Name:   MartiniMan - Subject:   A Thought to Ponder Date:   7/8/2019 10:24:56 AM

The entire reparations gig is about buying votes.  There is no other explanation needed.

But here is my take on the issue of reparations. First of all, we are asking people who never owned slaves to pay people who were never slaves.  Second of all, the response to that obvious truth is typically that the majority (in this case white people) benefit today from slavery and the minority (in this case blacks) suffer today from the vestiges of slavery.  Much of this argument relies on the overall economic disparities between whites and blacks, as if both are solely a result of the institution of slavery and no other factors have an influence.  Any time you use uni-dimensional thinking in the social sciences you can be certain one thing, you are wrong.

But even if we stipulate the economic disparities and the causul relationship with slavery, I take the view that we then have to go one step further.  We need to compare the economic circumstances of blacks in the U.S. not with the white population in the U.S., but with the economic circumstances of the country from which their ancestors were abducted into slavery.  The rationale for this is simple.  Had their ancestors not been taken from Africa and sold into slavery they would have been born in Africa, not the U.S.  So let's compare what their overall economic circumstances are in the U.S. to where they would have been born.  Needless to say, most of them would have zero argument for reparations as they are far better off here. 

The reality is that we are all born in this country because someone came here from somewhere else.  Many came here voluntarily while others were brought here as slaves.  None of us had a choice in this and I would venture to say that the vast majority of current day Americans are far better off for their ancestors having come here, be it voluntarily or through the evil of slavery.  But none of this matters when all these Democrats want is to buy votes.  The question is whether more blacks in America think like the author of the piece in FoxNews or whether they are simply willing to remain on the Democrat party plantation on a voluntary basis.  If past voting habits are any indicator, I suspect it will be the latter.  Remember, if you promise to rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on the support of Paul.