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
______What are your thoughts concerning the issues raised in this story? Write a letter to the editor at letters@illinoisleader.com and include your name and town.
Keyes is opposed to reparations. Read his statement above.
His "idea" of tax relief is simply that, An idea for a debate. I don't think it's a serious proposal. His serious proposal will be to abolish the income tax altogether.
I guess my next question will be, how will I be able to tell what is serious, and what is not?
And won't blacks who might have been intrigued at his non-serious proposal be angry when they find out they were merely used as a discussion-starter?
We'll see.
I'm confused, where does he say he wants people to get out of paying taxes because of their skin color. I didn't read that either.
This reparations garbage is yet another time (I think this makes the third,but it could be more)Keyes has used the RACE CARD!Reparations,for TWO GENERATIONS (that's 50 years,BTW),in the form of no taxes for blacks,who are the descendants ( and just HOW are they going to PROVE that and how much money will it cost?)of slaves? And what about the blacks whose ancestors OWNED SLAVES? And what about people of mixed races?
And why,WHY, should people whose ancestors or they,themselves came to America after the Civil War?
And you know as well as I do,that Dems will try to then raise taxes on everyone else,because in their book, any monies NOT going to the government,even if it is just a guesstimate of future money,is a loss.Not to mention that this,reparations and special interest payoffs are NOT a Conservative position at all.
There are already a LOT of conniption fits,benumbing white GOPers and Conservatives,in Ill.,over Keyes without this garbage.
By the way, I have no inside information on Keyes' intentions. I'm simply listening to his radio debates and reading his statements and trying to figure out why he's saying these things. Your guess is as good as mine regarding his tactics and or whom he might make angry. I think he makes a lot of people angry. Doesn't seem to stop him from speaking out.
I think some people are having conniption fits over nothing.
I agree... need to take a breath.
Um, why don't you read this part:
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.
Alan is coming up on Scarborough Country at 10 p.m. ET
Any white folk in this "descendants of slaves" group that Keyes wants to exempt?
Yes all you say maybe true...... But no one could have and no one would have raised the level of debate or stirred the emotions in the IL Senate race such as Keyes has.... Now that's assuming it's reaching ground level in IL and that I don't know and have zero feel for..
Can that be all bad? I don't think so. You know and I know that this isn't going to fly..... First of all it takes enough Senators plus the House to get on board to pass anything like this.... I don't think it's got the chance of a snowball in Crawford Texas during August of surviving....
Just think if this gets the IL electorate stirred up and they begin to get interested in this race then just maybe Obama may have to stick around IL and defend his election chances.... That wouldn't be all bad in my book. I'd prefer him being kept in IL and not turned loose in the other states to stir up support for the democrats......
GO ALAN GO..... Give'm hell [democrats that is and not the POTUS].
He's just raising heck. No way he expects to win.
Maybe, but for a long time it looked like a positive advantage for our country. Unlike the supposedly logical French, theoretical Germans, passionate Italians, or profound Russians, Anglo-Saxons tended to deal mostly with practical questions when they talked politics. That's not entirely true. The American founders were quite astute political theorists, as were the English thinkers who inspired them. But it is true enough, and may have had something to do with why, unlike other countries, the US and UK avoided the tyrannies and revolutions that ravaged so many other countries over the last two centuries.
An intellectual or philosopher can endlessly mull over the theoretical rights and wrongs of all sorts of questions, but politics is the art of the possible, and politicians can only get into trouble discussing purely theoretical questions.
Which means his ideas mean nothing. I'd want to know what Obama plans to unleash on Illinois if I was an Illinois voter.
But then, I suppose since most slaves were Black, one might make the assumption that it's because they are Black rather than because they were slaves.
I'd better go back and reread all of this again.
Thanks for trying to help me.
No, it means he can shoot from the hip without fully thinking his ideas through and still move the debate forward given the state of the status quo.
It means some kid in Chi who never heard of of Milton Friedman might get a seed planted in his skull concerning the relationship between taxes & his disposaable income.
Keyes can be Bulworth in this campaign & I think he should go for it.
The only thing is that he underestimates the kneejerk reaction of many people.
You're either woefully naive or deliberately obtuse.
They're certainly the words that describe what no rational person wants to see happen. But I fear they are quite possibly the words that describe what will happen if some lunatic scheme like this is put into action.
There are people in this country that will quite likely be put right over the edge by this, should it really make the transition from political BS to reality. I hope there aren't any such people anywhere near where I live, but frankly, I suspect the distribution is fairly wide.
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