Paradox - Estate Tax and Reparations

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Agathon


And in the entire time I've posted here, you have not made one interesting or original comment in defense of your prejudices.

You don't rate high enough for me to explain myself to. Anyway, if you continue to post garbage like the crap you are spewing in this thread don't be shocked when you have to deal with the same being thrown back at you.

[Kidlicious]

DD, don't you ever change your avatar?

[DinoDoc]

When I find pictures that catch my fancy.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Too bad for Agathon that making fiscal reparations to the folks who deserve it will be fundamentally impossible. First, you have to discern which African-Americans are descendant from slaves and which aren't--we can't be giving money to folks whose ancestors weren't oppressed, can we? What about mixed people...do they only get half as much? Do we allot their shares based on the percentage of blackness? I mean, some guy may look like a honkey to you, but he could be 1/16th black. So can he get a share?

If it's true that the general position of black people is due in part to slavery then presumably if we can identify that fact we can identify the people who have been disadvantaged. It doesn't matter if we get a few wrong as long as we get it mostly right.

And I believe that the sensible solution is to spend money on the things you describe in your last paragraph - so what's the problem?

Of course, the spectacle of wealthy blacks getting government checks would be amusing. Just can't wait to see what Don King does with his share, or J.C. Watts.

Well chuck in Oprah, Johnnie Cochran, a couple of rappers and the sports stars and that's it. Not many are there? (Michael Jackson is now white)

Or we could just settle for the radical notion that reparations should be made in the form of making sure there is real equality of opportunity and an end to racism in the U.S., instead of dishing out money and breeding a good deal more resentment from the rest of the country's citizens.

I agwee.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
You don't rate high enough for me to explain myself to. Anyway, if you continue to post garbage like the crap you are spewing in this thread don't be shocked when you have to deal with the same being thrown back at you.

I wasn't talking about me personally. I said I've never seen you post anything interesting or original period

Well, I suppose some of the BAMs or semi-BAMs in support of various illiterate republican cretins have some comic value.

[Q Classic]

The reason is that the state, as an abstract entity, has to pay the reparations. The state is responsible for the acts of its previous stewards just as a company is still responsible for its contracts if it is sold to new owners.

are not blacks part of the same state? would you not then be asking them to pay their own reparations from tax money taken from them? or will black tax dollars be exempt because they're the ones receiving the reparations?

Of course many Americans can't stand the idea of reparations because those negroes might get uppity if they get some money.

you get me reparations to those decendants of chinamen who worked on the railroad in slave-like conditions, and maybe i'll shut up.
but wait! aren't asians all successful? every single one, to a (short, emasculated and andyrogenous) man? they have no need of reparations!

But hell, let them work their way out of it like all Americans are supposed to. That would be great if only for the fact that a black guy with no criminal record is less likely to get a job interview than a white felon.

if asians and latinos had to work their way out of it, why can't they? it would be great if an asian with an accent wasn't automatically assumed to be foreign and thus looked down upon. it would be great if an asian without an accent weren't looked upon as a bigfoot outside of the academic world.
sure, blacks had it tough. but they are part of the same state that will have to give them reparations; the state whose previous stewards were all white non-minority males, down to a man; where the voices of blacks, latinos, and slants were all but ignored.

as for the mechanics of it: who will get what? will a person who is a second-generation or third-generation immigrant from, say, gabon be given reparations based on skin-color? even if their forefathers came of their own free will, without any coercion, to make a life for themselves here? or what about a person who's 1/32nd black on his grandfather's side? what if his grandmother and grandfather were on different sides of the master-slave relationship? will his or her reparations be reduced?

is there a value to a certain quantity of black blood? tell me, is it $10000 for every 1/16th ?
how far is that from the slave market that america still grieves over?

[The Templar]

Hmm, slavery involved a lot of people not getting paid for their work. The interesting thing there is that many corporations that benefitted from slavery still exist today. They should probably pay for their share.

As for reparations that are easy, how about repaying everyone who went to a segregated minority high school? Reparations for the injury of lost opportunity due to inferior education? Many Jim Crow victims are still alive ...

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Agathon
Yet another "let's beat up on the blacks because they aren't already on their knees" thread.

