I think reparations for slavery would be a terrible idea. Enslaving white people for hundreds of years because blacks were enslaved before violates the 8th and 13th amendment. It also would cause the repeal of the 2nd amendment, since white Americans would fight their 2nd amendment rights being taken from them.
Does anyone on this site support reparations?
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@TheUnderdog
It's too late anyway.....It's just people attempting to jump aboard a gravy train.
The same gravy train service, that's always run by the same fat people.
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@TheUnderdog
Nope. At the root, reparations [effectively, punishing current citizens for the sins of 160 years ago, at a minimum, [we should really be counting 400 years, yeah?] happens to be unconstitutional. Article I, section 9, clause 3: "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed."
Ex post facto is exactly what punishing the current generation is all about. Reparations to anybody for anything is not legal for the simple fact that we cannot be held responsible for the past. No other argument needed. Were the Framers prescient, or what?
Of course, we could always amend the Constitution... Good luck with that. Twenty-seven times in 230 years does not inspire confidence.
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@TheUnderdog
Sorry but are you trolling or what? Do you think reparations are everything after your first sentence?
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@TheUnderdog
It would never hold up in a court of law because a court standard would require the people paid to show DNA evidence (skin color would be insufficient) of slavery and also the people paying would also have to be identified through DNA testing (skin color would not be sufficient)
Good luck with that since the DNA has mixed a LOT throughout the American populace especially when including all the DNA from immigrants since 1865.
SCOTUS would boot this out faster than a Kavanaugh tear rolling down.
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@Greyparrot
If we really want to level the playing field then we should tax inheritance a lot more than we do. It's looking like a trillion+ a year of wealth coming from inheritance for the next 30 years or so, probably more. Tax that 40% IMO. That's 400 billion a year. Sounds good to me. I won't inherit anything anyway.
If we really want to level the playing field then we should tax inheritance a lot more than we do.
Awesome idea. That will teach those uppity rich black skinnies to stop working so hard to uplift their kids.
Lord knows we need more rich people to stop working so hard making all those goddamn innovations and creating jobs thinking they can just pass that shit off to their kids with no divine retribution. It absolutely pisses the idiots and the lazy people off, and we certainly do not want that. Just look at what they did to the Capitol building and Chaz!
The very idea that you can own shit is an abomination and a double abomination if your kids get to own shit too.
Nations have obligations to those they've discriminated against in the past. Whether that goes to reparations is up for debate, but it's consistent with any theory of justice out there.
Ahhh yes. Most of my lineage was slaves from the Ottoman Turks in Greece and didn't move to America until 1965. But because I'm white, I should pay back reparations that my ancestors never were involved in
Democrats Motto
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@RationalMadman
Do you think reparations are everything after your first sentence?
Yes. BLM says that they want Reperations for 400 years of slavery with interest, which amounts to billions of dollars owed per black person. Since white people can't pay off that debt, the only way they have a chance of paying every single black person billions of dollars is if they become slaves themselves. As a white person, I don't want to be a slave for slavery that legally happened 200 years ago.
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@Death23
If we tax inheritance, it provides less incentive for rich people to save and invest for their kids. Rich people love their kids, so if you take away the kid's inheritence, the rich will be less inclined to save for their kids.
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@Username
Nations have obligations to those they've discriminated against in the past.
They don't. Slavery was legal when it happened, and you can't punish people for something that happened when it was legal.
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@TheUnderdog
They don't. Slavery was legal when it happened, and you can't punish people for something that happened when it was legal.
Why do you think I'm punishing people?
It's ethically obvious. If I break your shins do I have moral obligations towards you if you are still affected by your shins being broken?
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@Username
Why do you think I'm punishing people?
Because Reperations would cost tax dollars which white people would have to pay for. Increased taxes are a punishment.
If I break your shins do I have moral obligations towards you if you are still affected by your shins being broken?
Breaking someone's shins is illegal. Slavery was legal when it happened, so you can't punish someone for something that they did when it was legal.
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@Greyparrot
Only 40% of people gonna inherit anything, and most estates are pretty small. Taxing it as ordinary income would be reasonable IMO, but with higher tax brackets than we got.
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@TheUnderdog
Because Reperations would cost tax dollars which white people would have to pay for. Increased taxes are a punishment.
A punishment implies an offense. Do you think increasing taxes for anything where every taxpayer does not get their money back in some form is wrong?
Breaking someone's shins is illegal. Slavery was legal when it happened, so you can't punish someone for something that they did when it was legal.
