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ORIGINAL: slvemike4u

Laws were violated to accomplish that interrment....no existing laws were violated to keep slaves in their chains.I don't see a legal precedent.

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ORIGINAL: rulemylife

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ORIGINAL: Lorr47

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ORIGINAL: rulemylife

I read an article some months ago that convinced me that the American Japanese reparations were not a precedent.  The payments were made to persons "in being" or basically the first generation survivors.  Big difference.

If you have a link I would like to read that.

But when you say "big difference" I also think there is a big difference in the severity of the two situations.

The internment of the Japanese lasted a few years while slavery in this country goes back to the earliest colonial settlements and was far more brutal.

The precedent was the government acknowledging there was a wrong committed and a debt owed.

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Also, every day claims are denied because a "statute of limitations" controls.  All "statute of limitations have run many many many decades ago.  I have been bound by the "statutes of limitations" in my life" and to my detriment.  I am bound by the "statute of limitations" because I am white while others are not?  Is that reverse racism?  

I think any argument trying to apply a statute-of-limitations here would be a stretch.  The argument could be made but there is nothing anywhere that comes close to addressing it on-point.

Besides, this is not likely to be decided as a civil action but as an act of Congress, if it ever comes to pass.

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ORIGINAL: rulemylife

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ORIGINAL: Lorr47

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ORIGINAL: rulemylife

I read an article some months ago that convinced me that the American Japanese reparations were not a precedent.  The payments were made to persons "in being" or basically the first generation survivors.  Big difference.

If you have a link I would like to read that.

But when you say "big difference" I also think there is a big difference in the severity of the two situations.

The internment of the Japanese lasted a few years while slavery in this country goes back to the earliest colonial settlements and was far more brutal.

The precedent was the government acknowledging there was a wrong committed and a debt owed.

There is a big difference in the two situations.  Find me a living person who was a slave. 

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Also, every day claims are denied because a "statute of limitations" controls.  All "statute of limitations have run many many many decades ago.  I have been bound by the "statutes of limitations" in my life" and to my detriment.  I am bound by the "statute of limitations" because I am white while others are not?  Is that reverse racism?  

I think any argument trying to apply a statute-of-limitations here would be a stretch.  The argument could be made but there is nothing anywhere that comes close to addressing it on-point.

Section 1983 actions etc. are subject to their own "statute of limitations."  Bring your action under these statutes and you will get bounced out of Court on your head.  You are asking for a gross perversion of the legal system with constitutional repercussions.

Besides, this is not likely to be decided as a civil action but as an act of Congress, if it ever comes to pass.

Have you ever considered that such a congressional act would be struck down under any number of "equal protection and due process" grounds.  It would be the first time that I agreed with Roberts and Alito.  Obama is a constitutional lawyer and there are fundamental reasons he is against it not the least of which is that the supreme court would tee it up and use a driver in reversing it..

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ORIGINAL: Lorr47

There is a big difference in the two situations.  Find me a living person who was a slave.

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Section 1983 actions etc. are subject to their own "statute of limitations."  Bring your action under these statutes and you will get bounced out of Court on your head.  You are asking for a gross perversion of the legal system with constitutional repercussions.

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Have you ever considered that such a congressional act would be struck down under any number of "equal protection and due process" grounds.  It would be the first time that I agreed with Roberts and Alito.

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ORIGINAL: servantforuse

Maybe Africa should be made to pay to. Some Blacks sold their own people to the Dutch traders..

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ORIGINAL: ThatDaveGuy69

I'm with HizGP.
My gramdmother was a Cherokee who survived the Trail of Tears.  Too bad for me she didn't leave a trail of paper (rim-shot!).  It's a damn tough thing to prove-up when the only person who knew her history is long-gone.

The blacks, Irish, Chinese, Mexicans, and everyone else who wants a big fat hand-out can all move to the back of the line.  The people who were here on this land long before it was a country may step right up, the cashier will see you now.

~Dave

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ORIGINAL: ThatDaveGuy69

I'm with HizGP.
My gramdmother was a Cherokee who survived the Trail of Tears.  Too bad for me she didn't leave a trail of paper (rim-shot!).  It's a damn tough thing to prove-up when the only person who knew her history is long-gone.

The blacks, Irish, Chinese, Mexicans, and everyone else who wants a big fat hand-out can all move to the back of the line.  The people who were here on this land long before it was a country may step right up, the cashier will see you now.

~Dave

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ORIGINAL: TheHeretic

An interesting argument about reparations is found in the link:

the average African-American today has been estimated, in genetic terms, to be approximately 20 percent white – and much of that 20 percent includes the genes of the white slaveholders who originally owned his great-grandparents.
By what logic do we pay reparations for slavery to those who, in all too many cases, are literally descendents of the actual slaveholders?


I see the reparations idea as divisive and racist. 

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ORIGINAL: rulemylife

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ORIGINAL: Lorr47

There is a big difference in the two situations.  Find me a living person who was a slave.

Then let's take your argument a step further and ask why reparations were paid to the heirs of the Japanese-Americans that were interned.

Many were not even born at the time yet it was deemed to have affected them, primarily economically, but was only carried on for a short period of time.

So wouldn't it make sense that damages from a few hundreds years of slavery would carry on to several generations?

No. In addition to resolving disputes, the legal system places a great deal of weight on "finality."  The statute of limitations deal  with finality.  Under your reasoning nothing is ever final.
Since you are throwing the system's rules to the winds, how often are we going to allow these suits in the future?  Each time a descendant of a slave is born, another law suit accrues since nothing is ever final by your reasoning.

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Section 1983 actions etc. are subject to their own "statute of limitations."  Bring your action under these statutes and you will get bounced out of Court on your head.  You are asking for a gross perversion of the legal system with constitutional repercussions.

We are not talking about post-Civil War discrimination or legislation so I fail to see how this would be in any way applicable.

Well pick a cause of action, tort or contract, and someone  will point out the applicable statute that bars your action.

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Have you ever considered that such a congressional act would be struck down under any number of "equal protection and due process" grounds.  It would be the first time that I agreed with Roberts and Alito.

You've mentioned constitutional repercussions and now equal protection and due process without any further elaboration as if it is an obvious fact. I don't see it.  And I also don't see how these constitutional arguments would not have been made in the internment case.  Where is the distinction?

It is obvious.  The arguments probably were not made because the class was defined; the time was relatively short; many living persons actually remembered the matter; there was plenty of evidence showing the who, when and where; the cost outlay was known and finite; and a brain dead senile president presided over the bill's passage.

In this case, I am appalled by the prospect of all the claims that will be filed from overseas? I am against foreign aid in the first place and the prospects of going on and on are horrific.  Evidence is long passed resurrecting.  "Yes, I am only 10% black but I have these nightmares, pay me." All the reasons for the existence of the statutes of limitations and laches apply.

You speak in terms of the Japanese matter as being almost a binding precedent.  Have you ever tried to work an estopple on the federal government? Also  perhaps we could argue diminished capacity given that Reagon was president.