Before we start, check out the latest installment of Fire and Ice over at Glibertarians.
Now then: California’s stupidity with “reparations” is still moving forward. The San Francisco Gate tells us:
California’s reparations task force voted Saturday to approve recommendations on how the state may compensate and apologize to Black residents for generations of harm caused by discriminatory policies.
The nine-member committee, which first convened nearly two years ago, gave final approval at a meeting in Oakland to a hefty list of proposals that now go to state lawmakers to consider for reparations legislation.
U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, who is cosponsoring a bill in Congress to study restitution proposals for African Americans, at the meeting called on states and the federal government to pass reparations legislation.
“Reparations are not only morally justifiable, but they have the potential to address longstanding racial disparities and inequalities,” Lee said.
First: Barbara Lee is an idiot. Second: The entire country, let alone California, can’t afford to pay out what this convocation of fools is recommending. Third: There is no one alive today who was held in slavery in the United States or in any territory that is now part of the United States, nor is there anyone alive today who has held anyone in slavery in those places.
I owe nobody anything because of my Scots-Irish-German ancestry, and nobody is owed anything because of their African ancestry. This whole discussion is stupid beyond words, and basing it on this parody of Original Sin – another concept I don’t accept – makes it even sillier.
Here’s an estimate of the cost, from that same article:
Some estimates from economists have projected that the state could owe upwards of $800 billion, or more than 2.5 times its annual budget, in reparations to Black people.
I’d bet a sawbuck that it would be more than that, but even that amount is insane. And, at some point, some vestige of sanity will kick in and even the California legislature will have to give this whole idea a pass.
My question is, what happens then? I can see two things happening: Another “summer of love,” with looting and burning, and California’s Congressional delegation joining with the delegations of other blue states to demand that the Imperial government do something about this.
I’d like to think that the Imperial City hasn’t yet sunk so far into stupidity to even consider this idea, but recent events are making me skeptical.
