8 ms·

How does this work when no one alive today stole any of the property? When none of the people it was stolen from are alive? What is the (broadly consistent) le

How does this work when no one alive today stole any of the property? When none of the people it was stolen from are alive? What is the (broadly consistent) legal doctrine for expropriating living people's property on the basis of their ancestors sins? How do you draw the line around legitimate grounds for litigating a criminal grievance from the past? How do you establish the appropriate damages? I ask these important contextualizing questions not to imply that reparation aren't possible or are necessarily a bad idea, but rather to illustrate that the attitude of "this is easy, just do the obvious thing" is not going to be sufficient here. And when the comment begins with asserted speculation about what enacting reparations "would most likely" involve... I get very suspicious.

jacobwilliamroy 6y ago
You're thinking about the situation upside down. First we find the stolen property, then we return it to the legal owner. One cannot legally own stolen property. The law is very clear: no one gives what one does not have. If for example "Leslie" inherits assets from human traffickers, those are not Leslie's assets; they are stolen assets. Leslie is not a criminal being prosecuted for crime. No one is being punished. Stolen property is being returned to the rightful, legal owners. This has nothing to do with sin, or morality, or emotion, or even race. This is just about accounting and following the law. It really is as simple as it sounds.