The BILLIONS in transfer payments and affirmative action set-asides that the American taxpayers have coughed up since the sixties really count for "nothing", huh? Pull your head out of your a$$ and get a clue, Chuck.
Could be be because Rasberry and the rest of his friends on the left have been TELLING black kids from the time that they are toddlers "You will never be anything when you grow up. Don't even try. It's because of SLAVERY that you will never succeed and should never TRY to succeed."
I LOVE the way he tells the rest of America "Hey, don't feel guilty or get defensive...JUST PAY UP!"
If this is based on slave labor, that means all tax slaves get to move their taxes where they wish as well. We too are forced to work for others benifits and not our own. Some have slaved all their lives as well, by force! If our goverment owners don't get their money, the IRS brings guns, and they kill.
All those who have collected welfare and other social programs all these years OWE US - big time. If it weren't for the sweat of our brow, they may not have survived.
When can I expect my check?
Like when white people do not get jobs because of affirmative action?
The more I think about it, maybe reparations would not be such a bad idea. Here's my suggestion: Reparations can be paid to all who can prove they are descendents of slaves and who can prove they have suffered economically from that past injustice. The catch--as a condition of payment, the agrieved party will be repatriated to the country from which their anscestors were originally enslaved. The cost of such repatriation will, of course, be deducted from any reparation payment.
This statement needs to be taken seriously. I have heard otherwise conservative black people say things of exactly this sort. Since non-black conservative opinion refuses to take any part of the reparations issue seriously, only liberal opinion is addressing this concern. That's politically dangerous.
Here is a conservative response:
The legacy of slavery, in terms of the reparations issue, is being confined to the realm of economics. In that sense, the legacy we're speaking about is one of historical capital deprivation.
American history has demonstrated that collective solutions to such issues are doomed to fail, or even to create worse problems (witness public housing or the welfare system). Therefore any serious attempt to address this issue must occur at the individual level. The free market has proven by far the most effective means of addressing issues of capital. The free market thrives where the government limits its activity to enforcing property rights and contracts.
Therefore, any serious attempt to address reparations is going to leave the government out of the solution. Talk of tax money or collective economics should be ignored in favor of individually directed solutions. Perhaps Jack Kemp's old idea of creating "enterprise zones," with reduced taxation and government economic involvement rather than more deserves attention in response to collectivist liberal solutions.
Notice that Mr. Raspberry didn't provide an address - e-mail or otherwise - or a phone number that we could use to "discuss" it with him.
That's right - NONE.
The descendents of slaves (btw - who were sold into slavery by their own tribes and relatives) who are unhappy here should go visit their cousins in their homelands for a few months. Then we'll talk.
--Boris
If you want on (or off) of my black conservative ping list, please let me know via FREEPmail. (And no, you don't have to be black to be on the list!)
Why is it that whiners like Raspberry and Comer always come along and try to tell me that I am disadvantaged because my great-great-however many great-grandfather was a slave? Why is it that I find myself doing just fine today without the assistance of the "reparations" demanded by the warlords? Why is it that plenty of other black folks are doing as well, or in many cases, better than I am - without the windfall brought about by the warlords? Why is it that I'm demonized for saying that we have no business doing anything but living as productive Americans, and pursuing the American Dream - just as the rest of America does every day?
That's because the warlords and the clueless (like the "esteemed" Mr. Raspberry, and his losing lottery ticket here) want something for nothing. Is there any wonder why everyone is upset at these lawsuits and other associated BS? There is no "failure" as Comer put it here. The inequities that he is speaking of are generations in the past. Life goes forward - I'm looking forward. Too bad that Comer, Raspberry and the warlords don't want to.