."
© 2004 IllinoisLeader.com -- all rights reserved
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I've read most of it in both threads and am incredulous.
Keyes is suggesting that skin color should benefit one race in tax relief, and penalize every other tone of skin? On the faulty argument that people long dead were once held as slaves by people long dead?
This is not acceptable. It shouldn't be acceptable to anyone.
I'm not saying it should cost him a vote, Illinois voters will decide whom is best for the state. It doesn't mean this idea shouldn't be slammed as hard as it would be if a Liberal had spoken it.
Yes. And those who were harmed are all dead.
Reparations to Holocaust victims were limited to the actual victims, not to generations yet-to-come.
Reparations, per se, are wrong. Blacks alive today have suffered not one bit from slavery. If you buy that argument, you've bought Jesse Jackson's argument for reparations.
Well, Jonnie Cochran and several millions of his jive brothers put the likes of Maxine Waters in congress to all of our detriment. That makes it an issue.
Maybe it is different in different parts of the country, but around me, a significant number of blacks feel that they are 'owed', and they support dems because they think they will get it from them. You and I can disagree with them on principle all day long, and I do, but it is an issue for millions of voters. And I do NOT like the type of politicians they support.
In real politik terms, I would seriously consider what I am willing to give up to minimize this. If that means gov't land, or a reduction in income tax for a period, I would consider it. I think an innovative approach to the reparations question could crack the stranglehold D's have on the black vote. And breaking that stranglehold could yield huge benefits on many many issues.
How are you going to determine that? Will the IRS have to do a geneology study on everyone claiming this tax exemption? What if they're of mixed race--say, only 1/4 or 1/8 descended from slaves-- do they get only a partial exemption?
Haven't seen her, though I'm not in the office.
I oppose race based tax relief, but imo Alan isn't race-baiting, if he is he's not very good at it. I read this as an academic commentary, not a policy proposal. He does need to understand he's out of academia, and talk radio.
If there's blood, it's because Keyes has opened a vein with his own mouth.
This is a racist proposal. I don't know why you can't see this.
Reparations doesn't necessarily represent collective guilt. As unspun mentioned above, consider our relationship to the American indians. We, as a society, have consigned them to lives of misery by our de facto policy of segregation. A debate regarding our government's treatment of the American indians is worth having.
So it's settled. We give the slave descendants casinos.
Who knows? I would certainly have expected Obama to float a reparations program before Keyes. I guess I was wrong.
Alan Keyes will be appearing on the Joe Scarborough show tonight at 10 p.m. ET on MSNBC.
If we allow two generations of slaves' descendants to opt out of paying taxes, then that debt of using Blacks, for at least two generations, in the most degrading of manners is paid. In the long run, all Americans can benefit from this idea as has been described elsewhere on this thread.
Let's give tax cuts to descendants of coolies, who were, for all intents and purposes, slaves in building the national railroads.
And surely we can summon up a big ole government wet kiss for the Native Americans, whose ancestors we murdered and herded onto reservations so that they're now reduced to running casinos!
Give me a friggin' break!
But in the mean time waive my taxes and those of my children. Good plan.
I was speaking of the issue in general as opposed to Keyes campaign specifically. That said, if anyone thinks Obama is preferable to Keyes because of this, they will get the gov't they deserve. Unfortunately, I get it too.
In real politik terms, Keyes absolutely has to crack into the 90% D vote among blacks to make this race competitive. That is what he is trying to do. That is the real politik.
Well said.
I wasn't aware that the US Government actually forced them to live on those squalid reservations.
And this reparations for black/no taxes for blacks whose ancestors were slaves (and since some blacks OWNED SLAVES,I'd really like to know how they are going to be treated!)is a HUGE flip-flop by Alan;not to mention yet another RACE CARD HUSTLE pulled by him.
"Principled"? Alan Keyes is NOT a principled man at all! Neither is he " brilliant" and the excuse crowd is sickening.
I think it's eminently reasonable to say that this is indeed in his mind a first step toward further tax relief for all Americans.
Then why doesn't he say it?
Don't tell me the eminent Alan Keyes, the world's straightest shooter, is playing games, like every other politician!
I'm getting the vapors!
See how it works. We all get a break for something. Woo hoo!
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