Stop the Insanity (or, at least slow it down)

I was all prepared to write a story today about the time when I was 17 and raced my Bonneville on Fire Rd in Northfield, NJ jumping a railroad track at 90 mph and completely ripping out my exhaust system. Yes, there is a moral in that story somewhere. Anyway, prior to doing that I read the news and something pissed me off. Hence, I'll leave the Pontiac story for another time.

Today in Washington, DC, there was a real life, actual, I'm not making this up, House hearing on reparations for what some are calling, America's original sin. The committee heard testimony from experts on why the American taxpayer should fork over funds to African American descendants of slavery. One of the noted experts was, Danny Glover. Because nobody knows more about monetary disbursement for crimes against humanity in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries than an actor who spends a shit-ton of time with despots in third-world, communist countries. Yep, Danny Glover. I can just see the two democrat staffers putting this thing together: "Hey, I'm really struggling for census and socio-economic demographics during the postbellum particularly below the Mason Dixon line. Any ideas on who could help with that?" "Is Danny Glover available." "Yeah, he should be. I don't think he's been to Venezuela since Hugo bit the dust and I can't remember the last movie he was in." "Awesome. Get him." Not to be outshined by Glover's fading star, media circus stars, Cory Booker and Sheila Jackson Lee went about their usual grandstanding throwing red meat to social justice sycophants who packed the committee room.

What I hate most about this spectacle is that all this foolishness lessens the seriousness of a time in our nations history where we stood at the brink of an abyss that threatened to destroy not only our country, but the balance of power in the world. Let me get something out of the way quickly. Slavery is evil. The practice is evil. The perpetrators are evil. It is a blight, a cruelty. It is a scourge that has existed since Dryopithecus man figured out how to use tools. It is still happening today. Slavery in the United States was real, widespread, and terrible. It ended in 1865 at the conclusion of the American Civil War. Now, 154 years later, some chuckle-heads in congress and some running for president have invoked this notion of monetary settlement to a swath of the electorate because...racism. It's absurd. It's ridiculous. It is an insult to thinking people and typifies what we have come to expect from vapid politicians. It is more symbolism over substance.

Logistically, these proposals are stupid. Not because I don't like them but because they're stupid. Feels and emotions aside, there is a wide set of variables which would wreak havoc on any cockeyed solution. Let's start with the premise that United States Revenue is taxpayer money. That means it's ours. We "citizens" who contribute to it. Everybody on board? Ok. There are 330,000,000 people in the United States. We all know that not all of them contribute to the governments coffers but let's leave that alone. This money belongs to each of them.

Problem 1) Not a single one of the 330,000,000 people here today were alive to take part in the slave trade in 1700-1865.

Problem 2) Even during antebellum, only 7.8% of Americans owned slaves making the non-slaveholding public 92.2%.

Problem 3) Nearly 100 million people have "legally emigrated to the US since 1865. They and their descendants weren't even here to witness slavery yet be culpable for it.

Problem 4) Who gets paid? There were 300,000 white indentured slaves, native American slaves, as well as slaves from Barbados and other Caribbean Islands.

Problem 5) IT IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL

Problem 6) IT IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL

Problem 7) IT IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL

There are scores more. Sheila "Daffy Duck" Jackson Lee said today, "“The role of the federal government in supporting the institution of slavery and subsequent discrimination directed against blacks is an injustice that must be formally acknowledged and addressed." I think it already has. Repeatedly. And I also think the debt was paid. It was paid by 600,000 dead Union soldiers, their widows, and their orphans.