The New York Times reports 2020 Democrats Embrace Race-Conscious Policies, Including Reparations.
From the very first day of the 2020 presidential race, when Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts blamed “generations of discrimination” for black families earning far less than white households, Democratic hopefuls have broadly emphasized racial justice and closing the wealth gap in their policy platforms.
But in recent weeks, some candidates have started embracing specific goals and overtly race-conscious legislation that even the most left-wing elected officials stayed away from in recent years.
Last week, on the popular radio show “The Breakfast Club,” Senator Kamala Harris of California agreed with a host’s suggestion that government reparations for black Americans were necessary to address the legacies of slavery and discrimination. Ms. Harris later affirmed that support in a statement to The New York Times.
Ms. Warren also said she supported reparations for black Americans impacted by slavery — a policy that experts say could cost several trillion dollars, and one that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and many top Democrats have not supported.
The Cost?
Well, that depends on who gets to decide the parameters. The experts say several trillion dollars.
Here are my parameters.
Anyone who was a slave prior to December 1865 who is still living, is eligible. That is the date of the ratification of the 13th amendment.
Well what about their kids?
Hmm. I will grant reparations to the kids of parents who were slaves in the US prior to 1865.
Still not satisfied? OK I am a really soft touch. Let’s give reparations to all living blacks who were kids of kids whose parents were slaves in 1865.
That’s it. I draw the line at 3 generations. Let’s have a count.
Drawing the Line
Hopefully you see where I am going with this, but many will not understand my point. So I need to be careful.
I do not doubt for one second that racism exists.
I do not put up with racist or sexist comments on my blog. My mom’s best friend was black. I never once heard my parents utter a racial slur. Not once.
At some point, one has to accept responsibility for their own lives, no matter what.
Yet, I firmly believe in equal chances and equal opportunity under the law.
Racial Reparations are Discriminatory
Reparations are actually discriminatory. When you give money or grant favors (say college admission tests) to one group, you are perforce discriminating against someone else who was thus denied an equal chance.
When a mistake is made in one direction the cure is not to make mistakes in the other.
Racism Exists
The cure is not reparations. The cure is to not tolerate racism.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
How about reparations for monetary waste by the US government in Solyndra, endless wars and failing pensions that will have to be bailed out by the public. All of these are government failures that should be worth at least $10K per taxpayer…no?
Kameltoe Harris’s father points out that their own ancestors owned slaves on their plantation in Jamaica, so let them pay reparations. None of my ancestors ever had a slave.
Does that include sex slaves?
What about women?
I’m all for it. But in order to receive them you must sign a document that says you’ll shut the hell up and stop blaming other people for all your problems. Anyone failing to do abide by the contract will be shipped to the country of their choosing, at their expense.
Reparations for slavery? No.
However, numerous federal failures and official sanction for state discrimination are well documented (DOJ failures, the existence of Jim Crow, Voting rights, discrimination in federal lending practices etc). The question always comes back to how to apply a remedy.
Problem is…13,000 free blacks owned slaves. Many in the black community benefitted from that ownership. Some black plantation owners became the richest in their state…like the Elison plantation of South Carolina.
These people actually believe this will help some injustice they hold so deeply. Fuck face Harris spends all her time outside of her state while denigrating anyone opposing her positions .
“From the very first day of the 2020 presidential race, when Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts blamed “generations of discrimination” for black families earning far less than white households…”
How much are Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry worth? One owns a cable TV network and the other owns a movie studio in Georgia. One of my former co-worker’s father was an executive at GE.
“generations of discrimination” is just an excuse, any more.
I came across a Youtube of a commencement speech by Denzel Washington. A recommended video for anyone to watch. Apparently, there are other inspirational Youtubes of him speaking, as well.
Who sold the Africans into slavery? The slave merchants were Muslims. Ask Mecca for reparations. No problem.
The endgame for all these identity politics and racism witch hunts as well as rampant immigration to virtue signaling and criminalization of male sexuality will be the exact opposite of what is allegedly being aimed at. Not a new world order of equality and respect, but identity groups in which the winners will be those at the apex of the strongest group (which may well abolish the political influence of the others) — there will come a day that the guardians of this utopian order will form their own group and pursue advantage of their own kind without any reserve or pretense.
“That’s it. I draw the line at three generations.” I like this, with one proviso:
Since those Africans sold into slavery were the spoils of African inter-tribal warfare, reparations should be paid only on a matching funds basis by present day African descendants of those slavers who sold their fellow Africans into slavery.
Failing this, perhaps New York City will be amenable to contributing the $3 billion in claimed Amazon savings to kick start the matching funds account.
