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2020 Presidential election

Catchall said:
These progressive social programs like Medicare for all, tuition forgiveness, decriminalizing undocumented immigration, etc. are not going to get anyone elected. They also wouldn't pass the Senate if someone who supported them did get elected.
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Agree about college debt forgiveness and decriminalization of border crossings, disagree about Medicare for all.

Most people hate their insurance company.
 
Jazzta said:
Except reparations, what kind of concept is that?
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A fairly commonly held one. What form it should take is definitely up for debate, but I think this country owes a debt to those upon whose backs we built this country, and then proceeded to wage a war of oppression against for a century.
 
Zombie said:
A fairly commonly held one. What form it should take is definitely up for debate, but I think this country owes a debt to those upon whose backs we built this country, and then proceeded to wage a war of oppression against for a century.
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I think it's a gross overstatement to say the country was built on the back of slaves. As for repaying them, they've been gone for more than four generations. Not to say I'm against social programs to help people and try to break cycles of poverty and other hardship, but I don't think referring to Southern slavery is the most relevant or useful starting point to refer to.
 
Zombie said:
A fairly commonly held one. What form it should take is definitely up for debate, but I think this country owes a debt to those upon whose backs we built this country, and then proceeded to wage a war of oppression against for a century.
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Not in the form of $200-$500 million of tax payers money, not opposed to some kind of symbolic gesture though. Same with all the US tax payers money that’s sent to the nationalist-fascist government of Israel every year.
 
Catchall said:
I think it's a gross overstatement to say the country was built on the back of slaves. As for repaying them, they've been gone for more than four generations. Not to say I'm against social programs to help people and try to break cycles of poverty and other hardship, but I don't think referring to Southern slavery is the most relevant or useful starting point to refer to.
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I don't think it's an overstatement at all. And it's not just slavery, but the failed reconstruction and Jim Crow laws in the wake of it that set the stage for the world we're living in now.

I think Ta Nehisi Coates makes a compelling case
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/
 
I think Sanders vs. Trump would make for a very heated debate, probably even a healthy one.

Thought Beto was good, turned a corner with me. Amy was nice too.
 
Jazzta said:
You’re putting a moral burden on people who weren’t directly involved with slavery. It definitely doesn’t help the debate imo.
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That's a cop out. It's less a moral burden than paying for bombs or aircraft carriers. And whether white people like to hear it or not, they have benefited from that oppressive system.
 
Zombie said:
That's a cop out. It's less a moral burden than paying for bombs or aircraft carriers. And whether white people like to hear it or not, they have benefited from that oppressive system.
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So spell out an example -- what would reparations consist of, what form would they take, from whom would they be collected, and how would they be allocated and distributed?

How would they be different from, say, offering scholarships and grants for people to go to college, or helping inner city schools?
 
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