I like this answer a lot. Objective, doesn’t answer what it doesn’t know for certain and gives context.
Comment on How are slavery reparations fair?
Baahb@lemmy.world 1 year ago
The argument goes, as a British citizen, you have and continue to benefit from policies that your government made a long time ago. Reparations are not a tax on you, but an expense the government should have paid at the time of the work, but instead it did things like kidnap people from their homes, transport them to where labor was necessary, and force them into work. Now, the people who are the descendents of the kidnapped folks are requesting that the bills their great great grandparents were never paid. To extend that, after slavery ended, many of those who had been enslaved were left disenfranchised, and impoverished to the point that there is almost no possibility of building generational wealth.
As for if this will open the floodgates or not, who knows. An argument could be made in both directions, it’s not as though governments paying one time sums to places is rare, and reparations for wars used to be pretty run of the mill.
Chriszz@lemmy.world 1 year ago
DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
The “floodgates” component of the question is the “slippery slope” logical fallacy.
Consider the present claim in isolation, not its relevance to other claims.
Rebuilt@lemmy.world 1 year ago
It is not a fallacy to consider it might encourage other claims. If I am in a classroom and I accept to give someone candy publicly, do you think everyone nearby will not be MORE tempted to ask too, compared to whether if I said no?
In both cases, asking costs almost nothing compared to the potential gains.
DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
… which would be considered on their respective merits.