This should help race relations....sigh....

[Udie]

http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/03/26/slavery.reparations/index.html


 Want to make some non-racist people racist?  This is a quick way to do it in my opinion.  I don't know who to be pissed at more, the lawyers or te race baters.

 Hopefuly it will be thrown out.....

[Sandman]

Another Article

I have a dream... I have a paycheck...

[midnight Target]

I read recently about an American POW from WW2 suing Mitsubishi (I think, large Japanese mining firm) for his unpaid slave labors during the war. If an existing company can be found liable for slave trading and or unpaid labor then what would be the difference?


edit:"Both Aetna and CSX said slavery was a regrettable chapter in U.S. history but the events in question occurred so long ago that a courtroom was not the proper venue to decide on reparations. "

Sounds like they are caving already.

[Sandman]

The POW did it personally.

The suit against CSX, Aetna, etc. is for treatment of people that are long since dead and buried as are the people that did this to them.

by David Horowitz.
Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Blacks is a Bad Idea for Blacks - and Racist Too (http://www.frontpagemag.com/notepad/default.htm)
 
One

There Is No Single Group Clearly Responsible For The Crime Of Slavery

Black Africans and Arabs were responsible for enslaving the ancestors of African-Americans. There were 3,000 black slave-owners in the ante-bellum United States. Are reparations to be paid by their descendants too?

Two

There Is No One Group That Benefited Exclusively From Its Fruits

The claim for reparations is premised on the false assumption that only whites have benefited from slavery. If slave labor created wealth for Americans, then obviously it has created wealth for black Americans as well, including the descendants of slaves. The GNP of black America is so large that it makes the African-American community the 10th most prosperous "nation" in the world. American blacks on average enjoy per capita incomes in the range of twenty to fifty times that of blacks living in any of the African nations from which they were kidnapped.

Three

Only A Tiny Minority Of White Americans Ever Owned Slaves, And Others Gave Their Lives To Free Them

Only a tiny minority of Americans ever owned slaves. This is true even for those who lived in the ante-bellum South where only one white in five was a slaveholder. Why should their descendants owe a debt? What about the descendants of the 350,000 Union soldiers who died to free the slaves? They gave their lives. What possible moral principle would ask them to pay (through their descendants) again?

Four

America Today Is A Multi-Ethnic Nation and Most Americans Have No Connection (Direct Or Indirect) To Slavery

The two great waves of American immigration occurred after 1880 and then after 1960. What rationale would require Vietnamese boat people, Russian refuseniks, Iranian refugees, and Armenian victims of the Turkish persecution, Jews, Mexicans Greeks, or Polish, Hungarian, Cambodian and Korean victims of Communism, to pay reparations to American blacks?

Five

The Historical Precedents Used To Justify The Reparations Claim Do Not Apply, And The Claim Itself Is Based On Race Not Injury

The historical precedents generally invoked to justify the reparations claim are payments to Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, Japanese-Americans and African- American victims of racial experiments in Tuskegee, or racial outrages in Rosewood and Oklahoma City. But in each case, the recipients of reparations were the direct victims of the injustice or their immediate families. This would be the only case of reparations to people who were not immediately affected and whose sole qualification to receive reparations would be racial. As has already been pointed out, during the slavery era, many blacks were free men or slave-owners themselves, yet the reparations claimants make no distinction between the roles blacks actually played in the injustice itself. Randall Robinson's book on reparations, The Debt, which is the manifesto of the reparations movement is pointedly sub-titled "What America Owes To Blacks." If this is not racism, what is?

