Thought experiment. Unlimited funds

The proposal he is talking about in the OP is paying reparations to people. For that proposal to be meaningful, the money must have value and impact. To pretend it doesn’t as a prerequisite for the thought exercise is to then ask a meaningless question.

It would be different if he were to ask, “ignoring the  value of money, where would you go on vacation?” That’s a legitimate thought exercise because the vacation and the money are separate things.

But he is essentially asking, “ignoring the value money has, would you agree or disagree that we should spend money on a vacation?”

That question is different, and nonsensical.

I guess he’s trying to see if racism, rather then economics, is the “real” reason people disagree with reparations.

But the fact is, you can’t use ignoring the value money has as a prerequisite for discussing whether or not money should be spent on someone or something.

You can find my comments anyway that you wish but it doesn't change the fact that I did pose more than a few questions to you as well. Perhaps I'm trying to figure out how you think in a manner similar to yours. None of which you answered but if you look I did answer yours with a "No".

I also told you why, twice. It has to do with who and how you will determine and distribute them and zero to do with anything else.


With that out of the way, let's start again in a more civil tone since you seem to think that I was being angry. Please address the questions I asked you.

Fine. The answer is still no for the same reasons. Why? If I say yes, which is a position that I can be convinced to be empathetic to, then I will have to attach the same caveats which is why Maestro likley told you that your question is flawed. Convince me that real descedants of slaves will be the only ones to get it and how you will control fraud and people being given them based solely on skin color. Hence my bureaucracy concern.  Likewise the only ones who should pay the reparations are the descendants of slave owners. That is only fair to people whose descendants did not come here until the late 19th or early 20th cenuiry let alone anyone one who came here even more recently.

That is a position that should be shared by everyone not only conservatives. Which still leads me to why you are only asking conservatives unless you are implying that non-conservatives are willing to just throw money at the issue. Something I pointed out to you earlier.

Between myself and Maestro I hope you are getting why the question is inherently flawed and why I find it biased since you only want to hear from conservatives. It comes across as agenda driven and made on the assumption that conservatives automatically will say no; which I just proved to be fallicious.

Now if you want to drill down only on the word deserve then the answer is still no. The slaves deserved it but their descenadants especially modern day ones have the ability to earn not be given a handout. Again as token payment in acknowledment it was wrong might be worthy if done properly. Tossing money to descenadants genearations later with no checks and balances, still no.

And then you will also use as criteria those decedents from slave owners to pay the reparation fee's correct?

90% of all current violent crime is committed by gangs, 50% are hispanic, 35% black, according to the fbi assessment on gang activity in the us....the rest of gangs are white and asian, etc....should we add up the cost of all violent crime in cities and divide that cost by race on a race based prorata basis...

I can make a much more compelling argument for that than I can making whites, many of whom came after slavery ended pay reparations to another race, for something that happened centuries ago....

would africa also be chipping in a third, since they represented 1/3rd of the trade benefit....

also, what about black slave owners, how do blacks in the US help pay reparations

I'm not a conservative, but this is an issue I've puzzled over for a long time.

I'm not opposed, in principle, to reparations to the African American community. I'm just not sure there's anything that can be done? Ask any poor lottery winner how that worked out for them. And we're not even talking about "lottery winning" numbers here. Reparations would probably give blacks what ... twenty grand? There'd be some new cars bought. Maybe a bitchin sound system or two. Then what?

Affirmative action has been our attempt at reparations for a few decades now. It's having an impact and is helping. But it's not enough. There's a culture of hopelessness and despair in many African American communities brought about by well over a century of being kneecapped and stopped every time they've made attempts to better themselves. Those obstacles were removed over a generation ago. But when you grow up in a culture of "it's hopeless" ... you develop an attitude of "it's hopeless."

Give them land? The 40 acres and a mule they were originally promised as reparations after the war? Well, we saw how that worked out for the native population. Give them the shittiest of land ... and when they figure out how to turn it into ranchland, dam the rivers to cut off water supplies so they can't compete with their white ranching neighbors. What land would we give them?

Unlimited funds just makes the conundrum worse.

The change has to happen within these despair ridden African American communities. Kevin Hart doesn't need reparations. Lebron James doesn't need reparations. Colin Kaepernick doesn't need reparations. There's all kinds of problems with this type of approach. Making poor Hispanic immigrants pay so Lebron James gets a check isn't justice either.

The best thing we can do for the African American community is make sure they can find a job. And nobody has done better at that than Trump. There's a reason Black Lives Matter was silent until the shutdowns made George Floyd unessential.

Queshank