In some ways, this essay is enlightening. In others, it leaves me scratching my head.
Reparations? Paid by whom? There was a greater contingent of whites dedicated to ENDING slavery and racism, than in promoting it. I invariably notice that when people mention reparations, they conveniently ignore the civil war. This essay is no exception. My ancestors fought and DIED in the civil war, fighting to free the slaves. I do NOT take kindly to having my ancestors lumped in with the slavers, simply because they are white.
What is exceedingly sad is the apparent presumption that, however complex the problem is, the solution is simple; more power of democrats over blacks. Much mention is made of Jim Crow here, but no mention that Jim Crow was primarily a democrat invention. And no mention whatsoever of the KKK, which was ENTIRELY a democrat invention.
Let's zoom out a bit, and look at the bigger picture: This essay lives in a world of socialism as the solution to everything. But what if socialism ISN'T the solution to everything? What about life and economies that exist OUTSIDE of socialism? Now, THAT would be an interesting essay.
I have a master's in education, and taught in public schools for six years, at the beginning of my career. Subsequently I went into business for myself, in the trades. It's two different worlds. Education and academia are inherently socialistic. I'm not knocking that, it just is. But there's an entire world out there that is individualistic. That is, a person's future rests almost entirely on his/her own shoulders, not society's. In the trades, and many other areas, a person's success does NOT come down to race or gender; it comes down to individual input. It would be nice if the writer of this essay expressed at least some small awareness of the importance of individual effort.
As a teacher in a rural school, I had EVERY student. They were separated by alphabet, not by race or gender. My classes had the black kids, the white kids, the rich kids and the poor kids. As in many (most?) classrooms, the achievement of my individual students varied. Some excelled, some flunked, and there was everyone in between. And how did it break out, relative to race and socioeconomic status? There was little difference, although the students with better educated parents tended to get better grades. But only to a minor degree. Parenthetically, what really bothered me was that many of the higher-achieving students learned only for the grades. They wanted to commit definitions to memory, to be repeated back at test time, with no concern with the degree to which they comprehended anything.
Now, let's look at how things are in the world of individual effort and free markets. I became an employer, and now, instead of students, I had employees. Now, instead of me being paid to see to the needs of students, I was paying employees to see to my needs of my business. Let's just say that some people don't see the difference, even though it's glaring. I never hired a black person, or a white person, or a man, or a woman. I haired COMPETENCE. I hired people who could and would do the job. What body they were in was irrelevant.
It bothers me a LOT that there are people who want to believe that success depends on what demographic a person is in, their race, their gender, their whatever. I won't say these things don't matter, but I will say that they are secondary. What REALLY matters is the person. How, then, can we have all these "discussions" of employment and income levels, and not even CONSIDER the individual? Only a die-hard socialist can be satisfied with such an approach, and with the resultant misinformation.
It appears you did not understand the post. The "reparations" would be paid by no one, and the primary beneficiaries would be white people. The Civil War has nothing to do with it. I mention liberals have talked about reparations and if they really want that they should push to reestablish SC culture because this restores a world where more people can get ahead by virtue of their own effort. But you seem to have understood none of that and are instead reacting to a construct of your imagination.
Billionaires like Musk, Gates, Zuckerberg, etc. They don't want to loophole taxes and not give back to society so reparations should be paid by them. Otherwise military spending could be cut in half and that could pay for them.
In some ways, this essay is enlightening. In others, it leaves me scratching my head.
Reparations? Paid by whom? There was a greater contingent of whites dedicated to ENDING slavery and racism, than in promoting it. I invariably notice that when people mention reparations, they conveniently ignore the civil war. This essay is no exception. My ancestors fought and DIED in the civil war, fighting to free the slaves. I do NOT take kindly to having my ancestors lumped in with the slavers, simply because they are white.
What is exceedingly sad is the apparent presumption that, however complex the problem is, the solution is simple; more power of democrats over blacks. Much mention is made of Jim Crow here, but no mention that Jim Crow was primarily a democrat invention. And no mention whatsoever of the KKK, which was ENTIRELY a democrat invention.
Let's zoom out a bit, and look at the bigger picture: This essay lives in a world of socialism as the solution to everything. But what if socialism ISN'T the solution to everything? What about life and economies that exist OUTSIDE of socialism? Now, THAT would be an interesting essay.
I have a master's in education, and taught in public schools for six years, at the beginning of my career. Subsequently I went into business for myself, in the trades. It's two different worlds. Education and academia are inherently socialistic. I'm not knocking that, it just is. But there's an entire world out there that is individualistic. That is, a person's future rests almost entirely on his/her own shoulders, not society's. In the trades, and many other areas, a person's success does NOT come down to race or gender; it comes down to individual input. It would be nice if the writer of this essay expressed at least some small awareness of the importance of individual effort.
As a teacher in a rural school, I had EVERY student. They were separated by alphabet, not by race or gender. My classes had the black kids, the white kids, the rich kids and the poor kids. As in many (most?) classrooms, the achievement of my individual students varied. Some excelled, some flunked, and there was everyone in between. And how did it break out, relative to race and socioeconomic status? There was little difference, although the students with better educated parents tended to get better grades. But only to a minor degree. Parenthetically, what really bothered me was that many of the higher-achieving students learned only for the grades. They wanted to commit definitions to memory, to be repeated back at test time, with no concern with the degree to which they comprehended anything.
Now, let's look at how things are in the world of individual effort and free markets. I became an employer, and now, instead of students, I had employees. Now, instead of me being paid to see to the needs of students, I was paying employees to see to my needs of my business. Let's just say that some people don't see the difference, even though it's glaring. I never hired a black person, or a white person, or a man, or a woman. I haired COMPETENCE. I hired people who could and would do the job. What body they were in was irrelevant.
It bothers me a LOT that there are people who want to believe that success depends on what demographic a person is in, their race, their gender, their whatever. I won't say these things don't matter, but I will say that they are secondary. What REALLY matters is the person. How, then, can we have all these "discussions" of employment and income levels, and not even CONSIDER the individual? Only a die-hard socialist can be satisfied with such an approach, and with the resultant misinformation.
It appears you did not understand the post. The "reparations" would be paid by no one, and the primary beneficiaries would be white people. The Civil War has nothing to do with it. I mention liberals have talked about reparations and if they really want that they should push to reestablish SC culture because this restores a world where more people can get ahead by virtue of their own effort. But you seem to have understood none of that and are instead reacting to a construct of your imagination.
"Reparations? Paid by whom?"
Billionaires like Musk, Gates, Zuckerberg, etc. They don't want to loophole taxes and not give back to society so reparations should be paid by them. Otherwise military spending could be cut in half and that could pay for them.