Apologizing for Slavery. Does it matter?

[Contrapuntal]

@Askia

Is the hare I’m skinning you or this argument of yours?

Look, it’s a useful distinction. Someone compelled to do something may be entirely motivated to do the thing on their own without being directly coerced, influenced or told by an authority it needs to be done. Wachovia was by law compelled to comply with the ordinance; you have offered no evdence their compliance was forced, or that the apology was coerced.

No evidence except by definition, and the contradiction of your own words. How can you maintain that Wachovia did something on their own, and yet was “by law compelled”?

(bolding mine.)
One entry found for coerce.
Main Entry: co·erce
Pronunciation: kO-’&rs
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): co·erced; co·erc·ing
Etymology: Latin coercEre, from co- + arcEre to shut up, enclose – more at ARK
1 : to restrain or dominate by force <religion in the past has tried to coerce the irreligious – W. R. Inge>
2 : to compel to an act or choice3 : to bring about by force or threat <coerce the compliance of the rest of the community – Scott Buchanan>
synonym see FORCE

OK it wasn’t a hare, it was a hair. And you weren’t skinning it, you were splitting it. You have displayed far to much intelligence in this thread to play dumb about this. To maintain that a thing can be compelled by law but somehow not forced is to shave meaning so fine as to be invisible. It is a distinction without a difference.

[Askia]

Contrapuntal. There is no such thing as a distinction without a difference. And I’m not playing dumb. I understand power in terms of authority (leadership and rules), coercion (force, violence) and influence (will). Laws compel by their power of authority, not by actual force: i.e., violence. It takes another agency, a police or regulatory agency empowered by whoever makes the rules, to act against you for non-compliance of the law. Simply following the law does not make you coerced by the law. The law itself cannot coerce.

Put it in simpler terms, the law cannot stop me from speeding. Only the police can stop me from speeding. People who talk about the long arm of the law are really talking about the long arm of the police.

Unless Wachovia was threatened and somehow punitively by a police or regulatory agency you cannot say that bank was coerced. They were compelled - but the law compels everybody.

[pseudotriton_ruber_ruber]

@Askia

pseudotriton ruber ruber. Because I prefer voluntary reparations to reparations won via lawsuits… That it was a crime against humanity that has never been adequately redressed by this nation is not at issue here (to me and several other posters.) What matters is the redress. There’s plenty of things I’d prefer happen first, but apologizing and righting these historic wrongs don’t seem high on anyone’s list, so barring that happening I support the lengthier, divisive, resource-consuming process of provocative 21st century demonstrations and anti-demonstrations that would would accompany a serious national discussion on reparations. For some odd reason this country never gets the importance of African-American issues being marginalized until blacks get good and pissed about it: slave rebellions, emanicipation, suffrage, segregation, integration, poverty, apartheid, the King holiday. So, yeah. Reparations. This debate here on the SDMB may well be repeated in the years to come if these kinds of lawsuits ever start snowballing.

Now we’re clear. Your focus is reparations, whether voluntarily or not, and nothing will persuade you that we can have racial justice without reparations. So I’m afraid that those of us potential allies of all your other goals in achieving that racial justice, which we think are worthy of effort, will not prioritize helping you achieve those goals because we feel we are being used in a cause–reparations–we think is not a worthy goal.

More specifically, I will prioritize other causes–related, perhaps, but indirectly–such as the anti-slavery movement detailed on P. A5 of yesterday’s NY Times, which specifies that “about 15,000 [enslaved] people are [now] trafficked to the United States every year,” every minute of which time I spend will go to a cause I think entirely worthy, and which honors the memory of your ancestors far more satisfyingly (to me) than does your futile and embittered efforts.

BTW, is there an answer to my previous question as to the best estimates of the cost of reparations? If you could be open about the figure you’re seeking, even as an approximation, and the likely cost to each taxpayer, maybe some people (maybe even me) would go, “Hey, that’s a fair price to pay for closure on racial issues in this country.” I suspect (again, I’m a paranoid nutjob) that any figure you could come up with would alienate more people than it would attract, but maybe that’s why figures are so hard to estimate.

