PoliticalChic
Diamond Member
Based on some recent posts, racism and the battle against same, is the central thesis for many of our progressive colleagues. Some, it seems, found the actions of Chris Rock acceptable based on his race....and some imagined racism, and/or legacy of slavery....
1. Liberals love the idea of the apology, that the government should apologize for slavery, Japanese internment, you name it.
2. The Rabbis teach that no apology is legitimate unless the offender:
a. Expresses remorse stating specifically what he has done
b. Makes restitution
c. Refrains, in similar circumstances, from committing the offense again.
3. Based on the first of these, a governmental apology founders, without specifics as to who the we is, and who the they of the apology are.
4. Take the question of slavery vis-à-vis the American Government of today. Is it guilty of slavery?
a. If so, are those African American members of government equally guilty?
b. Are the American people alive today guilty?
c. If so, which ones? The black as well as the white?
d. Is the guilt heritable for if it is, then would not those (the great majority of) Americans whose ancestors did not arrive until after slavery be exempt from apology?
e. How about the ancestors of the 300,000 white males who died to defeat slavery? Exempt as well? And the whites who voted for the 14th amendment and the Civil Rights Act?
f. And if not, on what basis are the descendants of slaves entitled to it?
5. Is it not absurd that six or seven decades after the West defeated Nazi Racism we are still considering making government decisions based on genetics?
6. To indulge in any racial preferences is not to award to a race, but, rather, to the state, the power to created different classes of citizens, and to rule on who shall belong to each class. This does not serve any desire for justice.
From chapter 12 of The Secret Knowledge, David Mamet.
1. Liberals love the idea of the apology, that the government should apologize for slavery, Japanese internment, you name it.
2. The Rabbis teach that no apology is legitimate unless the offender:
a. Expresses remorse stating specifically what he has done
b. Makes restitution
c. Refrains, in similar circumstances, from committing the offense again.
3. Based on the first of these, a governmental apology founders, without specifics as to who the we is, and who the they of the apology are.
4. Take the question of slavery vis-à-vis the American Government of today. Is it guilty of slavery?
a. If so, are those African American members of government equally guilty?
b. Are the American people alive today guilty?
c. If so, which ones? The black as well as the white?
d. Is the guilt heritable for if it is, then would not those (the great majority of) Americans whose ancestors did not arrive until after slavery be exempt from apology?
e. How about the ancestors of the 300,000 white males who died to defeat slavery? Exempt as well? And the whites who voted for the 14th amendment and the Civil Rights Act?
f. And if not, on what basis are the descendants of slaves entitled to it?
5. Is it not absurd that six or seven decades after the West defeated Nazi Racism we are still considering making government decisions based on genetics?
6. To indulge in any racial preferences is not to award to a race, but, rather, to the state, the power to created different classes of citizens, and to rule on who shall belong to each class. This does not serve any desire for justice.
From chapter 12 of The Secret Knowledge, David Mamet.