The case for reparations

[Ten oz]

1 hour ago, iNow said:

Okay. I'm trying to gauge willingness to pay reparations to those individuals wrongly locked up for years/decades, and potentially to their family/children who also suffered from the mistake. Curious what others think, as well.

I think the govt should. There is also legal precedence for it. Many exonerated people have been award payment though not nearly enough of them. 

34 minutes ago, zapatos said:

Your line is arbitrary and your footing is weak on whether or not land was "given" or "stolen using the pretext of trade with people who had a different understanding of land ownership or understood the implications of what they were agreeing to". 

Even if you could get the government to pursue and the electorate to accept, you'll never get past the ownership rights of people today.

It is still a non-starter.

No it isn't arbitrary. If the objective is for U.S. govt is to fulfill promises it made than it (U.S. govt) would need to have existed and made the promise. The U.S. govt would not be attempting to fulfill or correct promises made by England, Spain, France, or etc. The Constitution was ratified in 1788 so that would serve as the line. Nothing arbitrary about it. 

34 minutes ago, zapatos said:

Even if you could get the government to pursue and the electorate to accept, you'll never get past the ownership rights of people today.

The Govt has the right to take property. We can debate whether or not it should in our opinions or how popular doing so might be but legally it can take land. They is nothing to debate there. 

Quote

 

The power of governments to take private real or personal property has always existed in the United States, as an inherent attribute of sovereignty. This power reposes in the legislative branch of the government and may not be exercised unless the legislature has authorized its use by statutes that specify who may use it and for what purposes. The legislature may take private property directly by passing an Act transferring title to the government. The property owner may then seek compensation by suing in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. The legislature may also delegate the power to private entities like public utilities or railroads, and even to individuals for the purpose of acquiring access to their landlocked land. Its use was limited by the Takings Clause in the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1791, 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain_in_the_United_States#Constitutional_powers_and_limits

 

 

Edited March 29, 2019 by Ten oz

[MigL]

On the subject of reparations to those wrongfully convicted, I had assumed it already happens.
At least it does in Canada.
Does it not happen in the US ?

[Ten oz]

30 minutes ago, MigL said:

On the subject of reparations to those wrongfully convicted, I had assumed it already happens.
At least it does in Canada.
Does it not happen in the US ?

It varies by State. In most cases one must file a lawsuit against the authority which prosecuted them. There is not a national standard. 

[iNow]

What about the children of those wrongly convicted, those who were robbed of the full potential of their childhood with their innocent parents?

Edited March 29, 2019 by iNow

[zapatos]

2 hours ago, Ten oz said:

No it isn't arbitrary. If the objective is for U.S. govt is to fulfill promises it made than it (U.S. govt) would need to have existed and made the promise. The U.S. govt would not be attempting to fulfill or correct promises made by England, Spain, France, or etc. The Constitution was ratified in 1788 so that would serve as the line. Nothing arbitrary about it. 

Yes it is arbitrary. The US can give back Manhattan back as it is part of the US. Stolen property does not stop being stolen simply because it changes hands multiple times. If your car is stolen you don't lose your moral or legal right to retrieve it simply because it has passed through multiple hands.

Choosing the line at which the US government made the promise is arbitrary, as would be any line you pick. It's a fine place to start but that doesn't give it some unassailable quality.

 

Quote

The Govt has the right to take property. We can debate whether or not it should in our opinions or how popular doing so might be but legally it can take land. They is nothing to debate there. 

The government has a limited right to take property (see the 5th Amendment). They cannot arbitrarily take what they want and use it for any purpose they want. 

Nice of you to declare this part of the discussion off limits as you've made your ruling.

[iNow]

There’s a bill in Kansas where compensation would flow to the child if the wrongly imprisoned individual is no longer around to receive it because the state killed them, so there is precedent for channeling payments from the state to surviving family members. 

https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2017/03/14/what-do-states-owe-people-who-are-wrongfully-convicted

[Ten oz]

13 hours ago, zapatos said:

Yes it is arbitrary. The US can give back Manhattan back as it is part of the US. Stolen property does not stop being stolen simply because it changes hands multiple times. If your car is stolen you don't lose your moral or legal right to retrieve it simply because it has passed through multiple hands.

Choosing the line at which the US government made the promise is arbitrary, as would be any line you pick. It's a fine place to start but that doesn't give it some unassailable quality.

