Column #3: Other reparation payments are irrelevant
One of the arguments that proponents use to make their case is that
other reparation payments have already been made to other groups. This is why
that argument doesn't hold.
After seeing how long my first few essays were, I decided to focus on
something that's a bit more to the point. In this case, it's addressing the
argument that reparation payments made to other groups provide the moral
case for making payments to African-Americans.
There is, to be sure, something of a trend towards writing long-past
wrongs, and I'll state my opinion that this sentiment in and of itself is
not a bad thing (I feel that, like all things, it can be good or bad
depending on how it's used). In recent times it's resulted in legal
restitution to, among other groups, Holocaust survivors and
Japanese-Americans encamped during WWII. With this trend, proponets of
slavery-era reparations are now saying that the precedent has been set,
and that we must follow them.
Logically, there is a small bit of truth to the argument that once you do
something, you must stay consistent and continue to do that...a very small
bit. Like the above, it's another example of a principle that can be applied
for better or for worse, and in this case it's definitely for the worse.
The reailty is that talking about other reparation payments as a "precedent"
that mandates a course of action in this issue is not a reasoned argument,
but an excuse. It glosses over the problem with this argument so heavily
that the main reason why this isn't a good idea is nastily obscured. But I'm
gonna dig it out.
The logical problem with that is that no two situations are identical.
You really don't have to think too long about the comparisons before you see
this. First of all, in many of the
examples
proponents cite, the country making payments wasn't even America. Making the
case that the current government is responsible for the actions of a
government that was of the same country but so long ago that no one from
then is even alive anymore is hard enough. This, however, is just ridiculous.
Exactly where does the moral imperative come from for our legislators to do
what the legislators of other country's do? If we did, do you realize some
of the other things we'd also be doing?
Even trying to restrict it to what our own government does we can't get
around the central issue: each situation is different, and even if your
principles for how to deal with problems remains an absolute constant,
the way those principles are applied to different real-life situations can
and should vary wildly. In this case, such application stumbles on one very
important difference between this issue and most reparation issues.
To repeat the point yet again, nobody who was a slave in the pre-Civil War
south is still alive. It's is highly likely that there is nobody whose parent
was a slave who is still alive. This is in contrast to other types of
reparation payments which have typically been made directly to the
individuals who were judged to be wronged.
That then ties to another difference, which is the results of trying to
identify exactly who should be compensated. Again, in other cases, this has
been easy to do through records. In the case of American slavery, not only
is this extremely difficult to do, but even if full, complete records were
available, being several generations removed from the offending event
presents complexities of figuring if someone is a "victim" or not. If someone
has both a slave and a king in his geneology, should he get compensated?
These are the kinds of things I go into on my
questions page.
From here the discussion can easily get bogged down into specifics of
what happened in different situations, and whether or not the differences
really outweigh the similarities. But that again misses the point, which is
that there is one final difference between these situations that trumps any
attempt to lump them all into a single catch-all category.
The difference is that these are things that people, different people
than now, have done. Even governments just 10 years old are significantly
different that governments now. This is little different from holding a
government to a standards of that of another country because in reality,
we are a different country in every moment than we were in the previous one,
especially so once the reigns of power are passed. The point of having a
republic is to elect people to think and make decisions, not blindly follow
the actions of predecesors (if that's not the case, then why are term
limits so popular?).
So now that I've addressed the question of whether or not there is a
national responsibilty, let me know address my personal responsiblity.
Put simply, I have not made the reparations that proponents speak of, and so I
will not do so now. I have in fact made "reparations" to people in my life
that I've wronged, often way beyond what was required to make sure that any
outstanding issue is settled. So I have no problem in making amends. I do
have a problem with making amends to someone that I have never even met,
let alone done anything to.
But now you might protest that I never went so far as to threaten to
stop paying taxes before, so I am being inconsistent (hypocritical, if
you're trying to be judgmental). And I have a response to that.
Yes: the government that I pay taxes to every day does things with those
taxes that I wish they wouldn't do, and I do not enjoy supporting it. I do
it for a number of reasons, which can be crudely summarized into the word
"compromise". They are things that I would rather not support. As a
previously registered Libertarian who once ran for office, I'd rather that
except for a few infrastructural and defense items that the only thing I
support are things I voluntarily pay for. Beyond that, you name a government
expense, and it's likely I'm against it.
So why am I drawing the line here? Well, that's an argument that I can't
answer in short words all that well, and should rather be drawn from the
entirety of ths web site. The only quick answer I can give is that this
supporting this would break a principle that I cannot break, in a way that
nothing else that I have ever knowingly supported would. As I said on the
main page, it is a line that is drawn that I will not allow anyone past.
There's your short answer. Every day, I take a peaceful approach to
differences between my fellow man that I'll accept for now and work out
another day. This is the only one which has gone so far that if it were to
come to pass, I would not be able to accept. So yes, I paid for other things
I disagree with, and I won't pay this, and no, I do not feel that I'm being
inconsistent.
There is a principle here that serves not only to close out this piece,
but to address the entire reparations issue. Yes, we have made similar
decisions in the past. But we are not chained by the past. We are here now,
and we can either ignore that and feel that we are trapped by decisions of
our forefathers, or even by our own past mistakes, or we can recognize that
we have the ability to make our own decisions right here and now, with no
bondage to the events of the past.
I am here now. I am alive. I know who I am, and what I am here to do.
That knowledge is the only guide of my actions, and that guide tells me that
the right thing to do here is clear. I won't pay.
Hmmm. Guess that wasn't such a short piece after all.
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