Alan Keyes proposes slave reparations

[CShine 0]

He suggests it with a right-wing twist, a tax cut.

American descendants of African slaves should be exempted from US federal taxes for a generation or two to compensate them for the state-sanctioned exploitation of their ancestors, an aspiring US Senate hopeful declared.

Former US ambassador and Republican Senate hopeful Alan Keyes suggested the tax exemption, saying it would present a fitting solution to the question of slavery reparations, because slavery "was an egregious failure on the part of the federal establishment."

The reparations issue continues to fester, with some blacks seeking financial redress in the courts, while a majority of black politicians would prefer a congressional commission to study the impact of slavery on African-Americans.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...us_vote_slavery

[LegalEagle 22]

Yep, that's your mainstream Republican "cut taxes to get elected" mindset for ya! Face it, as a Republican you buy votes or stay home! *grin*

[TitanTiger 20,499]

As opposed to the mainstream Democrat "more federal wealth redistribution programs" to get elected mindset. Face it, as a Democrat, you buy votes with other people's money, or you're not a Democrat!

[TexasTiger 12,947]

As opposed to the mainstream Democrat "more federal wealth redistribution programs" to get elected mindset. Face it, as a Democrat, you buy votes with other people's money, or you're not a Democrat!

Actually, it is largely the Red states that recieve a disporportional share of federal revenue compared to what they pay in taxes. New Yorkers subsidize Alabama. Republican politicians take money from Dem strongholds and give it to Republican strongholds.

[TitanTiger 20,499]

As opposed to the mainstream Democrat "more federal wealth redistribution programs" to get elected mindset.  Face it, as a Democrat, you buy votes with other people's money, or you're not a Democrat! 

Actually, it is largely the Red states that recieve a disporportional share of federal revenue compared to what they pay in taxes. New Yorkers subsidize Alabama. Republican politicians take money from Dem strongholds and give it to Republican strongholds.

This is true...but then again it was true even under Democratic controlled Congresses and administrations. Not exactly a Republican tactic.

Plus, I was making a parallel to appeals to individuals in the same way LegalEagle was. Tax cuts for certain people to "buy" votes versus federal entitlements to "buy" votes.

And for the record, I disagree with Mr. Keyes. Not one African American alive picked one piece of cotton as a slave and not one white American alive ever owned a slave. You don't punish those who have done nothing wrong and you don't reward those who suffered no injury.

[TexasTiger 12,947]

As opposed to the mainstream Democrat "more federal wealth redistribution programs" to get elected mindset.  Face it, as a Democrat, you buy votes with other people's money, or you're not a Democrat! 

Actually, it is largely the Red states that recieve a disporportional share of federal revenue compared to what they pay in taxes. New Yorkers subsidize Alabama. Republican politicians take money from Dem strongholds and give it to Republican strongholds.

This is true...but then again it was true even under Democratic controlled Congresses and administrations. Not exactly a Republican tactic.

Plus, I was making a parallel to appeals to individuals in the same way LegalEagle was. Tax cuts for certain people to "buy" votes versus federal entitlements to "buy" votes.

And for the record, I disagree with Mr. Keyes. Not one African American alive picked one piece of cotton as a slave and not one white American alive ever owned a slave. You don't punish those who have done nothing wrong and you don't reward those who suffered no injury.

Mostly agree.

Are there Republican constituents that you believe financially benefit from Republican politicians, other than through tax cuts?

And how many entitlement programs have Republicans ended?

[TrueBlue72 0]

And many entitlement programs have Republicans STARTED????? It is unfortunate, but once in place, these things are almost impossible to end.

[TitanTiger 20,499]

Are there Republican constituents that you believe financially benefit from Republican politicians, other than through tax cuts?

And how many entitlement programs have Republicans ended?

1. I'm sure there are. Corporate welfare comes to mind.

2. Far too few. But part of that problem is more of a lack of political will in the face of Democrats screaming bloody murder every time a program is on the chopping block.

[WarTim 3,456]

I am 100% behind the idea of reparations. Each and every slave ALIVE today should be paid.

