So many things to talk about. The world is such a disaster right now. Let's start with something that is breathtaking in its idiocy and its crapulence: reparations.
For those who don't know, San Francisco and some other dens of liberal dogmacy are hard at woke jerking themselves off with the fantasy of reparations. What are reparations? Supposedly, they are paying black people for the ills of slavery. Words fail, however, when it comes to describing the utter idiocy of this whole concept. Let's go through some points:
(1) There are no living slaves. So who exactly is supposed to get this money? Why, black people of course. But you forget that we don't go back generations to hand out compensation, because we have never legalized original sin. Nor do we allow group guilt because that is the worst form of racism. And if you want to open that can of worms, you better hope none of your relatives killed anyone or stole anything because anyone can make themselves a victim if they want to.
(2) Many American blacks have no slave ancestors, either being free blacks or coming from Africa long after slavery ended, so you're trying to pay people who were never injured. That makes this fraud, at best.
(3) You've already got compensation through things like affirmative action and minority set asides, public housing, food stamps, etc.
(4) Not one single American alive today ever owned a slave AND the overwhelming majority of whites came to the US after slavery ended, so you are trying to tax people for something neither they nor their ancestors did... that's called slavery.
(5) As an aside, "taxpayers" includes more than a couple Asians, Indians, native Americans, Mexicans, Pacific Islanders, and God-knows-what else. How did they benefit from slavery?
(6) California was never a slave state, so your argument is invalid on its face. And your claims of "structural racism" are crap because, a vast number of minorities of all types succeed despite these supposed barriers.
(7) The amount of money demanded is insane. San Francisco wants to give blacks in San Francisco something on the order of $640 billion when last reported -- the number keeps going up. San Francisco's budget is $13.2 billion annually. So that proposal would require the entire San Francisco budget for 49 years.
(8) Clearly, math is not your strong suit either because the $640 billion is based on an average payout of $360,000. BUT the proposal actually includes a $5 million payment to each candidate plus a yearly salary for life of $97,000 plus debt forgiveness plus $1 homes. I haven't done the math, but I'm pretty sure that actually works out to a lot more than $360,000.
(9) And let's assume the $360,000 is a real number for a moment. If you were enslaved by evil San Fran'ers for generations and then supposedly kept down by their wicked structural racism for your entire life, would $360,000 come anywhere near paying that off? So is this all just some giant jerk off?
(10) Moreover, let's assume the $640 billion number is real for a moment. San Francisco's GDP is around $500 billion a year. So while these race-baiters like to claim that America was built on slavery, which I assure it was not -- everything the South build was reduced to ash at the end of the civil war (meaning $0 in asset value at the end of the war), they are claiming that the total value of the labors of the entire slave population of San Francisco and as much as the racist whites and Chinese could steal from these poor victims through their structural racism is supposedly compensable by roughly 1.28 years of GDP? Really? So slavery contributed 1 year's GDP to a country with 300 years of economic growth... 0.3%. If I was black, I'd been kind of pissed to be told that's my value to America.
Personally, I think they should go for it. San Francisco should pass a law obligating the city to pay this $640 billion (enhanced by the stuff they aren't counting) until every penny is paid. In the meantime, the city should not be allowed to racistly pay another penny for anything. What's more, to make sure the guilty don't escape, they should require anyone who lived in the city in the past 20 years to pay an equal share, regardless of where they've fled to since. It's only fair.
In all seriousness, this is idiocy of the lowest order. It's insulting. It's stupid. It's an attempt to stir race hate and enshrine official victim status. What's worse, if you want to spark a race war, this is how you do it. Go tell poor white trash and Mexican laborers and Chinese small business owners, all of whom are scraping to get by, that because some rich land owners over 160 years ago did something wrong, they need to pay massive guilt money to black doctors and computer programmers, and see what happens. You're going to get a lot of very nice people killed with this crap.
Thoughts?
