Individual Achievement or Reparations?

Individual Achievement or Reparations?

Think of all the amazing efficiencies that have been produced by innovators in the computer business. Production through creativity by software engineers enhances the lives of millions. Similarly, producing food, automobiles, houses, medicines, etc. – not giving them away- is what our economy and our very lives depend upon. We must learn the value of productivity.

Back in March, a cabal of lawyers formed the Reparations Assessment Group and filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Government and any corporation that was in existence prior to 1865. The lawsuit seeks damages to compensate today’s Black citizens for the wages lost by slaves. The idea is to punish one part of society in favor of another while denying the fact that the Civil War abolished slavery 137 years ago.

This action ignores fact. None of the victims of slavery are still alive after 137 years. None of the slave owners are alive. Individual and corporate fortunes have changed. It is impossible to trace any particular loss suffered by an individual to any gain enjoyed by another. So the demand for reparations takes the form of a blanket payment to all of today’s blacks at the expense of all of today’s taxpayers. Unfortunately, there is precedent for blanket lawsuits of this type. The United States Government paid $480 million to the displaced Seminole Indians who agreed to move from Florida to Oklahoma. Those Seminoles who chose to stay do not share in this windfall.

Liability law is meant to compensate specific individuals for specific wrongs. The Reparations Group wants to stretch that beyond the limits of absurdity. The cabal is not concerned with punishing or compensating individuals. Their focus is on a racial group. They rely on the view that Americans today are responsible for what some individuals (whites) did 137 years ago and that blacks today are owed compensation for whatever happened to other blacks in 1865, when most landowners practiced slavery. Racial collectives, not individuals, are the real parties in this lawsuit. The consequences are a series of battles. One group exacts endless revenge against the other for ancient wrongs. To use slavery as an excuse to exact wealth from members of one race and hand it to another disregards the responsibility of the individual. They want this to be done through the courts with abstruse legal arguments. This is dangerous to Americans both black and white.

The result of these efforts is not racial harmony or a colorblind society, but, rather, racial warfare. The idea of punishing white individuals who are not guilty of slavery, and rewarding black individuals who never endured slavery, is pure racism. Slavery reparations will not produce one computer, railroad, plane or building. They will not generate long-term growth. Americans should reject the notion of a collective guilt for slavery and uphold the idea of a colorblind society, based on individualism, with productive achievement as man’s noblest activity.