[eibua12 81]

I was trying to craft the words in my head but found this instead. THis should fire up this conversation

Not going to quote them all.

Britain was in rule at the time of first enslavement of people in the North America

Arrival of first Africans to Virginia Colony

From Indentured Servitude to Racial Slavery

I like this quoted... so what about the Caribbean just because they are not industrialized doesn't mean they shouldn't pay...

Gradually the plantation owners' perspective became more aligned with that of the plantation owners of the Caribbean Islands. Because they were not Christians, blacks could be forced to work for the rest of their lives and be punished with impunity. Moreover, the color of their skin set them apart, making it easy to identify runaways. Also, there was a seemingly inexhaustible supply of Africans, and since little information flowed back across the Atlantic, mistreatment and abuse in America did not alter the flow of enslaved persons from Africa

Just one view of the world. Does this mean I can sue the Virgina Company or Britian?

I included the biblography just in case you need additional research

Indentured Servitude in Colonial America

By Deanna Barker, Frontier Resources 

   

     

  One half to two thirds of all immigrants to Colonial America arrived as indentured servants. At times, as many as 75% of the population of some colonies were under terms of indenture. Even on the frontier, according to the 1790 U.S. Census, 6% of the Kentucky population was indentured.

Citizens of the colonies would deal with indenture on a daily basis. My intent is to give the reenactor or interpreter some of the background about working beside, owning or having been an indentured servant.

This was a labor system, not a system of apprenticeship. (Galenson, 6) The historic basis for indenture grew out of English agricultural servitude and began because of labor shortages in England and in the colonies. It developed at a time when England had a great number of people being displaced from farming. This led to an early growth of the indentured labor system.

The importation of white servants under contracts known as indentures proved more profitable as a short-term labor source than enslaving Indians or using free labor. Eventually, the final attempt to ease labor shortages was enslavement of Africans. Wherever you find slavery, you first find indentures.

A labor-intensive cash crop such as tobacco required a large work force. The earliest indentured servants were brought to Virginia as farm laborers. The importance of indenture can be seen in Virginia, where in 1618 the colony offered a headright, a grant of 50 acres per servant, as an incentive to planters to import more servants from England. The headright became the property of the owner, not the servant. (Galenson, 12) According to Galenson, "the basic elements of the system were in use by the Virginia Company by 1620, and may have been worked out earlier ..."(3)

In practice, the servant would sell himself to an agent or ship captain before leaving the British Isles. In turn, the contract would be sold to a buyer in the colonies to recover the cost of the passage. The crossing in steerage was grim. One indentured servant, Thomas Morally, was given three biscuits a day to eat and each mess of five men was given three pints of water per day.

Criminals convicted of a capital crime in England could be transported in lieu of a death sentance (for the theft of an item with a cost of as little as one shilling). Servitude also could result from indebtedness, where a person, their spouse or parents owed money, and the person was sold into servitude to recover the debt. In other cases, a parish indentured orphans in order to keep them off the poor roles. Plus, the poor sometimes sold themselves into indenture just to survive.

In most cases, the work of the indentured servant would be household or agricultural unskilled labor. There was also a great demand for skilled craftsmen. If an indentured servant had a skill that was in demand, like weaving, smithing or carpentry, the change of negotiating a shorter contract was quite good.

In theory, the person is only selling his or her labor. In practice, however, indentured servants were basically slaves and the courts enforced the laws that made it so. The treatment of the servant was harsh and often brutal. In fact, the Virginia Colony prescribed "bodily punishment for not heeding the commands of the master." (Ballagh, 45) Half the servants died in the first two years. As a result of this type of treatment, runaways were frequent. The courts realized this was a problem and started to demand that everyone have identification and travel papers. (A.E. Smith 264-270).

If a servant worked their full indenture, they received freedom dues, which were based on Hebrew law from the Old Testament. (Deut. 15:12-15) Many colonies also granted land to the newly freed servant.

