My final final words, though they’re not mine but those of others. Some are on arguments against reparations for slavery as opposed to Jim Crow, but I’ve quoted excerpts applicable to both.
While Jim Crow laws are a century more recent than slavery, it is still true that except in murder and certain violent crimes (for which surviving perpetrators can and are still prosecuted), limitations has expired.
Sweetie Pie, find a single instance of me using a red herring in my argumentation and maybe I will agree with this.
Because it doesn’t go to matter of whether reparations are owed. It’s a question of logistics that doesn’t go to the validity of a case. I’ve asked this question a million times, but I’ll ask it again: If you owe someone, does saying you’re broke ever get you out of your debt? Unless you formally declare bankruptcy, no, it doesn’t.
The OP is the only one talking about a million dollars. Let’s say the court system decided that $1000 was the maximum compensation for civil rights violations. Does this mean you’re all for reparations now? Of course not, based on the rest of your argumentation. People keep pointing this out to you but you won’t concede it for some strange reason.
You’re talking services that go above and beyond the call of government. I’m talking about basic services of government. Providing protection. Education. Access to the voting booth. Ensuring a fair trial by jury. You know, the things we take for granted. If we can’t hold the government responsible for these basic services, then what’s the point of calling this a free society? The government could dick us all over and we wouldn’t have any recourse. That’s not right, man.
Because we’ve already issued reparations to people…and because the Holocaust provides us an additional example…I refuse to buy into the notion that Jim Crow reparations are pie-in-the-sky. No one is demanding anything more extraordinary than what’s already happening now. You weaken your argument substantially by leaning on such rhetoric.
We might agree on this. However, I’m willing to extend the harm to include pain and suffering. Someone falsely imprisoned by Sheriff Jim Crow might not have lost any money in the process, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t suffer.
So I take it that you don’t agree with the Japanese reparations. Everyone got the same amount, from the broke homeless guy to the wealthy businessman to the little kid who thought they were at summer camp.
Or maybe you do agree with Japanese reparations. I see…
Sampiro, you already admitted the Jim Crow was horrible. Do you want me to cite your own words? Are you now denying this. Or are you trying to create some gradient in which the Japanese internment was worse than 90 years of legalized oppression, all in a weak effort to justify why the Japanese deserve compensation but black people don’t? Is it fairer to give the descendants of interned Japanese Americans compensation than it is to give someone who was intimidated by their local sheriff each and every voting day? Why is someone who was interned for two years as a little kid entitled to $20,000, but a person who was forced to go to delipidated schools for 12 years entitled to NOTHING?
I’m not arguing that every black person who lived under Jim Crow was hiding under their bed at night, but come on, dude. Either Jim Crow was horrible or it wasn’t. Either people were harmed or they weren’t.
Answer me this, Sampiro. Why didn’t black Americans attempt to get reparations after slavery and Jim Crow? Was it because they were lazy and shiftless? Were they distracted by their enormous wealth and leisure time? Surely there must be a good reason why they didn’t go after reparations when the iron was hot.
And surely this reason would explain why it’s unfair to apply an arbitrary statute of limitations, right?
I don’t understand this. I’m not as clever as you, apparently.
Speak for yourself, bub. I’ve been around this thorny mulberry bush multiple times, and I’m prepared to do it again. The question is, are you?
You’re catching on.
No, I wouldn’t say that. If I was running things, they would be compensatory, first and foremost. But I wouldn’t be against punitive measures on principal. I have to pay a fine when I break the law. Why shouldn’t the government?
Really, I don’t understand how a smart guy like you cannot see how ridiculous this argument is. Do you not understand how institutions work at all? Do you not see why you should be very much against Japanese and Holocaust reparations, as well as all “after the fact” government pay-outs? You should be against the whole tax system. Your head must be doing the Exorcist spin right now.
Every time someone brings charges against the federal government and they win a settlement, you are paying it. Even though you had nothing to do with it. Does that keep you up at night? If not, then Jim Crow reparations won’t keep you up at night either.
Stop with the lying. If you can’t talk to me reasonably, don’t at all.
Guess what? So do you. So do the people in your family. So do the Hispanic people you see on the street, and the Asians and the Native Americans. So are the racists that enforced Jm Crow. And also guess what? A black person can actually live in this society without directly benefiting from welfare or Affirmative Action. And that doesn’t mean anything about the discrimination they’ve faced in life! My goodness, I don’t know why you folks can’t see the glaring hole in this logic!
If Till’s family could show that the town of Money (or the county) dropped the ball in enacting justice for his murder, do you think they would be justified in bringing civil charges against this institution? Why or why not?
You can post this again and again and it doesn’t make it so, Sampiro. Legal precedence doesn’t support this at all.
What makes Japanese and Holocaust reparations so special, Sampiro? Isn’t that the question you should be asking?
Why don’t you tell that to the federal government then? They’re handing out billion dollar bills like they’re toliet paper. As long as that happens, you will find people wondering when their check is going to come in. That’s not greed. That’s human nature.