[insert Strom Thurmond joke here]

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Too bad for Agathon that making fiscal reparations to the folks who deserve it will be fundamentally impossible. First, you have to discern which African-Americans are descendant from slaves and which aren't--we can't be giving money to folks whose ancestors weren't oppressed, can we? What about mixed people...do they only get half as much? Do we allot their shares based on the percentage of blackness? I mean, some guy may look like a honkey to you, but he could be 1/16th black. So can he get a share?

Of course, the spectacle of wealthy blacks getting government checks would be amusing. Just can't wait to see what Don King does with his share, or J.C. Watts.

Or we could just settle for the radical notion that reparations should be made in the form of making sure there is real equality of opportunity and an end to racism in the U.S., instead of dishing out money and breeding a good deal more resentment from the rest of the country's citizens.

Stop making sense, you're embarrassing Agathon.

[Berzerker]

Ramo -

There is no contradiction. Estate taxes are meant to curb the inheritance of extravagent wealth. Before the repeal, only estates of over $1 million for single people or $2 million for married couples were taxed. That's not the kind of money people would get out of any reparation plan I've ever heard of.

The amount was ~$600,000 and roughly %50 above that was confiscated before the recent changes and hit millions of people. But I'm not asking if reparations would add up to a million per "victim", I'm asking about what I perceive to be a paradox - justifying reparations based on the inability of slaves to pass along an inheritance while advocating the seizure of people's inheritance now thru the estate tax. If it was a bad thing to prevent slaves from passing along an inheritance, then why do so many on the left want to prevent people, including the descendents of slaves from passing along an inheritance now?

Agathon -

Yet another "let's beat up on the blacks because they aren't already on their knees" thread.

Actually, it's another "liberals are such hypocrites" thread. I'm not the one advocating we rob black people of their wealth thru estate taxes, that would be you.

If your grandparents stole something and then passed it down to you, are you entitled to keep it, just because you didn't steal it yourself?

That's roughly the argument.

Or conversely, if my grandparents didn't steal, are you entitled to get their money just because you made it "legal" to steal? I thought you were one of these people who believe that stealing is okay if it's legal, and slavery was legal...

One reason there is an inheritance tax is to prevent the formation of a new virtual aristocracy based on inherited wealth.

You mean like the Kennedys and Rockefellers? I've got news for ya, those kind of rich people have loopholes for their family wealth so the people who actually get hit are the upper middle class and business/farm owners.

In an economy which is aimed at encouraging people to work hard in order to benefit everyone (at least that's the rationale) allowing people to gain large sums of money by doing nothing subverts that system of rewards.

That would be a communist economy, under ~capitalism you work hard to benefit yourself and loved ones. And stealing from people enhances a system of rewards? Sounds like it rewards crime...

If it's true that the general position of black people is due in part to slavery then presumably if we can identify that fact we can identify the people who have been disadvantaged. It doesn't matter if we get a few wrong as long as we get it mostly right.

Why doesn't it matter? And having reparations paid thru the state would get that backwards. The majority of people in this country either had no ancestors here during slavery or ancestors who did not practice slavery. Hell, it was even a small minority in the South who had slaves so concluding reparations would or could get it mostly right with only a few mistakes requires a willingness to ignore facts.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Agathon
And I believe that the sensible solution is to spend money on the things you describe in your last paragraph - so what's the problem?

Then we're not talking "reparations," really, as that has come to mean in this context doleing out bucks to people as a "mea culpa." It's rather crass, actually.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov

Then we're not talking "reparations," really, as that has come to mean in this context doleing out bucks to people as a "mea culpa." It's rather crass, actually.

That's just a semantic debate. Reparations can take many forms just as there are many ways of atoning for past wrongs.

Just doling out bucks would be a bit silly. I do support taxing people like Berz more, just to see the expression on his face.

[Agathon]

****gin DP.

[Verto]

So, I should pay to make up for slavery, which I did not participate in, to people who were not enslaved. Makes sense to me.

[Berzerker]

Reparations can take many forms just as there are many ways of atoning for past wrongs.

"Atonement" is a possible reaction by those who are actually guilty and not people who are innocent. But I suppose you'd call that "semantics" as well...