What are some debates agaist slave reperations?

Answer 1

1) unjust

a) those made to pay not direct beneficiaries of the injustice, nor are those paid clearly victims of wrongdoing
(problem of basing on a broad classification, not direct personal connection)

b) many made to pay not even descended from wrongdoers (many immigrants since that time)

c) should POOR whites (themselves often descended from poor whites, e.g. in Appalachia) be paying reparations to slave descendants much better of than they are??
(relate to this -- many folks from these mountain regions were very ANTI-slavery and pro-Union)

d) demonstrable CURRENT harm/suffering? many are now PROSPERING (secondarily, some compare the relative economic well-being of slaves' descendants with the deplorable suffering of those who still live in the lands these ancestors were originally were taken/kidnapped from)

2) who to pay?

a) impossibility of sorting out WHO would qualify (esp, what about those descended from BOTH 'beneficiaries' and victims) [contrast this with payments to Japanese families or their immediate children who suffered under interment in World War II]

b) "Pandora's box" -- what of descendants of OTHER victims of injustice during (and even pre) American history? where to draw the line?

3) socially COUNTER-productive

such a program will DIVIDE people -- it will encourage resentment and spite against the recipients... the thing which, much more than descent from slaves, makes full integration and economic success difficult (Those who would spread racial hatred and division might actually be HELPED by such a measure to encourage such animosity among others, cultivating racial prejudice, damaging the HUGE gains made in this area.)

In fact, those who argue FOR reparations may, on the other side, strengthen resentment and animosity in the OTHER direction, encouraging people to think "they owe it to me", rather than to continue to work hard and improve their situation.

4) Economically, not cost-effective and perhaps counter-productive
-- that is, very likely NOT to do much to effectively help those who need it (might even HURT them), while undercutting OTHER approaches that can do (and have often done) more good

a) would make those paid MORE dependent on government and does not ultimately improve their situation -- whereas those of this group that have succeeded (which is many) have done so by NOT staying dependent
(cf. the poor situation among many Indians on reservations vs. those in the general population. the former have received much from the government but NOT prospered)

b) It would take large chunks of money out of PRODUCTIVE PRIVATE use -- e.g., from businesses and investors whose use of it are creating MORE jobs and prosperity... things that can do more to help those in difficult economic conditions than taxing/extracting money from one group to hand it to another

c) Administering it would produce another enormous centralized GOVERNMENT program, and concentrate power in a way that would not help many at the local level

d) The energy and resources spent on such an effort could much more productively be used to target specific social problems and to help specific socio-economic groups that are suffering

Answer 2

No one alive today has ever owned a ***** slave, nor has any ***** alive to day ever been property that can be bought and sold. Thus since those that were slave and those were master are all dead now, the matter is sealed into their crypts.

Answer 3

NO ONE should be rewarded for work they did not do...