Worse, I also suspect that if I had to pay half my annual income for the rest of my lilfe in reparation taxes, and, say, could never retire unless I were willing to live in dire poverty, there would still be bitterness on the part of the black community as to how long the money took to arrive, how it’s distributed wrong, how it’s a scam, etc. Again, more paranoid nutjob talk–feel free to ignore or deride.

[Askia]

pseudotriton ruber ruber. I notice you left out three sentences I wrote that didn’t square with your conclusion that “[my] focus is reparations, whether voluntarily or not, and nothing will persuade you that we can have racial justice without reparations.” Don’t you see the inherent dishonesty of editing my thoughts that way?

I’ve been led to believe that most instances of slavery in America today is trafficked in prostitution of illegal immigrants. Unlike chattel slavery, this is not legal, and efforts are already underway to eradicate this. Please allow me to decide what’s the best way to honor my heritage and ancestor’s memory, please.

I gave you TWO estimates, yesterday – almost twelve hours ago. Please read.

I’ll admit this much – your paranoid nutjob talk is sure entertaining.

[monstro]

@Askia

Hippy Hollow, brickbacon, monstro: my curiosity is getting the better of me. “Askia” is my name IRL. What’s with “Hippy Hollow,” “brickbacon” and “monstro?”

Monstro is one my cat’s names. His personality is similar to mine in a lot of ways. Plus, he’s so darn cute!

@p.r.r.

Your focus is reparations, whether voluntarily or not, and nothing will persuade you that we can have racial justice without reparations.

I don’t want to speak on behalf of Askia, but I understand the logic of many pro-reparations people, so I will deign to answer this.

Let’s say the year was 1905, and 50% of the present-day black population are former slaves. Let’s say that these people join a class action lawsuit against the federal government for allowing the deprivation of their constitutional rights. Let’s say they are also suing all of the corporations and slaveowners who had used their labor for free. By summing up all their years of labor and comparing their work to that done by paid laborers of the time (and also subtracting room and boarding costs, they estimate their unpaid worth to be $200 million. This is the amount they are seeking for compensation.

Don’t you see that the only justice for these people would be payment of their labor? They wouldn’t be asking for symbolic apologies or gestures. No law or promise to be good would compensate them for the money they were entitled. Labor can only be paid in one way. $$$$

If your boss doesn’t pay you for a month’s worth of salary, is there anything besides money that will compensate you? Will a steak dinner do it? Vouchers to McDonald’s? How about tickets to the ball game? What if your boss simply apologizes? Will that compensate you out of the money you’re out of? Should you just shut up about it, or should you fight for what’s yours?

Now, unfortunately it is not the year 1905. If it were, I would be 100% behind the fight for reparations, and I would hope everyone would. But for those who are fighting for reparations, time is not a significant factor. All they know is that a debt–a huge debt–is still owed. All they know is that their ancestors did not get compensated. All they know is that the wealth due to their ancestors was not transferred to subsequent generations as it was for other Americans. All they can think about is how different things would have been within the black community if this HAD happened.

Personally, I can’t blame 'em. I think about it a lot too.

Worse, I also suspect that if I had to pay half my annual income for the rest of my lilfe in reparation taxes, and, say, could never retire unless I were willing to live in dire poverty, there would still be bitterness on the part of the black community as to how long the money took to arrive, how it’s distributed wrong, how it’s a scam, etc. Again, more paranoid nutjob talk–feel free to ignore or deride.

Not to be mean, p.r.r., but that is paranoid nutjob talk. Half your annual income? Do you realize how expensive the current “war” is in Iraq? Are you paying half of your income to that? Why would reparations have any more of an astronomical effect on your income than any other high-end expenditure?

[AZCowboy]

First, Askia, it is common among Libertarians to talk about all (at least federal) laws as coercive in nature, in that they are ultimately upheld (enforced) under the threat of force/violence. You appear to have an issue strictly of semantics at this point.

It seems odd to me that one can accept the logic that links the present day Wachovia to wrongs of their preceding companies but have trouble with the logic that suggests that laws by their nature are ultimately coercive. Perhaps that’s just me.

