— Following-up on yesterday’s item on the reparations shakedown, check Kathryn Jean Lopez on Slavery on National Review:
“Once the record is fleshed out and made fully available to the American people, I think companies will feel some obligation” to settle, Randall Robinson has told USA Today. So long as the reparations activists can build up enough public pressure, we can expect companies to eventually buckle and reach for their wallets.
and Megan McArdle at Live from the WTC:
Bankrupting companies with class action suits, 100 years later, for something that was legal at the time — yessirree, that’s a recipe for economic success.
The emerging consensus is that this is a meritless legal action aimed at embarassing companies into paying Jesse Jackson-style shakedowns to civil rights groups with no legitimate mandate. The disturbing thing is that most blacks favor cash reparations, according to a poll cited by Lopez. Robinson, et. al., are apparently hoping to slide settlements beneath the radar while the nation is focused on the war and the economy is weak.
The stonger case for reparations is for Jim Crow rather than slavery, since Jim Crow victims are still alive. So the slavery salvo is phase one of the scam that the scam artists hope will gain strength in the second, Jim Crow phase.
Richard,
While I’m sure reparations do have the majority of support among blacks (I am very against them) – I’m a little leery of people citing a poll in which only 146 people were polled (according to the article 820 whites, 146 blacks). Seems like an awfully small sample to me – no?
It sure does. I believe I’ve seen some other polls going the other way, so it’s probably one of those things were it depends on how you ask the question.