As reenactors of the eighteenth century, every one of us would interact with indentured servants on a daily basis. A fairly large number of us would have been servants at one time. Yet, at most reenactments, this institution is noticeably lacking, along with travel papers and identification papers. As an early Virginian, John Pory, put it, "Our principal wealth ... consisteth in servants." (Galenson 3)

Bibliography:

James Curtis Ballagh. White Servitude in the Colony of Virginia. Baltimore MD: John Hopkins University Press, 1895.

Fredrick M. Binder & David M. Reimers. The way we lived: Essays and Documents in American Social History, Vol. 1; 1607-1877. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath & Co., 1992.

Phyllis Cunnington; Costume of Household Servants from the Middle Ages to 1900. London, UK; Harper and Row Publishers, Inc., 1974.

Joseph Doddridge; Notes on the Settlement and Indian Wars. Parsons, WV: McClain Printing Co., 1996.

David W. Galson; White Servatude in Colonial America: An Economic Analysis. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1981.

W. Preston Haynie (Ed.) Northumberland County Virginia Records of Indentured Servants 1650-1795. Heritage Books, Inc., 1996.

Peter Kolchin. American Slavery 1619-1877. New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 1993.

Abbot Emerson Smith; Colonists in Bondage: White Servitude and Convict Labor in America, 1607-1776. Chapel Hill, NC.: University of North Carolina, 1947.

Warren B. Smith: White Servitude in Colonial South Carolina. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1961.

Charles Woodmason; Journal of C.W. Clerk.

[Tigermike 3,035]

I am 100% behind the idea of reparations. Each and every slave ALIVE today should be paid.

Those reparations should also be paid by any and all former slave owners still living!

[Tigermike 3,035]

Riven by Reparations

The Price of Slavery

Several high-profile lawsuits filed recently in this country are seeking redress for slavery and other racial wrongs, focusing national attention on the re-emerging question of reparations. Climenko professor of law Charles Ogletree Jr. leads a team suing Tulsa, Oklahoma, for the racial violence of 1921 that killed 300 and destroyed the African-American community of Greenwood. And lawyers who won multibillion-dollar awards from European companies for Holocaust victims have filed class-action suits against several large corporations on behalf of descendents of American slaves.

The reparations issue is an old one. On January 16, 1865, U.S. Army General William Tecumseh Sherman granted the now legendary "40 acres and a mule" to 40,000 freed slaves along the Atlantic coast. In March, a month before the Confederate surrender, Congress authorized giving Southern blacks 40 acres to farm for three years. But after Lincoln's assassination, Andrew Johnson overturned both these acts.

Since then, Americans have repeatedly debated the reparations-for-slavery issue, but very little empirical research clarifies the opinions that blacks and whites hold on the subject, says professor of government and Afro-American studies Michael Dawson, Ph.D. '86. A recent study that he did with Rovana Popoff of the University of Chicago, however, investigates what separates those who favor reparations from those who oppose them.

Dawson and Popoff analyzed data from a larger survey that Dawson had conducted earlier with Lawrence Bobo, Diker professor of Afro-American studies and professor of sociology. The researchers asked 831 blacks and 724 whites whether they support federal initiatives — specifically, apologies and monetary payments — to address past wrongs, both against African Americans for slavery and Japanese Americans for internment during World War II. (The survey posed the questions hypothetically, although in 1988, the U.S. government actually paid $20,000 to every Japanese American who had been interned.)

Most blacks surveyed (75 percent) — but only 43 percent of whites — favored a governmental apology to Japanese Americans. An even larger majority of blacks (79 percent) supported an apology to African Americans, although even fewer whites (30 percent) did so, opening up a huge "race gap" of 49 percentage points. Regarding monetary reparations to descendents of slaves, two out of three blacks voiced support, against a mere sliver (4 percent) of the white respondents, creating a racial gulf of 63 points.