I don't follow your logic. If I make a promise I am responsible for that promise. If numerous others also made promises I am still only responsible for the ones I made. The U.S. govt would be addressing promises it specifically made.

New York City was founded in 1624 as a Dutch settlement. The United States Govt wouldn't exist for another 164yrs. 

13 hours ago, zapatos said:

The government has a limited right to take property (see the 5th Amendment). They cannot arbitrarily take what they want and use it for any purpose they want. 

Nice of you to declare this part of the discussion off limits as you've made your ruling.

Arbitrary is your word. Its Prejudicial language. You are treating your opinion of how things should be as a position of authority rather than merely an opinion. Land has been taken from one individual and given to another. We can debate over whether or not it should be done but there is nothing debate over whether or not it can be done. It can.

Quote

 

Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005),[1] was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States involving the use of eminent domain to transfer land from one private owner to another private owner to further economic development. In a 5–4 decision, the Court held that the general benefits a community enjoyed from economic growth qualified private redevelopment plans as a permissible "public use" under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London

 

 

[dimreepr]

23 minutes ago, iNow said:

There’s a bill in Kansas where compensation would flow to the child if the wrongly imprisoned individual is no longer around to receive it because the state killed them, so there is precedent for channeling payments from the state to surviving family members. 

https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2017/03/14/what-do-states-owe-people-who-are-wrongfully-convicted

1

That’s as it should be, but it should have a line in the generational sand.

otherwise, we're all due compensation.

[iNow]

2 hours ago, dimreepr said:

That’s as it should be, but it should have a line in the generational sand.

Maybe, but where it gets drawn seems arbitrary and hence part of why this discussion is so needed. 

2 hours ago, dimreepr said:

otherwise, we're all due compensation.

Let’s call them repairs. After all, this is about fixing something intentionally broken. 

[zapatos]

2 hours ago, Ten oz said:

Arbitrary is your word. Its Prejudicial language. You are treating your opinion of how things should be as a position of authority rather than merely an opinion. Land has been taken from one individual and given to another. We can debate over whether or not it should be done but there is nothing debate over whether or not it can be done. It can.

Quote

You are treating your opinion of how things should be as a position of authority rather than merely an opinion. Eminent domain cases have failed. You act like land can be taken from one person and given to another person for private use in all cases. From your own link, there must be a "public use" of the land taken. How can you possibly know the millions of cases that would be brought to court over the use of eminent domain to take land from one person for private use and give it to another person for private use will be successful? It is only your opinion.

3 hours ago, Ten oz said:

I don't follow your logic. If I make a promise I am responsible for that promise. If numerous others also made promises I am still only responsible for the ones I made. The U.S. govt would be addressing promises it specifically made.

Your goalposts seemed to have moved. You've added the line about "The U.S. govt... specifically made". Your original post on this subject said...

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Identifying ill gotten and/or maintained land (taken via native removal or promised to Slave pre Reconstruction) seems more practical to me than a standardized from of payment/benefit based purely on race. In many cases, perhaps most cases, the slaves promised that land or the Natives removed from lands can be identified. 

 

[Ten oz]

1 hour ago, zapatos said:

You are treating your opinion of how things should be as a position of authority rather than merely an opinion. Eminent domain cases have failed. You act like land can be taken from one person and given to another person for private use in all cases.

No I never said in ALL cases. Nor does it need to be all cases for my statement to stand. 

1 hour ago, zapatos said:

Your goalposts seemed to have moved. You've added the line about "The U.S. govt... specifically made". Your original post on this subject said...

I didn't move the goalposts. It simply hadn't accorded to me when typing the previous post that one would read it as the U.S. should identify all property I'll gotten throughout all of history. I assume one would understand it applied to what we (U.S.) was liable for. 

[zapatos]

58 minutes ago, Ten oz said:

I didn't move the goalposts. It simply hadn't accorded to me when typing the previous post that one would read it as the U.S. should identify all property I'll gotten throughout all of history. I assume one would understand it applied to what we (U.S.) was liable for. 

Bad assumption. Why should a Native American accept that American Citizen A gets compensated but not American Citizen B when they were screwed over by the same people in the same general area, but one was screwed over in 1775 and the other in 1776? 