As for the OP and Wachovia, I’m not sure I understand why Wachovia owes anyone an apology (regrets, sure). And if they offer an apology, it seems a stretch to suggest that it infers legal wrong-doing (and hence, legal liability).

Was what the preceding companies did wrong? In today’s moral framework, absolutely. In the timeframe in question, from a moral perspective, it is debateable (but not a point I’m particularly interested in debating). But it wasn’t from a legal perspective. And I can’t see how those actions could create a legal liability for Wachovia today.

The preceding companies weren’t “Slaves R Us”. They were in the banking business. They provided loans. They accepted property for colateral. I hope none of us has a problem with that, as far as it goes. But they accepted slaves as colateral. In the eyes of the laws, slaves were considered property. If they had refused to do so, we could have admired their moral standing. To suggest that they should have refused is to suggest that they should have disadvantaged their shareholders in the competitive marketplace. Who’s to blame - the preceding companies (and ultimately Wachovia), or the society that fostered the unfair rules in which they operated?

My personal disclaimer - I’m a white male, and I can trace my descendants to slave-owners. I can trace my descendants to Confederate soldiers. I can also trace my descendants to Union soliders. And to Revolutionary soldiers. I don’t think I owe anyone an apology for that. Nor do I take credit for any of their actions. I regret that some of my forefathers owned slaves. I regret that some fought to maintain the society that condoned slavery. I am proud that some of my descendants fought to maintain the union without slavery. And I am proud that some fought to create the United States of America.

I should also note, that by most accounts, my slave-owning descendants were considered morally upstanding citizens of their community. They were deacons in the local church.

And this leads me to the reparations issue. I have no trouble with the concept of reparations, within the legal framework available. I just don’t see how it could ever result in any meaningful action.

Who are the claimants? Descendants of slaves? That is the most narrow category I could begin to accept. But as has been pointed out, many people that may have slaves in their lineage may also have lineage that were not slaves - perhaps even descendants that benefited from slavery. How is their participation in the claimant class determined?

Who are the defendants? Descendants of slave-owners? Again, the most narrow category I could accept. That class would include me. What culpability do I have? Or should the defendant class include all whom have benefited as a result of this country condoning slavery in the past? That class would also include jsgoddess, and by her logic in post 272, pretty much all Americans have received some benefit (not necessarily net positive).

Where does the legal liability comes from? Weren’t their actions legal at the time? Are we suggesting that we retro-actively criminalize their action? What an ugly precedent that would be…

What are the damages? Liquidated damages? Lost profits? That seems a reasonable start. It would seem to me that the claimants would be hard pressed to show such damages exist. I would fathom a guess that most descendants of slaves today are living at a much higher standard of living* than the descendants of those Africans that were not kidnapped into slavery. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that descendants of slavery live at a lower standard of living than descendants of slave-owners, but why is that the proper legal basis for determining damages? Do Irish immigrants have similar (albeit lessor) basis for claims (simply because they might have a lower standard of living than some other class of European immigrant lineages)?

What are the mitigating factors? If, as a descendant of slave-owners, I am found financially liable for the actions of my ancestors, is my share of liability mitigated by the actions of my other ancestors that fought for the union? Do we subtract from the gross damages the benefits provided by equal opportunity-type initiatives since the Civil Rights Act of 1964? If I have no direct financial advantage due to my descendants owning slaves (say, an intermediate descendant in that lineage declared bankruptcy, and passed no assets along), is my liability zero (or reduced)? Or am I liable for simply being born white, and therefore benefiting implicitly from “white privilege”? What an odd and ironic cure from the crime of racial discrimination (judging from the color of my skin and not the content of my character, and all that). What an odd legal precedent that would make.

What is the cure? A transfer of wealth from the defendant class to the claimant class? The sum of the value of “lost wages” of the slaves? Should that figure be reduced by the price the slave-owners paid for the slaves? Room, board, and meals as well? How 'bout the cost of transport from Africa?

Again, I don’t have a problem with the concept of reparations. I just don’t see how any legal pursuit would have any practical benefit for anyone (maybe I misunderstand the arguments). I can appreciate a desire for justice. I just don’t think you will be able to find it at this point.

