You really believe that, don't you?
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Coming soon: Tha SYNDICATE.
101 things that the Mozilla browser can do that Internet Explorer cannot.
Posted on 11/22/2002 6:54:19 AM PST by TroutStalker
Edited on 04/22/2004 11:47:33 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Reparations for slavery were one of the first concerns raised by blacks after emancipation in 1863. They have since come to address, along with slavery, Jim Crow, race riots, and other indignities and cruelties heaped upon black Americans in the days before the Civil Rights movement. Reparations are not, on their face, simply a dismissible idea or merely a partisan one. If we recognize any force in the arguments in favor of reparations for the Holocaust or for the interning of Japanese-Americans during World War II, then there's nothing illogical about considering some form of reparations to American blacks.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
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You really believe that, don't you?
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Coming soon: Tha SYNDICATE.
101 things that the Mozilla browser can do that Internet Explorer cannot.
And what the hell is that supposed to mean?!?
They were considered wops and polacks.
They arrived around 1900. The case for reparations is based on falsehood.
No slave ever owned property and they didn't build this nation.
40 acres and a mule was a phrase... nothing more.
No American taxpayer should buy into this crap.
The African-American community was presented with a fork in the road between Washington and Dubois. They chose Dubois, which was the wrong choice. In stead of choosing to work to build themselves, they instead decided to select the path of tearing others down in rage.
Right on, Browning. From the plantations as slaves to the gubmint plantation...welfare IMO is every bit as freedom-stifling as slavery. It's just a newer form of it.
You're correct that whites are on the dole too, although welfare hasn't become nearly as prevalent or as ingrained in "white culture" as it has among blacks.
Bear in mind that idiocy and illogical exist on BOTH sides of this argument.
I just wish this thread could stay civil and reasoned. If more folks read your posts, throughout FReerepublic, fewer would offer unreasoned rants like the ones above.
Keep up the good work.
It's a question of proportions. Comprising only 12½% of the overall pop., blacks aren't likely to have a majority of anything in this country, including welfare dependency. But looking closer at the percentage of blacks on welfare as opp. to that of whites...you see where I'm going with this, right?
Touché!
Thank you. I'm so glad somebody pointed this out.
Then, figure out the entire cost, North and South, of the Civil War, including soldiers' pensions and some reasonable value of the lives of the war dead. Do the same current value calculation at the same 3% interest rate. Call that number "Reparations Already Paid".
To get the reparations amount due blacks who can verify descent from freedmen in 1865, subtract the Reparations Already Paid amount from the Raw Reparations amount. If the number is positive, the the balance will be divied up among the blacks who can prove descent from individuals who were slaves prior to 1865. If the number is negative, then those same descendents can provide useful free labor at prevailing rates until the blacks debt to society for their liberation is paid.
And what the hell is that supposed to mean?!?
What it means is that the Democrat Party deliberately set out to destroy the Black American family and make them slaves again through a welfare system. This was done on the backs of the higher income bracket Whites. It was a government mugging of one class to repress another class. The affect was to get the Black vote and lower income poorly educated White vote (the masses) to out-number middle and upper income college educated White folks. And that is how they maintained control for so long. Class warfare and racism are key components of the Democrats political tactics.
I'm sorry, but you really need to rethink what you just said. Am I understanding you to say that all blacks benefitted from "welfare"? And if so would you please kindly let me know how I, who like most of black America, works for a living, and doesn't collect dollar one (but pays my fair share of taxes) benefitted?
Because it's more about wallowing in rage and righteous indignation than it is about settling any literal debt.
I'm sorry, I didn't read that statement that way - and if the original poster meant that, then why didn't he say it as opposed to a back-handed slap at all blacks?
Because he has the same, though mirror-image, visceral feeling of being robbed by 'that other group'.
That just further opens the can of worms, though. If you plan to exclude from payments blacks who are not the descendents of slaves, shouldn't you apply that logic to the other side of the balance sheet, and not extract payment from whites who are descended from non-slaveowners?
Welfare-as-reparations is a silly idea BTW. State welfare isn't so far removed from involuntary servitude.
So I should just rub my stinging face and turn the other cheek, huh?
Many of you here know that I'm exceptionally opposed to "reparations" in any form. I've got no desire to accept blood money, and I've got no desire to penalize anyone for something that they didn't do.
As long as we (as blacks) continue to rehash this old (and I thought long-settled) argument, we'll continue to wallow in our own self-pity as opposed to moving forward as a united American people.
No, I don't expect that in this or almost any situation. I was just pointing out that he has basically the same mindset as the reparations crowd, as opposed to being logical about it. By all means smack him down, or at least call him on his dumb assertion, but it's hard to get anywhere with someone who is reacting on that level. He's enjoying the noble victim role as much as the other guys.
Slavery Reparations Aren't a "Free Lunch"
by Michael King
For fans of science fiction and mysteries like me, the acronym TANSTAAFL means a lot. It refers to the notion that if something is too easy it is either too good to be true or has much larger and harsher consequences down the road.
