That doesn’t answer the question as to which one you meant. Are you proposing that each group should receive reparations, or are you proposing that, while each group deserves reparations the fact that there are so many of them makes it difficult(or impossible) to achieve this goal?
I’ll add to the list Paul Allen, David Rockefeller, and Charles Schwab, they all should immediately stop receiving federal aid.
Just to be clear, you’re arguing that all these groups should get reparations? If so, you haven’t really made the argument yet, IMO. So why do you believe these groups should get reparations – is it just that you believe that any group that has suffered any sort of discrimination should get reparations? If so, I’m not convinced by that argument, but I’m open to more if you have a more detailed summation of why you personally believe these groups should get reparations.
To be clear, I’m asking about your personal beliefs about reparations. If you’re just playing devil’s advocate, then that’s something else that I’m not nearly as interested in.
It’s the only logically consistent approach.
No prioritizing at all?
For what? Not what I advocate. I certainly wouldn’t make the argument that “any group that has suffered any sort of discrimination should necessarily get reparations”. I only advocate for reparations in circumstances in which I think detailed research and study has revealed that both they’re warranted based on harm to living americans, and that reparations in some form are necessary to make American stronger and better (such as by reducing the chance of a permanently aggrieved underclass). And I’ll note that we haven’t even done the research and study necessary to cross this wicket – I would oppose any proposal for reparations that skipped this step.
But you still haven’t offered your personal beliefs about reparations for all of these groups. If you’re not willing to do that, then I may not interact with you on this any longer.
Coming up with an exact 1-10 ranking would be tough, but I think it could be in tiers:
Blacks and Native Americans would be at the top priority. Irish, atheists, women, etc. in a more lower priority. etc. Not so much that the latter have it easy as the former had it hard.
For the record, I think that forward-acting policy is better than backwards-looking policy - that the nation would be better off with policies that act going forward, rather than always looking in the rearview mirror. But since reparations has become such a big and inescapable part of the public debate, then we might as well look at it. For instance, if a college has had a practice of banning a certain category of students (for no truly good reason,) then the policy should be abolished.
My view is, if someone has suffered discrimination, then ideally they should have something done to make that discrimination right (assuming that discrimination is an unfair or unjust one, or one that does not help out the situation.) Whether it can be practically done is a different matter entirely.
Okay, thanks. None of this appears to conflict with what I’ve advocated for, as far as I can tell.
The practical problem is that it’s one thing to say that the 80% owes reparations to the 20%. That ***might ***be doable. Unfortunately, when it’s the 20% that owes reparations to the 80%, that’s well nigh impossible.
What is this referring to? Who is advocating anything close to that the 20% “owes” reparations to the 80%?
For example…?
Not digging up the demographic data (which would take some time,) but likely only 20% of Americans (or fewer) are comprised of white straight Christian men. Since all the remaining 80% are either non-white, or non-male, or non-Christian, or non-straight, that means that the 20% would have to be paying reparations to the 80% (if all the 80% were cleared by the government to receive their reparations)
Nobody to my knowledge has ever suggested that only white straight Christen men ever pay reparations. What are you talking about??
Straight, white, Christian men have ancestors who have faced discrimination and prejudice. Catholics were discriminated against. Quakers were lynched in colonial times. Some white men were imported to America as indentured labourers. Some white men were “black” under the one drop rule in the Jim Crow south. Some were in trade unions that were put down by the National Guard or by Pinkertons with government support. Many were conscripted into the armed forces against their will and sent to their deaths. Red necks were targeted by Eugenicists for sterilisation. Racists hated Irish and Poles and Italians.
If we accept the principle that harms done in the past to specific groups merit reparations to present day members of those groups, then those groups will include the vast majority of the American population.
Unless you exclude the descendants of more recent immigrants, I suppose.
As for who doesn’t deserve reparations, yeah, rich people. Captain Bone Spurs never got conscripted. If reparations would be beneficial to America as a whole, it would be as a redistribution of wealth. There are plenty of people in America who simply have no money and hardly benefit the economy because they have nothing to spend. A reparations bill for the poor would disproportionately benefit certain ethnic minorities, certainly, and would have a massive benefit to the economy and the nation as a whole.
Since the OP said this was also the place to discuss each group on their own merits, does anyone have any objections to what I have proposed when it comes to Native American reparations?
In almost every aspect of policy from one end of the federal government to the other, we are engaged in line-drawing. Why should reparations be any different? The only other group who has had their wealth so decimated and were slaughtered for even trying to start families and businesses are indigenous peoples. It isn’t close. Yes, lots of other groups have been on the receiving end of horrible discrimination. But there is no realistic debate about degree, or the extent to which such discrimination is ongoing and affects the lives of people now living.
So what people are really doing when they insist that on this one issue there can be no line-drawing is treating this issue as somehow special and different and subject to greater hurdles than any of the other issues worth of national consideration. Why?
At this point it feels like posting an answer to the OP feels like a hijack.
Nonetheless -
Who should NOT receive reparations?
No one should receive reparations. At least, that should be the default assumption to be overcome. If you want the taxpayer to give you reparations, you have to make the case on your own. Or, come up with a plausible reason why the government should make your case for you.
If you cannot show that you were directly harmed, and that the US government was directly responsible, and cannot explain the chain of responsibility, you should not receive reparations.
Regards,
Shodan
Native Americans. They are being directly harmed, the U.S. government was responsible in the past and the present, and the chain of responsibility is there for all to see. What is your argument against this reparation proposal?
Why in the world would you discriminate against white men? How many white men had their careers and lives upended by being forced into military service by the draft? How about reparations for the families of soldiers killed in WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam? All used drafted soldiers. What should we pay to the wives and children of the men killed in those wars? How about the men who went and fought and therefore lost years of seniority and work experience at home? How much lifetime pay are they owed for being forced off the career ladder? Some people were given benefits by the military, and death benefits to families were paid in some circumstances, but what about all the millions who fought and came home and went back to work emotionally scarred and behind on the seniority ladder?
Millions of young white and black men (but mostly white) were forcibly removed from their homes and sent to fight and possibly die in wars. How is that not deserving of reparations if the treatment of blacks or natives a hundred years ago does?
Workplace accidents overwhelmingly involve white males. Clearly society didn’t do enough to protect them. Reparations!
As you might guess, I’m against ANY reparations, because all they will do is increase the tension between various victim’s groups. And once you pay the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane. Then there’s the fact that windfall money rarely has a lasting effect on people’s quality of life, and in fact can do a lot of harm.
Finally, the idea that someone today who did nothing wrong should be taxed or otherwise forced to pay reparations to another person who did not suffer any personal harm, solely on the basis that some ancestor of the same skin color harmed the other person’s ancestor, is an affront to justice. It will make divisions among us worse, increase resentment, and lead to the breakdown of trust that is required to maintain a 1st world economy.
Reparations should only be paid to people who are alive who suffered direct harm at the hands of identifiable individuals or governments. Paying reparations to distant descendants for historical crimes done to an entire race is wrong and offensive.
If you’re going to go down that path, remember the words of Bill Murray in Stripes: “We’re Americans! That means our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country on Earth.” Every American should get reparations. Also, Europe should pay reparations to America for the immense cost of WWI and WWII, 'cause they started it. How many trillions of dollars has America spent fighting other people’s wars? Reparations!
This is a rabbit hole that we should avoid at all cost.