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That said, the Federal Government was responsible for this action and the recipients were identifiably the victims or their immediate descendants

Here, you're saying you have nothing against the principle of reparations in the form of governmental payment, so long as they are given equitably and by the entity responsible.

Later, you said if Reagan had proposed this in his campaigns, you would not have supported him.

That's a strange position you take.

Regarding reparations for blacks in the form of a tax break, you are against this because you do not see the federal government as responsible for slavery.

That is a false assumption.

The federal government condoned slavery, sanctioned slavery, and defined blacks as subhuman in its Constitution. (3/5th of a person.)

The federal government bears the responsibility, not just states, for allowing a people to be treated in a way that violated its own principles and laws.

A person is a person, no matter what the government might say.

Can you imagine being someone else's property? Can you imagine the psychological damage that would do to a whole culture? Can you imagine what happens to that culture's psyche to come from ancestors who were stripped of their identity, heritage, family life, and the ability even to own property to pass on to their children?

And another issue: what of the abuse condoned by governments after slavery? Interracial marriage, segregation, discrimination, violation of rights--that's not distantly in our past.

For that matter, slavery isn’t distantly in our past. There are living grandchildren and even children of slaves.

Read Carefully:
I don't like the reparations paid to Japanese Americans. I used to, until I found out the that fear of Imperial Japanese sympathizers among that population was firmly grounded in reality.

As far as I'm concerned the internment of the Japanese was justified. I am sorry we paid these reparations. However, I can see their point; most were innocent and they did lose property.

As for the rest, I don't care who is "responsible" for slavery. Slaves were imported before there was a United States, and the first slave holder in the colony was another black (prior to that, even black slaves were indentured just like whites).

Can you imagine being someone else's property? Can you imagine the psychological damage that would do to a whole culture? Can you imagine what happens to that culture's psyche to come from ancestors who were stripped of their identity, heritage, family life, and the ability even to own property to pass on to their children?

Imagine being dead. That is what would have happened to those blacks if they weren't shipped to the colonies. Blacks who were sold into slavery in this country were lucky. Black Africans had a short way with excess prisoners.
Besides, in case you haven't notice their whole culture was based on slavery, too. If they weren't slaves here, they would have been slaves in Africa. Guess where they were better off?

Tell ya what. Why don't you ask the people who originally captured and sold the slaves to pay the reparations: the blacks and Arabs of Africa.