William Kitchen writes
> My own view of "reparations" is that making me pay for the crimes
> of long-dead slave owners is no more rational than holding the
> descendents of the slaves responsible. I have no more control
> over those events than they do. This "reparations silliness" is
> much more than just silliness. It vilifies modern day whites not
> for doing something wrong, but just for being the same race as
> someone who did something wrong.
Some of us who oppose reparations fail, I think, to fully
take into account one of the chief arguments of those who
do. As one of them explained, recently, it's not so much
individuals, or perhaps even racial groups, that they
want held accountable. They want entire *nations*, i.e.,
the collective state that to them is the legitimate
embodiment of "the people" to be held accountable. Quite
a few libertarians easily forget that collectivists really
do see states and nations not only as valid abstractions
(which I do too) but as extremely necessary and very
vital entities that in many ways are better, wiser, and
more just than the mere individuals of a region.
Lee Corbin
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:40:00 MDT