• And some of that higher standard of living is due to the US use of slavery!

On preview, I can appreciate monstro’s thought process and the 1905 example. I can’t find the constitutional basis that suggests that slaves had constitutional rights. I’m also not sure I understand who she would suggest is the defendant class that would have to cough up the judgement.

[brickbacon]

@Askia

Hippy Hollow, brickbacon, monstro: my curiosity is getting the better of me. “Askia” is my name IRL. What’s with “Hippy Hollow,” "brickbacon" and "monstro?"

My real name is Richard Bacon.

[aldiboronti]

Of course, many African-Americans have mixed (ie white) ancestry. What do they do? Apologize to themselves in the mirror?

This whole notion of apologizing for the past is a crock and companies that indulge in such apologies should be met with laughter and ridicule. Then perhaps we can move onwards to deal with <i>real</i> problems.

[aldiboronti]

@aldiboronti

Then perhaps we can move onwards to deal with <i>real</i> problems.

Such as getting the damned coding straight!

[pseudotriton_ruber_ruber]

@Askia

pseudotriton ruber ruber. I notice you left out three sentences I wrote that didn’t square with your conclusion that “[my] focus is reparations, whether voluntarily or not, and nothing will persuade you that we can have racial justice without reparations.” Don’t you see the inherent dishonesty of editing my thoughts that way?.

No, I don’t. The sentences I edited out (for brevity’s sake) referred to apologies, at the end of which you would still feel you were owed monetary reprations. If this isn’t true, please say so; in that case I have badly misunderstood you to be saying that apologies are a fine start, but you won’t feel remotely satisfied without reparations.

@Askia

I’ve been led to believe that most instances of slavery in America today is trafficked in prostitution of illegal immigrants. Unlike chattel slavery, this is not legal, and efforts are already underway to eradicate this. Please allow me to decide what’s the best way to honor my heritage and ancestor’s memory, please.

Talk about your dishonest editing: Could I have been any clearer that I was talking about how I, not you, could honor your ancestors’ memories than to specify with redundant emphasis “(to me)”?

@Askia

I gave you TWO estimates, yesterday – almost twelve hours ago. Please read.

One of them was fiction, the other was to some nameless Michigan congressman who once apparently said something-or-other. If that’s the best cite you can give, I’ll assume you’ve got nothing.
As to Monstro’s “Not to be mean, p.r.r., but that is paranoid nutjob talk. Half your annual income?” I chose a high figure deliberately to make the point that, with no parameters, ANY figure , no matter how crippling it might be, might be seen as a drop in the bucket and only the beginning of the real sum you feel entitled to. The way this works, or should IMO work, is that you’d find an economist --a team of economists, really–to devise a figure they think just, and then that figure gets batted around for a good long time, until folks are clear on how you got it, who it would come from, etc., and THEN you’d try to sell the concept to the general population. The way reparations are being approached here–First selling the abstract idea while claiming that you’ll come up with a figure at some later point, seems to me provocative and insincere, designed only to rile up African-Americans into expressing outrage over wrongs done to them with no real intent of satisfying that outrage.

[Driver8]

Technically, since corporations to some degree get treated as human beings legally, it doesn’t matter if no-one involved is still alive. It’s like a guy who mysteriously lives for 250 years who owned slaves 200 years ago. It wouldn’t be silly for him to apologise, if he felt regret. So maybe the same applies for Wachovia? It’s not as if the apology is coming from any of the current directors, it would be issued in the name of the actual corporation itself.

Having said that, I think the whole thing is a little silly too.

[monstro]

@pseudotriton ruber ruber

As to Monstro’s “Not to be mean, p.r.r., but that is paranoid nutjob talk. Half your annual income?” I chose a high figure deliberately to make the point that, with no parameters, ANY figure , no matter how crippling it might be, might be seen as a drop in the bucket and only the beginning of the real sum you feel entitled to.

