Since Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) began proposing it to every single Congressional session without fail, HR40 has been largely considered a political joke, albeit one it very poor taste. However, today in the throes of a nation torn apart by our political differences, with cities in flames due to Black Lives Matter rioters and the Biden-Harris regime firmly entrenched, the joke isn’t funny anymore, its an insult. The title HR40 is a somewhat less than subtle play on Civil War Gen. Sherman’s order to grant 40 acres and a mule to freed slaves during the Reconstruction, later reversed by Congress.
This bill and the commission it seeks to create are the ultimate insult to the American people as a whole and Black Americans in particular. For the American people in general it condemns us in historical guilt and demands contrition for the sins of our ancestors. For Black Americans it codifies their victimhood and applies collective insult to any historic injury.
The torch has been passed since Rep. Conyers’ day and Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX) is now lead sponsor but the bill remains the same old insult to the very notions of American values. It seems when she’s not trying to eradicate our Second Amendment rights, this is what Congresswoman Jackson-Lee does in her spare time…
The stated purpose of Jackson-Lee’s Bill is:
“To address the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery in the United States and the 13 American colonies between 1619 and 1865 and to establish a commission to study and consider a national apology and proposal for reparations for the institution of slavery, its subsequent de jure and de facto racial and economic discrimination against African-Americans, and the impact of these forces on living African-Americans, to make recommendations to the Congress on appropriate remedies, and for other purposes.”
The Only Response to Such An Insult:
In 2016 Senator Bernie Sanders & Fmr. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rejected the notion of reparations. I very uncomfortably found myself agreeing with them. The difference is that they used the issue as a political football whereas I reject the notion entirely on these grounds:
There is absolutely no logic behind the notion that anyone born after February 1, 1865 (The date the 13th Amendment entered law) could be legally liable for reparations related to slavery in the United States.
Consider the following: Only an individual who was alive and had reached responsible age (18) at the time could be considered a legally responsible party to (or even tangentially having benefited from) in the text of the bill:
“The capture and procurement of Africans;
(B) the transport of Africans to the United States and the colonies that became the United States for the purpose of enslavement, including their treatment during transport;
(C) the sale and acquisition of Africans as chattel property in interstate and intrastate commerce;
(D) the treatment of African slaves in the colonies and the United States, including the deprivation of their freedom, exploitation of their labor, and destruction of their culture, language, religion, and families; and
(E) the extensive denial of humanity, sexual abuse and the chatellization of persons.
(2) The role which the Federal and State governments of the United States supported the institution of slavery in constitutional and statutory provisions, including the extent to which such governments prevented, opposed, or restricted efforts of formerly enslaved Africans and their descendants to repatriate to their homeland.”
To wit:
- If such an individual (born 1/31/1864) were alive today they would be 156 years, 5 months, 14 days old. Allowing for the voting age in 1864 (relaxed to 18 from the previous 21) any individuals born after 1846 were minors and thereby not legally responsible for the action or inaction of elected officials.
- The oldest person alive today in the United States is Hester Ford, who was born August 15, 1905, fittingly for this argument: in Lancaster, South Carolina, and at 115 years old was fully two generations removed from this age group.
Furthermore, in addition to reparations for slavery itself this farce of a bill states the commission shall investigate and determine the correct reparations for African Americans for events that occurred after the slaves were freed and given citizenship. We’ll take this section point by point:
(3) The Federal and State laws that discriminated against formerly enslaved Africans and their descendants who were deemed United States citizens from 1868 to the present. As “formerly enslaved Africans and their descendants” had the right to vote at this point they are equally liable for the actions and/or inactions of the state and federal governments at that time. Any voter suppression by individuals at this time have either been adjudicated already or rendered moot by the deaths of all parties involved. Descendants are not legally liable for the actions of their ancestors.
(4) The other forms of discrimination in the public and private sectors against freed African slaves and their descendants who were deemed United States citizens from 1868 to the present, including redlining, educational funding discrepancies, and predatory financial practices. Descendants are not legally liable for the actions of their ancestors. The practices of redlining, and predatory financial practices have already been adjudicated, educational funding discrepancies are handled at the ballot box.