Anticipating the inevitable budgeting catfight attached to ad hoc projects like this, I’ll even volunteer to keep the books on the African matching funds account in one memory location of my cell phone’s calculator app. You’re welcome.
All you really have to do is end the Fed, once again start using legitimate money, and peg Gold at $20 odd dollars an ounce.
Do that and, overnight, all men are largely created equal again.
Anything else is just smoke, mirrors and obfuscation.
I also suggest that those families who were in the country in 1800-1870 and have net worth of over $5M start a GoFundMe to get ahead of the funding need here…Between the 12 people that Mish has outlined as being eligible and the 1000 Hi Net worth families like Warren’s that will fund the cause, I think we have a doable effort here.
Is it possible that this proposal comes from the Re-Elect Trump Committee? It does not sound like an idea that will enhance the likelihood of a
Democratic victory.
Anything for a vote. Funny how people dismiss AOC and all her cohorts as no threat. Looks to me like she got elected. Looks to me like there’s a huge amount of people willing to vote for crap like this. If it takes trillions to get them to put down the bong and xbox controller and get the to the voting both then so be it.
She gotcha! You’re talking about it. As if it’s serious and not just a narrative grab. People that embrace voting legitimize mass armed robbery, mass theft, and mass violent domination. The worst of people wrest control of that process and do with you what they will. Time for camp?
Runnin 2 plus trillion (3)in the red every year and adding 2 tril plus every year…..why not spend like it’s 1999,what’s another trillion (or 2)it’s not like it’s ever gonna get paid back
If only voters had the brains to make sure none (emphasis) of it will ever even be attempted to be “paid back,” the main part of the problem goes away all by itself.
Wascist bigot anti-virtue signaller giving away money she never earned.
Vote for women – destroy 2500 years of western civ in less than a decade.
The Fed was created by men. Ditto the income tax. The same men who instituted women’s suffrage to increase their pool of readily available dupes. Men that other men voted for.
Point being, as soon as counterfeiting is somehow a-ok, just because some scumbags can sucker enough idiots to dimple some chads in favor of something they don’t understand, no civilization is possible, period.
Exactly. The 17th Am increasing democracy and the 19th Am were concurrent with the 16th Am and the Fed. And I suppose none of those men had any female influences (Security! Gimme money! Take care of me! The children!) in their lives. While they were planning world domination.
The counterattack on voting and democracy is starting:
Since all tax dollars are fungible, everyone would pay for it. Even those receiving benefits.
The democrats have no idea how to win an election. They kowtow to their constituency instead of luring independents. This issue will get them the black vote. Oh wait, they would get that anyway. And at the expense of losing votes from everyone else.
How exactly would this work? How does one prove they were descended from slaves? How does one prove they’re black? Many are obviously black, but some are kind of in between. Are people who recently moved from Africa included?
We are all racist. It’s in our DNA. We favor those who are genetically similar to us. Parents favoring children is racism at the extreme. Racism is rampant throughout the plant and animal kingdoms. Not defending it. Just stating the obvious.
My point is that people voting for this aren’t going to ask how it works but rather where is my money?
I’m pretty sure, before this is all done, the Democrats will also offer to cancel all parking ticket fines. But that won’t come until right before the election.
They won’t. Cancelling all fines would actually be proper policy in a civilized country. Can’t have that.
Do folk and their descendants who immigrated to this country after 1885 who had nothing to do slavery have to pay reparations ????
How about descendants of those who ran the underground railroads??
If you’re productive, you have to pay. 10% of which will go to some made up grievance group to buy their support. The rest to the usual suspects. TIA. This is America.
In the private sector, companies are openly stating their goal is to promote certain groups of people into CEO positions based on race and gender. What this does is effective chase away people early in their careers who have personal goals and skills to make it to the top, but don’t fit the correct genetic profile. I expect new, highly competitive companies to be formed by those who are alienated, and the pendulum to swing back toward a meritocracy.
As long as all financial outcomes are decided solely by money printing and ambulance chasers finding and deeming and deciding; those who control the printing press and have arbitrary discretion to make up “laws” can easily prevent any potential “competitor” from interfering with their looting. It’s not as if similarly governed North Korea, is exactly lacking in people with skills which they have been barred from employing.
What about reparations for the illegal H-1B abuse by most major tech companies. If ever there were poster childs for racketeering.. The health care industry as well, and its outright theft from patients.
Just make it reparations for debasement theft. The rest is just makebelieve irrelevancies anyway.
All citizens are equal. Race-conscious legislation violates this fundamental tenet of the constitution.
Progressivism violates absolutely every tenet of every possible legitimate constitution.