[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

Does Obama favor reparations? I just do not see why that is a deal breaker for Keyes. The reparations idea Keyes put forth will never pass Congress. It will be irrelevant to his Senate seat. More likely, if any kind of reparations is ever going to become a reality, it will be because the courts decide the issue for us. If you fear reparations, fear the courts.

[beckett]

I don't fear reparations because I've always been entirely confident that they could never, ever be imposed. However if they could be imposed it would be legislatively, not through the courts. No court could rule that trillions of dollars from the national treasury be spent according to its exclusive ruling -- no court, not even the Supreme Court. Reparations would make the expenditures of Johnson's Great Society look like chicken feed, and to assemble the economic package required for that project took all of the power of Johnson's office in addition to his skillful armtwisting of the whole Congress. In other words, two branches of government were fully engaged.

All of which makes Keyes's demagoguery of the subject even more riling. He's running for a legislative job, meaning he wants an office in the one of the two branches of the federal government which would actually have to be involved were reparations ever to become a reality in this country, and he includes in his platform support for such legislation.

When I first heard Keyes was planning to enter this race I wrote here on FR that it would destroy his reputation. Little did I know how right I would be, because never in my wildest dreams did I ever believe he would stoop so low as to support slave reparations.