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Do you believe that America should pay reparations to African Americans?

Should we pay reparations to the African American community?

  • We should pay reparations to the African American communtiy

    Votes: 15 10.6%
  • We should not pay reparations to the African American community

    Votes: 126 89.4%

  • Total voters
    141
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If we were not securing our borders against other nations determined to invade and take over America, you might have a point. But America's the most secure nation in the world, and so you don't have point.

There are a LOT of other nations much more secure than the USA. A LOT.
 
New Zealand. Iceland.

And if they had no protection whatsoever from other nations, how long could they stand against, say, Russia or China? Whereas, if America had no protection whatsoever from other nations, could we stand against any other nation? Easily. When it comes to Ireland and New Zealand (and every other stable democracy, even the ones that are more internally stable than America), their long-term security depends on protection from much larger nations like America, or from alliances like NATO.

My claim stands - NO other nation on this planet is as secure as America.
 
Do you really have honor? If you think you're being robbed by having to pay taxes, then if you do still somehow have honor, it's weakened by ignorance...or haven't you heard of the old saying, "Nothing is sure but death and taxes"? And higher taxes, sir, are the admission price one must pay to live in a first-world democracy.

How do you explain that other first world nations have lower taxes? More over you confuse "Cost" and "Value". What we are getting is not worth the current cost, time to reduce spending, and slash and cap taxes.

If you don't want to pay high taxes, then most third-world democracies out there would be perfect for you. Otherwise...pay up, and learn to count your blessings. Not for naught did Cicero say, "Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others." Truer words were never spoken.

No, I like America when it worked and we are going to restore it, do not like it? Leave.

You think it is "gratitude" to be robbed? You claim value emotion more then reason. Enjoy paying for your victimization, why wait? Why not write a check and lead by example?

Why not? Because you are generous with the money of others, not your own, that is nothing more disingenuous.
 
And if they had no protection whatsoever from other nations, how long could they stand against, say, Russia or China? Whereas, if America had no protection whatsoever from other nations, could we stand against any other nation? Easily. When it comes to Ireland and New Zealand (and every other stable democracy, even the ones that are more internally stable than America), their long-term security depends on protection from much larger nations like America, or from alliances like NATO.

My claim stands - NO other nation on this planet is as secure as America.

Wrong, we have a nearly open border that millions have flooded across, its like saying the Titanic is unsinkable as it is sinking, your denial of this just proves how out of touch with reality you are.
 
How do you explain that other first world nations have lower taxes? More over you confuse "Cost" and "Value". What we are getting is not worth the current cost, time to reduce spending, and slash and cap taxes.

And I'm pretty sure it's been pointed out to you before that after one allows for all the deductions, breaks, and write-offs that are available to business in America, we've actually got one of the lowest corporate tax rates in the world.

No, I like America when it worked and we are going to restore it, do not like it? Leave.

If you want to live here, then you've got to pay the price of admission to life in a first-world nation. Everybody pays...including me, AND including you.

You think it is "gratitude" to be robbed? You claim value emotion more then reason. Enjoy paying for your victimization, why wait? Why not write a check and lead by example?

"Robbed"? Here we go with the conservative meme oh-no-dem-guv'mint-agents-are-a-robbin'-us-by-violence!!!! *sigh*

Why not? Because you are generous with the money of others, not your own, that is nothing more disingenuous.

No sir, I pay my taxes as I'm supposed to, and I'm happy to do so...because I've seen first-hand what life is like when a nation has a government that's relatively so small that one could drown it in a bathtub....
 
Name one. And bear in mind, by 'secure', I'm referring to external AND internal insecurity.

I would feel much more secure in Australia, Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, New Zealand, Scotland, Wales, Canada, Bermuda, Isle of Man, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland. Should I go on? As you know, the US has a lot of enemies worldwide, there is a lot of hostility toward American citizens worldwide, US has somewhat high crime and violence rates. Security is a state of mind. Yes, I suppose that someone could invade New Zealand and kill all the citizens but who would want to? And what people are going to cross a couple of thousand miles of ocean to enter the country?

Pete Seeger had a song about Andorra spending $4.50 on "armaments in their defense..Did you every hear of such confidence....if security is what you need a head shrinker is cheaper and quicker and a damn sight safer too"
 
And I'm pretty sure it's been pointed out to you before that after one allows for all the deductions, breaks, and write-offs that are available to business in America, we've actually got one of the lowest corporate tax rates in the world.

