This relates to the BBC article [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66596790] which states “the UK should pay $24tn (£18.8tn) for its slavery involvement in 14 countries”.
The UK abolished slavery in 1833. That’s 190 years ago. So nobody alive today has a slave, and nobody alive today was a slave.
Dividing £18tn by the number of UK taxpayers (31.6m) gives £569 each. Why do I, who have never owned a slave, have to give £569 to someone who similarly is not a slave?
When I’ve paid my £569 is that the end of the matter forever or will it just open the floodgates of other similar claims?
Isn’t this just a country that isn’t doing too well, looking at the UK doing reasonably well (cost of living crisis excluded of course), and saying “oh there’s this historical thing that affects nobody alive today but you still have to give us trillions of Sterling”?
Shouldn’t payment of reparations be limited to those who still benefit from the slave trade today, and paid to those who still suffer from it?
(Please don’t flame me. This is NSQ. I genuinely don’t know why this is something I should have to pay. I agree slavery is terrible and condemn it in all its forms, and we were right to abolish it.)
Reparation payments sound nice sometimes, but I truly think it’s just a distraction designed to promote infighting among the economically enslaved. Tax the rich, provide for all in need, and we will have made more of a repair than payment ever could.
You get a reparations payout,
You spend the reparations payout , The money flows straight out of the community into the pockets of the likes of the Waltons.
Or
You tax the likes of the Waltons,
You invest in infrastructure and social programs
The money stays in the community and provides long-term benefit, and greater social mobility to lift people out of the after-effects of slavery.
Yes. I wish I could vote this up more than once