Posted on 08/23/2004 11:39:59 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
Edited on 08/23/2004 11:47:17 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
I'll make this short and sweet (kinda like this is your brain, this is your brain on crack - any questions?).
a) Alan Keyes is an America loving, Constitution loving, Liberty loving, pro-life ultra conservative. We'd be ^damned lucky to have him in the Senate if we could get him there.
b) Barack Obama is an America hating, pro-abortion socialist communist. It'll be a dark day for America if he's elected.
Any questions?
You sound like a conservative.
Apparently more conservative than Keyes, at least on this issue, much like I am more conservative than Bush on some issues.
Under slavery, blacks were denied all of their rights. They were held as property and were very often separated forever from their families. After slavery ended, they had nothing.
Congress passed a law that would give all slaves 40 acres and a mule as a way to make restitution. President Andrew Johnson vetoed that bill. They got nothing.
Blacks were denied any form of restitution, and had nothing to begin with. They were homeless, penniless, and left to wander on their own.
Some found their way to places like Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York. Many populated the areas known as slums and the ghetto.
They started families, but they had little inheritance to pass on to their children. They had difficulty finding work. They lacked training and education in anything beyond what they'd done on plantations. They faced bigotry and eventually segregation.
There are great-grandchildren, grandchildren, and even children of slaves alive today, many of whom have inherited the results of the conditions of their abused ancestors.
Though a few have succeeded, for many, the effects of slavery are still there as an economic or mental barrier. Exempting them from the income tax could help break that barrier for many.
You are correct on those points.
So were my immigrant grandparents.
There are great-grandchildren, grandchildren, and even children of slaves alive today, many of whom have inherited the results of the conditions of their abused ancestors. Though a few have succeeded, for many, the effects of slavery are still there as an economic or mental barrier. Exempting them from the income tax could help break that barrier for many.
This is liberalspeak.
Race-based discrimination, under the tax code or any other part of law, is abhorrent.
Let me ask you... are you in favor of affirmative action in education and employment?
Which of course, as you know, Alan Keyes has advocated for over a decade.
He even *gasp* coined the phrase 'slave tax' to describe the current income tax system.
It is not liberalspeak. It is the truth. If you think you can erase the effects of the past within a few generations then you are fooling yourself. The remedy of race based financials will not help this problem however. I do not believe the answer lies in money. The lust of the dollar bill fueled racism on a tremendous institutional scale in this country for years. I do not see how solving that with this would help anything. It is a spiritual matter that can only be handled by God. I do not trust my fellow man in these matters.
Sowell is right from a logical, analytical perspective. But that won't really matter in the Illinois senate race. That's the unfortunate reality.
All it takes is Republican resolve and Freepers cheering. If you're a crape hanger, go home, or join the team.
Let's not delude ourselves. How many Freepers are there? Even if we all lived in Illinois, it wouldn't make much difference.
I wish conservative political change could come to this country at a rapid pace. But it won't. The libs got us where we are with creeping incrementalism because that's the only way the American people really move. Or, if you're going to do it faster, you've got to have a candidate whose communications skills are extraordinary. That's why Goldwater failed, but Reagan succeeded. Keyes, even in the party of conservatives, never really got out of single digits. He got clobbered in his home state. While my heart hopes he wins in Illinois, I try to think with my head. And it ain't lookin' too good for Alan.
Not too many people are whining. Most black people are about their business working. This will not be the focus of the nightly news as it will not generate much conversation. Productive hard working black people never do. The best thing for the black man to do is to be a self sufficient preferrably self employed American. I get the impression that many people think black people want to take 'other people's money'.
As I said, some states exempt Native Americans from income tax--as in state income tax--simply because they are Native American.
For example, California.
See this website:
As a Native American, Do I Have to Pay State Income Tax?You are exempt from California state income tax if you meet all three of the following conditions:
If you meet all of these conditions, you are eligible for the exemption. Review the information in this guide – it will help you determine if you meet these conditions.
- You are an eligible Indian
- You live on your reservation or Indian trust allotment (the trust land need not be on the reservation) and
- You work on the reservation or trust allotment
I’m an Indian. Are all Indians eligible for the exemption from state income tax?
If you are a member of a federally-recognized tribe, you are eligible.
If you not a member of a federally-recognized tribe, you may or may not be eligible, depending on your individual circumstances.
Utah: "An enrolled member of a Native American tribe in Utah who lives and works on the reservation on which he/she is an enrolled member is exempt from Utah income tax." http://incometax.utah.gov/deductionsnativeamericans.html
Colorado exempts those who earn their money on the reservation.
Nevada: "Filing your Nebraska state income tax return - The common deductions allowed in Nebraska are: [...] Native American Indian Reservation Income"
Etc.
As for federal income tax, as I said, there are special exemptions in IRS code, Section 45A: Indian Employment Credit; Section 61: State charted Indian tribal corporation will be exempt from Federal taxation. Gross income -- Derived from Business - Income of corporation wholly owned by Indian tribe is exempt from tax. Section 7805: Tribe is entitled to retroactive relief from Federal income taxes
Another notable federal income tax exemption is "Indian gaming profits," as stipulated in IRS form 945.
