Reparations for african-americans

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Berzerker
chegitz -

You can call it apple pie for all I care, it's still thievery. And calling people "racist" (or too racist) for not accepting the immorality of your proposal is the liberal left's version of McCarthyism.

You're a libertarian. You call taxes theft. You honestly have nothing useful to contribute in this discussion accept to parrot your usual "taxes = theft" argument. If even forcing everyone to pony up for the police is theft, obviously redistributive justice is over the top for people like you.

What I don't get is why libertarians are such hypocrites on the matter. People who buy art that was stolen by the Nazis are forced to return it to the decendents of those from whom the art was stolen. Why don't libertarians believe that the decendants of slaves and American Indians have a right to have returned what was stolen from their ancestors? If something was stolen from your grandfather, you'd want it back, wouldn't you?

BTW, McCarthyism wasn't about polcies. It was about demogogery. It was about whipping people into a frenzy so that the government could crack down on leftists of all stripes, unionists, peaceniks, ban-the bomb types, etc. It destroyed, lives, careers, marriages. People were beaten, executed, and impovrished because of real McCarthyism.

[Al B. Sure!]

what the hell is "!=" i never heard of that in my life...

in any event so i guess you aren't in favour of reparations? i'm confused.

[Berzerker]

Reparations != free money

!= It's short hand for DOES NOT EQUAL!!!!

You found that in the dictionary? If not, why tell Al to look in a dictionary? Then there's this from you:

Reparations are about helping the whole Black community, with better schools, better city services, nicer neighborhoods, job training, etc.

Paid for by whom? Sounds like reparations does = free money.

[Space05us]

The fact is that reparations would do nothing to imporve the situation of the African Americna community (no, there are no European Americans..but there are italian Americans, Irish Americans, German Americans, all of them with nice parades, ethnic neighborhoods, so on, so if you happen to unfortunitelly be from a boring white people, like Scandinavians or British, your bad luck.).

When I call myself European American Im partialy making fun of "African" Americans because most people I know call themselves American regardless of thier race, yet you see a black person living in America and they say they are African American regardless of the fact that the relation they have to Africa is as strong as the Relation I have with Europe, it doesnt exist! Sure i call myself Irish, or German, but only jokingly. As far as Im concerned Im an American, the Irish and German blood in me means as much to me as the hot dog I ate for breakfast. And when it comes to "communities" there's no such thing anymore. What constitutes a community? A bunch of people of the same ethnic backround living in the same neighborhood? What about the Chinese guy that lives next door to the African guy that lives next door to the Indian who all live in a neighborhood that is mostly white, erm I mean European. Is that a White community? Oh wait I know how to solve it, give the black people reservations like we did the Indians, oh excuse me I mean "Native" Americans We all know how well they work out.

[DinoDoc]

Prove to me that I ever owned slaves and I'll be glad to go pay this person thier money.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
what the hell is "!=" i never heard of that in my life...

It's used very frequently on these boards. Not my fault you don't pay attention.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Space05us


When I call myself European American Im partialy making fun of "African" Americans because most people I know call themselves American regardless of thier race, yet you see a black person living in America and they say they are African American regardless of the fact that the relation they have to Africa is as strong as the Relation I have with Europe, it doesnt exist.

Bull! If you come up here many people call themselves Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, Icelanders, Germans, etc. I am Norwegian and German and I am proud to be both! why shouldn't Africans be able to celebrate thier ancestors.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Space05us
When I call myself European American Im partialy making fun of "African" Americans

Well, you're ignorant then, because it was WHITE people who started the whole hyphen American thing a long LONG time ago. Italian-American, Irish-American, etc. etc. etc.

God some white people are stupid.

[Space05us]

i think the entire -American thing is dumb, and anyone who pretends that they are something they aren't is ignorant.


And Im not white, damnit! You're making me feel inferior, call me European American!!


on a side note; White people might be dumb, but we managed to conquer most of the world.

[Berzerker]

chegitz -

You're a libertarian. You call taxes theft.

No, just taxes designed to "re-distribute" wealth.

You honestly have nothing useful to contribute in this discussion accept to parrot your usual "taxes = theft" argument.

You've been contributing honesty? Certainly not by creating Orwelian euphemisms to hide behind.

If even forcing everyone to pony up for the police is theft, obviously redistributive justice is over the top for people like you.

How does supporting the local sheriff = "re-distributive justice"?

What I don't get is why libertarians are such hypocrites on the matter. People who buy art that was stolen by the Nazis are forced to return it to the decendents of those from whom the art was stolen.

And you've been quoting libertarians who oppose this? Nope, if you want to accuse us of hypocrisy, provide some proof. What we don't propose is that the descendents of people who fought the Nazis pay for this lost art. No matter how you try to disguise "reparations", it will partially come out of the pockets of people who lost ancestors fighting for the North in the Civil War as well as millions of people who had no relatives here in the time of slavery.

Why don't libertarians believe that the decendants of slaves and American Indians have a right to have returned what was stolen from their ancestors? If something was stolen from your grandfather, you'd want it back, wouldn't you?

When you get around to actually seeking reparations from slaveowners and their descendents, then we can have a discussion. Until then, you're just proposing we commit another wrong to heal a past wrong.

Why don't you inform us about your ethnic heritage so we can identify sins committed by your ancestors? Oh, that's right, it doesn't matter if your ancestors sinned against others, they're guilty if they so much as lived in a land where sins were committed by others.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by GePap
I am against reparations, but not for most of, what I would call absurd, rationalizations given against it in this thread. To follow money created by slavery would be much more simple than many of the other cases brought forwards, speically from still fucntioning insititutions, like Banksm insurance companies, whatever.

If you took that approach, then most of the money trail would go right back to the Yankees who consumed the cotton - mill owners, shippers, bankers, who profited from the results of the slave labor. That is generally a group of people who were slightly higher in the moral cesspool than slaveholders, who were themselves generally a bit off the bottom of the moral cesspool, occupied by the slavetraders, shippers, runaway hunters, and other swamp critters.

By your approach, the one group you'd have a good chance of assigning liability would be the one that was arguably slightly less morally culpable at the least, and the one who would have the best legal defense against creation of an after-the-fact liability in tort.

[Sava]

No, just taxes designed to "re-distribute" wealth.

And taxes designed to help people other than yourself.

[Velociryx]

Che....the problem with that argument, IMO, is that it never stops.

African-Americans who seek reparations for wages "stolen from their ancestors" get their check....so then a group of Europeans descended from serfs in medieval France get THEIR panties in a wad and start demanding "their" stolen wages....then a group of Hungarians get THEIR panties in a wad becaus Hungary has been conquered by just about everybody at one point or another, so God-only-knows who all "owes" them using that as a yardstick.

How 'bout if we leave the past where it belongs, IN the past, and start fresh? Better that than having EVERYBODY wailing and gnashing teeth because their ancestors five+ generations removed were wronged.

It's a tough world. Look back far enough and ALL our ancestors have been wronged.

-=Vel=-

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Prove to me that I ever owned slaves and I'll be glad to go pay this person thier money.

Why, you ignernt white racist you. Don't you realize that because your 5th, 6th, or 7th generation ancestors might have owned a few, (whether they were here or not doesn't matter), you're just rolling around in slave-money?

[The Mad Monk]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


It's used very frequently on these boards. Not my fault you don't pay attention.

I know what it means, but I have to say I don't remember seeing it here.