Six

The Reparations Argument Is Based On The Unfounded Claim That All African-American Descendants of Slaves Suffer From The Economic Consequences Of Slavery And Discrimination

No evidence-based attempt has been made to prove that living individuals have been adversely affected by a slave system that was ended over 150 years ago. But there is plenty of evidence the hardships that occurred were hardships that individuals could and did overcome. The black middle-class in America is a prosperous community that is now larger in absolute terms than the black underclass. Does its existence not suggest that economic adversity is the result of failures of individual character rather than the lingering after-effects of racial discrimination and a slave system that ceased to exist well over a century ago? West Indian blacks in America are also descended from slaves but their average incomes are equivalent to the average incomes of whites (and nearly 25% higher than the average incomes of American born blacks). How is it that slavery adversely affected one large group of descendants but not the other? How can government be expected to decide an issue that is so subjective - and yet so critical - to the case?

Seven

The Reparations Claim Is One More Attempt To Turn African-Americans Into Victims. It Sends A Damaging Message To The African-American Community.

The renewed sense of grievance -- which is what the claim for reparations will inevitably create -- is neither a constructive nor a helpful message for black leaders to be sending to their communities and to others. To focus the social passions of African-Americans on what some Americans may have done to their ancestors fifty or a hundred and fifty years ago is to burden them with a crippling sense of victim-hood. How are the millions of refugees from tyranny and genocide who are now living in America going to receive these claims, moreover, except as demands for special treatment, an extravagant new handout that is only necessary because some blacks can't seem to locate the ladder of opportunity within reach of others -- many less privileged than themselves?

Eight

Reparations To African Americans Have Already Been Paid

Since the passage of the Civil Rights Acts and the advent of the Great Society in 1965, trillions of dollars in transfer payments have been made to African-Americans in the form of welfare benefits and racial preferences (in contracts, job placements and educational admissions) - all under the rationale of redressing historic racial grievances. It is said that reparations are necessary to achieve a healing between African-Americans and other Americans. If trillion dollar restitutions and a wholesale rewriting of American law (in order to accommodate racial preferences) for African-Americans is not enough to achieve a "healing," what will?

Nine

What About The Debt Blacks Owe To America?

Slavery existed for thousands of years before the Atlantic slave trade was born, and in all societies. But in the thousand years of its existence, there never was an anti-slavery movement until white Christians - Englishmen and Americans -- created one. If not for the anti-slavery attitudes and military power of white Englishmen and Americans, the slave trade would not have been brought to an end. If not for the sacrifices of white soldiers and a white American president who gave his life to sign the Emancipation Proclamation, blacks in America would still be slaves. If not for the dedication of Americans of all ethnicities and colors to a society based on the principle that all men are created equal, blacks in America would not enjoy the highest standard of living of blacks anywhere in the world, and indeed one of the highest standards of living of any people in the world. They would not enjoy the greatest freedoms and the most thoroughly protected individual rights anywhere. Where is the gratitude of black America and its leaders for those gifts?

Ten

The Reparations Claim Is A Separatist Idea That Sets African-Americans Against The Nation That Gave Them Freedom

Blacks were here before the Mayflower. Who is more American than the descendants of African slaves? For the African-American community to isolate itself even further from America is to embark on a course whose implications are troubling. Yet the African-American community has had a long-running flirtation with separatists, nationalists and the political left, who want African-Americans to be no part of America's social contract. African Americans should reject this temptation.

For all America's faults, African-Americans have an enormous stake in their country and its heritage. It is this heritage that is really under attack by the reparations movement. The reparations claim is one more assault on America, conducted by racial separatists and the political left. It is an attack not only on white Americans, but on all Americans -- especially African-Americans.

America's African-American citizens are the richest and most privileged black people alive -- a bounty that is a direct result of the heritage that is under assault. The American idea needs the support of its African-American citizens. But African-Americans also need the support of the American idea. For it is this idea that led to the principles and institutions that have set African-Americans - and all of us -- free.

Eleven - We gave the stinking Oscar to Halle Berry. What else do you want?

[midnight Target]

LOL, loved number 11.

You caught me, with the big spinner minnow out there.

My sons have brought up this "40 acres and a mule" promise that is popular among African Americans. I told them to go get a job to feed the dam mule, cause I aint keeping him. And if they ever get the 40 acres it'll probably be in Nebraska or Iowa or God forbid....Wyoming, and worth about $10 an acre.

