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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They would simply include a definition of "descendent of slave" that was broad enough to include any detectable amout of black parentage.
Once they get that zinger into the definitions section of the document, it's all by the book -- it really does restrict it to "the descendents of slaves" -- why, look, it says so right here in the law, in writing!
Lawmaking really is at times just like sausagemaking.
As to the time limit, there won't be any. I jokingly invoked "million man math" in an earlier post, to "prove" that "two generations" equalled "244 years". In reality, it would suffer no such limitation. We'd see exactly what we see whenever any "temporary" law is up for expiration -- either a massive call for "renewal", or, a "stealth renewal".
How many "temporary" taxes were due to expire at the end of WWUII?
We've got one "temporary" tax, I think on telephone service, that goes all the way back to the Spanish-American War!
To invoke a word that's been flogged to hell and back in this thread, "realpolitik" considerations will ensure that any such "temporary" tax amnesty will remain "part of our treasured heritage" after "two generations" of being "law of the land".
Anyone even thinking of trying to "remove this right from the people" will suffer a fate that no rational person would even want to contemplate. It would be easier to order people "back to the back of the bus" than to "strip away a civil right that has been part of their lives, their childrens lives, and their parents lives for all of their lives."
You'll see then-contemporary Jackson-Sharpton clones raving about "rich white folks taking food out of the mouths of our most disadvantaged children", and "regressive taxation scheme intended to benefit the most wealthy at the expense of the poorest members of society", and "What crime did these poor people commit, that you would want to punish them, for no reason at all, by saddling them with a massive taxation scheme, that would only serve to benefit the descendants of their wealthy slave masters?"
No, once established, it will be a permanent fixture of our "lunar" landscape. It will be the crowning glory of lunatic legislation, and while it may serve as a foundation for additional "reparative measures", NWIH will it ever be rolled back. It just ain't gonna happen.
Of course, as so many have pointed out, "reparations" ain't gonna happen.
The main proponents of this obscenity have no delusions of actually succeeding in imposing it on the nation.
They are merely using it as a very effective form of agitprop, to stir up their consituency, consolidate their power over their constituency, and, of course, engender a particularly noxious form of class warfare -- one that, if successfull, will destroy what's left of the social fabric of the country.
And again, by "successful", I do not mean to imply "if successfully passed into law", because it ain't gonna happen. I mean, "if successfully used as an agitprop tool, to destroy the country."
I was for Keyes before I was against him.
No, I don't see it happening.
Oh, they might somehow against all odds "succeed" in passing it into law, but it would be the definition of "pyrrhic victory".
It would be like riding in a glass-bottomed boat, through shark-infested waters, and spotting a shipwreck below, with a treasurechest laden with gold dubloons -- and then breaking out the fire axes and sledgehammers, and smashing out the glass bottom, so that you could "get the gold."
On the one hand, you'd "get the gold", but on the other hand...
DJ, all: Here is how I came to that conclusion. After posting here, like you, for several hours and over 50 posts and replies, you accuse me of being a troll several times. If you seriously believe that charge, as opposed to just using it to insult a fellow FReeper, you should check me out.
I then get a reply from you on another thread, one I haven't been on in hours. It also happens to be the VERY FIRST reply you make since leaving this thread minutes before. And it also happens to be the very last post I made before coming to this thread, and there for the very first you would come to by checking my logs. All this can be verified by clicking on both of our logs.
Is this rock solid proof you followed me to that thread? No. In that big wide world of the internet full of crazy people on street corners, maybe, just maybe, the very first person you happen to bump into is someone you were just having it out with and you accused of being a troll. The Glenn Beck parody song, "Just another isolated coincidence" jumps to mind.
Is you checking on me a very logical and rational conclusion to draw? Yes. Is it crazy? Absolutely not.
But you already knew all that, and still accuse me of mental instability, trying to publicly discredit me among other FReepers. You also tried to cover your actions, saying you posted to numerous other people on that thread. Which is true, AFTER you posted to me on that thread. Again, more than a little deceit. I think you lied, and are rather viciously attacking me rather than admit it. At the very least, you knew it was not a crazy conclusion to draw from our history.
You've said you're done with me. I've said I'm done with you. You are not the kind of FReeper I come here to interact with here. As long as you don't post another outrageous and insulting attack on me that I feel the need to answer, I don't plan on writing to you again. Please don't write to me either.
And, for the record, you brought real life into this, and made it real personal, with your post 544:
I tell you what, smartass: you run into me in real-life some time, and I'll explain it to you, real-personal. ;-)
Not the parasites screaming for reparations. Welfare recipients are overwhelmingly black.
That's what you want to believe, then I can't help you.
=== Unlike you,I NEVER "hang out" on abortion threads
Maybe you should.
Particularly now that the conventional "conservative" wisdom is that abortion is a "women's" issue (if not also the same-old same-old "single issue" by which they can crank the votes of the deluded faithbased vote which claims life ACTUALLY begins at conception), we need all the help we can get.
Particularly from the sort of women who could give the shrews at NOW and NARAL a run for their money. After all, you have more common ground -- where exceptions to the right to life are concerned -- on which to start a "dialogue"
Regards, nopardons.
What would they lose for it, their base loves three things: bashing America, pandering to special interest groups, ridiculous and misplaced feelings of guilt. This kind of thing is the Holy Grail of modern stupid liberalism. Smashing through the bottom of the boat is also a fairly standard thing for modern "kinder gentler war on terror" liberals.
Thanks for providing me with a new tagline.
Alan Keyes is a complete clown. He is a smart man and a great speaker. But his recent comments are beyond the pale. Illinois should have found an ambitious young politician to run for office.
I think Keyes has destroyed what credibility he had.
I don't hang out on religion threads here either,Askel.And the abortion threads are just preaching to the choir.But thanks for the INVITE anyway.
LOL.......I've taken the NOW hags on,in real life and won every time.They are irrational and can't refute facts.:-)
Taken out of context,that makes a VERY funny tag line.........enjoy it. LOL
=== And the abortion threads are just preaching to the choir
How I wish that were the case.
They aren't? I guess my assumption was dead wrong;really I just thought that they were and that's why I never bothered with them.
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