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.
No, I don't. For some strange reason, you seem to accept that reparations are inevitable.
I, OTOH, don't think they'll EVER come to pass.
What if the price of your freedom was letting Shaq not pay taxes?
LOL! And you rip me for MY hyperbole? My "freedom" (and yours too) will not be determined by this faux issue.
What if the price of a divided black electorate, and thus the long term domination of the Republican party and platform was a reduction in taxes?
If the domination of the Republican Party means paying ransom to one race of people, I want no part of that domination.
You could argue that is not the case and will not happen. When you argue that you are simply going to have none of it, you might as well join the losertarians...you are on the road to irrelevant.
I am going to have none of it. I don't know why you have it in your head that reparations are a burning issue. It's not. Not here where I live, not where you live, not anywhere.
There is simply no chance that reparations will ever come to pass. Period.
Don't break your arm patting yourself on the back so hard.
What is your point, exactly? How many blacks today were slaves? How many whites were slaveowners? And how is reparations a conservative principle?
I'm not trying to pat myself on the back. Where did I say reparations was a conservative principle?
With money?
If so, then we know what Keyes thinks of the black electorate.
All we're talking about is the price.
Oh, please.
The first thing that would happen would be that in the name of "justice" and "fairness" (and preventing riots), "one drop of black blood" would be declared "descendents of slaves" by definition -- by statute.
Want more?
The next thing that would happen would be that in the name of "justice" and "fairness" (etc.), it would be decreed that all others would be prohibited from receiving any tax relief "for the next two generations", because otherwise, it would render moot "the reparations", and thus open the door for even more "reparations".
Remember, the imaginary "restitution" angle is only HALF the "reparations" scam.
The OTHER half if the punitive measures against whitey.
Remove the punitive angle (i.e., extend tax relief to ALL people), and "reparations" are no longer worth the paper they're written on.
Want more?
When "two generations" have elapsed (um, that'll be after some legislimers succeed in defining a "generation" as being 120 years or some similar maximum lifespan), there ain't gonna be any end to "reparations", because NO ONE is gonna want to tell the priviliged majority that all of a sudden, for the first time in over two hundered years, they are gonna have to start paying taxes!
Just some stuff to chew on.
Yeah, it'll go down hard -- after it breaks some molars -- but hey, it's good to know what you're swallowing, right?
That's exactly what I have been trying to explain to people who don't know or understand Ill. politics. Out of staters don't understand the OUTSIDER thing;which is particularly bad in and around Chicago,but which also can be found all over Ill.!
There's no group presenting a grievance that he is not willing to open YOUR wallet for!
The more I hear Keyes talk, the more I wish he never ran in the first place. Why is that? LOL
Wow. I'm floored. There is a little ambiguity here. The above suggests it is for all blacks (how does one become black?). Below, he says descendants of slaves. How does one prove one was a descendant? I guess blacks will be running in droves to the Mormon genealogy library if the latter.
I thought Keyes might get 35% of the vote. I'm going to lop 10% off that.
Hey, Kobe and fellow team members, Keyes is your man. He's worth tens of millions to you, if only it all comes true. Keep hope alive.
Poor Richard. I feel your pain.
So in other words, if I can prove that my great-great-great-great-grandfather took an arrow in the back, I'll be "entitled" to free gambling at the Indian casinos?
If you can get a census number :D
I saw it suggested earlier, and I have to wonder; HOW MUCH WORSE could the libertarian, supposedly prolife candidate be?
Uh, that will be every black person in the United States. And don't try to tell me it won't be, because you know better.
There's nothing "brilliant" about pandering. And that's all this is.
By the "logic" that's wafting up my tailpipe tonight, I'm "entitled" to own half of Egypt!
You're welcome.
Care to address the factual possibilities of Keye's proposal when the "reparation" is for income tax-free status?
That means if you don't earn income, you don't get a break. It promotes hard work and deflates welfare.
Alan Keyes has just taken a place next to Pat Buchanan in the "Idiots I voted for once in a primary" hall of fame.
It's like the people in Pa. b*tchin about how Specter is so bad they'll vote for Hoeffel (a socialist). You will never find perfection in politics.
Let me know when you get to the rest of my post.
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