You are painting your opponents (pro-reparations people) out to be greedy bastards, if you feel this is how they would be. And if they were awarded a “crippling” amount of money, then that means they successfully showed they were owed a crippling amount of money and were thus due a crippling amount of money. It might suck for someone to have to shell out a crippling amount of money, but then again it sucks when people aren’t given what they are due. Are you saying people shouldn’t try to get what they are owed if what they are owed is too much?

The way this works, or should IMO work, is that you’d find an economist --a team of economists, really–to devise a figure they think just, and then that figure gets batted around for a good long time, until folks are clear on how you got it, who it would come from, etc., and THEN you’d try to sell the concept to the general population.

Reparations people are not going to sell the concept to the general pop. They don’t have to, thank goodness. If the quest goes anywhere, it will not be put in a referendum for Joe Q. to vote on. This is a matter for the courts to decide because we are talking about justice.

You’re undestimating the intelligence of pro-reparations people if you think they are going to go to court without their own expert economists. Doing the math is not as difficult as you think it is. Nor is the amount of money we are talking about insurmountable.

From this source (pdf)

Perhaps the simplest argument for reparations is that they are payment of back wages for slave labor. This was the underlying rationale the black power movement used in the 1970s. One research took slave prices during the period from 1790 to 1860 as proxies for the value of slave capital and projected that, given compound interest, the total value in 1970 was from $448 billion to $995 billion. Merely adjusted for inflation, this sum would translate to a range of $2 trillion to almost $4 trillion today (which, incidentally, was within budget surplus estimates in 2000, if paid out over six to eight years).

@p.r.r.

The way reparations are being approached here–First selling the abstract idea while claiming that you’ll come up with a figure at some later point, seems to me provocative and insincere, designed only to rile up African-Americans into expressing outrage over wrongs done to them with no real intent of satisfying that outrage.

Who is saying that a figure will be drawn up at some later point. Every single reparations court case I’ve heard known about dealt with an exact monetary value. People simply do not show up to court with abstract ideas. They come equipped with experts, data, and facts.

Your understanding about this may be abstract. But people who have a passion in this subject know what the facts are. It is not abstract that slaves were owed money. Nor is it abstract that 1) their descendents are still with us today and 2)that the lack of compensation caused those descendants some harm compared to the general population. What is abstract is how payment will be distributed fairly. But the facts of the matter are not abstract at all.

I don’t see the reparations dream as being realistic. But that doesn’t mean I’m right. Shoot, I bet a hundred years ago, there was someone like me who didn’t think integration was a realistic dream. I bet two hundred years ago, there was someone like me who didn’t think black people would ever be free. Maybe it’s people like Askia who are visionaries, and people like me who are holding us back. I don’t know.

[Askia]

Thank you monstro. Thank you brickbacon.

aldiboronti. Thank you for offering the opposite of a good point.

AZCowboy. My argument is partly sematics, and partly sequence. Before a law can be defended or enforced, that law has to be broken. The citizen is merely compelled to obey laws; the lawbreaker is forced by law enforcement agencies after the fact to either comply or be penalized for non-compliance. The Libertarian view is often too egregiously exaggerated for my tastes. Your post was long and often reinterated points already made on the previous pages, so forgive me if I don’t answer them again. Feel free to join back in with new stuff.

pseudotriton ruber ruber. You’d do better to paraphrase than edit my thoughts, as one sentence of mine often piggybacks off another. You have badly understood me, I think, for several pages now, if you think I must force the issue of reparations. Voluntary reparations are fine. Formal apologies are fine. But ignoring the need to formally apologize and do more to break the cycle of generational poverty will definitely get my vote behind specific reparations demands. I cited The West Wing because its fictional number is probably based on fact, like many of its episode controveries are, like much of its research is. The representatives’ name I couldn’t remember last night is John Conyers. As for misreading your post, about modern day “slavery” – it’s not a slave trade. It’s a sex trade. It’s already illegal, undefendable and something that already being combatted by international police and immigration agencies. I thanked you to let me decide how best to honor my ancestors after you called your way more satisfying and characterized mine as “futile and embittered.” Never mind that the issue of justice wasn’t raised.

Driver8. You were doing so well until your last sentence, too.

[pseudotriton_ruber_ruber]

@monstro

Are you saying people shouldn’t try to get what they are owed if what they are owed is too much?