[Udie]

Originally posted by midnight Target
I read recently about an American POW from WW2 suing Mitsubishi (I think, large Japanese mining firm) for his unpaid slave labors during the war. If an existing company can be found liable for slave trading and or unpaid labor then what would be the difference?


 First off we were at war with japan and the guy was a POW, not a slave.  Second, as regretable as it is slavery was once legal in this country.  That was a very bad injustice that was made right in the civil war at the cost of tens of thousands of lives.  The companies in question did nothing "ilegal" at the time.  It was all very unfortunately very legal for them to do what they did.  That would be like making beer ilegal today and arresting me tomorrow for drinking it last month.  Should I sue Egypt for the slaves they used?  How about the Sudan today?  

edit:"Both Aetna and CSX said slavery was a regrettable chapter in U.S. history but the events in question occurred so long ago that a courtroom was not the proper venue to decide on reparations. "

Sounds like they are caving already.

 God I hope not.  But you know I don't really blame them after 30 years of jessy jackson's extortion on American companies.  They are probobly scared toejameless.

 Nobody in my family ever owned a slave. Why in the hell should I have to pay for what somebody elses ancestors did?  Where's the justice in that?  How about the black ancestors of blacks who sold slaves in Africa? do they have to pay?  

 This looks like a snakey lawyers attempt to make an end run around something that he knows has zero chances of happening through the legislative branch.  They certainly have the right to file this suite, but I think it does race relations much more harm than good.  Yet another device to divide us......

[Udie]

Originally posted by midnight Target
LOL, loved number 11.

You caught me, with the big spinner minnow out there.

My sons have brought up this "40 acres and a mule" promise that is popular among African Americans. I told them to go get a job to feed the dam mule, cause I aint keeping him. And if they ever get the 40 acres it'll probably be in Nebraska or Iowa or God forbid....Wyoming, and worth about $10 an acre.

 hehe sounds like you gave them a good dose of reality

[Elfenwolf]

(clears throat, begins to get on soapbox but realizes there aren't enough Efluff'n Squelcher t-shirts to give out should I troll this issue, so puts on boxing gloves to prevent typing)

[mietla]

troll away

[Raubvogel]

Just another ridiculous waste of taxpayer money. So...if my relatives were serfs or slaves in medieval Europe, can I sue the modern government of Germany?

[Kratzer]

Watch yer mouths about Wyoming, punks.

[midnight Target]

No offense meant Kratzer, I am actually being approached by a firm in Casper. We've been dancing around the issue for a year now. He keeps saying he's going to fly me up there, but I think he's waiting for that good weather day.

The thought of slower pace and much fewer people kinda sounds good to me....even with the 40 below winters.

[GRUNHERZ]

Im from Croatia, formerly part of Yugoslavia.

My area was invaded and occupied and oppresed by the turks.

I demand money from Turkey.

My area was invaded by the Germans who even had wehrmach officers sleeping in the  house I grew up in.

I demand back rent from Germany or the Bundeswehr.

I am a Slavic and German by ethnicity. The English word "slave" comes from the word Slav. My people were so badly enslaved at one point in history they named the diddlying institution after us.

I demand some serious money from somebody.

My family is also of German origin and so they were put into Communist Concentracion camps after WW2. Many died including some great grandfathers of mine.

I demand reparations.


So pay up squeakes........  

Oh I wonder when these amazinhunks will demand reparations from Africa. The Slaves were exclusivley captured in Africa by Africans, do these people bear responsibilty?

I dont like the looks of that Dierdra squeak, I hope somebody shoots her in the head!

[Kratzer]

Actually, we like to pretend that Casper isn't part of Wyoming.

[Stalker]

Thanks Grunherz...was trying to put those same thoughts into words when I read your post.

btw,now that private clubs,country clubs,schools ect. must be open to everyone we need to do away with Black Miss America,Black Governor/Mayor conventions ect.