From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Thu Aug 02 2001 - 16:37:39 MDT
Lee Corbin wrote:
>
> William Kitchen writes
>
> > My own view of "reparations" is that making me pay for the crimes
> > of long-dead slave owners is no more rational than holding the
> > descendents of the slaves responsible. I have no more control
> > over those events than they do. This "reparations silliness" is
> > much more than just silliness. It vilifies modern day whites not
> > for doing something wrong, but just for being the same race as
> > someone who did something wrong.
>
> Some of us who oppose reparations fail, I think, to fully
> take into account one of the chief arguments of those who
> do. As one of them explained, recently, it's not so much
> individuals, or perhaps even racial groups, that they
> want held accountable. They want entire *nations*, i.e.,
> the collective state that to them is the legitimate
> embodiment of "the people" to be held accountable. Quite
> a few libertarians easily forget that collectivists really
> do see states and nations not only as valid abstractions
> (which I do too) but as extremely necessary and very
> vital entities that in many ways are better, wiser, and
> more just than the mere individuals of a region.
I fully understand this, and is the main reason why I am opposed to
reparations, unless of course, I get to sue the British government for
recovery of the family land and property in Scotland....
I suppose next they'll want to sue people based on their religion too...
since it was those WASPs who did all the enslaving, and their
episcopalian churches all rationalized it. Then I suppose the native
americans will sue Spain for paying Columbus to discover the new
world...
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