Al Green on Kamala Harris: The Push for Reparations and a Department of Reconciliation

[@Friedfish-zm7fx]

The Silliness that is the request for reparations. (pt 6 of 18) Demanding reparations for long past damages to ancestors (slavery) is stupid, moronic, short-sighted, and unwise. An essay by Dr. Thomas Sowell "REPARATIONS FOR SLAVERY?" The first thing to understand about the issue of reparations for slavery is that no money is going to be paid. The very people who are demanding reparations know that it is not going to happen. Why then are they demanding something that they know they are not going to get? Because the demagogues themselves will benefit, even if nobody else does. Stirring up historic grievances pays off in publicity and votes. Some are saying that Congress should at least issue an official apology for slavery. But slavery is not something you can apologize for, any more than you can apologize for murder. You apologize for accidentally stepping on someone’s toes or for playing your TV too loud at night. But, if you have ever enslaved anybody, an apology is not going to cut it. And if you never enslaved anybody, then what are you apologizing for? The very idea of apologizing for what somebody else did is meaningless, however fashionable it has become. A scholar once said that the great economist David Ricardo “was above the unctuous phrases that cost so little and yield such ample returns.” Apparently many others are not. The only thing that would give the idea of reparations for slavery even the appearance of rationality is an assumption of collective guilt, passed down from generation to generation. But, if we start operating on the principle that people alive today are responsible for what their ancestors did in centuries past, we will be adopting a principle that can tear any society apart, especially a multi-ethnic society like the United States. Even if we were willing to go down that dangerous road, the facts of history do not square with the demand for reparations. Millions of immigrants arrived in this country from Europe, Asia and Latin America after slavery was over. Are their descendants guilty too and expected to pay out hard cash to redeem themselves? Even during the era of slavery, most white people owned no slaves. Are their descendants supposed to pay for the descendants of those who did? What about the effect of all this on today’s black population? Is anyone made better off by being supplied with resentments and distractions from the task of developing the capabilities that pay off in a booming economy and a high-tech world? Whites may experience a passing annoyance over the reparations issue, but blacks-especially young blacks-can sustain more lasting damage from misallocating their time, attention and efforts. Does anyone seriously suggest that blacks in America today would be better off if they were in Africa? If not, then what is the compensation for? Sometimes it is claimed that slavery made a great contribution to the development of the American economy, from which other Americans benefitted, so that reparations would be like back pay. Although slaveowners benefitted from slavery, it is by no means obvious that there were net benefits to the economy as a whole, especially when you subtract the staggering costs of the Civil War. Should the immoral gains of dead people be repaid by living people who are no better off than if slavery had never existed? The poorest region of the United States has long been the region in which slavery was concentrated. The same is true of Brazil-and was true of 18th century Europe. The world-wide track record of slavery as an economic system is bad. Slaveowners benefitted, but that is not saying that the economy as a whole benefitted. The last desperate argument for reparations is that blacks have lower incomes and occupations than whites today because of the legacy of slavery. Do the people who say this seriously believe that black and white incomes and occupations would be the same if Africans had immigrated voluntarily to this country? Scholars who have spent years studying racial and ethnic groups in countries around the world have yet to come up with a single country where all the different groups have the same incomes and occupations. Why would people from Africa be the lone exception on this planet? Groups everywhere differ too much in too many ways to have the same outcomes. Slavery itself was not unique to Africans. The very word “slave” derives from the name of a European people-the Slavs, who were enslaved for centuries before the first African was brought to the Western Hemisphere. The tragic fact is that slavery existed all over the world, for thousands of years. Unfortunately, irresponsible demagogues have also existed for thousands of years.

[@Friedfish-zm7fx]

Ezekiel 18:20 = 'The one who sins is the one who will die. The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them.'

