At least a few times a week, I hear the subject of slave reparations come up mostly by presidential candidates. I’ve written before about how outrageous the idea is, but I feel compelled to write something again regarding the subject.
One of the biggest problems with the idea of reparations is the question of who should pay for them? In 1860, only around 1.6% of U.S. citizens owned slaves; so right off the bat, 98.4% of White Americans don’t deserve to be taxed for slavery reparations. Let’s also keep in mind there were thousands of blacks who owned slaves. Will they track down these descendants and make them pay reparations? If they didn’t, this would be a horrific double-standard based solely on race.
If proponents for reparations tried to track down the descendants of those who owned slaves (the 1.6%), they’d find there aren’t that many around; they are a fraction of 1% of current taxpayers. They could probably tax everything these people make and take away their wealth, and it would only provide a small amount of reparations to be dispersed to the 48 million African Americans in the U.S.
Would African Americans be happy getting a small stipend in reparations because that’s all that could be collected? No, they would get even angrier that they’re being taken advantage of. The fact is, it doesn’t really matter how much money is distributed, as it will only hurt race relations. Anyone with any common sense would understand this.
Couldn’t we call the trillions of dollars sent to African American communities over the last 60 years, a form of reparations? How well has it worked out for them? The conditions in many of the projects are horrendous. Crime is through the roof. Schools are terrible. In other words, the money isn’t helping, it has hurt more than it has helped because it has created dependency in these communities. Upward mobility is possible, and some take advantage of opportunities, but most don’t. Young people in these communities could be offered free college tuition and they’d still drop out of high school. It’s a terrible culture that is holding so many African Americans back and money has proven time and time again, to be ineffective at solving problems in these communities. Change their culture, and it will change their world.
If they do pass a reparations act, I think the best way for them to figure out where to get the money from is to take it from Democrats. This would be the fairer way of handling it. Democrats owned most of the slaves. They fought for slavery. They fought against voting rights for blacks. The whites who served with the Union risked it all for blacks. The families whose relatives ran underground railroads to get slaves to freedom, shouldn’t be held accountable for reparations. Why should any of these groups have to pay, their loved ones already made significant sacrifices and took dangerous risks for the African American community? So not having a perfect way of identifying who should pay, the idea that makes the most sense is to start with Democrats and work out from there. I don't see this idea catching on.
I could write much more about this topic and have in other posts, but I’ll leave it at the above. Politics is a crazy business, and nothing is for sure but there’s no doubt in my mind that any presidential candidate who supports reparations, will not win against President Trump. Add to this all the other crazy policies these politicians are pushing, and it will definitely be Trump’s election to lose.
One of the biggest problems with the idea of reparations is the question of who should pay for them? In 1860, only around 1.6% of U.S. citizens owned slaves; so right off the bat, 98.4% of White Americans don’t deserve to be taxed for slavery reparations. Let’s also keep in mind there were thousands of blacks who owned slaves. Will they track down these descendants and make them pay reparations? If they didn’t, this would be a horrific double-standard based solely on race.
If proponents for reparations tried to track down the descendants of those who owned slaves (the 1.6%), they’d find there aren’t that many around; they are a fraction of 1% of current taxpayers. They could probably tax everything these people make and take away their wealth, and it would only provide a small amount of reparations to be dispersed to the 48 million African Americans in the U.S.
Would African Americans be happy getting a small stipend in reparations because that’s all that could be collected? No, they would get even angrier that they’re being taken advantage of. The fact is, it doesn’t really matter how much money is distributed, as it will only hurt race relations. Anyone with any common sense would understand this.
Couldn’t we call the trillions of dollars sent to African American communities over the last 60 years, a form of reparations? How well has it worked out for them? The conditions in many of the projects are horrendous. Crime is through the roof. Schools are terrible. In other words, the money isn’t helping, it has hurt more than it has helped because it has created dependency in these communities. Upward mobility is possible, and some take advantage of opportunities, but most don’t. Young people in these communities could be offered free college tuition and they’d still drop out of high school. It’s a terrible culture that is holding so many African Americans back and money has proven time and time again, to be ineffective at solving problems in these communities. Change their culture, and it will change their world.
If they do pass a reparations act, I think the best way for them to figure out where to get the money from is to take it from Democrats. This would be the fairer way of handling it. Democrats owned most of the slaves. They fought for slavery. They fought against voting rights for blacks. The whites who served with the Union risked it all for blacks. The families whose relatives ran underground railroads to get slaves to freedom, shouldn’t be held accountable for reparations. Why should any of these groups have to pay, their loved ones already made significant sacrifices and took dangerous risks for the African American community? So not having a perfect way of identifying who should pay, the idea that makes the most sense is to start with Democrats and work out from there. I don't see this idea catching on.
I could write much more about this topic and have in other posts, but I’ll leave it at the above. Politics is a crazy business, and nothing is for sure but there’s no doubt in my mind that any presidential candidate who supports reparations, will not win against President Trump. Add to this all the other crazy policies these politicians are pushing, and it will definitely be Trump’s election to lose.
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