MockingTheLeft

In a few minutes Democrats will be giving Republicans a FIFTH chance to pay TSA workers. Will they finally fund TSA or once again object?

Sen. Dave McCormick: "You have to have ID to have a child"

𝗧𝗛𝗢𝗠𝗔𝗦 𝗦𝗢𝗪𝗘𝗟𝗟 𝗢𝗡 𝗥𝗘𝗣𝗔𝗥𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡𝗦: 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗔𝗥𝗚𝗨𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧 𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗬 𝗖𝗔𝗡'𝗧 𝗔𝗡𝗦𝗪𝗘𝗥. Thomas Sowell — arguably the greatest economist and social thinker of the last fifty years — has a reparations argument that shuts down the entire debate. Not by denying the horror of slavery. By putting it in its actual historical context. Slavery is not a uniquely American institution. It is not a uniquely white institution. It is not something that happened to one race in one country. It is one of the oldest and most universal human practices in recorded history — practiced by virtually every civilization, on every continent, across every racial line. In 1776, when Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations and the United States declared independence, Smith noted that Western Europe was the only region on earth without slavery. And even then, Western Europeans held vast numbers of slaves in the Western Hemisphere. Here is the fact that reparations advocates never want to discuss. An Ohio State University historian, using rigorous methodology, estimated that between 1 million and 1.25 million European Christians were enslaved by the Barbary Pirates of North Africa between the 16th and 18th centuries. Raids on coastal villages in Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Ireland, and even Iceland. Entire towns abandoned. Men worked to d∗ath in quarries. Women taken as concubines. Children raised as Muslims and never returned. Sowell's point: that number of white European slaves taken by North African Muslims exceeded the total number of Africans enslaved in the United States and the American colonies combined. 𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝗻𝗼𝗯𝗼𝗱𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝗴𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗡𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗵 𝗔𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗮 𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝘀𝗸 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 — 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗻𝗼𝗯𝗼𝗱𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝗴𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗼𝗹 𝗲𝗻𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝘁𝗼 𝗴𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗶𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺. If reparations are the standard, the accounting runs in every direction simultaneously. Sowell's deeper argument is that the entire reparations framework depends on treating American slavery as singular and exceptional when it was neither. The United States is the only country in history that fought a war — at enormous cost in blood and treasure — to end slavery within its own borders. The left wants to make America uniquely guilty for an institution that was universal. Sowell refuses to let them get away with it. 𝗛𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗿𝗴𝘂𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗼𝗿𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘀.

No voter ID, especially when combined with mail-in ballots, means the system is engineered to make fraud impossible to prove. Everyone knows that you can barely get through your week without showing ID for the most banal activities, like shopping at Costco. The only reason to ban ID is to hide massive voter fraud.