[@Friedfish-zm7fx]

Deuteronomy 15 : 1 = At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts. Deuteronomy 15 : 3 = You may require payment from a foreigner, but you must cancel any debt your brother owes you. Comment: Who is supposed to pay this "reparation"? Which entity is supposed to pay this "reparation"? Do you consider this entity to be a foreigner or a sibling? With a foreigner, require the completion of the transaction and/or contract and then you and the foreigner part ways FOREVER. War between you and the foreigner may ensue. After hostilities, no more contact, no more contract with the foreigner. Case settled. With a sibling, you will continue living with the sibling FOREVER. Forcing complete debt payment from a sibling will raise Anger in said Sibling. You may have gotten Justice (in name only and only for yourself) and there is no Peace in the House (the Sibling will see to that there is No Peace). What do you value more: Justice? Peace? Do you consider the USA (i.e. the US citizenry) to be a foreigner or sibling?

[@Friedfish-zm7fx]

The word "reparations" is just a buzzword for "Charity", "Aid", "Welfare", "Handout". After decades of Charity, Aid, Welfare, Handout and still being stuck in the muck, the beggars are too ashamed to ask for more and more Welfare so they are now begging for REPARATIONS. More REPARATIONS, please. The decades of Charity, Aid, Welfare, Grants, Loans, Handouts should have been used to repair the damages (real or imagined). And yet the "damaged" still remained failures. With a proven history of failures, giving more Charity or "REPARATIONS!!!" to persistent failures is unwarranted, unwise, and idiotic. Not all damages are to be repaired; often amputation is necessary. The advocates for reparations are delusional to think that current wealth is based on past slave labor. Incorrect. 99% of wealth of 200 years ago has long since dissipated. 99% of slave-generated wealth in the USA was destroyed in the Civil War. Wealth comes and goes. None of the companies listed in the 1930 Dow Jones is on the 2023 Dow Jones. Slave-generated wealth is gone, gone with the wind. This nostalgia about slave-generated wealth reminds me of a person cherishing a knife once owned by an ancestor: the blade was replaced 5 times and the handle was replaced 2 times. The economy of air travel, electric power, computers cannot be possible with slave labor. Slave labor is old tech. AI, airplanes, refrigerators are high tech. Someone mentioned a man-made pond in South Carolina: this pond was made by slaves!!! The pond is the property of the slave owner, not of the slaves. The slaves were unpaid help. Someone who, say, installed windows in your house does not own equity in your house. The issue is one of back pay for the slaves. In any jurisdiction, there is a finite statute of limitations on back pay claims (usually 3-to-10 years, NOT 100 years, NOT 300 years). The slaves' labor had value. The pond is still present and quite likely still has value. Year after year taxes are assessed against the market value of the pond. The collected taxes do not go to the evil slave owner or his/her descendants but to GOVERNMENT (Federal, State, Local) from which ALL (Black, White, Otherwise) benefitted. The beggars for reparations have been collecting - for decades - the back pay of their distant dead slave ancestors through Government programs.

[@Friedfish-zm7fx]

If you feel stressed, distressed, oppressed, depressed, suppressed, repressed because your great-great-great grand parents were slaves, you need mental help, not reparations. Correction. A proper form of reparations: a voucher for 1000 hours of psychotherapy. It is arrogant to assume Black Privilege (pay reparations!!! cut the check!!!) because your great-great-great grand parents were slaves.

[@Friedfish-zm7fx]