Factor in the cost of regulations, but you use thinkregress, need we say more.


If you want to live here, then you've got to pay the price of admission to life in a first-world nation. Everybody pays...including me, AND including you.

No, I will not pay to waste money away on feel good nonsense, nor will I pay it when it is used to rob me of my nation, culture, Liberty, rights, wealth, future or those of my posterity.

I will not pay for an army that will be used against me.


"Robbed"? Here we go with the conservative meme oh-no-dem-guv'mint-agents-are-a-robbin'-us-by-violence!!!! *sigh*

We waste 100 billion on services for illegal aliens as Veterans die waiting for Healthcare,
some how wanting to end such waste and abuse is a joke..

No sir, I pay my taxes as I'm supposed to, and I'm happy to do so...because I've seen first-hand what life is like when a nation has a government that's relatively so small that one could drown it in a bathtub....

Then you will be happy to pay even more, we had one just as small and we did fine, only your side lacks the power and influence to control people, no wonder you hate it and the return to Constitutionally limited goverment.

Its going to happen by vote or by bankruptcy.

Do not like it? Move to the Philippines.
 
I would feel much more secure in Australia, Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, New Zealand, Scotland, Wales, Canada, Bermuda, Isle of Man, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland. Should I go on? As you know, the US has a lot of enemies worldwide, there is a lot of hostility toward American citizens worldwide, US has somewhat high crime and violence rates. Security is a state of mind. Yes, I suppose that someone could invade New Zealand and kill all the citizens but who would want to? And what people are going to cross a couple of thousand miles of ocean to enter the country?

Pete Seeger had a song about Andorra spending $4.50 on "armaments in their defense..Did you every hear of such confidence....if security is what you need a head shrinker is cheaper and quicker and a damn sight safer too"

But the sovereignty of none - not a single one - of those nations is as secure as that of the USA if there were no superpower around to ensure the security of their sovereignty. Yes, there is a lot of hostility towards Americans - which is why I get SO ticked off when I'm overseas and I see a fellow American acting like a high-and-mighty idiot, all it does is harden others' hearts towards us.

And Australia, for one, apparently feels the need for closer ties with the US because of the growing belligerence of China...which sorta shoots holes in your contention of just how secure you believe those nations to be. When it comes to the other nations you listed, several of them are either part of the UK or of the former British Commonwealth - what happens to them if there's no NATO, and thus no England? Even Costa Rica - what would happen to that fine nation (and it is a fine nation...as opposed to Singapore being a 'fine' city (joke)) if there were no strong nations nearby like America or Brazil, and then some megalomaniac warlord takes over in Venezuela or Honduras, hm?

No, not even oh-so-peaceful Costa Rica is not nearly so secure as America.
 
And if they had no protection whatsoever from other nations, how long could they stand against, say, Russia or China? Whereas, if America had no protection whatsoever from other nations, could we stand against any other nation? Easily. When it comes to Ireland and New Zealand (and every other stable democracy, even the ones that are more internally stable than America), their long-term security depends on protection from much larger nations like America, or from alliances like NATO.

My claim stands - NO other nation on this planet is as secure as America.

That is subjective so we should just end this debate...
 
But the sovereignty of none - not a single one - of those nations is as secure as that of the USA if there were no superpower around to ensure the security of their sovereignty. Yes, there is a lot of hostility towards Americans - which is why I get SO ticked off when I'm overseas and I see a fellow American acting like a high-and-mighty idiot, all it does is harden others' hearts towards us.

And Australia, for one, apparently feels the need for closer ties with the US because of the growing belligerence of China...which sorta shoots holes in your contention of just how secure you believe those nations to be. When it comes to the other nations you listed, several of them are either part of the UK or of the former British Commonwealth - what happens to them if there's no NATO, and thus no England? Even Costa Rica - what would happen to that fine nation (and it is a fine nation...as opposed to Singapore being a 'fine' city (joke)) if there were no strong nations nearby like America or Brazil, and then some megalomaniac warlord takes over in Venezuela or Honduras, hm?

No, not even oh-so-peaceful Costa Rica is not nearly so secure as America.
Wait a second. So Australia is insecure because they are nervous about China but the US is secure because it spends more than every other country on military and internal security forces? Why does the US spend so much if we are secure?