The purpose is not to punish - the purpose is to rectify an injustice. A punishment inherently involves retribution, and retribution requires intent to harm.
States, as bodies that are not unified actors, have different kinds of obligations than the average person, and they are obligations that transcend whoever is in them at a given time. If this were not the case, states would be absolved of the obligation to fix anything they've broken if all the people who were in the government to break the thing are now dead.
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@TheUnderdog
Ok man you're either mentally... disturbed.... or trolling. I say that with genuine concern not as an insult. I'm sorry but I won't engage you further after your last reply to me. Noone in BLM is advocating to enslave caucasians, whatever the hell made you think that is beyond me.
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@Greyparrot
He didn’t suggest anything like that. Taxing a billion dollar estate at 40% will not leave its heirs in poverty.
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@Death23
If we really want to level the playing field then we should tax inheritance a lot more than we do. It's looking like a trillion+ a year of wealth coming from inheritance for the next 30 years or so, probably more. Tax that 40% IMO. That's 400 billion a year. Sounds good to me. I won't inherit anything anyway.
Don't really have an opinion on this (my knee jerk reaction is against because I dont like double taxation, but not strongly against)
But you may have some interesting thoughts since you brought up inheritance....what do you think of the economic future of the US/the West more broadly? IMO the post-war period was a historical anomaly. The wars destroyed so much wealth that things were essentially reset, and someone could actually work their way into wealth. I think we are entering into a more common historical period, where capital returns more than labor and who your parents are matters more for your status than your talents or abilities. I'm already seeing extremely strong signs of widespread downward mobility among middle class people of my generation, who are now pushing 30. The middle class has been vanishing, those who got in early and held onto assets joining the upper class while many others are slowly receding into the ranks of the poor.
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@thett3
It's a lot harder to get ahead than it was before, that's true. Social mobility may improve from political changes, but I wouldn't count on it. New technologies will bring changes to the marketability of job skills. Automation in transportation, construction and other areas will result in more technological unemployment. People will need to be more adaptive to avoid becoming chronically poor welfare recipients. They will need to acquire the right skills and move to the right areas. Wealth and income will likely become more and more concentrated at the top, and the economy will shift more toward servicing the wealthy. That's what my crystal ball says anyway. Working your way in to wealth can be done, but not easily. It got to be work a lot + (side gig?) + investing well + tax planning. If it's a couple doing it together then they can do pretty well, but at the cost of delaying having children. I see a lot of people delaying kids by 5-10 years or so for wealth building. If they have kids when they're young, they seem to end up poor for life. Maybe we need free gamete or embryo cryopreservation, or something. Probably good for the genetics of the next generation, and that's good for everyone because we'll be sharing the country with those people.
Why do people think because you worked hard to give to your children when you die your kids should suffer and give up almost half of what their parents worked for.
Why do people think because you worked hard to give to your children when you die your kids should suffer and give up almost half of what their parents worked for.
Because said inheritance is due to a snowball effect that came from earned profits via the enslaved work of blacks for that ancestor and said lack of inheritance for the blacks is inversely due to their ancestors being slaves. It's not as simple as inherited money necessarily being worked for.
Because said inheritance is due to a snowball effect that came from earned profits via the enslaved work of blacks for that ancestor and said lack of inheritance for the blacks is inversely due to their ancestors being slaves. It's not as simple as inherited money necessarily being worked for.
Curious to what extent the contemporary racial wealth disparity is directly attributable to the slavery as opposed to racism and other factors in the intervening time period.
Anyone in America can do what they want. My parents came here with nada and worked minimum wage jobs. Hispanic immigrants come legally and work crappy jobs. Anyone can do that. Problem is people won’t because they believe things like reparations will solve all their problems. Nothing in this world is free - you have to work hard to achieve it. If you work hard, you can do it.
Here’s the problem with taxation. No matter how much you tax rich people in any bill, they’ll find loopholes around it with the help of their politician buddies. You never will make it easier to tax the rich cause they have connections everywhere. What you can do is help the lower class people pay less taxes.
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@ILikePie5
or flat tax, but those kinds of policies destroy crony capitalism, and that's UnAmerican...
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@ILikePie5
Here’s the problem with taxation. No matter how much you tax rich people in any bill, they’ll find loopholes around it with the help of their politician buddies. You never will make it easier to tax the rich cause they have connections everywhere. What you can do is help the lower class people pay less taxes.
You mean the GoP?
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@Death23
You mean the GoP?
You’re blind if you can’t tell that both sides do it
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@ILikePie5
You’re blind if you can’t tell that both sides do it
One far more than the other