We don’t debate so that there will be a consensus. We debate so that people will see both sides of an argument. This particular topic is significant enough that I don’t think it’s useful to anyone for only one side to be represented and unchallenged. We don’t learn and grow that way.
Before I address the rest of what you wrote, I need to ask you one thing.
Do you think 3 years of internment caused more harm to Japanese Americans than nearly 100 years worth of Jim Crow did to African Americans?
I’m not trying to play the one upman persecution game, honestly. But you’re saying the degree of harm is completely different. Since you’re not treating reparations for the interned Japanese as an absurdity of theatrical proportions (as I suggest you have with JC), I can only assume you think the internment was substantially worse. What is the basis for this assertion? Got stats? Maybe cites?
Anyway, as far as I know, blacks were not forcibly received from their homes by troops. Since no one said the internment and Jim Crow were exactly the same things, this doesn’t show much. The wrongful treatment of people with respect to their civil rights formed the basis for reparations to the interned. The involvement of barbed wired and gun toting soldiers flowed from the systematic violation of liberities on the basis of ethnicity.
If someone oppressed under JC can show that the government did the same thing to them, with or without barbed wire, then I say more power to them.
I keep saying I’m out, but since that was addressed directly to me I’ll answer it:
No. I don’t think the 3 years of internment of the Japanese was worse than, or better than, blacks under Jim Crow. I think it is incomparable. The internment of the Japanese occurred due to an Executive Order (9066to be precise) and as such was fully, wholly, and actively the fault of the presidency. FDR, with cooperation of the Secretary of War and many other appointed and elected officials, literally made 120,000 men, women, and children- from infants to centenarians, prisoners of war in spite of the fact that many were native born U.S. citizens. They were completely deprived of their rights as citizens or legal aliens, they were subjected to arbitrary loyalty tests, treated differently even from the few Germans, Italians, and other nationalities rounded up by the same order (“When we are dealing with the Caucasian race we have methods that will test the loyalty of them. But when we deal with the Japanese, we are on an entirely different field.” Earl Warren) and imprisoned without proper cause or the right to redress (an exception being that young men could volunteer to fight in the armed forces).
This has been attributed to wartime paranoia, some have even called it justified since there were indeed Japanese Americans whose loyalty was to Japan and who acted as spies (though very few and most of those were under surveillance). However, even at the time 9066 was viewed as disgraceful by many white loyal patriotic Americans. J. Edgar Hoover- not exactly a compassionate man or accepting of all races as equal- denounced it in the press as unnecessary and wrong. After her husband’s death Eleanor Roosevelt herself denounced it and said she had pleaded with Franklin to rescind it.
Was Jim Crow more harmful to blacks than unlawful imprisonment was to the Japanese? That’s another debate and it’s a moot point anyway. Executive Order 9066 was issued, by definition, from the Oval Office, which makes it incomparable in terms of legal Federal culpability.
The text is important, not the speaker. Let’s not have prejudice.
Closer to 10% by most counts, and in either case enough to push it over the edge and* BY FAR *the largest percentage of any ethnicity to vote against the measure, and larger still in Arkansas. I attribute it to the influence of the churches, some of the larger of which accepted a small fortune in donations from the Mormons who were lobbying against it and spent tens of millions of dollars to get their message across and gain allies (thus adding new meaning to “baaa baaa black sheep” unfortunately). The role of Mormons and of blacks who voted against it and others who have felt the sting of inequality and prejudice for beliefs or ways of life and now would deny to others rights that do not in any way shape or form detract from their own life and liberties— it’s just sickening to me. But, that’s another debate thread (several in fact).
That would mean you’re basing your reparation pay-out based on something other than its actual merits, which would mean I, the beneficiary, am meaningless in your game of reparations. That would be really patronizing.
As patronizing as telling claimants they don’t deserve any money because it won’t fix anything and they’ll just spend it on big-screen TVs and rims.
If you don’t support reparations, you wouldn’t be signing your name to a class-action lawsuit so you could receive compensation. If you support reparations only when they would benefit you, then you’re a hypocrite. Why wouldn’t I have a problem with a hypocrite asking me for money?
You assume I have a problem with you seeking reparations. I have a problem with you only going after black people (how much of the population do they represent? does doing so even make rational sense?), but there’s nothing unreasonable about gay people fighting injustice by taking their government to court. I expect we’ll see some interesting court cases down the line. I can’t wait for the awaiting victories.
I didn’t say they don’t deserve something. What I said is giving people lump sum payments doesn’t accomplish what you think it does, and may do more harm we’ll have to deal with further down the road. You’re trying to paint me with a brush that is really pissing me off. You said “rims.” I said TVs. Which one of us is making a racist assumption?
No, I want you to tell me what part of 70% of 6% is going to give me my one million dollars, and I want you to justify it. You are guilty. That is established. I want you to tell me how and why you should, and are going to pay.
No, we won’t. That’s like women suing for being property for the last 100,000-1,000,000 or more years. Ain’t gonna happen.