Reparations A California Gold Rush?

Is the tunnel vision if not silliness of Ca’s slavery reparations plan obvious yet? Why not a taste of taxpayer $ for ancestors of historically brutalized indentured Pilgrims, Jews or Catholics? Hispanics, Eastern Euros or LGBTQs?

The WSJ opined that the offensive $800 billion plan just recommended by Gov. Newsom’s panel means, “No progressive idea is too wild to be adopted these days.” The editors’ added, “As with racial spoils, the committee made some arbitrary distinctions” above & beyond those noted above. According to the latest West Coast brainstorm, “Black immigrants need not apply. Nor Japanese Americans whose ancestors were put in camps during WW II. Nor Chinese Americans who worked on the intercontinental railroad but were also barred by the Chinese Exclusion Act. And don’t forget Native Americans who were pushed off their land by settlers.” Nor the 400K white Civil War soldiers who lost their lives to end slavery.

Lo & behold, Gov. Moonbeam 2.0 yesterday rejected the panel’s plan after all, realizing his ability to spend taxpayers’ money ... as does his presidential aspirations ... have some limits. As the WSJ’s editors observed: “Slavery was a scourge & so was Jim Crow. But the US has done decades of penance to ameliorate their damage, including spending trillions of dollars in social-welfare programs.” Moreover, another “moral question is why Americans who played no part in either slavery or Jim Crow should pay for the sins of the past”? And, who exactly is an ancestor of a slave? Since some Californians insist upon digging for other peoples’ gold, it’s perhaps good to publicly debate all this openly, candidly & respectfully. But, as the editors concluded: “Accounting for the moral wrongs of the past is a fraught issue best left to the teaching of history, if they still teach that in California schools.”

Davd Soul