Larry Elder, a Los Angeles radio talk show host (bio here), probably won’t be governor of California even though he’s the leading GOP candidate to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, in the September 20, 2021, recall election. (Read story here.)
He’s well behind Newsom in polls, and in addition to carrying the baggage of his ex-girlfriend’s abuse accusations (details here), he’s too nutty to be taken seriously by anyone except hard-core Republican voters, who are a special breed of misfits like him, and not a majority in that state.
Case in point: Elder, who’s black, supports paying reparations to slave owners’ descendants because their “legal property” (i.e., slaves) was taken from them at the end of the Civil War. “Like it or not, slavery was legal,” he says. (So was the extermination of the Jews, under Nazi laws in effect at the time.) This is taking property worship too far.
Let’s skip over the dumbness and immorality of his suggestion, and go straight to the technicalities. The statute of limitations on any legal compensation claims expired long ago, so whether to pay the descendants of slave owners for depriving them of their “property” is strictly a political question. Meaning at the discretion of Congress.
Want my opinion? No. Stuff it.
Any questions?
Actually the whole issue of reparations for former slaves or for owners is rather silly in the state of California, because California was admitted as a free state.
What Elder is suggesting is not really that out there. Under the constitution of the time slaves were property and for the government to free them owners should have been compensated. It is exactly what the British Empire did under Victoria, and slave in Canada were compensated for their slaves. Only recently has the British government paid off that bill. They borrowed to free all the slaves in all the colonies and it was a pricey bill. It was brought up in Congress multiple times to do something similar, just the bill was exorbitantly large. Technically that thing referred to as the Emancipation was technically unconstitutional, but what Lincoln actually did was free the slaves in states the Union did not control. States that had been defeated or remained in the Union did not affect slaves in those states, they remained slaves.
If the citizens of California decide Newsom goes whoever has the most votes in the second act becomes governor. It appears that person is Elder. Who thought back in the day some Austrian body builder would become Governor. The Governator was rather unexpected. Should a bill paying restitution to ancestors of slaves I think it is safe to say Governor Elder will VETO it in very big letters. The California legislature could overrule the veto but that will take time, and California democrats might have second thoughts.
Then why is he suggesting it? To be silly? Yes, suggesting a state that never had slaves pay reparations to slave owners is “out there.” Will it seems rather unlikely that Elder will become governor, it’s not safe to say he would veto a slave owner reparations bill when he publicly endorses such reparations. Interestingly, the District of Columbia, with Lincoln’s blessing, did pay reparations to slave owners — and nothing to the slaves. Read about that here.