"Our country is so
divided." You hear that a lot
lately. In politics, it is a fact, not
fiction. Republicans vs. Democrats,
conservatives vs. liberals. If one side
says it is “white” the other claims it is “black”. (I’m not talking about skin
color but perhaps that phrase will come under attack one day and be stricken
from literature like Robert E. Lee statues are being hauled off pedestals
across the south).
Of course, we have
always been a politically stagnant country.
Stuck in the two party system there have only been a handful of 20th/21st
Century independent parties; including the Prohibition Party, the Libertarian
Party, the Green Independent Party, and the Constitution Party, to name a
few. Interestingly, in the 1900
election, the Prohibition Party presidential candidate, John G. Wooley, got a
whopping 1.5 % of the vote. In 2016, the
Libertarian party’s nominee, Gary Johnson, got a fairly impressive 3.2 % of the
popular vote. Not bad for someone who no
one remembers as the two major party candidates sucked all of the air and
airtime out of the election space.
BTW, if you would like to see
a women finally become president, you have an opportunity in 2020. Vote for the
Libertarian candidate, Jo Jorgenson.
What? You never heard of her?
Check out: joj2020.com. I am not
promoting her candidacy, but she does have a fairly balanced agenda, being
fiscally conservative and socially liberal. Don’t you think we need a new voice
of reason to calm the storm of political division and animosity in America? GoJo!
The divisions that
permeate our populous go much deeper than political party affiliations. Today,
the whole topic of racial injustice has people coming down on both sides of the
fence, regardless of their politics. Millions of people are rising up to support
the #Black Lives Matter movement. They
are taking on the complex and thorny issues of prejudice, bigotry, white
supremacy, and racial and economic inequalities. These are all issues that, for
the past century, have fostered dozens of pieces of legislation passed in an
effort to level the playing field for minorities. However, as I have said before, the laws
exist, but the enforcement is maculated, at best, and the change in human
hearts, which is required for real progress, is still in its infancy. Some of us are struggling to become toddlers.
Others don’t care to grow and change at all.
So many things are
circulating on social media these days that it is doing nothing but muddying
the waters and causing further divisions.
So, I thought I would take one of these hotly debated posts and attempt
to address both side of the issue in the pursuit of clarity. I will post on several of these arguments in
the coming days. My first is one you see
quite often now:
• People who have never owned slaves should pay
slavery reparations to people who have never been slaves.
One side says that descendants
of slaves should be compensated for the harm done to their forefathers by our
system of slavery in the United States and the ongoing effects of racism. The other side claims that there has been no
harm done to these people by a system that was abolished nearly one hundred and
fifty-five years ago, in 1865, and the freedoms guaranteed by the 13th
Amendment to the Constitution, passed in December of that year. Some four million African-Americans were
freed at that time. Some are saying that nearly seven generations later,
descendants of slaves should be compensated.
The only bill promoted in Congress that has ever addressed this issue
was the "Commission to Study Reparation Proposals
for African Americans Act," which former Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI)
proposed unsuccessfully to the United States Congress every year from 1989 until his resignation in 2017. The estimated cost of a fair reparation
value is anywhere between $1.4 to $4.7 trillion; or roughly the equivalent to $153,000 in 2020
for every black American, man, woman and child, living today.
Opponents say, first, the United States
already is $ 26 trillion in debt. An
argument against reparations looks for a source of money to pay them and finds
the cupboard bare. Second, most opponents of reparations claim there is no loss
for which these people should be compensated directly.
Proponents of reparations
say that the horror of slavery and its demise, brought about only after nearly
one million Americans lost their lives fighting over it during the Civil War,
put African-Americans in a hole from the very start of their “free” existence
and from which they have been unable to climb out. Reparations are looked at as a way to give
descendants of slaves the hand up they need to get out of the hole.
This is a tough one for me
because, while I agree that slavery was personally damaging to millions of black
slaves and deadly for so many, I want to see a more direct line of harm from
forefather to descendant after 155 years to justify financial remuneration. So I would propose a system whereby a person
who can verify they are direct descendants, can prove they have been harmed in
any way by the slavery that ensnared their forefathers and/or are below
the poverty line should be eligible to receive federal assistance with housing,
education, job training, social and emotional counseling, financial guidance as
well as freedom from paying federal, state and local income taxes for life. I
have no idea what that would cost but my guess it is going to be less than
giving every black American one hundred and fifty grand, no strings attached.
Next Up:
• People who have never been to college should pay the debts of college
students who took out huge loans for their degrees.
I welcome your critique and
alternative solutions you might want to share.
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