Or maybe it's that some people want to understand him so badly they will twist and spin and contort themselves into a pretzel to make what he says acceptable to their ears.
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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The income tax will not be abolished without bold plans like this, if you think otherwise you're day dreaming. It's plans like this that creates the cracks in the Dem/Socialist coalition that will eventually get the kind of reform that can lead to the abolition of the income tax.
I always liked Keyes but this is making him look like a lightweight.
"1) Descendants of slaves stop paying income tax for 2 generations (at least 40 years)"
I'm all for it if we can make the start date coincide with the Emancipation Proclaimation. (22nd of September, 1862)
This is one issue of many. Go ahead and stick with the present batch of GOP Senators, if you like. I appreciate someone who has his own spine.
Good points.
It's also a very refreshing change from the GOP-Afraid-of-our-Shadow set.
It's precisely stuff like this that makes me like Keyes so much. He doesn't deal in slogans and platitudes, he's actually thinks through the problem and comes up with real practical solutions that are sometimes out of the box. (His solution at the same time accomplishes 4 things Republicans should be for: lower taxes, encouraging worth ethic, crack the Democratic coalition, and sets the stage for more tax cuts in the future).
Unfortunately, he probably can never win an election because there are too many people who only want to deal in soundbites.("Reparations! Never! I don't want to hear it")
You read it right. He's not backpedaling from anything. He is still saying that he is in favor of reparations.
We don't need this moron in the Senate.
"never been incentivized out of the harm dealt their subculture"
What kind of crap is that. If they want an insentive to stop being poor they should walk into Best Buy. Between the computers the refrigerators the TVs and the car stereos there's got to be something to give them insentives. It is NOT and never will be the governments job to "incentive" anyone ever. Considering ways to "correct" this is communism. Keyes is continuing his sell out, he's also ignoring that with the poverty rate of blacks in this country a lot of them won't have any benefit from a no tax grace period becuase they already don't pay any taxes.
This clarification was just further "muttelfication" (this is my word and I am sticking with it) in my book.
Keyes will never get the black vote and now has alienated his white voters.
Amazing
I agree, aside from this obvious gaff Alan Keyes is a good man.
I voted for him when he ran for President and would do it again provided these kinds of slips don't become the norm.
Or maybe it's that some people want to understand him so badly they will twist and spin and contort themselves into a pretzel to make what he says acceptable to their ears.
Except I have disagreed with Keyes, for example I didn't and still do not agree with his take on the ten commandments issue in Alabama. So there goes that strawman for you.
ROTFL
LOL. Outstanding. I also want to seriiously question the intelligence of Keyes if he thinks that paying cash reparations is any different from exempting blacks from the income tax. It is a distinction without a difference. Non-black Americans will essentially be forced to pay for the government services of black Americans with their hard earned money rather than paying their hard earned money directly.
I do not deserve to pay anything. I am white. But I did not own slaves and neither did any of my descendants. My parents came over from Italy in 1954. How am I morally obligated to pay the descendants of slaves anything?
descendants = ancestors
Never type angry.
Do you agree with him that we should be "removing the tax burden from the black community for a generation or two"?
We need more bad politicians like Alan Keyes. I will vote for the worst politicans over good politicans any day. Go Keyes ...
But see, that's the same argument the Dems make whenever Republicans want to cut taxes for anyone, they tell people that once the rich gets to pay less if means "you" have to pay more, and that's not "fair".
But the whole thing is based on exploitation of people's jealousy. That's why I saw people who are ostensibly conservatives here in California cheering that the California govt want the Indian Casinos to pay tax. As though somehow their lives will be better because now the Indians paying more taxes. I opposed that too. Tax burdened raised on anyone will eventually be used as an excuse to raise our taxes, and tax cuts for anyone can eventually be used as a reason to cut our taxes.
As conservatives I'm for tax cuts even when it doesn't apply to me.
Do you specifically support race-based tax cuts?
Anytime a politician says "you took my comments out of context," it's a clear sign he's stepped in it.
Keyes shoots from the hip. Not all of his positions are as thoughtful as they seem.
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