Two Democratic presidential candidates say it’s time to adopt a new standard of justice: punish people for something they didn’t do.
Senators Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren told the New York Times they favor reparations for slavery paid to blacks who, the theory goes, are adversely affected even today by the bondage of their ancestors. How the reparations scheme would work is something of mystery, but the point of the policies is plain: Punish whites today for something they didn’t do, and distribute money to blacks today for an injustice they did not suffer.
Harris and Warren
The latest crackpot idea from the Democrats appeared in the Times on Thursday.
“In recent weeks,” the Times reported, “some candidates have started embracing specific goals and overtly race-conscious legislation that even the most left-wing elected officials stayed away from in recent years.”
Harris floated the idea on the radio program The Breakfast Club last week. When the host suggested that “government reparations for black Americans were necessary to address the legacies of slavery and discrimination,” Harris agreed.
“We have to be honest that people in this country do not start from the same place or have access to the same opportunities,” she told the Times. “I’m serious about taking an approach that would change policies and structures and make real investments in black communities.”
Warren, who has claimed for at least three decades that she is Indian, pushes the false idea that “discrimination” is responsible for the “wage gap” between blacks and whites. She too supports a shakedown for “black Americans impacted by slavery,” as the Times put it.
But Warren was silent as a cigar-store Indian when pressed for details, the Times reported, but the admission that she supports the patently unjust plan “came amid her calls for the federal government to provide special home-buying assistance to residents of communities that were adversely affected by ‘redlining,’ the discriminatory practice of denying mortgages, usually in poor and nonwhite areas.”
Hilariously, the Times opined that Warren and Harris were pushing “morally driven policy goals.”
Another hard-left Democratic candidate, Julián Castro, “has also indicated that he would support reparations,” the Times reported, while other candidates have offered similarly off-the-wall ideas.
The problem with “government reparations” is self-evident. Are white Hispanics whose families have lived in New Mexico for 150 years and never owned a slave obliged to contribute to the reparations kitty? What about the German Americans descended from the radical 48ers who fought for the Union during the Civil War, or the descendents of Italians who landed on Ellis Island in 1904? How will the government determine who owes what?
What of blacks who came to the United States after slavery was abolished? Will they partake of this collectivist munificence?
Harris: Credit Where Credit Is Due
Whatever Harris’ position on reparations, she is, apparently, uninterested in a ticket all the way to Kookville. Harris will get off the train a stop or two early.
Though she compared the hard-working employees of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement to members of the Ku Klux Klan and believes ICE needs serious reform, Harris opposes open borders.
When Harris appeared on Comedy Central’s Daily Show, host Trevor Noah, a black South African immigrant, asked whether she supports candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke’s plan to tear down the barriers on our border with Mexico. Answered Harris:
No, I believe that we need border security. But we need smart border security. We can’t have open borders. We need to have border security, all nations do. All nations define their borders, but we should not have a policy and perspective that is grounded in keeping people out for the sake of this nationalistic kind of thing this president is trying to push.
But Harris does favor more legal immigration, she said: “We should have borders that allow people to come in. That is part of the strength of our nation. We are a nation that was founded and has grown because we have always welcomed immigrants.”
On Monday, she firmly told reporters she is not a Sanders Democrat. “I am not a democratic socialist,” she said, rejecting the idea that candidates ally themselves with politicians such as Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), whose repeated gaffes have inspired critics to give her the name “Occasional Cortex.”
Photo: AP Images
