I do not believe you are so dense as to not recognize the web of Chicago patronage, that included the indited and convicted former Governor, the current Teflon President and the leaders of various church groups and affiliations used to grease the wheels. Perhaps I did not express it very well. It is called patronage.

OK I recognize it. Politics is pretty dirty and maybe Chicago is a bit dirtier than, say, Alaska. To date I haven’t seen anything that indicates Obama is or was corrupt in any serious way. Perhaps that will change but the case hasn’t been made yet.

Chicago does seem to have a pattern where its local politics appears to be more corrupt than its national politics. Either way more will be required than simply asserting that Obama is bad because his home is in a city of Bad People(tm).

But the question for me boils down to this, which neither Horowitz or King address, Does the acceptance of a handout make you richer or does it impoverish a man even more? As it certainly does nothing for ones spirit or self esteem, I firmly believe it is the not the richer answer that is correct.

This boils down to the individual man (or woman). I’ve gotten some handouts from society (say free public school, free libraries, etc.) as well as some from family and friends and I’ve given out handouts as well. Some I wasted, other’s I put to good use. One has to maintain their own spirit.

Also, by that definition access to education is a form of welfare and by extension a form of reparations. I do not think, and I hope you can agree, that is not the case. I hope you understand that universal education is a mutually beneficial contract entered into freely because it is in all our interests.

I agree it is mutually beneficial but I actually find myself more in agreement with Horowitz. We value equality of opportunity yet the reality is we are not born with equal opportunities. Some of that is the legacy of past societial injustices (slavery, racism, etc.). Some of that is the legacy of individual injustices (maybe your grandfather was cheated out of his share of his father’s estate….for example) and some of that is simply the randomness of life. When we make provisions for others either with universal education or welfare (which, of course, should be crafted as much as possible to offer people temprorary positive assistance and not dependence except for cases where dependence is the only option (i.e. severe disabilities)) we are in some way making up for past injustices. Think of a criminal who is sentenced to community service. Perhaps there is no practical way for him to identify and compensate his direct victims so the idea is he makes up for crime by giving to everyone in general.

Unlike community service, though, I don’t think of it so much as making good on specific crimes but more along the lines of not taking an unfair advantage. This can often be self-beneficial (after all, there’s really no way to work out the consquences of an injustice. There are blacks today who are better off because slavery provided them certain opportunities. Likewise there are some whites today who are poorer because of slavery….to be a poor white in the south during slavery’s time was not an easy one. So we may very well end up benefiting from ‘reparations’ even though we may not think of ourselves as victims). It very well might also end up costing nothing if, as you say in the case of education, the benefits are greater than the collective costs.

I think this is a better approach to the subject for a few reasons:

1. It is realistic, it doesn’t pretend that we are living in a brand new day and history has no influence over our current lives at all. In that I’m being somewhat conservative intellectually here. The left, here, has a point. History is important and it shouldn’t be glossed over or turned into propoganda. Bad things done 100 years ago aren’t just ‘cultural differences’ or historical curiousities but real tragedies that harm us today as well as back then.

2. It doesn’t turn into a game of trying to get people to find categories of victimhood to fall into. It also doesn’t set people against each other trying to playing games like “my slavery was worse than your Holocaust”. In essence it is saying the chain of costs and benefits of an injustice becomes impossible to trace once you move beyond a particular historical incident. Yes the slave was victimized and the slave owner benefited. Maybe, though, the slave’s son worked harder as a freeman and the owner’s son wasted his family fortune. Flash forward 50, 100, or 150 years and who knows now where any of us would specifically be if our great grandfathers had acted more ethically. It is simplistic and cartoonish to divide ourselves into victims versus victimizers (or those who benefited from victimization), in reality we are all a bit of both.

3. It makes ample allowance for individual self-esteem, dignity and responsibility. It really isn’t possible to know if the past has given you a boost or set you back but you do have control over your present reality. You can squandar what opportunities you have or choose to make the best of them.