*Ian's finger hovers nervously over moderation button*

Essence said:

Hopefully this one avoids that... we can keep it clean!

IceNine said:

SO as a Liberatarian, do you agree with what I've just read?

SUNIO said:

Yes

IceNine said:

Not to divert from topic in hand but as a Libertarian do you feel obliged to agree with all their thesis? Or is it the majority of the beliefs that sustain you?

When one accepts the label of being a group's member I wonder how hard it is to ever disagree with their comrade's overall consensus?

Essence said:

That is a good question. I do not agree with everything that anyone says and I sometimes disagree with the Libertarian Party. I do not vote straight-ticket and do not agree with voting along party lines. I will vote for a Republican, Democrat, Green or Libertarian depending upon who is more qualified for the job and whose ideas more closely align with mine. It just so happens that I am pretty much 100% Libertarian in my thinking.

I do agree with the Libertarian stance on reparations and I do believe that it would strain race relations even more than they are. Can you imagine all of the klan types and separatists, etc. if they were made to pay money for the sins of the fathers? I do not want to see racist violence and hatred, but I honestly do believe that this sort of thing would trigger massive resentment and hatred in a considerable subset of America.

The ideas of social reform, tax relief, community enhancement and a massive increase to education would be a great idea and should be enacted.

If this kind of logic had been applied during the civil righs movement, would there have been one? Should Martin Luther King, Jr. and SNCC, SCLC, NAACP and others who led the desegregation movement in the South... should they have backed down because their actions "increased racial hostility"?

They were accused of being trouble makers, THEY were accused of increasing racial hostility, because they "got out of line" and dared to upset the social order of white supremacy.

Those who EXPOSE closeted racial hostility should not be accused of "increasing" it. Further if peaceful race relations is based on inequities, then by all means it should be disrupted and turned inside out.

These decisions should be made on the basis of what is JUST, not out of fear of how some will respond to that decision.

The idea is that some of us feel that distributing money to individuals is not just whereas we believe that increasing educational budgets, giving tax relief, enhancing neighborhoods and helping people help themselves is much more just.

IceNine said:

I have said before that I don't necessarily endorse a payment of money to individuals as the best form of reparations, so we are in agreement on that issue.

The article you posted incorrectly quotes Louis Farrakhan's statement on this matter. Yes he did say that black folk should not accept some "jive token"... but that was not to suggest that we should get a whole lot of cash... he said right after that: "because a fool and his money soon parts." He knows, as do most reparations activist, that a payment of money to individuals is foolish when those individuals do not have institutions in which to invest and develop their resources. ( I just wish some of these media organizations and idealogues would stop misquoting our leadership.)

But let me add this, America has no problem allocating billions of dollars of our tax dollars in foreign aid to countries to support their development. Why? because those countries supposedly represent a strategic interest in our foreign policy. When will America realize that there are people right here who live as though they are in a foreign country. People RIGHT HERE who represent a strategic interest. What is America willing to invest in ITSELF?

Justice also demands that the only individuals who are punished are those personally responsible for violating the rights of others, he said.

"Blacks should demand freedom from taxation, which keeps too many in poverty; freedom from the Social Security system, which deprives too many of a secure retirement; and freedom from the Drug War, which confines too many to prison," he said.

"Gaining independence from government programs like these would improve the lives of African-Americans far more than slavery reparations ever could."

Before I start, I'm not black, and I'm not American. I hope you will hear me out in any case

IceNine said:

I don't understand this statement because I don't understand why a nation can't be held accountable for the crimes it has committed. Black people in America were held back for over 200 years while white people were allowed to own businesses, vote, get schooling etc. White America has has benefitted from the forced labour of black people. Surely the point of reparations is to address the balance, and bring all of America's people on to a more equal footing? To that end, although I can understand that there may be disgruntlement amongst some people, isn't it the right thing to do?

IceNine said:

I'm a little confused here about what the Libertarian Party is advocating. Is it proposing that black people do not pay tax? Isn't that a form of reparation?

I hope my comments don't cause offense.

Kiren
xxx

Think of it this way... if your great, great grandfather was convicted of a crime and was fined $5,000,000,000 dollars, would you think that your entire family line should pay money until your great, great grandfather's debt was repaid although you had nothing to do with the transgression?

Think of it this way... if your great, great grandfather was convicted of a crime and was fined $5,000,000,000 dollars, would you think that your entire family line should pay money until your great, great grandfather's debt was repaid although you had nothing to do with the transgression? None of the people today were involved in the slave trade, nor have they owned slaves. Making them pay for the actions of others is not any more fair than it would be to make the family members of past criminals pay for their crimes.

Reparations based on social programs, education, tax relief, etc. could be effective if they are properly instituted. Taxation in America is retrogressive by nature and hurt the poor more than the rich, this is why the Libertarian Party advocates tax relief.

