August 18th, 2004
I haven’t said much about the former ambassador’s entry into the Illinois senate race as the GOP candidate, because enough has already been said about it. Also, to the chagrin of Republicans, I predict that Barack Obama will be elected to the U.S. Senate by a landslide, being that nobody loves a carpetbagger (plus Keyes is too far-right for most Illinois GOPers).
As if Keyes’ carpetbagging from Maryland to Illinois wasn’t hypocrisy enough, he’s now pandering to black voters on the reparations issue:
Keyes proposed that for a generation or two, African-Americans of slave heritage should be exempted from federal taxes–federal because slavery “was an egregious failure on the part of the federal establishment.” In calling for the tax relief, Keyes appeared to be reaching out to capture the black vote, something that may prove difficult to do, particularly after his unwelcome reception at the Bud Billiken Day Parade Saturday.
The former ambassador said his plan would give African-Americans “a competitive edge in the labor market,” because those exempted would be cheaper to hire than federal tax-paying employees and would “compensate for all those years when your labor was being exploited.”
Under Keyes’ plan, African-Americans would still have to pay the Social Security tax, because “it’s not a tax in the strict sense,” said Keyes, calling it instead a payment to support a social insurance program.
Keyes has discussed reparations before with statements that seem to contradict Monday’s comments.
In 2002 on his short-lived MSNBC show, “Alan Keyes is Making Sense,” he argued with one of his guests, an advocate of reparations, asking, “You want to tell me that what they suffered can actually be repaired with money? You’re going to do the same thing those slaveholders did, put a money price on something that can’t possibly be quantified in that way.”
And in a 2002 column titled “Paid in Blood,” Keyes called lawsuits on behalf of slave descendants against large corporations an “effort to extort `reparations’ for slavery from their fellow citizens” and said that “the truth of the Civil War is that the terrible price for American slavery has been paid, once for all,” when Americans gave their lives on the battlefield to end slavery. “The price for the sin of slavery,” Keyes wrote, “has already been paid, in blood.”
What few shreds of respect I once had for Keyes are gone. The Illinois Republican Party should also hang their heads in shame for not finding anybody in their home state to challenge Obama.
The local dog catcher would’ve fared better.
(link via Michelle Malkin)
Related: Joe Gandelman comments.
Related #2: Baldilocks comments.
Filed under Politics | Comments (4)
I Hate it When I agree with Conservatives
(SMILE) But Brother DC hit this one out of the Park on Keyes…
Keyes is showing himself to be a nutcase and a hypocritical one at that.
I really hope I’m not stirring a pot by this comment, but I’m going to go ahead with it.
“African-Americans of slave heritage”
Who are these people? To enact such legislation, are people going to have an identification card, or something? How do you prove this?
Additionally, in this day and age where some racial boundaries are crumbling, why are we limiting this to “African Americans?” I have a cousin, aged 5, who has blonde hair and blue eyes and is 1/4 black. If she can prove slave heritage, can she get reparations?
For that matter, I’m inclined to research my own family history — the only white people I know with my last name are my family. You never know…
Anyway. Sorry if I stepped on toes, just pointing out that “reparations,” should they happen, are going to open this system up to all KINDS of abuse. And Mr. Keyes is a flaming loon.
Alan Keyes’s Flip-Flop on Slavery Reparations
Yesterday we posted about Mr. Keyes’ unusual proposal, at a press conference to discuss his U.S. Senate campaign. Our fellow black moderates and conservatives have mixed opinion: