OT: Bill O'Reilly

[MaroonBells]

I'd forgotten about old Billo. He gets the response he deserves for this idiotic tweet....assuming this was not someone hacking his account. 

https://twitter.com/BillOReilly/status/1...7703757824

[Guest]

LMAO. He's so desperately trying to remain relevant somehow.

 

[Guest]

Interesting topic. I hope...
While he's not exactly wrong he's not totally right.
There was a mentality in the all white all land owning (and other forms of "property") founders that did not match their lofty aspirations. Blacks even free black as well as women were excluded from voting. Why? Obviously because they couldn't be trusted to make the proper choices. Why? Obviously they must have been viewed as less intelligent. Or simply they were a threat to upset a system working very well for white property owners. Poor white non property owners didn't fare much better but weren't excluded totally. As far as exploitation. Slaves could be sold and marriage was still not about love or choice for the girls. Both business deals could be easily arranged. So what was happening kinda was exploitive. Well...more then kinda.
However it was the way these founders were brought up and formed their mental outlook on things. It was the way of the times.
They did have the aspirations to make a better form of government for all and wrote them into laws and rights. So Bill is right there. It wasn't founded on the idea's of exploitation and exclusion. Just took many more generations to change the mentality enough to uphold them for all.

P.s. Slavery reparations now is silly. History is full of black spots. Live and learn. Try to be better going forward you can't fix the past with money. Not this long after anyhow.

[Guest]

The ones that balk at reparations are the folk that lament the slippery slope of moral decay that will occur from abandoning family values.  How many generations of slave families were broken and disrupted, what effect did that have?  How about jim crow laws and segregation.  Did all the impact on family just go away and everything is even now?   

[Guest]

@BigAl99 said:
The ones that balk at reparations are the folk that lament the slippery slope of moral decay that will occur from abandoning family values.  How many generations of slave families were broken and disrupted, what effect did that have?  How about jim crow laws and segregation.  Did all the impact on family just go away and everything is even now?   

the ones that balk at reparations are the ones that realize that the making people pay for things that they didnt do,  to people that werent actually harmed,  is an absurd notion of justice.  Our country pays reparations to Native Americans... how is that working out for those people?    What will reparations solve?  Whats the goal here?  To reinforce the victim mentality in young black Americans?   Isnt that drum beat hard enough already?

[Guest]

@BigAl99 said:
The ones that balk at reparations are the folk that lament the slippery slope of moral decay that will occur from abandoning family values.  How many generations of slave families were broken and disrupted, what effect did that have?  How about jim crow laws and segregation.  Did all the impact on family just go away and everything is even now?   

I will not argue the peace after the war was a total sell out to the former slaves when they enacted the Jim Crow laws. There were many in the Union states that wanted to take land from the plantation owners and give like 40 acres each to former slaves. Give them the vote then and there. The politics of appeasement won. Sadly...They wanted the south back and contributing. There was a big war debt to pay.
I still can get on board with Slavery reparations though. We pay this generation for many former generations who were slaves. Do blacks then have to sign a contract saying debt paid? Then what of the next generation? What if none of the money makes it to them? Are they again entitled to another payment? Are they also not descendents? Does it just keep going on and on? 

[Guest]

@BigAl99 said:
The ones that balk at reparations are the folk that lament the slippery slope of moral decay that will occur from abandoning family values.  How many generations of slave families were broken and disrupted, what effect did that have?  How about jim crow laws and segregation.  Did all the impact on family just go away and everything is even now?   

I agree with you on this one. (underlined part) One of the worst things about slavery, was the inability for upward mobility for generations.  Whites/non-slaves did not have that barrier.  