The Silliness that is the request for reparations. (pt 8 of 18) Demanding reparations for long past damages to ancestors (slavery) is stupid, moronic, short-sighted, and unwise. A stupid commentator wrote: "The problem is that the freed slaves were promised 40 acres and a mule as reparations for lost wages and to get them on their feet but the majority of them did not receive it. Then the few that did receive it had it taken from them. So the slaves were set free without a pot to pee in and this has resulted in lost generational wealth for the descendants of slaves." Response: Not quite correct. There were several Homestead Acts post 1865: 1866, 1873, etc. Said Acts were accessible to freed slaves. They need to work 140 acres (more than 40 acres) for a time after which they get clear title to the land. About 20% of ex-slaves participated and succeeded. By 1900, one quarter of all Southern Black farmers were farm owners. But many of the ex-slaves did not participate in these programs even when they were encouraged to participate. Why? Mainly (not exclusively) because the psychological trauma of farm work from slavery times. This psychological trauma is also the root cause of Poverty in Haiti: the ex-slaves defeated the French and were in no mood to work again in Commercial Agriculture. This psychological trauma is also the root cause of mass migration of Indian workers to Guyana and Trinidad after the slaves were freed: the Indians did the field work that the Black ex-slaves did not want to do. In 2000 the population % being Indian in Guyana and Trinidad is both 40%. Now, that is truly mass migration. What is needed for the ex-slaves is psychotherapy, not monetary reparations. Imagine this. You are a quasi-naked African hunting monkeys in the wilderness while dreaming of having philosophical debates at the Sorbonnes University or playing the koto at the Imperial Court of Japan. Next thing you know, you were captured, hog-tied, shipped to America, and forced to do (ugh!!!) manual labor in a cotton plantation, thus ruining your precious manicured hands. You never did farm work before and you missed savoring that yummy delectable monkey meat stew. After decades of unrelenting toil you are freed (FREEDOM AT LAST!!!) and given an offer of 40 acres and a mule. WHAT?!?!? Back to farm work?!?! Where is my ticket to Japan or France??? Offering 40 acres and a mule is as bigoted and racist as saying all Blacks love watermelon and fried chicken. The Southern Homestead Act of 1866 sought to address land ownership inequalities in the south during Reconstruction. It explicitly included Black Americans and encouraged them the 1866 law was part of the reason that within a generation after its passage, by 1900, one quarter of all Southern Black farmers were farm owners. "So the slaves were set free without a pot to pee in..." News Flash: more White people in the South were as piss-poor as the freed slaves. And said piss-poor Whites never owned slaves, let alone 40 acres and a mule. The Homestead Acts were also accessible to said piss-poor Whites. The Homestead Acts were de facto Equal Opportunity Acts. "...it had it taken from them." News Flash: many piss-poor Whites were ripped off by criminal White folks. Some of the piss-poor Whites were ripped off even by Black Folks. Many Reconstruction-era carpetbaggers were Blacks from the North. Northern Blacks had a generally discriminatory attitude towards Southern Blacks. "...lost generational wealth..." So much nonsensical myth. Fortunes come and go. All the corporations which made the Dow Jones Avg in 1920 are gone today (2024 AD). Thomas Edison was born poor. Andrew Carnegie was born poor. At least 95% of today's millionaires had no inherited generational wealth. The Georgia Land lotteries of 1802, 1807, 1821, 1832. After less than 30 years the financial lot of the land lottery winners was no different from that of the general population. These lotteries involved only white people, thus showing that White people have a difficult time holding onto generational wealth. Black people would be no better. I am sure the circumstances of your birth is no worse than that of most White people in the USA today (2024 AD). More White people are on welfare than Blacks (2023 AD SNAP recipients: 37% White, 26% Black). More White people are in prisons than Blacks (2020 AD: 88,648 Whites, 60,640 Blacks at the Federal level; 636K Whites, 400K Blacks at the State level). More White people are shot to death by the Police than Blacks (2023 AD: 425 Whites, 229 Blacks). If you feel stressed, distressed, oppressed, depressed, suppressed, repressed because your great-great-great grand parents were slaves, you need mental help, not reparations. Correction. A proper form of reparations: a voucher for 1000 hours of psychotherapy. It is arrogant to assume Black Privilege (pay reparations!!! cut the check!!!) because your great-great-great grand parents were slaves.