(5) The lingering negative effects of the institution of slavery and the matters described in paragraphs (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), and (6) on living African Americans and on society in the United States. Mark J. Perry and Thomas Sowell annihilated this point so we don’t have to, Sowell wrote:
“Nearly a hundred years of the supposed “legacy of slavery” found most black children [78%] being raised in two-parent families in 1960. But thirty years after the liberal welfare state found the great majority of black children being raised by a single parent [66%]. Public housing projects in the first half of the 20th century were clean, safe places, where people slept outside on hot summer nights, when they were too poor to afford air conditioning. That was before admissions standards for public housing projects were lowered or abandoned, in the euphoria of liberal non-judgmental notions. And it was before the toxic message of victimhood was spread by liberals. We all know what hell holes public housing has become in our times. The same toxic message produced similar social results among lower-income people in England, despite an absence of a “legacy of slavery” there.
If we are to go by evidence of social retrogression, liberals have wreaked more havoc on blacks than the supposed “legacy of slavery” they talk about.”
(6) Recommend appropriate ways to educate the American public of the Commission’s findings. We would recommend treating this commission’s findings the same way the Biden-Harris regime treated the 1776 project. That was a joke, the 1776 Project was far more deserving of a commission. Really, this insult of a report should find itself alongside the 1619 project, in the dustbin of history.
(7) Recommend appropriate remedies in consideration of the Commission’s findings on the matters described in paragraphs (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), and (6). In making such recommendations, the Commission shall address among other issues, the following questions: There are no appropriate remedies, the blood of some 364,511 Union soldiers who died defeating the Confederacy is more than payment enough from the Government of the United States, similarly the Confederacy and their descendents paid for the sin of fighting to uphold slavery with 260,000 lives. Americas Reparations for the sin of slavery, in the North and South were already paid. IN BLOOD.
(A) How such recommendations comport with international standards of remedy for wrongs and injuries caused by the State, that include full reparations and special measures, as understood by various relevant international protocols, laws, and findings. In a world where the likes of The Chinese Communist Party, Putin’s Russia, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Cuba, Sudan, Libya, Venezuela and other criminal violators of Human rights sit on the UN Human Rights Council and dictate said “relevant international protocols, laws, and findings” so called “International Standards” aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. They’re less than irrelevant. And the United States Constitution leaves no consideration for our citizens to be subjected to international jurisprudence. Therefore, any “comport” with such are moot.
Simply put, the only people who could potentially be held liable for a Tort have been dead for approximately 50-60 years. From any logical, legal perspective any case would be invalid. While members of the government ergo the people who elected them could have theoretically been held legally liable for Tort against former slaves. They’re all dead. The victims are all dead. The issue is dead. To move forward as a society we cannot exact vengeance from dead men.
The practice of slavery was ended with an atonement in blood, the blood of 600 thousand people lost in the American Civil War. Was that price along with fifty years of affirmative action insufficient penance on a national scale for this sin? This is a slap in the face to the honored dead, an insult of the highest order.
Furthermore and a bit closer to home, I like many Americans and very many millennial Americans am descended from families who emigrated to the United States long after the South’s guns fell silent. This begs the question: if neither I, nor my ancestors took any part in, nor benefitted from the slavery and oppression of the African people in the American South from between 1619 and 1865, than what would possibly entitle any of their descendants to my hard earned money?
The root concept of this brazen redistribution of wealth is fundamentally flawed, patently an insult and a thoroughly disgraceful. It is a thinly veiled attempt at theft on a massive scale. Representative Jackson-Lee has shown behavior completely unbecoming a United States Congresswoman, and the fact that her travesty of a bill has been proposed yearly since it was first introduced in 1989 with no repercussions is the most damning part of all. Redistribution of Wealth is Theft by Government fiat, and Reparations for slavery are an insult and a farce.
Speaking of Reparations…
Now, since we’re talking about reparations and descendants can’t be held liable for the sins of their forefathers, how about we discuss how much money Black Lives Matter and Antifa will be forced to pay for all the cities, businesses and lives they’ve taken and burned?
Author’s Note: This is Op-Ed is an expansion on my previous 2017 piece on HR40 at that time which can be found on TheHollowNet.com for the record: I am not an attorney nor do I possess any law degrees, this is just common sense. In a civilized society: a child is not held responsible for the sins of the father, nor should we Americans bear the guilt of our forebears long dead. Such efforts to avenge the past sins of every nation only leaves an empty, silent world bathed in blood. For no civilization is without sin.