For those who don't know, San Francisco and some other dens of liberal dogmacy are hard at woke jerking themselves off with the fantasy of reparations. What are reparations? Supposedly, they are paying black people for the ills of slavery. Words fail, however, when it comes to describing the utter idiocy of this whole concept. Let's go through some points:
(1) There are no living slaves. So who exactly is supposed to get this money? Why, black people of course. But you forget that we don't go back generations to hand out compensation, because we have never legalized original sin. Nor do we allow group guilt because that is the worst form of racism. And if you want to open that can of worms, you better hope none of your relatives killed anyone or stole anything because anyone can make themselves a victim if they want to.
(2) Many American blacks have no slave ancestors, either being free blacks or coming from Africa long after slavery ended, so you're trying to pay people who were never injured. That makes this fraud, at best.
(3) You've already got compensation through things like affirmative action and minority set asides, public housing, food stamps, etc.
(4) Not one single American alive today ever owned a slave AND the overwhelming majority of whites came to the US after slavery ended, so you are trying to tax people for something neither they nor their ancestors did... that's called slavery.
(5) As an aside, "taxpayers" includes more than a couple Asians, Indians, native Americans, Mexicans, Pacific Islanders, and God-knows-what else. How did they benefit from slavery?
(6) California was never a slave state, so your argument is invalid on its face. And your claims of "structural racism" are crap because, a vast number of minorities of all types succeed despite these supposed barriers.
(7) The amount of money demanded is insane. San Francisco wants to give blacks in San Francisco something on the order of $640 billion when last reported -- the number keeps going up. San Francisco's budget is $13.2 billion annually. So that proposal would require the entire San Francisco budget for 49 years.
(8) Clearly, math is not your strong suit either because the $640 billion is based on an average payout of $360,000. BUT the proposal actually includes a $5 million payment to each candidate plus a yearly salary for life of $97,000 plus debt forgiveness plus $1 homes. I haven't done the math, but I'm pretty sure that actually works out to a lot more than $360,000.
(9) And let's assume the $360,000 is a real number for a moment. If you were enslaved by evil San Fran'ers for generations and then supposedly kept down by their wicked structural racism for your entire life, would $360,000 come anywhere near paying that off? So is this all just some giant jerk off?
(10) Moreover, let's assume the $640 billion number is real for a moment. San Francisco's GDP is around $500 billion a year. So while these race-baiters like to claim that America was built on slavery, which I assure it was not -- everything the South build was reduced to ash at the end of the civil war (meaning $0 in asset value at the end of the war), they are claiming that the total value of the labors of the entire slave population of San Francisco and as much as the racist whites and Chinese could steal from these poor victims through their structural racism is supposedly compensable by roughly 1.28 years of GDP? Really? So slavery contributed 1 year's GDP to a country with 300 years of economic growth... 0.3%. If I was black, I'd been kind of pissed to be told that's my value to America.
Personally, I think they should go for it. San Francisco should pass a law obligating the city to pay this $640 billion (enhanced by the stuff they aren't counting) until every penny is paid. In the meantime, the city should not be allowed to racistly pay another penny for anything. What's more, to make sure the guilty don't escape, they should require anyone who lived in the city in the past 20 years to pay an equal share, regardless of where they've fled to since. It's only fair.
In all seriousness, this is idiocy of the lowest order. It's insulting. It's stupid. It's an attempt to stir race hate and enshrine official victim status. What's worse, if you want to spark a race war, this is how you do it. Go tell poor white trash and Mexican laborers and Chinese small business owners, all of whom are scraping to get by, that because some rich land owners over 160 years ago did something wrong, they need to pay massive guilt money to black doctors and computer programmers, and see what happens. You're going to get a lot of very nice people killed with this crap.
Thoughts?
5 comments:
First of all Andrew, good to see you back. Just wish it was under better (and by better, I mean sane) conditions.
I just...wow. I have nothing to add. It's just at this point, reason and logic have been so thoroughly beaten, battered, and broken that, by comparison, Joe Theisman (of the Team That Must Be Erased From All History) suffered mere turf toe after bumping into LT.
Honestly, every day I check out Red State and Townhall and learn of new acts of idiocy that bruise my brain just by reading the headlines.