[@Friedfish-zm7fx]

The Silliness that is the request for reparations. (pt 7 of 18) Demanding reparations for long past damages to ancestors (slavery) is stupid, moronic, short-sighted, and unwise. Walter Williams on Slave Reparations. Calls for slavery reparations have returned with the publication of Ta-Nehisi Coates' "The Case for Reparations" in The Atlantic magazine (May 21, 2014). In making his argument, Coates goes through the horrors of slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow and gross racial discrimination. First off, let me say that I agree with reparations advocates that slavery was a horrible, despicable violation of basic human rights. The gross discrimination that followed emancipation made a mockery of the guarantees of the U.S. Constitution. I also agree slave owners and slave traders should make reparations to those whom they enslaved. The problem, of course, is slaves, slave owners and slave traders are all dead. Thus, punishing perpetrators and compensating victims is out of the hands of the living. Punishing perpetrators and compensating victims is not what reparations advocates want. They want government to compensate today's blacks for the bondage suffered by our ancestors. But there's a problem. Government has no resources of its very own. The only way for government to give one American a dollar is to first - through intimidation, threats and coercion - confiscate that dollar from some other American. Therefore, a moral question arises. What moral principle justifies punishing a white of today to compensate a black of today for what a white of yesterday did to a black of yesterday? There's another moral or fairness issue. A large percentage, if not most, of today's Americans - be they of European, Asian, African or Latin ancestry - don't even go back three or four generations as American citizens. Their ancestors arrived on our shores long after slavery. What standard of justice justifies their being taxed to compensate blacks for slavery? For example, in 1956, thousands of Hungarians fled the brutality of the USSR to settle in the U.S. What do Hungarians owe blacks for slavery? There's another thorny issue: During slavery, some free blacks purchased other blacks as a means to free family members. But other blacks owned slaves for the same reason whites owned slaves - to work farms or plantations. Are descendants of these slaveholding blacks eligible for and deserving of reparations? When African slavery began, there was no way Europeans could have enslaved millions of Africans. They had no immunity from diseases that flourished in tropical Africa. Capturing Africans to sell into slavery was done by Arabs and black Africans. Would reparations advocates demand that citizens of Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Kenya and several Muslim states tax themselves to make reparation payments to progeny of people whom their ancestors helped to enslave? Reparations advocates make the foolish unchallenged argument the United States became rich on the backs of free black labor. That's nonsense that cannot be supported by fact. Slavery doesn't have a very good record of producing wealth. Slavery was all over the South, and it was outlawed in most of the North. Buying into the reparations argument about the riches of slavery, one would conclude the antebellum South was rich and the slave-starved North was poor. The truth of the matter is just the opposite. In fact, the poorest states and regions of our nation were places where slavery flourished - Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia - while the richest states and regions were those where slavery was absent: Pennsylvania, New York and Massachusetts. One of the most ignored facts about slavery's tragic history - and it's virtually a secret today - is that slavery was a worldwide institution for thousands of years. It did not become a moral issue until the 18th century. Plus, the moral crusade against slavery started in the West, most notably England. I think the call for slavery reparations is simply another hustle. Advocates are not demanding government send checks to individual black people. They want taxpayer money to be put into some kind of reparations fund from which black leaders decide who receives how much and for what purpose.

[@Friedfish-zm7fx]

