America Needs To Pay Reparations To The Descendants of Slavery

So; to start with, pro offers a very light argument related to the need for reparations. Pro doesn’t offer any detail other than slavery and racism was bad, therefore reparations.

Con does very well to break down the practicalities. It’s impossible to work out who should get the money and who should pay: its too expensive, those deeply involved in the slave trade won’t pay due to where they are and that forcing those who had nothing to do with the slave trade themselves to pay is immoral.

Pro starts off with a reasonable argument: that the opportunity afforded to whites were based upon the opportunities ancestrally built upon by slaves. That if one were to accept that opportunity, one must accept the price that comes with it.

While that is a good argument: it doesn’t answer the central question: who exactly pays, how much and who gets paid.

Con outlined that reparations would be prohibitively expensive. Pro doesn’t disagree, and asserts hypocrisy relating to farmers receiving bailout money. This doesn’t follow; cons argument is that we can’t afford trillions of dollars in reparations - not that we can’t afford a few Bn. Con points this out, points out the benefits of such payments and also points out that pro hasn’t offered any justification for how reparations will help solve any of the problems

Con also points out that pro has not shown that he and his ancestors benefited from slavery - and thus is simply a bare assertion. Pro replies with a highly generalized reply about how slaves built the economy, but does not in my view provides cohesive explanation - con points this out.

In terms of warlords, pro doesn’t sufficiently answer why those involved in the slave trade but didn’t start it should not be included. Pro also asserts that con believes that other forms of reparations are acceptable - which he rejects.

The problem with this debate is that pro offers a notional argument, that the broad idea of reparations is valid. While this is probably true at a very high level, for the purposes of this debate, pro should be showing how much reparations would cost, how they would be paid for, who they would go to, and how much of an impact they would have on the world.

That way I can weigh the harm against the benefits, and draw a conclusion.

Pro doesn’t do any of this, and simply falls down onto the original notional premise, which is not enough; we can all agree that blacks have been substantially harmed by the US over time, and that policy should be enacted to help fix the systemic problem: but this doesn’t justify pros policy.

On the other hand - con does very well to address the practicality, the issues and the potential issues with reparations: in the absence of any tangible benefit that pro presents: this argument clearly wins out.

Arguments to con.

Hard resolution to prove due to the “need” qualifier. In order for anything to be a need, there must be a consequence. E.g., I need coffee before I drive home tonight, otherwise the drive will be less safe (“I need coffee” would work as a resolution, with the driving as a contention towards this).

Gist:
Con set the real debate in motion with an outline of actually relevant points, giving pro some chance to meet BoP. If pro does this again, they should base it around their actual reparations plan, with con helping them identify faults to be improved on it.

1. Ad Hominem
Pro’s case for this contention started in the description “If you don't agree, then you are simply racist.” Went into R1 “anyone who's trying to logically deny it is an illogical thinker as well as a hypocrite.” … This should never be in a debate.

2. Truism
Pro insists their case is a documented truism, which absolutely cannot be argued against. … If it can’t be argued against, you would not have a debate, which is literally asking someone to argue against it.

3. Efficiency (I’d call this feasibility)
Con brings up that it would be impossible (or at least cost prohibitive) to determine the payment ratios, and gives a cost estimate of $59T after that. After some back and forth on this, pro said this amount would be outrageous, but could not set a minimum acceptable amount (he or she could have gained serious ground here, but suggesting a 10 year tax return scheme or somesuch). Con defends the farmers bill (first of all, not reparations, it’s a whole other class of thing), due to us having an actual need to keep them in business feeding us, in addition to the very low comparative cost. … An additional problem here is reading the description, pro specifically says “American needs to cut the check” which does not equate to them saying it could be done over time, as it implies a one time payment.

4. Consistency
Con started strong here with a fairness angle (ironic that if this resolution makes sense, various African countries needs to pay the reparations too), but drifted off topic into other slaves around the world. Pro caught this. Pro brought up that the USA gives money to other people, which was equally off topic (a source to prove we’re paying holocaust reparations would have gone a long way).

5. Morality
I feel like con thought this was a slam dunk, but it (at least initially) fell flat. We all profit off the work of those who came before us, some of us more so, some of us less. … Reading into R2, I’m impressed that pro knows the term “Generational Wealth,” which describes this process (which was a much better reply to this than the actual intended one).

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Arguments: Con
See above review of key points. BoP is never met for the resolution in question, and if “should” were substituted in, the feasibility angle defeats it as it strongly implies the USA should not. All other contentions combined did not reach the magnitude of this one.

Sources: Con
How interesting it was that there were black slaveowners (poisons the well effectively, as the source discusses different types of slaves and slavemasters, muddying the waters…), but the real checkmate here was using an African American propaganda site to prove a point directly against its own views (the cost calculations, making it impossible to implement). Comparatively pro had no sources, even when referencing various material which seemed to come from one.

Conduct:
Leaving this tied, even while it leans in favor of con. It never got too ugly, even the ad hominems did not feel personal (weird as that is to say).

Let me start off by stating that prior to this debate: I had zero stance on the position of whether or not reparations should be paid for slavery. I came into this with 100% an open mind and interested to see arguments from both sides.... Ironically, as a result of this debate I am more open to the idea of reparations to the descendants of slaves, but feel that Con's arguments were superior.

There are basically 3 arguments between both sides = Cost, Justification, and Morality.... Of these three, the cost argument in my opinion was the most important point that held the most weight, and Pro dropped the ball massively on this one.

When Con introduces his claim that Reparations would cost $60 TRILLION, the random source he pulls that from operates on the belief that the 40 million descendants of slaves deserve $1.5 million each.... Pro could have easily provided a different number to give an idea of how much it would cost (40 million descendants getting $100k each would bring the cost down to $4 Trillion, which would put it at about 1.5 times the cost of the Iraq War..... Instead though, Pro concedes the $60 trillion figure to con and tries to argue that 60 trillion is not that much, which is a tremendously bad line of reasoning to argue. Pro's comparison of a $3 billion farmers bill in comparison falls tremendously short, so Con absolutely won this aspect of the argument.

Regarding the Justification and Morality arguments, these arguments by Con were not as strong as his argument for the cost of the program, but Pro's counter arguments to these points were almost non-existent. For example, when Con first mentions that the US were not the only ones to benefit from the enslavement of black people such as Europeans and even African warlords who profited off of the slave trade, Pro didn't even give a counter argument to these points in round 2, and counter arguments after that revolved around similar reparation payments to Jews and Native Americans rather then the lack of reparations to slave descendants from other places that benefitted from the enslavement of black people.

In summary, while some of Con's arguments left more to be desired, Pro's arguments completely failed to make a case in favor of reparations. The concession that reparations would allegedly cost $60 trillion was a massive blunder by Pro's part, and the majority of the debate descended into an argument over who all benefitted from the after-effects of slavery once it was eliminated..... Con wins argument points by a wide margin, and his arguments were the most well sourced by a substantial margin as well.