The Confederate Flag

[gamerprinter]

Do you benefit from the institutions that profited from displacing Native Americans or from holding Africans as slaves? Chances are you do since a lot of northern firms, particularly banks, benefited a great deal from slavery and others, like farming, from clearing the land of Native American rivals.

I have no idea really, my bank was founded as a credit union in the 1960's, and not an old bank with old history.

And, whether you do or don't, by being an American, you shoulder America's burdens as well as its benefits. You're responsible for America's outstanding debts and ongoing obligations as much as any of the rest of us are.

Not only that, but taxes tend to be paid to a general single account than dispersed to pay all taxes, so tax monies aren't separated to account for who paid for what. I completely understand. Still at some level I disagree, and is why I have problems with reparations.

I guess my real problem is that I agree that some kind of recompense is required, I just feel reparations are not the solution.

 

[Morrus]

Indirect benefits are a massive amount of it. Institutional trends which have lasted through decades and which partially created the world in which people live and the ways in which they benefit today.

Again, those who keep using the words "held personally responsible" do not understand what reparations are.

You're part of society. You benefit from society. And sometimes society has to pay for stuff. That's the cost of benefiting from being part of it. The obligations, debts, and profits are shared. You profit from being part of society; sometimes you pay to be part of society. In other news, sometimes you might be called upon to go to war, jury duty, or perform some other societal duty. None of that means you personally did something wrong. You don't get to pick and choose which of society's obligations you want to take on.

Yes, I agree that reparations are clumsy. I'm not arguing that they're wonderful or anything. They're a blunt instrument. They lack accuracy or finesse. But no, they're not about holding you personally responsible for anything, and they're the best option we have.

 

[Bullgrit]

I have a question, (point?), that I'd like to ask, but I'm trying to step *very* lightly, here.

Do you benefit from the institutions that profited from displacing Native Americans or from holding Africans as slaves?

Do not modern descendants of displaced Native Americans and the descendants of enslaved Africans also benefit from the same institutions?

Bullgrit

 

[MechaPilot]

Where do we draw the line for reparations? My ancestors were enslaved by the Romans...should I demand reparations from them?

That depends, do you mean ancient Rome, an empire which has fallen and been replaced by a country with the same name, or the modern country of Rome?

I'll also echo gamerprinter...my family did not arrive in the US until after the Civil War (my paternal grandfather is British, and my maternal ancestors are French Canadian/Irish). Reparations would inevitably require taxpayer dollars to finance...

Taxpayers always have to pay for things they don't entirely agree with or want to pay for. I certainly didn't want to pay for the Iraq war.

 

[Morrus]

I have a question, (point?), that I'd like to ask, but I'm trying to step *very* lightly, here.

Do not modern descendants of displaced Native Americans and the descendants of enslaved Africans also benefit from the same institutions?

Yes and no. In your country Black Americans are statistically disadvantaged in terms of opportunity, education, pay, and so on, as well as having very low levels of inherited wealth. I know very little about Native Americans in the US, unfortunately, so I don't know whether the same holds true there.

Of course, every case is unique, and I'm fairly sure that those of your from the US will have a much more nuanced view of the situation in your country than I have from the outside.

 

[Morrus]

That depends, do you mean ancient Rome, an empire which has fallen and been replaced by a country with the same name, or the modern country of Rome?

There isn't a modern country of Rome, or any country which goes by that name.

 

[MechaPilot]

I have a question, (point?), that I'd like to ask, but I'm trying to step *very* lightly, here.

Do not modern descendants of displaced Native Americans and the descendants of enslaved Africans also benefit from the same institutions?

Bullgrit

Not really.

Even if they were to benefit equally from those institutions as of tomorrow, you still run into the problem that the extended period of non-enjoyment of benefits maintains unequal footing. Consider it this way: imagine two men are running a foot race. The starter sounds, both men take off, and suddenly a couple of hooligans come out and waylay one of the men: stopping or seriously slowing his progress. Once you take those two hooligans away, both runners are equally enjoying the benefits the track has made available to them, but the impediment in the past will still seriously affect the comparative performance of the racers.

 

[Raunalyn]

I guess my real problem is that I agree that some kind of recompense is required, I just feel reparations are not the solution.

Why?

Once again, I'm going to play Devil's Advocate, but I know I may offend some people with what I'm about to say, so please understand that I mean this in the most respectful way possible.

The whole point of this thread is that the confederate flag is offensive to some people. Understandable. Many of the people who live in the South who oppose this removal are stuck in the past, claiming that it's part of their heritage.

There are some that think that reparations should be made to the descendents of those who were enslaved hundreds of years ago.

My question is why? Why should these same people who accuse those who refuse to remove an offensive symbol of hatred of living in the past demand that we make reparations for something...in the past!

I think that's the problem with all of this. What happened cannot be changed...it happened. I don't think we will ever, as a society, move past this by living in the past.

Forgive me for saying this, and with all due respect to everyone here who has been having a very intelligent, reasoned, and polite discussion about this...but I think it's time we move on as a nation and move past things that happened hundreds of years ago.

 

[Morrus]

Why?

I know I've presented my best arguments in this thread, and others have presented some very coherent reasoning, so if they fail to answer the question "why?" then I can't do any better, unfortunately. Maybe somebody else can, but I think the thread is beginning to head into simple repetition. If the reasoning presented thus far doesn't convince you, then you're not going to be convinced. I guess we just have to accept that.

but I think it's time we move on as a nation and move past things that happened hundreds of years ago.

We know you do. We didn't fail to understand your opinion; we merely disagree with it.

​

 

[Raunalyn]

I know I've presented my best arguments in this thread, so if they fail to answer the question "why?" then I can't do any better, unfortunately. Maybe somebody else can, but I think the thread is beginning to head into simple repetition. If the reasoning presented thus far doesn't convince you, then you're not going to be convinced. I guess we just have to accept that.

Fair enough. Perhaps I wasn't clear in my comment, and I apologize.

The "Why" was a rhetorical device that was to make a point, which I spelled out further in my comment. I don't think that making reparations for something that happened a long time ago (before the time when anyone alive todays parents were even conceived) is going to help us, as a nation and society, move on.

Yes, I understand where you were coming from when you mentioned the Nazi art...I agree with that. But there are people alive today who were involved in that. No one alive today was a part of the slavery of the 1700's and 1800's. Not a single one.