"Skywise" wrote in message
...
"Gary Drescher" wrote in
:
No, it's apparently based on your own misreading of your own post.
Nothing
in your original post referred to *punitive* reparations.

Why the **** else would there be reparations if not to punish?
Specific to this issue, slavery in America pre Civil War, what
tangible property is to be returned? What other reason would
there be (re slavery) for white people alive today to give
*anything* to black people alive today? The only thing taken
away from the blacks was their freedom. That has already been
returned to them. Anything more is punative.

You're being intentionally obtuse. One thing that was stolen from the slaves
(and thereby from their descendents' inheritance) was the massive value of
the slaves' forced labor; that was, after all, the whole point of slavery.
And advocates of reparations explicitly make that argument.

So even if you had some basis for disagreeing with that argument for making
nonpunitive reparations, it *still* would not vindicate your assertion that
anyone has been arguing that *punitive* reparations would be warranted
against individuals alive today.

The question of reparations is complex, and others in this thread have
mentioned some factors that legitimately detract from the case for
reparations. But your "punitive" misconstrual is not among those factors;
rather, it is just a red herring.

--Gary