Australia should expect that they to be secure as they are protected by agreements with US and UK. They are the only country to join the US in all of our significant wars (Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Iraq, and Afghanistan) as well as all of UK's wars. They have earned the right to feel secure because of this commitment, even with 4 billion people living within 2,000 miles or so. Just as the US can claim to feel secure because of a $700 billion defense budget. If the US owes anyone, it is Australia.

Over the past 20 years, Australia has had 4 "terrorist" attacks-a French consulate firebombing with no deaths, an abortion clinic attack with one dead, Endeavor Hills police stabbing that left 2 injured, and a Sydney hostage situation that left 2 dead. Seems secure.
 
Wait a second. So Australia is insecure because they are nervous about China but the US is secure because it spends more than every other country on military and internal security forces? Why does the US spend so much if we are secure?

All I showed was that AUSTRALIA thinks that their own long-term security is lacking. I believe it's not asking too much to take their word over yours.

And I never said that the US is secure BECAUSE it spends so much - in fact, if you'll check my writings, I've often said we spend significantly too much on defense, starting with the aircraft carriers that I served on for nearly half my career. We are secure because we not only have the most capable military in the world, but - just as importantly - we ALSO face no military threats whatsoever from anyone in our hemisphere...whereas, if one removes America from the equation, there's a lot of nations in this hemisphere who would soon be facing military threats from each other.

Australia should expect that they to be secure as they are protected by agreements with US and UK. They are the only country to join the US in all of our significant wars (Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Iraq, and Afghanistan) as well as all of UK's wars. They have earned the right to feel secure because of this commitment, even with 4 billion people living within 2,000 miles or so. Just as the US can claim to feel secure because of a $700 billion defense budget. If the US owes anyone, it is Australia.

Um, 'scuse you, but it's AUSTRALIA that wanted closer ties with the US for their long-term security against an increasingly-belligerent China. Again, I'll take THEIR words over yours. That, and even you just referred to Australia's dependence upon America for its long-term security in that you claim that we "owe" it to Australia to keep them secure.

Over the past 20 years, Australia has had 4 "terrorist" attacks-a French consulate firebombing with no deaths, an abortion clinic attack with one dead, Endeavor Hills police stabbing that left 2 injured, and a Sydney hostage situation that left 2 dead. Seems secure.

Australia's a really nice place - been to Perth twice, and Hobart twice. I wish all Americans had the chance to go there. They are indeed a secure nation...but by their own admission in the article I linked to, that security is in significant measure dependent upon military and diplomatic might of America. America's security, however, is not dependent upon any other nation at all.
 
Wait a second. So Australia is insecure because they are nervous about China but the US is secure because it spends more than every other country on military and internal security forces?
Why does the US spend so much if we are secure?

Australia should expect that they to be secure as they are protected by agreements with US and UK. They are the only country to join the US in all of our significant wars (Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Iraq, and Afghanistan) as well as all of UK's wars. They have earned the right to feel secure because of this commitment, even with 4 billion people living within 2,000 miles or so. Just as the US can claim to feel secure because of a $700 billion defense budget. If the US owes anyone, it is Australia.

Over the past 20 years, Australia has had 4 "terrorist" attacks-a French consulate firebombing with no deaths, an abortion clinic attack with one dead, Endeavor Hills police stabbing that left 2 injured, and a Sydney hostage situation that left 2 dead. Seems secure.



The USA is secure because it spends so much.

You can't put a price tag on freedom.
 
That is subjective so we should just end this debate...

I'll go with that...but don't get me wrong. I'm not taking that position because I'm trying to diss ANZAC's or because I'm one of these rah-rah-rah America's-the-best-of-everything super-patriots with an apparent fetish for the stars and stripes, but because (thanks to our geographical position, our economic strength, and our military might) it's simply a matter of fact. I strongly disagree with the notion of "American exceptionalism" - heck, looking at the world's reaction to the Syrian exodus, Germany seems to have supplanted America as the land of opportunity for immigrants. Time was, we would have welcomed them with open arms - but now, thanks to rabidly-xenophobic conservatives feeding the fear of the uninformed public, we're more likely to build a freaking wall - "Festung Amerika - Stay Out!"

And I agree with you that there are several first-world democracies that are indeed more internally stable than America...but "internal" is only half the equation.
 
The USA is secure because it spends so much.

You can't put a price tag on freedom.
Well, Switzerland seems rather safe and secure and has been for centuries despite all the turmoil around it yet only spent 0.7% of GDP on defense. Sweden seems safe yet only spends 1.2%. US spends c. 3.5%.
Oman spends 11.2% and probably is not very safe or secure.
 
