When asked about reparations, here is what AOC said (translation - "oh shit, don't ask me about that!"):

Well, you know it’s a good question, I think that one of the things that we’ve seen her from early polling, actually, is that I think that we should distance ourselves and start getting away from this idea that that we should only care about ourselves. Because when we really do start to assert and believe and understand and see how how our destinies are tied, it doesn’t, you kind of get away from this idea that only people of you know people of color care about other people of color, and only white people care about other white people, and so on.

There are a lot of systems that we have to dismantle, but it also it does get into this interesting area of where we are as a country, about identity. Because, like, what does it mean to be black, who is black and who isn’t, especially as our country becomes more biracial and multiracial.

Same with being Latino, same thing… it brings up all these questions like passing, and you know, things like that. But I do think it is important that we have to have substantive conversations about race beyond beyond, like, what is racist and what is not, and if someone says something racist does that make them racist, like, we need to get away from talking — well, not that we have to get away from talking about racism, it’s important that we talk about racism — but because we talked about racism so much, we actually aren’t talking about race itself. And we aren’t educating ourselves about our own history to come to the conclusion that I think we need to come too.

https://www.mediaite.com/...eparations-question/

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If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR

Biggest leap of illogic I've seen here in a while (and that is saying a lot). I don't happen to agree with reparations (but they were granted to Japanese internment victims). Not sure on which planet that is automatically a call for Civil War.

People will eventually say "enough is enough". You're going to take money out of the pocket of one group to give it to another group because of something that happened centuries ago. So you're pitting one group against another. That's how you get civil wars.

I had relatives on the Mayflower.. I want a FOUNDERS FEE

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Just Triing
Triathlete since 9:56:39 AM EST Aug 20, 2006.
Be kind English is my 2nd language. My primary language is Dave it's a unique evolution of English.

Uh ... Jamestown?

I had relatives that died fighting for the North. Will I be exempt from paying for this?

Too many variables and permutations for reparations to be managed by the government.

My family mostly got here in the 1870's, do I get a pro-rated bill?

The argument is that you and I benefited from the systemic exploitation of slaves and subsequent discrimination. And, more convincingly to me, that blacks were prohibited/hindered from acquiring wealth and that issue echoes down through generations.

But that real quickly becomes a problem because my family's wealth didn't echo very well, and most people are in that same boat. And a lot of people not descended from slaves had similar discrimination. And a lot of people's families got here after the fact. And the list goes on.

The fact is, we really fucked up. We held on to slavery a lot longer than many other countries. After we technically got rid of slavery we had defacto slavery. After that faded we had horrible discrimination. That went on for decades.

I just don't see how to make reparations work. 1870-1900 would have been a real good time for that.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

Gotcha!!! Elizabeth Warren is going to sue you for your Founders Fee AND interest.

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"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."

I thought we called everything even with the distribution of Obama Phone?

Nope. You Ben Affleck. Pay up, bitch!

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If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR

You are white and that is good enough to make you pay. Here in Canada the government has endlessly apologized to natives, endlessly paying them compensations and now the natives are pushing to declare whites' action against them a genocide. Why should I pay for it when I wasn't even in the country where it has all happened?

It's called "Ben Affleck Syndrome."

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If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR

what if you are only partially Ben Afflecked ... and that part is Irish and might have been a slave as well... I aint paying.

So, you are going to secede over a debate on reparations? Interned Japanese got reparations in 1988, you are aware of this, right? Is there some civil war that it set off that I am not aware of? Right now, all sorts of states suck a ton of money from richer states, in terms of federal taxes and outlays. Before you post, take a really long look at the list of states that are net beneficiaries, and net losers, and think through how absurd your argument is.

You understand that was granted to actual internees who suffered a loss during WWII, right?

Take a long look at this law and the proposed reparations and think through how absurd your argument it.

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If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR

If you're a white American whose ancestors were in this country more than 2-3 generations prior to your birth, you absolutely have benefitted economically from the system of slavery and the subsequent racist systems that followed in its aftermath. It's not just slavery, but the economic and "justice" systems that followed it. Anti-black systems didn't die off with the death of indentured servitude and they definitely haven't died off in the ~60 years following civil rights legislation.

Whether or not economic reparations are the right answer to remedy wrongs is another point of discussion, but there's no doubt white Americans of all sorts have benefitted economically -- and unjustly -- from American racism going all the way back to our roots and continuing for centuries beyond.