When it comes to the reparations debate, black America needs to learn about TANSTAAFL: "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch." Many of us believe the government "owes" us reparations for the years of slavery in the United States and British Crown Colonies. Members of the so-called "black elite" such as former TransAfrica head Randall Robinson and Congressman John Conyers (D-MI) hold this view.
Robinson authored The Debt: What America Owes To Blacks in which he lays out his case for government reparations for black Americans. Conyers repeatedly introduces legislation for reparations payments to the descendents of slaves in the United States.
Robinson and Conyers hang their hat on the concept of "40 acres and a mule." It's the failed Reconstruction idea to give freed slaves 40 acres of farmland and a mule to plow it. This notion, championed by General William Sherman after the Civil War, was vetoed more than once by President Andrew Johnson. The misconception of a government promise to provide land and labor to emancipated slaves persists today.
On talk shows from coast to coast, people sell the sizzle of a payment in the form of land, money or both. Hucksters set up scams, promising to create a massive class action lawsuit to force the government to "enforce their own promise." You must, however, pay them fees in advance "to help defray legal costs." Others claim to offer reparations payments if the gullible simply provide their credit card numbers.
When people point out the fallacies related to the reparations debate, and they are black themselves, they are derided as sellouts, "Uncle Toms," "Oreos" and far worse names. They are told they have forgotten who they are and that they are helping the "white devils" keep the black man down.
But these people seek to point out rational and reasonable truths: there are no living slaves left. If the government gave money to every descendent of every slave, the government would quickly go bankrupt. Finally, if the government were to make payments, how could the government determine exactly who descended from slaves and who descended from free blacks in the north, free citizens from other countries or whose ancestors immigrated after slavery was abolished?
In the rare instances where reparations were paid to ethnic groups for past injustices, they were paid to the individuals to whom the injustices were inflicted or immediate family. I know there isn't a single slave and probably no immediate family member left alive to receive government reparations from when slavery was legal for less than 100 years.
That's right. Slavery was legal in the United States for only 89 years. It may not have been right in the eyes of God, but it was right and legal in the eyes of the law of the era. Should the government apologize for slavery? Yes and no. Yes, apologize for the wrongful treatment of the countless blacks enslaved in this country. However, no apology is necessary for the fact that, at that time, it was legal. You don't see the government apologizing for not granting women the legal right to vote prior to 1920. This situation is regrettable, but really no different.
Moreover, we, as a people, should forgive and move on. By dwelling on the past, we are doing nothing short of wallowing in our own self-pity. From the reaction I get when I suggest this, you'd think I had thought it was right and proper to beat your children or your dog with a sharp stick.
All I want people to do is think rationally and get away from the emotionalism that the so-called black leaders are using to rabble-rouse us.
Trying to goad, push and blackmail the government into paying out what amounts to a winning lottery check to black America is nothing more than trying to get something for nothing. And, as we all know, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
###
(Michael King is a member of the African-American leadership network Project 21 and an Internet and radio broadcaster in Atlanta, Georgia. He can be reached at mhking@bellsouth.net and http://www.geocities.com/mhking1/. A downloadable photo of Michael King is available at http://www.nationalcenter.org/StaffP21MHKingHead.jpg.)
Note: New Visions Commentaries reflect the views of their author, and not necessarily those of Project 21.
This is true, and pathetically sad at the same time.
Hey. Wait a minute. Women were chattel for decades after emancipation of the slaves. I think anyone descended from women should be paid for the misery that women endured, sold as bond servants, forced into marriages, unable to own property or vote. It ahs only been in the last 30 years or so that a woman could have her husband arrested for assault.
</sarcasm off>
That sums it up. The reparations crowd is a set of petulant 6-year-olds stamping their feet and holding their breath (I wish!) and demanding society shower on them the attention they didn't get from their parents. Sorry for the armchair psychoanalysis, but that's just how I see it. Treat people like dependent, helpless children long enough, and reward them for playing along, and one day they will behave like dependent helpless children all by themselves. The infantilization (sp?) of black Americans esp males is substantially complete. A future generation of politicians both black and white will be grateful.
Just as not all blacks in pre-1862 America were slaves, of course not all blacks in post-1965 America have benefitted from welfare.
However, I can't really back down from defending WaveThatFlag's comment either...what amused me about it is that there is at least a grain of truth in it. Not all, but many blacks have availed themselves of this country's generous largesse in the past few decades. So the irony and hypocrisy of these race-pimps nowadays demanding "reparations" after all is pretty...glaring!
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Coming soon: Tha SYNDICATE.
101 things that the Mozilla browser can do that Internet Explorer cannot.
So true.
We were wrong to ever endorse or even acknowledge reparations for the Holocaust or the internment of Japanese immigrants and their children. And this is where that folly has led us.
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