Paradox - Estate Tax and Reparations

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Deity Dude
You think certain ones are "funny" and others are criminal no matter what. You make this decision based soley on the race of the person making the insult and the person receiving it.

What could be more racist then to say its "funny" if Race A uses racial slurs towards Race B but its a "hate-crime" if Race B does it to Race A.

As a pro-Confederacy southern white boy who doesn't give a damn about PCness, let me 'splain something to you.

Being called a honky makes me laugh - someone says that to me, it's like "hey, this moron thinks he's Richard ****ing Pryor"

Calling a black person "******" carries a lot more weight, because it's not that far from the days when it was in the context of things like "keep them goddamned ******s in their place" "those ******s are trying to get into our swimming pool" "string that ****** up."

On construction sites in the deep south, back in the not-so-distant good ol' days, sometimes instead of renting a crane or a heavy piece of equipment, you'd "****** rig" - get 40 ******s and a rope.

Or there was that good ol' sign at the limits of McComb, Mississippi that I saw as a kid: "****** - don't let the sun set on your head in McComb"

Now try to replace "******" with "honky" in any of those contexts - it's absurd. They weren't lynching us, putting us in colored schools, telling us we couldn't use public facilities the same as anyone else. Someone runs his mouth calling someone a "honky" and you think it's some moron with a bigger mouth than he has a brain. Someone runs his mouth calling you "******" and you have to think what the hell else is coming next?

There is no way either side of hell that the two words carry anything near the same weight.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Q Cubed

Because it's an argument to perpetuate the effects of racism by refusing to do anything.

why? black people do have it rough. but is it really because of their slavery?

Nope. It's because of Jim Crow and white racism. If the Reconstruction governments hadn't been violently overthrown (with little opposition from the Feds), had the Supremem Court not declared the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional, etc. Black people would have been integrating for 140 years, rather than just forty.

sure, the government broke its promises. sure the jim crow laws were bad. sure there were racists in power.
but is the fact that a black person in the south side who chooses to follow the easier path of allowing the conditions to drive them, rather than the other way around, is that because of racism?

If everytime you try and get ahead, you get smacked down and have no recourse to the law, the no, it's not your fault. If you try to resist, your business or home gets burned, you get shot, your daughter gets raped. Jim Crow wasn't just a set of evil laws. It was a system of terrorism.

If you bind a man's legs together his whole childhood, then when he's twenty-one, take them off, he's still going to bear the scars of those chains. He's still going to be unable to run normally. He will never be able to compete in a foot-race. Those who suffered under white supremacy should be compensated.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Or there was that good ol' sign at the limits of McComb, Mississippi that I saw as a kid: "****** - don't let the sun set on your head in McComb"

You saw that? I've only heard stories about it.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Yep - back when I lived in Biloxi, the infamous McComb signs were still there, at each end of town.

[chequita guevara]

Bridgeport, Chicago and Cicero, IL don't have the signs, but everybody knows. Don't be Black afterdark in either community. Hell, when Cicero hired their first Black cop in the '80s, people kept calling the police department saying there was a Black person pretending to be a cop.

[Ramo]

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?

It's not a paradox because as I said, the intent of the estate tax is meant to curb the inheritance of extravagent estates, and no one will get that kind of money through reparations.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Q Cubed

Because it's an argument to perpetuate the effects of racism by refusing to do anything.

why? black people do have it rough. but is it really because of their slavery?
sure, the government broke its promises. sure the jim crow laws were bad. sure there were racists in power.
but is the fact that a black person in the south side who chooses to follow the easier path of allowing the conditions to drive them, rather than the other way around, is that because of racism?

You seriously underestimate the resources white Southerners had in keeping slaves under their iron grip.

You also mistakenly assume that black descendants automatically own less property and have less income because their ancestors were passive and willing to submit. That was not the case -- numerous slaves found ways to resist if not outright rebel or flee, but they did so against incredible odds.

[Deity Dude]

Burning a cross on your lawn, killing me for being white, etc. I can think of plenty of things that are far more racist

Things are either racist or not. Calling someone of another race by a racial slur is racist. Killing someone because of thier race is racist. Obviously, outcomes of racism can be different.

Chris Rock does this routine. "White people ask, 'Why can't I say it?' Why do you want to say it?" Why the hell are you offended no one wants you to say an evil word? Get over it, move on, live your life instead of worrying about what Black people can say and what you shouldn't say.

Nice try Che, but I never said I wanted to use any particular racial slur. I just said that all racial slurs are wrong. You seem to think only some are wrong

As for Dr. King's quote, you might want to consider that in the last year of his life, he embarked on a campaign for reparations, aka, the Poor People's Campaign.

I never said I supported everything MLK was for or said. If he was for distributing taxpayer dollars based solely on skin color, whether whites or blacks benefitted, I think he was wrong on that issue.