The answer is no.

Historical grievances are many and they run deep. The Blacks, the Mormons, the Mennonites and the Jews have a long history of being persecuted.

The Ku Klux Klan (the "Klan") terrorized black people, Catholics and Jews in the second half of the 19th Century and intermittently through the 20th Century. Similar violence occurred via lynchings. Non-violent but very disturbing and humiliating discrimination such as "Jim Crow" laws, residential and school segregation were the order of the day. These were upheld as the law of the land in the despicable Plessy v. Fergeson Supreme Court decision, which followed from the odious Dred Scott v. Sanford decision prior to the Civil War. There are proposals for reparations to living African-Americans. See Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act. Excerpt of Congressional preamble:
Preamble to Act said:
To address the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery in the United States and the 13 American colonies between 1619 and 1865 and to establish a commission to study and consider a national apology and proposal for reparations for the institution of slavery, its subsequent de jure and de facto racial and economic discrimination against African-Americans, and the impact of these forces on living African-Americans, to make recommendations to the Congress on appropriate remedies, and for other purposes.
See, as well, article in Duke Chronicle, an independent new journal at Duke University, Should there be reparations for African Americans?

Excerpt:
Duke Chronical article said:
Reparations for African Americans are crucial to fight white supremacy and compensate for slavery's consequences, scholars said at a town hall forum Monday, but they aren't enough.
African-Americans are hardly the only group to suffer serious and crippling discrimination.

As detailed in Mormon History (link)the Mormons were driven from Palmyra, New York to Pennsylvania, to Ohio, to their own city, Nauvoo, Illinois. During that era, Joseph Smith, their leader, was murdered in jail. The Mormons then relocated, finally, to Utah. Persecution of them was abundant, and vicious.

The Mennonites fared somewhat better, but have also been persecuted. See Mennonite History Is Marked by Persecution.

The Jews' history barely needs retelling. David Nirenberg’s excellent book, Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition, reviewed here in Tablet Magazine and here in the New Republic discusses this baleful history. He explains that much of the hatred was directed at theoretical Jews by people who had never met a real one. The Pharaohnic hatred of the Jews led them to create a parallel myth to the Exodus story, to the effect that they gave the Hebrews the boot, not the other way around. The Holocaust is extremely recent and devastating. One-third of Jews were executed. Many more fled, and lost their property in the process.

The issue of reparations is a delicate one. The Jews received some compensation, by way of West Germany making some payments to the State of Israel as a result of the Holocaust. There have been settlements in some civil actions brought by victims and their immediate descendants for property plundered by the Nazis. These payments were to actual living victims of actual living persecutors. Aside from these payments by the German government to some Jews, and the Jewish State of Israel, reparations are rarely paid, for reasons I consider to be good. Not everything in life can be fair.

I come out against reparations for historical acts. Neither the victims or the perpetrators are alive. The people who suffered slavery will never be recompensed. The people who administered the lashes will never be punished for their cruelty.

The people receiving this unearned lucre have, by and large, never experienced Jim Crow, residential or educational segregation. The people paying taxes to fund the reparations have never, by and large, done anything wrong.

In short, reparations are the punishment of the blameless for the benefit of the uninjured.
 
It looks like the no's have it in a landslide. Next!
 
No way in hell white people will give reparation to blacks in this country.. just like the Indians will never get there land back.... only white people would be entitled to something like this.....just telling the truth!!!
 
Why should the jews first in line??? because they are white???
 
Te-Nehisi Coates' recent article in The Atlantic has raised a few eyebrows, and showed me just how much I did not know concerning how America and America's government has oppressed the African American community in the past...and even to the modern day.

Coates points out that reparations isn't a matter of "we can't afford it" or "how do we determine who gets paid how much", but a matter of right and wrong. America - and America's government - committed great wrongs against the African American community over many generations, including within my own lifetime.

I was raised to believe that if I did somebody wrong, I should apologize sincerely...and I should do my level best to make it up to those I wronged. I was taught that a refusal to make up for what I have done to others is not just wrong, but dishonorable.

It is for this reason that I agree that we as a nation should pay reparations to the African American community - because it is a matter of right and wrong, a matter of our national honor.

If anyone alive today (a) has directly wronged another person alive today (b) then that person (a) may owe compensation to the other person (b). If this is a matter of white people should give black people money then no.
 
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