It is an arbitrary line. Some Native Americans who lost land will be compensated, but not others. It has to have been land taken based on a specific date, but that date will change depending on your location and whether the white people around at the time were from France or England, or if the people from England had a President or a Monarch. You'll get the land if you are a certain percentage of Native American, and you will (or will not) be able to double dip if you have Native American heritage from more than one tribe. If you are Lakota Sioux we'll have to figure out if your ancestors were part of the tribe that agreed to give up land or opposed giving up land and fought. The line we draw on who will get land will also be subject to whether or not the courts allow us to take from someone else and give it to you, which may depend on how it is used now (are we going to take away then give away downtown Phoenix?) and how you are going to use it (private vs. public use). What about the rights of Native Americans who were kicked out of Mexican territory by Americans before the Americans stole the land from Mexico? Do the Native Americans who are not American citizens get land in the United States or must the be a citizen to claim the land? Will you get the land back if it has a building on it? Does the recipient have to pay for the building or can they demand it be removed? How many thousands of lines must be drawn in the sand on how the land swap will occur?

How can you claim that the answers to exactly how to implement this policy will be anything but arbitrary?

I cannot imagine the shit storm that would follow a decision to claim huge amounts of privately (or publicly) help real property to be given to the ancestors of those it was taken from. The proposal is a non-starter.

[iNow]

Reparations need not be equivalent to land seizure and reallocation. 

[zapatos]

47 minutes ago, iNow said:

Reparations need not be equivalent to land seizure and reallocation. 

Agreed. And in my mind would be next to impossible. Hence my argument against the proposal suggested earlier for discussion:

Quote

 What do you think of the govt returning land previously belonging or promised to Natives & Slaves?

 

[dimreepr]

20 hours ago, iNow said:

Maybe, but where it gets drawn seems arbitrary and hence part of why this discussion is so needed. 

a utilitarian approach seems the fairest way.

20 hours ago, iNow said:

Let’s call them repairs. After all, this is about fixing something intentionally broken.

was Australia intentionally broken by England?

 

[iNow]

Probably, yes. This thread, however, is about the US and it’s founding on the backs of slaves and segregationist laws that persisted for decades (centuries) after.

[Ten oz]

16 hours ago, zapatos said:

And in my mind would be next to impossible.

And yet to a degree is currently being considered in the Supreme Court. In Carpenter vs Murphy Patrick Murphy was sentenced to death in Oklahoma for a murder and argued that he was tried in the wrong court. His team argued that most of Oklahoma is Indian Territory and that Murphy should be tried in Federal Court which is responsible for Reservations. The argument contends that  the Indian Removal Act forcibly moved under Andrew Jackson but that Congress had never properly disestablished Reservations in Oklahoma. The ramifications of the ruling could make the Eastern part of Oklahoma including Tulsa a reservation. 

You may feel it is an arbitrary line which entire (govt, state, township, colony, etc) took land but courts do have a standard they follow. If Oklahoma loses its authority it will open up countless legal challenges regarding property rights. 

Quote

 

The Supreme Court hears a capital case in which it will have to decide whether nearly half of Oklahoma, a massive area including much of Tulsa, is an Indian reservation.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Today the Supreme Court heard arguments over whether the entire eastern half of Oklahoma should be considered an Indian reservation. A case that began with a murder could end up having broad implications for everyone who lives in that part of the state, Native American or not. NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg reports.

NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: As most Americans think of it, there's no formal Indian reservation in Oklahoma today. But then most Americans know little about Indian history. Indians were forced off their land in the southeast of the United States by order of President Jackson and forced to march more than a thousand miles to relocate on reservations mainly in Oklahoma. What's left of those reservations is essentially a system of Indian identity and governance in the eastern half of Oklahoma that coexists with the state government.

That all got thrown into question when Patrick Murphy, a Native American sentenced to death in state court for killing another Indian, challenged his conviction, contending that he'd been tried in the wrong court. A federal appeals court subsequently ruled that he should have been tried in federal court because the eastern part of Oklahoma was still technically an Indian reservation. And crimes committed on reservations must, under federal law, be prosecuted in federal, not state court.

JAMES FLOYD: We were really forced into this case to defend our sovereignty.

TOTENBERG: James Floyd, chief of the Muscogee Creek Nation, said that when Oklahoma appealed to the Supreme Court, the tribe had to defend itself.

