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... the different assumptions we start with for the discussion.
To me, what needs to be justified is why a particular broad service shouldn't be provided by the government. Not why a particular service should be.
You may disagree with that view, but if you take that assumption as a given for a moment, you'll see why to many who are pro-reparations don't think it has any bearing on the separate, but worthy discussion, of the poor who are white and how to help them.
This is not a real point. You're citing the Bible to promote your version of Christianity, to a Muslim audience. You're saying "You have to listen to this minister, because Jesus clearly did not intend for a Pope to be in charge of the faithful" when you need to first of all, convince us that Jesus was anything more than just a nice guy, who was superceded by the true Prophet, PBUH.
Those racist flaws in all those programs Mr Coates lists are pretty much what I would expect from any such government program. The entire philosophy behind what is known today as conservatism is that these sorts of injustices can't be fixed, you can't adjust for this stuff, so the best you can do is remove restrictions and encumbrances universally and let people deal with whatever hand they are dealt.
There is no either/or, here. At least in my conception of it, the idea of reparations to African Americans most certainly won't be coming at the cost of broader anti-poverty programs I believe the government aught to aggressively engage in. Poverty, in aggregate, costs society too much for it to not intervene, with no care for race.
And many, many people believe that the forms of intervention your kind prescribe amount to subsidization of poverty.
In fact, the core thesis of this article, and why a lot of economists see why reparations make sense is precisely because several anti-poverty programs, from Social Security to the GI bill to FHA mortgage insurance were not broadly applied in a raceblind manner.
But we are going to depend on the same bureaucracy to apply reparations policies and distribute the compensations.
By no means do I think your family is less deserving of financial help and strong welfare programs because they are white. That is the basic job of government, as I see it. It is non-negotiable, no matter what race or sex or sexuality marks any person.
There is absolutely no basis for this, aside from the demands of people who wish it so. The basic job of government is protecting the fundamental natural rights of the people, to life, liberty and poverty. The poor state of black people comes from the signal failure of government to do its basic job in their case. Failing to protect others property or liberty by curtailing them to make amends to blacks is only compounding the problem.
Reparations are a separate thing. They are restitution for a heinous crime. A wealthy black kid today is as deserving of it as a poor one because their wealth or poverty doesn't change what happened.
It did not happen to them. The people who would bear the costs of the reparations were not the ones who committed it.
In a similar fashion, I wouldn't distinguish between the justice a poor or rich person receives as recompense for a crime. Their current wealth or poverty is orthogonal to the fact of the crime committed against them.
But it's not the place of the state to make restitution. They don't pay your family if you are murdered. They don't cut you a check if you are robbed. They pay out when it's the malfeasance or abuse of power by officials of the state who cause the loss. There are civil courts and tort law for getting recompense for victimization. And any suit for slavery reparations would be laughed out of any respectable court.
Put another way... aiding and supporting poor families of any race is basic governance,
Said absolutely no one outside of a school of thought that ought to have been discarded long ago, but is far too useful a tool for increasing the power of the state.
and failure to act now is economic injustice to those families. Paying reparations to African American families, rich or poor, is simply justice for crime committed against their ancestors.
There is no justice for crimes committed against ancestors. That's the whole point of overthrowing the aristocracy.