"These numbers are relatively shocking by any standard," says Dawson. "When we talk about gender gaps in American politics, we're talking about gaps of 5 to 15 percent. Here we're talking about gaps of the order of 50 to more than 60 percent." Deeply polarized perceptions of racial equality (or its lack) are a major factor underlying the overwhelming disparities. While a majority of white respondents (64 percent) thought that blacks had achieved or would soon achieve equality, an even larger majority (78 percent) of blacks believed the opposite: that African Americans would not achieve racial equality in their lifetimes, or that they would never achieve equality.

Racial politics, in fact, trump all other factors — age, gender, education, and political party — affecting support or opposition to federal reparations. Among whites, affluence and education do not mean a more liberal stance. Although slightly more white women than white men support an apology for World War II internment, white men and women of all backgrounds almost unanimously (96 percent) oppose monetary reparations for slavery. Among blacks, women are more likely to favor reparations, but more affluent blacks of both sexes are less likely to support federal payments for either slavery or World War II internment.

One highly significant predictor of support for apology and reparations to African Americans held true for both black and white respondents. "Attachment to George Bush, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Colin Powell all have the same effect, which is to suppress support for reparations and apology. Attachment to Louis Farrakhan, Al Sharpton, or Jesse Jackson has the opposite effect. It leads blacks to be more supportive of reparations," Dawson explains. "So the key here is not, as many of us would expect, political party or race, but whether one is inside or outside the conventional electoral system."

Perceptions of fair play also have an effect, Dawson says, noting that whites who believed that the economic system is unfair are 5 percent more likely to support reparations. On the other hand, those whites who thought that nothing should be done about possible black disenfranchisement in the 2000 election — even if disenfranchisement had occurred — were much less likely to support an apology.

What most surprises Dawson is the hostility he and other academics encounter when they discuss these issues in public. "I'm surprised by how visceral a reaction this issue provokes, even when people present the arguments neutrally," he says. "It's very easy for opponents to dismiss the other side out of hand." Dawson hopes to encourage further debate, and concern, about the enormous differences in black and white perceptions of racial politics. "Talking about these issues is not going to create these issues. The issues are there," Dawson says. "Therefore the task for the nation is: How do we address the divisions underlying these beliefs — and the emotions that are attached to them — and move forward?"

~Harbour Fraser Hodder

http://www.harvardmagazine.com/on-line/050319.html

[TexasTiger 12,947]

Are there Republican constituents that you believe financially benefit from Republican politicians, other than through tax cuts?

And how many entitlement programs have Republicans ended?

1. I'm sure there are. Corporate welfare comes to mind.

2. Far too few. But part of that problem is more of a lack of political will in the face of Democrats screaming bloody murder every time a program is on the chopping block.

This is largely true, but don't you agree that a lack of political will stems from a lack of true conviction? You seem to imply the fault lies with the screaming Dems. Well, if that is their positon and they fight for it then the voters can decide how to respond to that. If the Republicans refuse to fight for their supposed convictions, are they really convictions at all?

Republicans keep talking about the same issues, but they now control both houses of Congress and the Presidency. What is their legislative agenda? Political payoffs, via rolling back regulation on corporations? Passing an entitlement program, i.e. drug bill, that is very expensive and favors pharmaceutical companies to boot? I would suggest that few Republicans are willing to take any political heat for significantly cutting any entitlement program (hell, they added one!) and prefer to keep it as a "hot button" issue to fire up their base, i.e., b@tch about it, blame the evil Dems, but do nothing.

Do you disagree?

[DKW 86 7,426]

As Reagan said: " The closes thing to everlasting life you will ever see on earth is an entitlement program."

BTW, Someone know of an entitlement program the Dems even tried to end?

[TexasTiger 12,947]

As Reagan said: " The closes thing to everlasting life you will ever see on earth is an entitlement program."

BTW, Someone know of an entitlement program the Dems even tried to end?

Well, Clinton reformed Welfare as we know it with Republican support, but ending entitlements isn't exactly a red meat Dem issue. It is a rallying cry for Republicans. Read this board for example. Ya'll b*tch about them constantly, but expect nothing from you Republican controlled government. If I believed half the stuff some of you guys do, I'd be very disappointed in Bush, Delay and others failing to deliver-- or to even fight the good fight.

