No one, not even you, has challenged my statement.
You want added context. So add it.
I'd call this a challenge. "Don't think everyone is buying your BS on that."
Hell will freeze over before you do it. ; )
CARLSON: All right. I want to ask you question then, Ambassador Keyes. I take you serious, I take your ideas seriously, and I agree with most of them. So I was shocked the other day to see you give a press conference endorsing the idea of reparations for slavery, tax breaks for descendants of slavery. You said--pointing out that your opponent Barack Obama is not descended from slaves and you are. This struck me as a kind of essential betrayal of the beliefs you've been espousing in public for the last 20 years.KEYES: Oh, not at all. I have taken a strong position against schemes of extortion from the fellow citizens of people here in America, based on the idea that somehow or another that would be requital for slavery--and I made clear over the years that I think the blood and treasure sacrifice during the Civil War constituted that requital.
But I have also made clear every time I was asked that there was objective damage done to black Americans by the slave system. And there have been frequent efforts in American history, not thus far successful, to address the wounds that were left by that legacy.
What I have laid on the table repeatedly is a thoroughly Republican, thoroughly conservative approach that is actually borrowed from ancient history in terms of what the Roman empire used to do to respond to damaged communities. You give them tax relief. You give them a tax break to make up for the fact, for instance, in this case, that black folks toiled for generations at what was effectively a hundred percent tax rate.
And by doing this, you unleash their enterprise. Give them an incentive to work. Give people an incentive to own businesses. Without taking a penny out of anybody else's pocket, you're able to create an environment where people are encouraged to work to put a strong foundation under themselves instead of putting money in a bureaucracy to dominate their lives that undermines the moral foundations of their family and destroys their economic incentives.
As a matter of fact, it's a thoroughly conservative, thoroughly consistent Republican approach to a very serious challenge.
WILLIAMS: And, of course, you do have a Ph.D from Harvard. Both you and Sen. Obama went to Harvard.And here is one, Dr. Keyes, that was asked of us off the air just before you joined us--just seconds before you joined us, in fact. One of our listeners would like to know about the very latest stance that you have regarding slave reparations. There has been a lot of buzz about that--and explain to listeners, if you would, what your position is on the issue and where that issue should go.
KEYES: Well, I have consistently opposed what amount to extortion efforts by people who have been trying to go into court, get billions or trillions of dollars in settlements from their fellow citizens, and so forth, and I have said that I think that that is wrong. I have opposed that because I, frankly, believe that in those terms, the sacrifice of blood and treasure of the Civil War was sufficient requital for the terrible injustice of slavery. Lincoln, himself, regarded it as such, and I think we shouldn't be second-guessing Lincoln's judgment or the great sacrifices of the people who risked them, who gave their lives in that terrible conflict.
On the other hand, I have said repeatedly over the years, there was objective damage done and left by slavery--and over the course of time, you and I both know America has tried to address that damage. Forty acres and a mule right after the Civil War, all the way up through the Great Society programs under Johnson, Affirmative Action under Nixon.
I think there should be an awareness that slavery and its legacy left material damage in the black community as an objective fact, but they've always been wrong about how to address it. And in that context, I have put an idea on the table over the course of the years that I think not only arises from my conservative and Republican values, but would actually do what the Great Society and others things did not, would work with people in such a way as to free their incentive, give them incentives to work, to own businesses, to save and invest in the concrete and real market economy. And that is an example taken from the old Roman Empire, where, when a community was damaged, in a context where the government either abetted that damaged or should have prevented it, the community was given tax relief for a certain time.
And I think that that would have been the best approach, and may still be the best approach to this whole problem of how one deals with the damaging material legacy of slavery. . . .
FAST: Dr. Keyes . . .
KEYES: . . . exempt those who are the descendants of slaves, who bear the wounds, in fact, of that legacy, exempt them from federal taxation for a certain length of time. And in doing so, without taking money out of anybody else's pocket, you give them an incentive to work, to save, and invest, that would help to put a strong foundation under their future.
This is an excellent homage to Lincoln and the Civil War in the form of a political response to "reparations." It gives great context to asinine remarks like "Alan Keyes is for reparations."
"But the truth of the Civil War is that the terrible price for American slavery has been paid, once for all, by the American people's deliberate acceptance of their duty to pay it when, in God's providence, Southern intransigence brought it due."