Argument against reparations from actions long before you where born.
"On a separate note, it looks like much of the money will go to the estates of some of the victims. This sort of thing always strikes me as odd; but for whatever experiences the victims had, good, bad, or indifferent, their children would have never existed. I'm sorry my ancestors were oppressed by the czars, but from a purely personal point of view, I benefited. It's not simply that I got to grow up in the United States instead of Eastern Europe, is that I exist at all! Even though three of my grandparents lived under the czars' rule, I would think it just about as strange to get a reparations check from the Russian government as from the Italians (for oppressing my ancestors 2,000 years ago) or the Egyptians (1,400 or so years before that)."
volokh.com
further explanation in comments
frankcross (mail):
Wouldn't you have existed if your ancestors had not been oppressed? They'd still have been around.
8.17.2007 10:51pm
(link)
DavidBernstein (mail):
Frank, no. Someone might have existed, but it wouldn't have been me. ANYTHING different, no matter how minute, that would have happened to any of my ancestors, including my parents, before I was born would have prevented me from existing, because any such thing would have prevented the particular sperm and egg from meeting at the right moment.
8.17.2007 10:53pm |