I would be against cash payments, but I would consider the elimination of property taxes for verified 
slave descendants for a specified time period (say 30 years -- the life of most mortgages).  I would combine that, with a 0 down/present prime-rate interest mortgage (one time, per descendant)

Trump wants to eliminate the bureaucratic  Office of Personnel Management, right?https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/06/24/heres-why-trump-is-threatening-federal-layoffs-if-congress-wont-shut-this-agency-down/?utm_term=.10a2635d850a

It has about 6000 employees.  Keep 1000 employees in the new "Housing Reparations Department". 
Every employee shall be a slave descendant, if possible.  Already have the office space.

The program ends in 100 years... the number of (89) years +11 since 1776 and before the 13th amendment passed in 1865.  

• reparations in the form of tax reductions
• increased slave descendant home ownership
• smaller government

Win, Win, Win, imo.  

Could we then consider eliminating affirmative action/quotas?  

[Guest]

Reparations can be different than just a check.  Yeah agreed I didn't do it, but I still have to own the results.  Got a lot of privilege, that it took me a while to realize, fear it or fix it.

[Guest]

I don’t believe in reparations.  I don’t believe that you should punish people
who didn’t commit a crime for stuff their ancestors did.    I don’t believe that giving them money
would actually work.  You just look at lottery
winners and you see that the vast majority of them are going to blow the money
and end up in the exact same place.  I
don’t believe that it will make anyone feel better.  I don’t think you’ll give them any money, and
then they’ll be like, “Well historical racism has been cancelled out, all privileges
have been negated and it’s now an equal playing field going forward.” And if
you can’t end up in a point where black people feel like they have been
sufficiently compensated and are now equal, what was the point?  Also, who gets reparations?  Do all black people get reparations?  Even immigrants who’s parents weren’t slaves?  How about black people that came from London
or some other place where they thrived?  How
about mixed race people?  If your half
black, half white, does your black half receive reparations and your white half
pays reparations?  Do they only get half
the reparations because their ancestors were only half as victimized?  What about other ethnicities?  Do Asian people and Hispanic people get
insulated from having to pay the slave decendents?  What about white people who’s ancestors didn’t
own slaves?  Do they have to pay even though
no one in their lineage did anything wrong? 
What if my ancestors immigrated here after the slaves were freed?


 


Reparations seems like a great way to just piss off half the
country no matter what you do.  Like if
you wanted to start a civil war, you would do reparations.


 


I’m much more in favor of figuring out a non-race based
option for how to fix wealth inequity.  I
think it’s pretty obvious that welfare isn’t working at closing the gap, but
maybe there’s an alternative option that would. 
I think no matter what we do, we need to focus on changing the laws to
prevent corporations and the select few from becoming massively wealthy.  If there are laws that have positive
reinforcement cycles that congregate wealth into the hands of the few, change
them such that money distributes more evenly. 
This is a problem that affects all of us, so everyone should be on the
same side in wanting to see this solved. 
We would be united in our goal even if we saw different ways to get
there.

[Guest]

@BigAl99 said:
Reparations can be different than just a check.  Yeah agreed I didn't do it, but I still have to own the results.  Got a lot of privilege, that it took me a while to realize, fear it or fix it.

My dad got the shit kicked out of him back in the 60s by a bunch of black men when they thought he was in the wrong neighborhood while sight seeing in the south,  should I be able to sue all black people because I was brought up in home with a mistrust of black people?  Doesnt every black person have to own up to the misdoings of a few people because of something that happened to one of my ancestors?

tell you what,  if you have white guilt,  go ahead and double (or what ever amount you feel will right the wrongs of your ancestors)  and send it to the US Treasury to help pay for what ever you think is fair,   but its insane to suggest that the rest of the innocent Americans should be taxed for the beliefs of a few.

by the way,  maybe you have had it easier due to your skin color,  but was that by your own doing or choosing?  and maybe being born white has made some things easier,  but it wasnt by my choosing or in no way have i had a hand in perpetuating any laws or ways of life that would hinder any black peoples opportunities.  Hell no to reparations IMO.  and by the way,  even if you dont hand them a check,  any sort of financial upper hand (more than are already present) will require somebody to pick up the tab...eventually somebody always pays.