Reparations

Reparations to all, and to all a good life!

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandchildren (who exist), and my great-grandchildren (who don't) — the Stickies — to haunt them after they become grups or I'm deleted.

                              [Image by Richard Duijnstee from Pixabay]               

Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, and/or grups may result in a debilitating intersectional triggering 

                                                  Glossary  

                                                    About

Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlerreader

"And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?" -William Shakespeare


Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies (& Gentlereaders),

Some people, and at least one candidate for president, support the payment of reparations to Native Americans for the depredations that they suffered at the hands of those that "discovered" America and then gradually turned it into the USA by displacing and/or killing many of those who didn't realize they needed to be discovered.

Other people, and other people currently running for president, support paying reparations to African-Americans as compensation for the fact that their ancestors were victims of the obscenity that was slavery.

While I can see their point I don't support their position.

Trying to determine a set of rules and procedures that would satisfy everyone while the purple press did what it does — choose sides and gin up outrage to capture clicks, eyeballs, and revenue — would create yet another hot mess that would never be resolved.

Compromise and solutions, for this and no shortage of other issues and problems, are likely to remain unresolved till those of you that are Millies and Zoomers take over and show the world how it's done.

Careful though, that's what we Boomers told our predecessors we were going to do and yet here we are. If I didn't know better — thanks to the wisdom of the woke — I would think this was the nature of the beast.

But of course, that sort of thing has been debunked. The beast has no nature, everything is a mere social construct and a return to the garden is just a matter of sufficient informed tweaking and experimentation.

There's no reason why we can't start tweaking and experimenting right now, which brings me to personal reparations. 


One of modern America's undeniable strengths, and preoccupations, is taking each other to court in the pursuit of justice.

Even those of us that live in Flyoverland, well, most of us, will talk to a lawyer or two before deciding which of our many, many guns will be needed to resolve a vexing problem.

What if the moron with the enormous, crazy-eyed, four-legged, bark, bark, barking manure spreader desperately in need of a dog whisperer next door won't listen to reason?

Just place a call to Dewey, Suem, and Howe (Free Consultations!). 

What if we could get some judge in one of the more lawsuit friendly states (not to mention any names...) to allow a lawsuit seeking personal reparations to go forward under tort law?

A jury of someone's peers, like the ones that keep finding that the weed killer Roundup causes cancer in spite of overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary, could award punitive damages.

Voila! personal reparations are a thing.

According to the website of the law firm Allen, Allen, Allen & Allen (Protecting the injured since 1910), "Punitive damages are damages intended to punish the tortfeasor and also send a message to the community that the tortfeasor’s conduct will not be tolerated in the community."

Punish the tortfeasors and send a message to the community! Yeah, baby!

[Alle, Allen, Allen & Allen? Tortfeasor? You're just going for the cheap joke!]

What's your point, Dana?


Now, I realize that the more allegedly "rational" (yet another social construct created by the white, heterosexual, patriarchal suppressors (WHPS) among you will object on the grounds that tort law doesn't apply, or that at the very least new case law will need to be developed, legislation may be needed, and of course the Supremes will have, inevitably, to weigh in.

So what? Law schools, many of which are woke, keep churning out newly minted lawyers in debt up to the roots of their hair.

This would be a chance for them to go to work for nonprofit foundations set up to create a whole new branch of law and make a name for themselves while also making a living and working for a nonprofit employer, the dream of many an awakened Millie and Zoomer.

After all, even The Gummit can only absorb so many new lawyers.

One of the primary objections to reparations for oppressed groups is how do you determine who legitimately is a member of a given group? This idea solves that problem. An entire industry will evolve to aid individuals in proving that they're entitled to some dough. Yet more new jobs.

And as they used to say in commercials: put that checkbook away, there's more!

As Americans continue to come to their senses and reject the notion of rugged individualism and embrace victimhood (for everyone but the WHPS of course) personal reparations will make it possible for everyone to get even while simultaneously redistributing America's wealth.

For example, oppressed women of all genders and multiple intersectional victimizations could sue the men in their lives on an individual, case by case basis. Employees could go after employers. Fine arts and psychology majors could sue the schools that granted them their useless, wildly overpriced diplomas.

On and on it will go, a bloodless American version of the ever-expanding beheadings of the Frech Revolution. History will label this era the Great Levelling.

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

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