[TexasTiger 12,947]

Are there Republican constituents that you believe financially benefit from Republican politicians, other than through tax cuts?

And how many entitlement programs have Republicans ended?

1. I'm sure there are. Corporate welfare comes to mind.

2. Far too few. But part of that problem is more of a lack of political will in the face of Democrats screaming bloody murder every time a program is on the chopping block.

This is largely true, but don't you agree that a lack of political will stems from a lack of true conviction? You seem to imply the fault lies with the screaming Dems. Well, if that is their positon and they fight for it then the voters can decide how to respond to that. If the Republicans refuse to fight for their supposed convictions, are they really convictions at all?

Republicans keep talking about the same issues, but they now control both houses of Congress and the Presidency. What is their legislative agenda? Political payoffs, via rolling back regulation on corporations? Passing an entitlement program, i.e. drug bill, that is very expensive and favors pharmaceutical companies to boot? I would suggest that few Republicans are willing to take any political heat for significantly cutting any entitlement program (hell, they added one!) and prefer to keep it as a "hot button" issue to fire up their base, i.e., b@tch about it, blame the evil Dems, but do nothing.

Do you disagree?

How 'bout it, Titan?

[TitanTiger 20,499]

Are there Republican constituents that you believe financially benefit from Republican politicians, other than through tax cuts?

And how many entitlement programs have Republicans ended?

1. I'm sure there are. Corporate welfare comes to mind.

2. Far too few. But part of that problem is more of a lack of political will in the face of Democrats screaming bloody murder every time a program is on the chopping block.

This is largely true, but don't you agree that a lack of political will stems from a lack of true conviction? You seem to imply the fault lies with the screaming Dems. Well, if that is their positon and they fight for it then the voters can decide how to respond to that. If the Republicans refuse to fight for their supposed convictions, are they really convictions at all?

Republicans keep talking about the same issues, but they now control both houses of Congress and the Presidency. What is their legislative agenda? Political payoffs, via rolling back regulation on corporations? Passing an entitlement program, i.e. drug bill, that is very expensive and favors pharmaceutical companies to boot? I would suggest that few Republicans are willing to take any political heat for significantly cutting any entitlement program (hell, they added one!) and prefer to keep it as a "hot button" issue to fire up their base, i.e., b@tch about it, blame the evil Dems, but do nothing.

Do you disagree?

How 'bout it, Titan?

Sorry, I read it yesterday but couldn't answer right then and forgot.

I'd say that they shrink in the face of screaming Dems because they don't do a good job of explaining their positions and why they want to get rid of an obsolete program or entitlement. And frankly, this is where a better job by the media would come into play. They need to do a better job of helping explain the particulars of these positions instead of just relying on each side's talking points for their reporting.

You're probably right about some or possibly even most of the Republicans. They are all hellfire and brimstone until they actually get elected. Then it becomes about staying elected. That's one reason I'd like to see a constitutional amendment putting in term limits just like we have for the President. If you know you only get a certain number of years in office no matter what, it lessens the temptation to keep compromising your convictions in election year.

And I think you'd have to agree...all the years of Democratically controlled Congresses, even with Democratic presidents and the same problems they bitch about and blame the 'Pubs for are still there. It cuts both ways.

[TexasTiger 12,947]

And I think you'd have to agree...all the years of Democratically controlled Congresses, even with Democratic presidents and the same problems they bitch about and blame the 'Pubs for are still there. It cuts both ways.

The Senate has moved back and forth, but I think Dems had begun to think that controlling the House was the natural order of things. You may be able to remind me what they blamed the Republicans for then-- I mostly remember them taking House control for granted. I also think that even though many blame Clinton for losing the House in '94 that their own hubris had at least as much to do with it. I think Clinton came in with more bi-partisan tendencies, but was encouraged by Foley and others to not engage the Republicans as much as was probably his inclination. That's why I think he was actually more comfortable, at least in some ways, in his second term when he had to work with Republicans to get anything done. Except for that impeachment thing.