The Silliness that is the request for reparations. (pt 5 of 18) Demanding reparations for long past damages to ancestors (slavery) is stupid, moronic, short-sighted, and unwise. The Book of Deuteronomy ("repetition of the Law") precedes the Book of Joshua (Israelites were finally allowed to enter the Promised Land: Israel). Before entering Israel, the Jews need to know the rules and laws for a sustainable, resilient, cohesive Society and Nation. People think of the Old Testament as Fire and Brimstone (God is merciless!!!) and the New Testament is Love, Empathy, Kumbaya (God is merciful!!!). And yet, Deuteronomy, as Old Testament as any Book, has a chapter on Debt Forgiveness. WHAT!?!?!? Debt Forgiveness is essential and integral to a sustainable, resilient, cohesive Society and Nation. Question: Do those advocating reparations want to remain in the American Society? >>>>> Deuteronomy 15 : 1 = At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts. Comment: The above verse refers to you who want reparations. If reparations is debt, cancel the balance of the debt. What is your valuation of the concept of "statute of limitations"? Forgiving debt benefits you more than the debtor because otherwise, you will be filled of Anger and Resentment which pave the Road to Evil. Who is more likely to be Evil: Angry Person? non-Angry Person? Forgiving debt after 7 years does not let the debtor off the hook. Having not paid the debt within 7 years, the debtor is most likely to request again for more money, more resources. Having earned its reputation for nonpayment of debts, subsequent requests from said debtor will be rejected. >>>>> Deuteronomy 15 : 3 = You may require payment from a foreigner, but you must cancel any debt your brother owes you. Comment: Who is supposed to pay this "reparation"? Which entity is supposed to pay this "reparation"? Do you consider this entity to be a foreigner or a sibling? With a foreigner, require the completion of the transaction and/or contract and then you and the foreigner part ways FOREVER. War between you and the foreigner may ensue. After hostilities, no more contact, no more contract with the foreigner. Case settled. With a sibling, you will continue living with the sibling FOREVER. Forcing complete debt payment from a sibling will raise Anger in said Sibling. You may have gotten Justice (in name only and only for yourself) and there is no Peace in the House (the Sibling will see to that there is No Peace). What do you value more: Justice? Peace? Do you consider the USA (i.e. the US citizenry) to be a foreigner or sibling? >>>>> Deuteronomy 15 :11 = There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land. Comment: The above verse refers to you who want reparations. Instead of demanding "reparations", try to become an asset, not a liability, to your society. The mob's motto: No Justice, no Peace! Much of the violence, turmoil, dystopia in this World is caused by people pursuing JUSTICE!!!, pursuing COSMIC JUSTICE!!! Question: what do you value more: Justice? Peace?

[@Friedfish-zm7fx]

The Silliness that is the request for reparations. (pt 4 of 18) Demanding reparations for long past damages to ancestors (slavery) is stupid, moronic, short-sighted, and unwise. Question: Should you suffer for the sins of your dead parents? Should you pay off the debts of your dead parents? Generational servitude is sustained by having children obligated for the debts of their parents: this is the history of poverty in 3rd world countries, aka s**th**e countries. A smart commentator writes: "I would genuinely like to know how this is legal? You can’t inherit a grandparent or great grandparents property without a legally binding will & go through probate and alternately, you’re not responsible for paying your great grandparents debts. That would come from their estate if they had one. So how can you claim cash from a great grandparent's alleged debts?" Ezekiel 18:20 = 'The one who sins is the one who will die. The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them.' There is an asymmetry. I am sure you are very eager to collect what is owed to your dead parents. Even if the debt is owed only to your dead great-great-great-grand parents. Underlying this eagerness is greed, NOT justice. This asymmetry makes one blind to the other party. You are not the sole party in society. Others (the other party) are also part of society. Question rephrased: Should the other party suffer for the sins of their dead parents? Should the other party pay off the debts of their dead parents or the debt of their great-great-great grand parents? Some reparations seekers may quote the Bible. Proverbs 3:27 = "Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to act". The problem is that nothing is owed to the reparation seekers who are just grifters looking for something for nothing. If someone was owed, it is the long-dead great-great-great-grand parents, NOT you. The window of opportunity for you to act has closed. In fact the window of opportunity was never open for you to act for you were owed NOTHING. Justice. The issue of reparation is often linked to that of justice. When you go to court, you do not determine what Justice is. The Judge, the Court, the Jury decide what is Justice for you. You may not be satisfied with the Justice but if you want to stay a citizen in good standing with society, you have to ACCEPT the Judgement. What you are seeking is not so much Justice but Satisfaction. Satisfaction has more in common with Retribution than with Justice. Yes, you can appeal again and again and again and again. You just become a vexatious litigant and your standing in society diminishes. You become a liability, not an asset, to society.