It's left me retreating more and more into my hobbies. On the negative side, what does it say about the state of the world when documentaries about criminals, tyrants, and National Socialists are less infuriating? (I'm going to guess it's because we already know how it ends.)
On the positive side, I've never before immersed myself so much in collecting elaborate, adult-level, online LEGO designs. I mean, just browsing the catalogues or collecting the bricks is a wonderfully relaxing distraction.
And one more thing, I don't if you've had COVID yet, but after dealing with my second bout of it last week, I can honestly say the flu is worse. Seriously. The metallic taste in my throat from the medicine is probably worse than the bug itself.
Hey Andre, Jed here. Based on your last post, I was happy you were busy, but certainly agree the times we live in are depressing. The corruption of our politicians, selling out to the Chinese, runaway spending fueling inflation. It is hard to not think we are losing our country from within. The stranglehold of the left on the media, entertainment, education is indoctrinating kids into little leftists. But, more to the matter at hand, reparations is lunacy and your list hits all the reasons I could think of plus several others. I will layout how I feel about what Americans might be able to do.
First, I agree the statistics are probably such that blacks do not succeed economically in this country anywhere close to whites. It might be an interesting comparison though to look at the stats for how many whites raised in poverty escape it compared to blacks.
In my view, education at the K-12 level is the key. Americans have thrown money at the problem without much success. This seems to me to be a result of several factors. These include, 1) money getting funneled into black politicians in the city instead of their intended purpose. 2) lack of safety in the schools. This second one has a direct impact on the ability to recruit and retain qualified educators. 3) lack of a stable home environment. Parental involvement is a must. 4) the culture of young blacks makes fun of kids carrying schoolbooks home.
Let’s face it, we would all like to see black Americans participate in the American dream more fully, but we need their help. We need guys like Michael Jordan andBéyonce to open up their wallet and join efforts to create good schools that are safe. And we need black influencers, be they sport stars, or musicians or actors, to help convince black kids that education is the way to go, to gangs. I
I realize it is pie in the sky, but it is the only thing I can think of as a legitimate way to help change the narrative.
Andrew, of course… dropped the w on the touch keypad😉
Hi Rustbelt! I have been doing a lot of thinking -- depressing thinking. I've come to the conclusion that the left has morphed into a false religion -- a victim cult really. I'm going to talk a lot about that soon, but the left now runs on dogma. What's more, that dogma is premised on things that are verifiably false and hateful. It's basically a cousin of Nazism. And once you go that route, reality no longer matters.
So things like this reparations crap are examples of the types of sheer idiocy that can be produced when the constraints of logic, truth and reality are removed. You ask for the impossible based on lies and nonsense and you don't ever understand that you are your own worst enemy.
All of this, of course, is further intended to keep the cult in line by forced collective delusion.
Jed, Sadly, I think times are much worse than people realize. I've been debating how much I want to talk about that, but I am not hopeful for humanity right now. It's deeply depressing. And make no mistake, liberals are just part of the problem. Nobody is blameless in this. Corporations, politicians on all sides, 'normal' people, culture, tech firms... it's all destroying humanity at lightening speed.
Blacks do not succeed anywhere near the level of whites in this country... or Asians, Indians, Hispanics, or anyone else. I don't dispute that. In fact, I think it's a crime. But the criminal is not slavery. The criminal is black racism, enabled by liberal whites, which tells blacks kids to give up because whites won't let them succeed and which teaches them hate and which won't let anyone challenge the failures of blacks in this country. It means you can't challenge failing schools if it's run by blacks... or black city management which lets their cities be overrun with crime and others who prey on their residents... or the culture pushed on black kids because that's a sacred cow even as it teaches self-destructive values and narcissism... or teaching black kids right from wrong because any challenge to anything black is considered racist.
Those factors would cause anyone's kids to become dumbass losers with no abilities and filled with hate rather than drive.
Trust me, through my daughters I have a foot in the black community and I have been blown away by what I've seen. If the KKK set out to create a system to undermine blacks they could not have done better than black racists and white liberals have done.
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