Reparations II

              Democrats are all about reparations. Reparations for slavery, of course. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) recently said, “everyone alive is responsible to do something now.” Say what? Rep. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) stated: “you see how deeply unfair this nation is still to so many people.” Booker grew up in a toney New Jersey suburb, the son of not one—but two—IBM executives.

             In the early ‘90s, the U.S. government sent checks to each of the surviving Japanese-Americans sent to internment camps at the outset of the nation’s involvement in World War II…by Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

             Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., recently reintroduced a bill titled the Refund Equality Act, which could fork over around $57 million in amended tax returns to married LGBT couples who wed prior to the Supreme Court ruling the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional in 2013. Prior to that date, though 10 states had already legalized same-sex marriage, they required each of the spouses to file their federal taxes as individuals. After DOMA was struck down, the couples were allowed to change their previous returns from individual to joint, but only for the prior three-year period. The Refund Equality Act would dispense with those time limits. This despite the fact that gay couples earn significantly more, on average, then do straight couples.

Sen. Warren also recently opined that Native Americans should be “part of the conversation” on reparations. While I am sensitive to the plight of Native Americans, they have received billions of dollars from the federal government in the past, and have been granted, in many cases, the right to own and operate extremely lucrative casinos, as well as vastly expanded hunting and fishing privileges.

Where does this stop? Who hasn’t been wronged? Do two wrongs make a right? Who is next in line for reparations? Transgenders? How much are they owed for their inexplicable, long-term exclusion from certain bathrooms and locker rooms? And what of those in the polyamorous community? Even today, in most states, they can’t legally get married. Which, of course, prevents them from filing their tax returns (doubly?) jointly. Don’t Catholics have a claim to reparations? They were persona non-grata in the early days of the union. The Irish, too, were shunned. “No Irish Need Apply” signs were hung outside of many an establishment in days of yore.

How about the families of the 620,000 or so soldiers who lost their lives in the Civil War? Are they not deserving? Come to think of it, did France and England repay relatives of those American soldiers who died in the European Theater of Operations during World War II? World War I? Bueller? Bueller? Anyone?

While we’re at it, if all living Caucasian Americans owe reparations to African-Americans, don’t all living Muslims—or at least all Saudi Muslims-- owe reparations to the families of those killed on 9/11? Or to the thousands of Christians slaughtered in the Middle East and Africa in recent years? Does Japan still owe the Chinese for the Rape of Nanking? Is China someday going to repay the hundreds of thousands of Muslims it has recently imprisoned without due process? What of the Balkan states? Who owes who reparations? Confusing, isn’t it?

Yet there is one group it is still okay to mock, slander and marginalize. To lie about, muzzle and physically assault. Who will see to reparations for conservatives? Wearing a “MAGA” cap is tantamount to placing a target on oneself. Many conservatives have arbitrarily lost their jobs—or been the victim of reduced opportunities—at Big Tech companies, in newsrooms, educational institutions, and in Hollywood. Conservative groups and individuals have been targeted by the IRS and other government agencies. Some in government have been swallowed up by The Swamp. Countless numbers have been castigated, cast aside, jostled, doused, evicted, banned and shadow-banned. Some have been wrongfully investigated. What of their emotional and physical trauma?

How long will it be until Democrats decide we need to pay reparations to criminals? Trick question. They already have proposed just that. In fact, they essentially want to give reparations to those who aren’t American citizens, who have never lived here, and who have just recently entered the country illegally. And to those who may do so in the future. They think it’s incumbent upon U.S. citizens—black, white, gay or straight-- to pay for the health care, education, and abortions of illegal aliens.

Those familiar with U.S. history know that, if any group owes reparations to African-Americans, it is the Democratic Party. If the party wins the 2020 presidential election and manages to institute programs like the Green New Deal, estimated to cost the average American household $70,00 in its first year alone, it will owe all of us reparations.