3 ms·

It seems as though you're saying that because we can't get a perfect estimate for cost, the next best guess is $0. There's obviously a lot of tolerance on thes

It seems as though you're saying that because we can't get a perfect estimate for cost, the next best guess is $0. There's obviously a lot of tolerance on these estimates, but even with extreme tolerances $0 seems a bit low. > There is no way to come up with a formula for any of this that makes any sense The first step would be having a serious discussion about every question you raised. They're all good questions, and with some amount of investigation, yield closer and closer answers. This is a daunting task -- no doubt -- but I see no reason why you should be opposed to it, or assume it's impossible.

smt88 6y ago
> It seems as though you're saying that because we can't get a perfect estimate for cost, the next best guess is $0. Correct. > This is a daunting task -- no doubt -- but I see no reason why you should be opposed to it, or assume it's impossible. I'm opposed to trying to adjudicate a distant and poorly-documented past in order to take money from one group and give it to another. That's why the best estimate, for me, is $0. The first thing to do is to do no more harm, and as we see from the enslaved-Germans example, reparations can end up being another injustice that needs to be repaired. I am not opposed to fixing the unfair deficits caused by slavery, but I don't think we need to (or that it's ethical to) look at history to do that. We can simplify it to, "Who was born with fewer opportunities? Who has fewer opportunities now? Who is discriminated against now?" In many cases, the most deeply affected parties will overlap with the people affected by the legacy of slavery. But we'll also cover people who had generations of near-slavery (e.g. white Appalachian sharecropper who became timber workers and then coal miners), as well as people are suffering deeply from modern atrocities like the opioid crisis.

smt88 6y ago

> It seems as though you're saying that because we can't get a perfect estimate for cost, the next best guess is $0. Correct. > This is a daunting task -- no doubt -- but I see no reason why you should be opposed to it, or assume it's impossible. I'm opposed to trying to adjudicate a distant and poorly-documented past in order to take money from one group and give it to another. That's why the best estimate, for me, is $0. The first thing to do is to do no more harm, and as we see from the enslaved-Germans example, reparations can end up being another injustice that needs to be repaired. I am not opposed to fixing the unfair deficits caused by slavery, but I don't think we need to (or that it's ethical to) look at history to do that. We can simplify it to, "Who was born with fewer opportunities? Who has fewer opportunities now? Who is discriminated against now?" In many cases, the most deeply affected parties will overlap with the people affected by the legacy of slavery. But we'll also cover people who had generations of near-slavery (e.g. white Appalachian sharecropper who became timber workers and then coal miners), as well as people are suffering deeply from modern atrocities like the opioid crisis.