FLOYD: We have sovereignty. We have the reservation that was never diminished or taken away. And so if we didn't stand up, we'd basically ceded that point to the state of Oklahoma. And we refuse to do that.

TOTENBERG: Indeed, while Congress has revoked treaties regarding other Indian reservations, it never did that in Oklahoma. Today in the Supreme Court, lawyer Lisa Blatt representing Oklahoma told the justices that when the state became a state, that automatically stripped Indian lands of their reservation status. Justice Kagan, however, noted that the Supreme Court has repeatedly required that Congress explicitly terminate Indian land rights. And while Congress has done that in other places and for other reservations, it did not do that in Oklahoma. Justice Breyer noted that in 1906, Congress explicitly continued all tribal rights for the five tribes in Oklahoma.

https://www.npr.org/2018/11/27/671285316/supreme-court-should-eastern-oklahoma-be-considered-an-indian-reservation

 

 

17 hours ago, iNow said:

Reparations need not be equivalent to land seizure and reallocation. 

It doesn't need to but there are cases in court now where it is. Reservations for example can't be bought or sold. The land is controlled in a trust controlled by the Federal Govt. Natives are not able to build wealth via buying of selling. That system is being challenged around the country.   https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/native-americans-property-rights/492941/

You brought up reparations for those wrongly locked up. That also is currently being being fought in court. As mentioned in my early objections to reparations I feel there are other ways to to promote equality and reaching catharsis. There are already a thousand plates spinning. People are battling against gentrification, abusive police departments, prejudicial drug laws, unequal representation in govt, and etc. 

Reparations need not be equivalent to any one singular thing. However there are numerous things being battled that do need to be addressed (by the govt as a whole not by this thread specifically). 

[dimreepr]

1 hour ago, iNow said:

Probably, yes. This thread, however, is about the US and it’s founding on the backs of slaves and segregationist laws that persisted for decades (centuries) after.

 

I didn't do it, did you? fair is a two-way street.

[iNow]

Dim - I’ll just put you down for the “we shouldn’t even be talking about it” category. 

 

2 hours ago, Ten oz said:

You brought up reparations for those wrongly locked up.

It seems obvious to me that support for this is far higher. It’s easier to justify and is more palatable.

It also shows that reparations as a concept isn’t de facto a nonstarter when we discuss it in the right context.

After that, it’s just a matter of degree, and determining where passion for that support wanes or falls to zero. 

Edited March 31, 2019 by iNow

[dimreepr]

15 minutes ago, iNow said:

Dim - I’ll just put you down for the “we shouldn’t even be talking about it” category. 

 that doesn’t seem fair.

[iNow]

On 3/22/2019 at 9:53 AM, dimreepr said:

When did reparations work?

 

 

On 3/21/2019 at 10:18 AM, dimreepr said:

when does revenge solve anything?

 

On 3/30/2019 at 7:50 AM, dimreepr said:

That’s as it should be, but it should have a line in the generational sand.

otherwise, we're all due compensation.

 

1 hour ago, dimreepr said:

I didn't do it, did you? fair is a two-way street.

 

[Ten oz]

26 minutes ago, iNow said:

It seems obvious to me that support for this is far higher. It’s easier to justify and is more palatable.

It also shows that reparations as a concept isn’t de facto a nonstarter when we discuss it in the right context.

After that, it’s just a matter of degree, and determining where passion for that support wanes or falls to zero. 

You wouldn't agree that allowing Natives to own Reservation land as opposed to it being manage by the federal govt in a trust would also be palatable?

[iNow]

Perhaps. Like the reparations topic, details matter here. 

[Ten oz]

8 minutes ago, iNow said:

Perhaps. Like the reparations topic, details matter here. 

I am not referencing the full idea of restoring promised lands (the discussion with Zapatos). Rather I am specifically addressing allowing Tribes ownership of the Reservations they currently have Tribal Sovereignty over.  I think most lay political observers already assume this to be the case anyway. The collective geographical area of all reservations is 56,200,000 acres. The average value in the U.S. of an acre of land is around $1,200. Natives living on Reservations can't access any of that value. They do not own the land. The have governance over it but not ownership. Giving Natives ownership of land they already have tribal sovereignty is an easy win in my opinion. It doesn't require taking land from anyone.  

 

[iNow]

As laid out above, that is hard to oppose.