Paradox - Estate Tax and Reparations

[Berzerker]

I do support taxing people like Berz more, just to see the expression on his face.

If you were close enough for that view, your life would be in jeopardy.

[SpencerH]

I'm willing to give reparations to anyone who can prove they were a slave prior to the end of the civil war. Aside from that, Boris has it right.

EDIT: typo

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by SpencerH
I'm willing to give reparations to anyone who can prove thay were a slave prior to the end of the civil war.

Why? You didn't own them.

[SpencerH]

Society often pays for the financial losses due to false incarceration, so there's precedent.

[SpencerH]

You may have also missed the point.

[Berzerker]

Society often pays for the financial losses due to false incarceration, so there's precedent.

Slaves weren't falsely incarcerated. But that is a good point, but "society" shouldn't pay, the people responsible for the false incarceration should pony up. And if I'm accused of a crime and hire a lawyer I'm not re-imbursed if acquitted.

[SpencerH]

That works pretty much just as well. Congress should pass a law where anyone who was a slave prior to the civil war can sue their previous owners for their losses.

Please note: this does not apply to decendents of slaves or their owners.

[Boris Godunov]

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

But financial ones were the only ones that were the initial concern of this thread...

[Japher]

Reparations are a bad idea...

1. Assigning value to a life of suffering to be paid to the great grand child of that person is demeaning, or at least it should be to anyone who claims to be "proud" of their ancestory.

2. Where would it stop? Should Germany give reparations to the jews, Egyptians to the Israelies, etc...

3. All because you were not in American at the time of slavery does discredit you from being responsible for pay such reparations. You are taking advantage of a country that was made on slavery, now, and those you owe. Your ancestors did nothing to stop slavery, and are therefor just as responsible... Besides, I am sure your ancestors did something you need to pay for.

4. If all of a sudden it was now legal to write of all capital gains does the government owe you for all the capital gains you have ever paid for in the past? no.

5. Reparations is a greedy demand from some one who is too stuck in the past.

I agree that reparations should be paid, in some cases. Yet, that is what AA and quotas have been doing, in part. How much longer must we continue to be racist in order to correct acts of racism which occured over 100 years ago?

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov

But financial ones were the only ones that were the initial concern of this thread...

Well I was only addressing the issue of justification. This sort of scheme has the added benefit that it can be given all three kinds of justification: compensation, rights-based and consequentialist.

I'm having to laugh at some of the comments in this thread.

"I never done it" seems to be a popular if misconceived attitude. Well if I buy a company and that company is discovered to have committed some past wrong for which it must pay compensation, I am on the hook for it because the company is. Same goes for the state.

[Ned]

If the former slave are to get reparations, they should do so from those who profited from Slavery: the Confederacy and the British.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Berzerker

"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...

Well, if you insist on quoting from the Book of Hairspliticus, then please substitute "compensate".

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Agathon
"I never done it" seems to be a popular if misconceived attitude. Well if I buy a company and that company is discovered to have committed some past wrong for which it must pay compensation, I am on the hook for it because the company is. Same goes for the state.

If the company committed the wrong 150 years ago and the wronged party is not longer around, I don't think it would be on the hook for anything, legally.

[Al B. Sure!]

the deficit is too large as is... no need to take millions of more dollars out of the budget

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Ned
If the former slave are to get reparations, they should do so from those who profited from Slavery: the Confederacy and the British.

Hey my ancestors were Hessians, Think I can get reparations from England and Germany.

200 years of compounded interest baby!!!