You must hang with a pretty progressive crowd, which is exactly my point. You could pick 10 of the poorest quartile of Americans and I’d bet the house that every single one wants to redistribute that money to themselves.
They’ve probably never left their state, let alone visited another country. You don’t have to benefit from an injust system to want to perpetuate it.
Why do you think ending USAID resonates with the poor? Why would someone struggling to pay rent volunteer a huge chunk of their nation’s wealth to go halfway across the world?
In 200 years, after theoretical major reparations, would it be unfair to call 61%+ of Americans people of their time? Or are they all demons for participating in a regressive system?
Getting back to George W., total abolition was a severe minority position at the time. Even up to the divisive start of the Civil War, estimates are well under 10% support for northern voters and functionally 0% for southerners. Add in the 18% of the population in slavery, and a random sampling would get you in the low 20% supporting total abolition.
Washington was a third generation slave owner, and by all accounts he died supporting the gradual abolition of the slavery via ending slave trade. Not exactly a paradigm of virtue but it made him a tiny bit progressive relative to most of his peers.
We can’t retroactively apply our modern moral framework just because there are a handful of historical peers who were more progressive. Save the fire and brimstone for the people that actively deserve it.
For example Mark Twain built his career around being a racist funnyman, and held genuinely regressive views for the time. He doesn’t get half as much shit because his face isn’t carved on a mountain. He literally fought in the Civil War for the slavers. Why do we care more about Washington’s dentures?
You must hang with a pretty progressive crowd, which is exactly my point. You could pick 10 of the poorest quartile of Americans and I’d bet the house that every single one wants to redistribute that money to themselves.
They’ve probably never left their state, let alone visited another country. You don’t have to benefit from an injust system to want to perpetuate it.
Why do you think ending USAID resonates with the poor? Why would someone struggling to pay rent volunteer a huge chunk of their nation’s wealth to go halfway across the world?
61% of Americans explicitly don’t want to increase foreign aid, which is a much less controversial topic than actual reparations.
In 200 years, after theoretical major reparations, would it be unfair to call 61%+ of Americans people of their time? Or are they all demons for participating in a regressive system?
Getting back to George W., total abolition was a severe minority position at the time. Even up to the divisive start of the Civil War, estimates are well under 10% support for northern voters and functionally 0% for southerners. Add in the 18% of the population in slavery, and a random sampling would get you in the low 20% supporting total abolition.
Washington was a third generation slave owner, and by all accounts he died supporting the gradual abolition of the slavery via ending slave trade. Not exactly a paradigm of virtue but it made him a tiny bit progressive relative to most of his peers.
We can’t retroactively apply our modern moral framework just because there are a handful of historical peers who were more progressive. Save the fire and brimstone for the people that actively deserve it.
For example Mark Twain built his career around being a racist funnyman, and held genuinely regressive views for the time. He doesn’t get half as much shit because his face isn’t carved on a mountain. He literally fought in the Civil War for the slavers. Why do we care more about Washington’s dentures?