No, of course not. I’m trying to find out some approximate figures to see if I can get over my qualms about the logistics and learn if you are talking about a figure I can live with. Which is not to say, I think reparations are the way to go, but if we’d make some headway at long last in this culture in bridging the racial divide, maybe that figure–or some acceptable compromise off it–is something I could get behind. I’d be willing to be taxed fairly heavily if racial justice is the likely outcome, but not willing to be taxed at all if it won’t.

But you don’t seem to care very much if I support reparations or not, so maybe that’s of no matter. It seems to me your respect for the law is remarkably inconsistent and self-serving. The law that made slavery legal is to be disregarded but the law that metes out reparations is the embodiment of justice? Any way you view it, IMO, you’ve got ex post facto issues out the wazoo. Maybe you’ve got a case against the federal government that defeated the confederacy, and then inadequately oversaw racial justice after slavery was made illegal, and maybe those figures would be closer to those I could live with. But if you think you’ve seen rebellious behavior, well, I’m just glad I won’t be here on the day the tax men try to enforce a crippling tax on Americans for something that was legal at the time, that most Americans fought a war against at the time, and that most Americans whose families are here now are descended from people living in other countries at the time. Tear up my ACLU card and get me an NRA application–pronto!

[Askia]

monstro. Never sell yourself short as a visionary in your own right. You have an exquisite knack for succinctly putting forth arguments in a way that people can grasp that I deeply envy. Me? I get too caught up in abstract thoughts and inductive thinking to be bothered with examples, conciseness and clarity. So: you rock. If people like me are visionaries, it’s people like you who essential because you can share that vision with everyone else and help everybody see. Forget visionaries; you’re a believer. (Or prettydamn close to one.)

[Askia]

pseudotriton ruber ruber. As I mentioned in an earlier post – reparationists would likely argue the slave trade was a crime against humanity. International law recognizes no statutes of limitations, double jeopardy or sovereign laws as immune from prosecution for crimes of that magnitude. It’s how they handled Nuremberg.

[Contrapuntal]

cite cite

@Askia

Contrapuntal. There is no such thing as a distinction without a difference.

If I can provide you one example of a distinction without a difference will you retract that silly statement?

@Askia

Put it in simpler terms, the law cannot stop me from speeding. Only the police can stop me from speeding. People who talk about the long arm of the law are really talking about the long arm of the police.

Get real. What would one be without the other? Surely you remember this from grade school civics. Legislation is one branch of government, enforcement is another. To attempt to separate them into two autonomous entities is peurile. The existence of the police is contingent upon the law. The police derive their power from the law. Without the law there would be no speeding, and no police to arrest you. And in point of fact, by the time the police are involved you have already been speeding. They may stop you from speeding further, but they have not stopped you from speeding. It is the law that applies the force, in terms of the punishment.

@Askia

Unless Wachovia was threatened and somehow punitively by a police or regulatory agency you cannot say that bank was coerced.

We have been over and over this. They were threatened with the loss of a city contract.

@Askia

They were compelled - but the law compels everybody.

This is apropos of what, exactly? Is it any less compulsion if it is spread around?
You have been bobbing and weaving and ducking and splitting hairs and all apparently to avoid this fact–Without the ordinance there would have been no research. Without the research, there would have been no apology. Spin it how you will, had the ordinance not existed, none of this would have happened. If the ordinance had no teeth, none of this would have happened.

cite cite cite cite

For you to continue to maintain that there is a meaningful difference in force, coerce, and compel in this case is absurd, but let me make it easy for you. The city made them do it. Get it?

[Contrapuntal]

Correction. Those first two cites should be down with the other four at the bottom.

[Liberal]

@Askia

Liberal. Wow. So, in your worldview no institution that has committed or abetted in atrocity is capable of having sincere or worthwhile change of heart? Wow, that’s cynical. Even I think the U.S. government has had a change of heart, it just needs to man up and apologize.

You are engaging in hypostatization.

[monstro]

@pseudotriton ruber ruber

But you don’t seem to care very much if I support reparations or not, so maybe that’s of no matter.