Yes, people should be judged on the content of their character. What happens when they aren't?How are you gonna remedy that?

If it is in the workplace, public sector etc that person has broken the law. More specifically, the Constitution and they should be punished appropriately.

If it is in a personal situation, the remedy is real simple. People choose thier friends and associates. I choose not to associate with racists and suggest others do the same.

I do make exceptions for your type of racism though. Because even though it is racism and wrong, your heart is in the right place. You don't seem to think people are inferior because of thier race. You just seem to think they should be categorized because of thier race and then depending on the racial category you assign them, they should either recieve or have taken away certain benefits and priviledges.

How are you going to prove that someone was discriminated against on the basis of race? It's not so easy.

I never said there weren't injustices in the world. I just don't agree with your remedies. But just because a crime goes unproven/unsolved we don't assume a whole group of people guilty of that crime and punish them.

How do you compensate someone for growing up in a neighborhood racism built? How do you take into consideration that because of those neighborhoods, some people had to go to inferior schools, and thus can't compete for higher education and job spots with the people who fled those neighborhoods for the suburbs?

Here we go again. Does it matter if the kid in the lousy neighborhood or lousy school is black or white? Not to me. The only thing that matters to me is that there are kids that have to go to a lousy school or live in a lousy neighborhood. Thier skin color is immaterial to me.

How do you stop the legacy of past racism from being inherited by new generations?

How do we stop future generations from discriminating against people based on thier race? Hmmm... Maybe by not discriminating against people based on thier race.

We should move away from the concept of race altogether instead of trying to institutionalize it.

Just a personal note here. I live in the Detroit area in an integrated neighborhood. My son attends an integrated public school. He goes to an integrated Karate class and integrated cub scouts. My 15 year old daughter has dated blacks, whites, and hispanics. (A little too much dating for my preferences but that another story.) It doesn't matter to me as long as they show her the respect she is due and they are a good person. My niece married a black man and I have a half black/half white grandnephew. I don't think of any of these people in these terms and only bring it up here to prove a point. That is how you end racism.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Verto
Since I'm Mormon, I think I am entitled to reparations for the land, property, etc that was stolen from the Mormons in Nauvoo, Independence, Far West, etc. Even though I was never personally tarred and feathered, I am entitled to money.

In fact, on top of that, I think I need to seek some kind of monetary damage for all the emotional distress caused by the Missouri and Illinois government's actions toward my people.

Why would you care? When the Apocalypse comes isn't Jesus going to take you and all your mates to another planet or something?

[Guynemer]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
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.

That's a perfectly reasonable argument.

However, with AA going down in flames all over the country, there won't even be the faintest scent of real equality of opportunity.

[Q Classic]

You seriously underestimate the resources white Southerners had in keeping slaves under their iron grip.

well aware of it. while i myself wasn't a decendant of said owners, i know quite a few. happens when you live in atlanta.

You also mistakenly assume that black descendants automatically own less property and have less income because their ancestors were passive and willing to submit. That was not the case -- numerous slaves found ways to resist if not outright rebel or flee, but they did so against incredible odds.

where are you getting this? all i'm saying is that if people in a certain group can succeed, why should we give the others a blank check?
or, alternatively, if certain minorities are going to be treated specially because of the past, while other minorities are completely ignored, even when they have a past, how is that not itself racist?

If you bind a man's legs together his whole childhood, then when he's twenty-one, take them off, he's still going to bear the scars of those chains. He's still going to be unable to run normally. He will never be able to compete in a foot-race. Those who suffered under white supremacy should be compensated.

so, pretty much anyone who isn't white should get reparations? i don't mind that so much, so long as it's everyone who wasn't white, and not just some select groups who weren't white.

i'm not excusing the horror that went on during the past few centuries. i just don't understand why they deserve any special monetary compensation when there are plenty of other groups who are similarly deserving, but completely ignored. how is that not racism?

is reverse racism right? do two wrongs now make a right?

honestly, it really seems like making these reparations to blacks is quite akin to the post ww1 reparations germany had to fork over. people got ****ed over in the past, but to make it all better, we're going to **** everyone over.

[Kuciwalker]

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.

Ever heard of this little thing called a "statute of limitations"?

EDIT: SpencerH beat me to it.

[Berzerker]

Ramo -

It's not a paradox because as I said, the intent of the estate tax is meant to curb the inheritance of extravagent estates, and no one will get that kind of money through reparations

Then according to the Democrats, there are millions of extravagently wealthy Americans. But does that mean a wealthy freed black man 150 years ago should have been enslaved a few years to curb his extravagent wealth?

[Ramo]

If he were subject to an inheritance tax, his children would be slightly less wealthy when he dies. That's not the same thing as being enslaved a few years.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by GePap
I'm just glad Berz used the correct name and not that ridiculous "death tax" name.

My advice to those who die,
declare those pennies on your eyes!
'Cause I'm the taxman.