You seem to have completely missed the core point I was making. PrinceMax has stated that this debate will lead to civil war.

I stated that I don't agree with reparations in general, but it obviously isn't Civil-War-starting material, do you actually think that it is? Furthermore, his entire basis is a weak "government taking my money" which ignores just how small this amount is in the context of present taxation, and how much some areas of the country already benefit.

You fixated on 1988 reparations, which was merely an example of how minor the debate on a reparations issue (which has been floating around for deacdes) really is (or should be). It has never Civil-War material, and it never will be. That is my argument. If you are going to say that my argument is absurd, you are going to have work on the reading comprehension to understand the argument.

I think we can all agree to let you tell the roughly 14 million+ white Americans living at or below the poverty line that they are beneficiaries of unfair economic discrimination against African Americans and that they need to fork over some reparations money.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

First, this bill has to be passed so then you could read it.

Then our ever efficient government will set up a new office requiring 15-20,000 government employees to manage the new program.
They will realize more processes and measure need to be implemented which in turn requires hiring another 5-10,000 employees.

This post is so intellectually dishonest you should take your own advice.

Are you talking a different proposed bill?

HR 40 https://www.congress.gov/...s/house-bill/40/text
This bill establishes the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans to examine slavery and discrimination in the colonies and the United States from 1619 to the present and recommend appropriate remedies.
Purpose.—The purpose of this Act is to establish a commission to study and develop Reparation proposals for African-Americans as a result of—[/url]
(1) the institution of slavery, including both the Trans-Atlantic and the domestic “trade” which existed from 1565 in colonial Florida and from 1619 through 1865 within the other colonies that became the United States, and which included the Federal and State governments which constitutionally and statutorily supported the institution of slavery;
[/url]
(2) the de jure and de facto discrimination against freed slaves and their descendants from the end of the Civil War to the present, including economic, political, educational, and social discrimination;
[/url]
(3) the lingering negative effects of the institution of slavery and the discrimination described in paragraphs (1) and (2) on living African-Americans and on society in the United States;
[/url]
(4) the manner in which textual and digital instructional resources and technologies are being used to deny the inhumanity of slavery and the crime against humanity of people of African descent in the United States;
[/url]
(5) the role of Northern complicity in the Southern based institution of slavery;
[/url]
(6) the direct benefits to societal institutions, public and private, including higher education, corporations, religious and associational;
[/url]
(7) and thus, recommend appropriate ways to educate the American public of the Commission’s findings;
[/url]
(8) and thus, recommend appropriate remedies in consideration of the Commission’s findings on the matters described in paragraphs (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), and (6); and
[/url]
(9) submit to the Congress the results of such examination, together with such recommendations.



All this bill would do is set up a commission to study and recommend. There are no proposed reparations here.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

Please elaborate. Is it intellectually dishonest to point out that federal funds are diverted ALL THE TIME, and that if he is going to complain about money taken from taxpayers and given to others, he needs to soberly examine all the ways that it happens presently.

I'll ask again: Do you personally think that this debate on reparations will set off a civil war?

Once you back out New Mexico, Mississippi, and West Virginia (which are demonstrably on federal "welfare"), over 86% of the remaining difference between federal taxes paid and federal expenditures/transfers in/to a state are explained by defense expenditures (relevant time period: 1980-2000, doubt it's changed much since I did that research). I'd be willing to chalk up the rest to a combination of bureaucratic incompetence and which politicians are better at getting "pork" for their constituents.

You never asked me doofus. Directly set off an analogue to the War of Northern Aggression, no I do not. I answered your question now please compare and contrast how the 1988 reparations worked with how these could work paying special attention to eligibility and the actual recipients. You can use both sides of the paper.

I see this notion gaining traction a lot, but this is a not universally held position amongst economists. Furthermore, while you could possible make this argument for some people in a large urban areas (although I still think it's a stretch), I think you would be hard pressed to argue that rural whites in the much of the country probably had much benefit at all. For example, perhaps you could tell me how white immigrants in Minnesota's Iron Range benefitted economically from either slavery or "economic" systems that came afterwards, while they scrabbled out an existence in mines (with a lot of immigrants being seriously exploited by the mine owners) and on farms deep in the woods of Northern Minnesota. And one could take that argument to many different places in the US.

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