Opaque Lucidity

With A Broad Brush

The House of Representatives issued a formal apology for slavery this week. The apology itself deserves discussion as it is inaccurate and contains historical errors. However, what's more important is Barack Obama's reaction to the apology. It was muddled, as usual, but it opened the door for something troublesome: reparations.

The idea of paying Americans of African descent as a way of making amends for slavery has been floating around for more than a generation. It was a bad idea then and it's a bad idea now:

-We can't afford it. IF most black Americans were able to trace their ancestry to a slave, we're talking about tens of millions of people. Do you think the radicals who support this would be happy with $100 per descendant? Not likely.

-Not all black Americans would qualify, among them Barack Obama himself. After all, his father was from Kenya and his mother is white. There is no American slavery in his background. How do you prove it one way or another?

-All white Americans would have to pay the bill for what a small minority of Americans did. Both sides of my family came to this country after slavery ended. Thus, should my family have to pay anything? According to radicals, we do need to pay because we have taken advantage of the infrastructure created with slave labor. If this is true, shouldn't all the descendants of construction workers from the early 20th century be compensated? We still use the Empire State Building and the Golden Gate Bridge.

It's time to see this as it really is: a move towards wealth redistribution. If Obama thought reparations would win the White House, he would get on board with the idea. John McCain said that Obama would rather lose a war than lose an election. It looks like he may think spending us into bankruptcy is OK, too.