Egggsactly!

I know that sounds mean, but hey it’s true. Why should the public’s opinion matter on the subject of reparations? If we allowed the public to decide justice, then black people would still be sitting in the back of the bus. Black people would still be picking cotton with a gun held up to their head. Public opinion has never been a good arbiter of justice, p.r.r.. Pro-reparations people are very much aware of how pissed off a LOT of people will be. That’s why they are fighting this thing in the courts, which is supposed to be immune to public opinion.

It seems to me your respect for the law is remarkably inconsistent and self-serving.

No it isn’t.

I think the law has been inconsistent and it has been the government who has used the law to be self-serving. I think the success of a reparations case–in fact, all cases where the defendent is the federal government–rests on demonstrating how the founding principles in our nation (*we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness… *) contrasts with the behavior exhibited by and allowed by the federal government. If our Constitution is based on the natural, inalienable rights of men–not white men, but all men–then our country should have never allowed slavery. It shouldn’t have allowed the subjugation of the Indians either.

Laws subjecting innocent people to no-class citizenship do not deserve respect. They were unjust when they were written. They are unjust now.

I am very consistent in my respect of the law. The federal government is the one who has been inconsistent.

The law that made slavery legal is to be disregarded but the law that metes out reparations is the embodiment of justice?

The law that made slavery legal should have never been passed, based on what I said above. That it was passed shows the fallibility of men, not the righteousness of the law. Because it goes against the very principles of this country, the law of slavery was–IMHO–an unjust law. Unjust laws can’t be justified, excused, or defended.

A court decision authorizing the payment of reparations would be an attempt to compensate for this unjust law.

Any way you view it, IMO, you’ve got ex post facto issues out the wazoo. Maybe you’ve got a case against the federal government that defeated the confederacy, and then inadequately oversaw racial justice after slavery was made illegal, and maybe those figures would be closer to those I could live with.

Who cares what p.r.r. can live with? Again, that sounds harsh, but it’s true. Your opinion means absolutely squat to those who are seeking redress. Their beef is with what the federal government allowed to happen. If they can prove in the courts that they deserve compensation, you will have to pony up whether you want to or not (I guess you could choose not to and face the consequences). For the last time, the descendants of slaves do not have to seek your approval or any other person’s approval (including mine) to go get what they think is theirs!

But if you think you’ve seen rebellious behavior, well, I’m just glad I won’t be here on the day the tax men try to enforce a crippling tax on Americans for something that was legal at the time, that most Americans fought a war against at the time…

I love this. Whenever the convo turns to the Civil War and it’s not a reparations thread, we hear a chorus of people who talk about “state’s rights” and a myriad of other causes for the war. When the convo turns to reparations, though, suddenly slavery is what every man was fighting against in the CW. Every man who died in the CW died so that darkies could be free. Including the millions of people fighting on the Confederate side. Including the black men who died as well.

Do you know how long slavery existed in the US before the Civil War? Was it just a couple of years? Was it just a decade? Did the freed slaves who were promised 40 acres and a mule by the Union Army ever receive that compensation? Did they receive any compensation? If the CW was about slavery, and the victors of the CW were actually slaves, why didn’t they get compensation? Who ended up with all that Southern aristocratic war booty, p.r.r? Who benefited the most from the CW?

…and that most Americans whose families are here now are descended from people living in other countries at the time. Tear up my ACLU card and get me an NRA application–pronto!

Nice.

Watch me get a gun too when I have to pay taxes on this unethical war.

Watch me get a gun when I have to pay taxes while corporate entities get government checks and slaps on the wrist for their sins.

Let me get a gun when my tax money goes to train people who, ten years now, will be charged as war criminals and international terrorists.

Let me a get a gun when my tax money goes to religious fanatics who are teaching their shitty ideology of “condoms do more harm than good” to sexually-active teenagers.

Let me get a gun when my tax money goes to criminals, bums, liars, and incompetents I didn’t elect.

Let me get a gun when my government refuses to issue an apology for something that contradicted its own principles–the principles we’re about to honor a month from now.

As you can see, I really sympathize with you and your anger about all this. I really do.