Of course, we all know that committees to study something aren’t set up in order to study something. Even so, this seems more than a little blatant:
Briefly, what’s in HR 40, the House’s bill to study reparations
If passed, HR 40 would establish a “Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans,” composed of 13 members, with three to be chosen by the president, three by the speaker of the House, one by the president pro tempore of the Senate, and another six by “major” civil rights groups “that have historically championed the cause of reparatory justice.”
Shouldn’t that be some number known, already, to support the idea and some other, similar, number known to oppose the idea?
For insisting that 6 out of 13 already support the idea that reparations should and must be paid is rather pre-judging the issue, no?
There is a point to be made here as well, one against the very idea of slavery reparations. Which is the obvious observation that the descendants of slaves in North America – I’ll grant this might not be true in Haiti – are better off than the descendants of those not-enslaved in West Africa.
No, this is not a revival of the Church and then Confederate claim that slaves were better off baptised and working on the plantations than they were remaining free and oppressed in Africa. Nor is it a claim that slavery wasn’t so bad.
It is though an insistence that the average African American – now – is massively richer than the average West African. Therefore reparations cannot be justified – how can we compensate someone for having made them better off?
That the average African American is not as well off as others in the society around him is true, but that’s relative to the current society around him. He’s hugely better off than a society in which the Atlantic slave trade did not take place. So, how can we compensate him for that?
This is also not to say that American society is just fine and dandy. Sure it can be improved. We might even think it sensible to go do that. But that’s not the same as an insistence that the people who didn’t do it pay over lots of money.
Yes, the fix is in. Also the Senate bill to add 4 new Supreme Court seats and H.R. 1 to break state elections in three dozen ways. These bills are solely to convince moonbats that “We tried.” Senate is tied and in the House, at the moment, Pelosi cannot afford to have 3 Reps break ranks. There is no mandate to do any of this—and, yes, that still matters.
Reparate (is that a word?) by restoring them to the status quo ante itinari. Un-transport them back to West Africa?
Yes, here or with Endangered Species or historic preservation or climate or CO₂, we should always ask: Who sets the target year, and how?
The Democrats have a very tenuous hold on the Federal government, one that I expect they will probably lose in the 2022 midterm elections. They can play that situation two ways. The first would be to endeavor to be rational and thereby try to convince enough people to leave them in power. The second is to try to implement every wet dream they’ve got in the expectation that this will be their one and only chance. My expectations are that that every whacky idea will be proposed and committees formed ad nauseam; that this will cause no ending of strife;… Read more »
The one I’m laughing hardest at is Biden’s saying, ‘Yes, we won’t dump unaccompanied minors back in Mexico like wicked Trump.’
Surprise, surprise. Unaccompanied minors swarm in. The Dems, ‘But, but. It’s all Trump’s fault!!’
As for slavery, I pointed out to my Italian friend Leo that he owed me reparations for the wicked Romans occupying Britain and enslaving the natives. He certainly wasn’t going to put up with my bullshit, so he pointed out that therefore we were relatives. Since part of the family came from Sussex, I had to admit he was right.