And a common state exemption is the cigarette tax. Native Americans are the only ones I know of exempt from that one.
reservations were not "given" to us as a way of making up for a wrong - reservations are the RESULT of the wrongs.
I agree. The reservations were set up under treaties as the result of wrongs.
However, I have read that reparations were paid in the 1980s to Native Americans for the loss of their land. I know nothing about that first hand, maybe you could help.
This website says: "The notion of reparations surfaced again during the civil rights movement of the 1960s. It gained attention in the 1980s, when the government paid millions to Indian tribes who had lost land and to Japanese-Americans who were interred during World War II." http://www.sweetliberty.org/s2.htm
Reservations are not a payment - they are a curse.
LOL! I'm sure they are. Most of my Native American friends don't live on reservations--otherwise, I'd never have met them--but I had a good friend and her family move to one. She was never the same after that.
Our "sovereignty" is much like the sovereignty that teh states enjoy. While constitutionally tribes are dependent nations within a nation, the reality is much different. We are "sovereign" in much the same way states are "sovereign" of the federal government... Sovereignty is grantedbecause of treaties made - treaties that are constitutionally sound. THAT is the difference - tribes were sovereign nations, defeated in war and given a special status under the constitution...
Interesting history. Thanks.
The same cannot be said with regards to slavery...
Right. For the descendents of slaves there is nothing.
Teh situations, while a convenient argument FOR reparations (or "tax breaks" and/or "tax exemptions" are actually a more valid argument AGAINST...
The point is, there is nothing wrong with tax exemptions based on race. And there's nothing inherently wrong with reparations--that is, repairing damage caused by past wrongs, particularly when those wrongs were egregious. The debate should be over the HOW to go about doing it. So far, the liberals have had a monopoly on that debate.
Thanks for the discussion. It's enlightening.
However, we are discussing federal-level tax exemptions based on race.
it should be noted that only congress has the power to levy taxes on teh indians. Now, the current thing is to be eligible for paying NO state taxes you have to both live AND work on teh reservation (this doesn't count casinos - the state gets their money). Very few indians do both.
But, with regard to federal income tax, 99.9% of the indians pay it.
How so? You don't have a problem with the state exemptions? Only federal?
Besides, I cited both state and federal examples. Again:
IRS code, Section 45A: Indian Employment Credit; Section 61: State charted Indian tribal corporation will be exempt from Federal taxation. Gross income -- Derived from Business - Income of corporation wholly owned by Indian tribe is exempt from tax. Section 7805: Tribe is entitled to retroactive relief from Federal income taxesAnother notable federal income tax exemption is "Indian gaming profits," as stipulated in IRS form 945.
Very few indians do both.
That doesn't change the fact those exemptions are race-exclusive.
State Exemptions are constitutional because only congress has the power to levy taxes on indians - they give states limited power to tax the indians in some circumstances, but mostly they save that power for themselves.
Indian Businesses that are on reservation land are exempt from federal corporate taxes because they are sovereign - much like the feds don't levy taxes on a state government-run enterprise. However, the individual employees pay all the applicable taxes...
It's not race-based, it's constitution-based. Big difference.
Did the federal government allow your grandparents to be raped, tortured, separated from their family members, and held as property? Were they officially classified by the Constitution as subhuman?
We're not discussing haves and have-nots. We're discussing the effects of slavery and abuse on an entire bloc of citizens. It's not a simple issue.
This is liberalspeak.
Tax breaks are not liberal.
Race-based discrimination, under the tax code or any other part of law, is abhorrent.
As I have pointed out already on this thread, race-based tax exemptions already exist under the law. Several states exempt Native Americans from the state income tax, and there are federal and state tax exemptions in other areas, exclusively for that ethnic group.
It seems discriminatory to recognize only one ethnic group for a tax exemption obviously aimed at righting past wrongs, and ignore the group most greatly abused.
What's your alternative to the tax break plan? Do you favor Ronald Reagan's solution instead?
Let me ask you... are you in favor of affirmative action in education and employment?
So, because I favor a conservative approach to problem affecting blacks, that makes me a liberal?
I'm against affirmative action, if by that you mean racial quotas.
At the time the Constitution was written, Native Americans on the whole were not U.S. citizens, and slaves were not considered persons. It's interesting that as times changed, blacks came on equal legal footing, but Native Americans remained under an old system that grants exemptions not allowed other groups.
What is the rationale for keeping it that way?
It seems racial to me, since there is no need for that exclusion in our modern times, except as an acknowledgment of past history.
I'm sold on that your explanation on the tax exemptions for states is constitution-based, but I'll have to look up more on the federal exemptions.
In the meantime, can you research whether that website was correct that money was paid in reparations to Native Americans under Reagan?
This article considers tribal recognition a type of reparations. Interesting thought.
Not our fault Tame and we can feel good abour our vote, it counts for us and our candidate!
Amazing, isn't it, how people from all over this planet will do whatever they can to come here, for that exact same "nothing" that the "descendants of slaves" are burdened with?
Would these poor dears -- the "descendants of slaves" -- fare better if they were given that which their forebears had prior to being brought to this country generations ago in the past? Yes, I'm talking about precisely that -- a one-way trip back to the wonderful land of their parents.
The hypocrisy is so thick you could cut it with a butterknife.
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