Right Angle: BACKSTAGE [4/9/2019]

I love the discussion but could you please turn up the volume. I have my phone turned up full and still need to find quiet place to hear you. I listen to several sites and podcasts but yours is the only one I have problems with. Thank you.

Calculate the trillions of dollars that have been paid to blacks in various types of welfare over the past 150 years and deduct that from the supposed reparations owed

In my mind, the concept of reparations depends on the same elements as Tort Law: To be actionable, there must be a duty to exercise care; there must be breech of that duty (intentional or negligent); there must be an injury as a result of that breech; and, damages can be lucidly assessed to compensate for the injury. So — for argument sake — I assume that permitting slavery by a government meets these elements.

If your great, great grand parent was injured due to the tortious act of the United States Government on or before 1866 (the passage of the 13th Amendment); or, if a relative (closer in time) suffered directly from segregation, Jim Crow, or some other form of prejudice, in which the United States was responsible. That person would have had a cause of action at the time of injury [and for a short period 4 – 10 years afterward].
After the statute of limitations had passed, no action would be viable. There are good and cogent reasons why all of the Federal and State waivers of sovereign immunity from suit for actual torts have a time limit.

The great, great grand son or daughter of someone actually injured due to tortious acts has NO cause of action either personally, or for the estate of the long dead predecessor, after the time has been tolled. No matter how vile the injury, or clear the breach of duty. Time has settled the matter.

Reparations to heirs of former slaves are not intended to compensate for the wrongs, or to “mitigate evil,” they are simply bribes driven by the political expediency of a crowded uber left-wing stable of democratic candidates competing for the honor of conjuring up the most radical proposal. They are an abomination.

The historical reality is that when the Civil War broke out in 1861, there were approximately 30 million people (See Lincoln’s debate with Douglas in 1856, where Lincoln cites this number.) in the USA, During that awful conflict, nearly 500,000 northern soldiers were KILLED in order to create an environment where power could be brought to bear to free the slaves. The slaves did NOT free themselves. Neither did the Emancipation Proclamation. Eventually, it took the 13th Amendment to end slavery, and the 14th Amendment for Good Measure.

Men had to DIE to free the slaves. The dead were mostly white, northern MEN, who left their lives on hold and volunteered to live a short, brutal military life of privation in order to set men free. See the last stanza of the Battle Hymn of the Republic.
Hundreds of thousands more Northern Men were maimed, since being wounded in that era meant being maimed by the violent trauma or the medical process that followed. The maimed soldiers suffered bravely and painfully for the rest of their lives.
In modern terms, with a current population of over 300 million, it would be the equivalent of 5 million men dead in a single war, with millions more wounded and maimed. Fortunately, even in WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and including all the wars since, we have not experienced a 10th of that kind of national carnage.

This means that white Americans, flawed as they were, made the ultimate sacrifice in blood and treasure to do the right thing to end the scourge of slavery. Every single family in the USA of that time was directly affected by the loss. The Northern effort to free the slaves was a historical example of altruism, the like the world had never seen.
Please remember that the Grand Army of the Republic was mostly state volunteers, militia, and few regulars. None of these folks had pensions, nor medical care in their later years that was funded by the US. When the vets tried to stage a huge protest in DC several decades later to get a Bonus, the government used Federal troops (MacArthur, Patton among them) to run the vets off Federal land. They got no bonus, not one red cent, but plenty of abuse.

So, when idiotic Democrat demagogues begin to consider legislation that would compensate the families of the gallant soldiers who died to make men free, or to provide payments for the men who suffered a lifetime of anguish for their wounds, I’ll consider taking this issue seriously. Until then, those who would further divide our polarized society with this radical plan, are putting their own political viability ahead of the welfare of their constituents, …but, I’m not surprised since they are socialists and progressives.

The sins of the father do not roll to the son. Slavery ended in 1865 after the deaths of 620,000 people. Not one person left alive today was either a slave or a slave-owner. If either of those generations still existed, I might agree to reparations. But none of them are, so nobody owes anyone anything. No white person has owned a slave since 1865. No black person alive today has been a legal slave in the United States. For a group of people to demand reparations for an atrocity none of us participated in or had anything to do with is preposterous. It’s just lazy people wanting free money. If we are going to charge reparations for what our ancestors did or did not, then I am owed a lot of money. I’m white, so on the Southern Side of my family I am owed reparations for work not done by legally-owned slaves who failed to get the south 40 acres properly picked before they were freed. On the Northern side of my family, I am owed reparations for the loss of the good white men who died freeing slaves in the south, the loss of which placed white families in the north in economic hardship. Of course this is ridiculous. And so are reparations for a crime none of us committed. No, I oppose paying anyone any reparation for that at all. If this were a court case, how do you prove the damages?

Scott: Ambassador Lando Molari of the Centauri Republic says OK.