Walter Williams on Reparations

Among many other thought-provoking questions that are going unasked these days, we have the following concerning recent proposals for reparations for slavery in America:

She supports reparations. Image via Wikipedia, public domain.

[W]hich white Americans owe which black Americans how much? Reparations advocates don't want that question asked, but let's you and I ask it. Are the millions of European, Asian and Latin Americans who immigrated to the U.S. in the 20th century responsible for slavery? What about descendants of Northern whites who fought and died in the War of 1861 in the name of freeing slaves? Should they cough up money for black Americans? What about non-slave-owning Southern whites, who were a majority of Southern whites -- should their descendants be made to pay reparations?

The rest of the column is worth a full read.

Probably what is most remarkable to me about the questions Williams asks concerning reparations is that, is that almost any of them alone demolish the very idea, at least in the eyes of anyone with a modicum of concern for the virtue of justice or the political fundamental of individual rights. That speaks to both the enormous evil of the idea and the parlous state of our electorate. As Williams also notes, proponents are working overtime to worsen the second of these.

-- CAV