IceNine said:

OK, I think this is where I'm confused. It may be the use of the word "reparations" and a misunderstanding of American politics on my part.

I took this term to mean payments that the nation owes to people who helped to found it but received no pay, no recognition and no social status until the 1960s.

However, I'm beginning to think that maybe "reparations" with regards to this issue actually means money that individuals and former slave owners are being asked to pay to address the wrongs of the past.

Could someone please clarify for me? If it's the former, then I'm afraid I still don't understand why reparations payments, be they in the form of tax concessions, money or land, cannot be agreed in principle, especially as the concept was proposed (and agreed? - not sure on that) by Congress at the end of the American Civil War. I understand the difficulties this will present to the economy, and the difficulties involved in agreeing a figure, but surely it's something that really does need to be addressed, given the disadvantages that the black community are still experiencing?

If it's the latter, then I apologise - I do think that the Libertarians are presenting a good case in the form of proposing tax breaks and other reforms.

OK ... my 2 cents ... again

IceNine said:

It depends... did you and your family benefit (i.e., inherit the benefits) of your great grandfather's crime? Did you inherit your family's estate? As part of inheritance law, not only do you inherit the value of an estate, including its wealth, but you also inherit its outstanding debts, including debts that you did not incur. If your forefathers' wealth did not die with them, neither did their debts. Unless you buried all their wealth in the grave with them and walked away from anything that they accumulated and started out fresh and on your own, then you can't act like the bills aren't yours to pay.

There are many well preserved families in the South AND North who have roots that DO go back to the time of slavery, and whose accumulated wealth is rooted in the slave trade and its ancillary enterprises (cotton and tobacco farming and manufacturing, as well as import/export and the New England shipping industries).

That's on the individual level... There are two more points related to this...

One, yes there are families that have benefited from the unpaid labor extracted by the founders of their estates, but just as if not more important than families are INSTITUIONS which are still here today. Insurance companies that made money insuring slaves, investment banking firms that made money trading in slaves and slave-related commodities, department stores that made money off of slavery, tobacco companies, banks, newspapers that made money selling ads for slave auctions and slave captures, and certainly most of all the United States government which not only enriched its gross national product for hundreds of years but benefit from slave labor in building many of its structures.

These institutions are still here and they owe their existence in part to the labor of slaves. So it really is not THAT HARD to identify and locate those who OWE.

Which always begs the question, WHO should be paid? Many opponents to reparations will claim 1. there are no slave owners around (which I have addressed above... there are institutions and families around that practiced slavery) and 2. there are no slaves around to pay.

This type of response always strikes me because it is a bit disingenuous in that it suggests that IF the slave owners and exslaves were around that current reparations opponents would be in favor of paying them. If the exslaves were around, as were their exslavemasters, would folks be in support of paying them then? In light of recent cases of Rosewood and Black Wall Street in Oklahoma (two cities that were terrorized by white mobs and law enforcement earlier in the 20th century) where actual real life survivors tried to get reparations, it was an UPHILL battle. So I must say that the whole "nobody is alive who was responsible or to collect" retort is really a smoke screen.

Anyway, getting back to the idea of who are the survivors... The legal team of Harvard Law professor Charles Ogletree and Johnnie Cochran have consulted with the lead Jewish attorney for Holocaust survivors and is borrowing the concept of "lost heirs." Many of those who died in the holocaust left NO survivors because in many cases their entire families were killed. How were their losses to be compensated? How about those survivors whose children were killed? The principle is that this act caused the loss of unborn descendants, and that was accepted as a factor in not only quantifying the reparations for the Holocaust but also in paying. It is obvious that some did not survive the Holocaust to collect... so where did their money go? It went in the forms of some payments to individuals and institutions, and the creation of Israel. Now that opens up a whole can of worms, but I'll add one other point.

Recently the surviving families of the World Trace Center and Pentagon 9/11 attacks filed a multi-billion dollar suit against the governments of Sudan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and others, holding them responsible for the attacks. This is based on really flimsy evidence if any at all that those governments were involved. Still it sets a precedent. If they can sue "invisible" defendants on behalf of people who are no longer here ("dead plaintiffs") for a sum in compensation of a robbed future... well why can't black folk do the same and sue the United States, Great Britain, Spain, the Vatican, France, etc. Especially when the claim of these black survivors on behalf of lost heirs is probably more sound than what the 9/11 families are claiming.
[This message was edited Tue Aug 27 9:29:13 PDT 2002 by NuPwrSoul]

I don't understand why people would have a problem with paying the families of slaves when they were the ones gettin beat for being black, were raped because of ignorants and made to work on some foreign land because certain people were to lazy to do it themselves.
People who went through problems in the past got paid off for mistakes and pain they caused so why not the African- Americans?

I don't need no fucking money...just stop fucking with me everytime I'm rolling on the freeway in my nice car.