Yet another modest proposal, March 19, 2025. I believe that it is time for conservatives to rethink their opposition to reparations. By this, I'm referring, of course, to reparations over the scourge of African slavery. Even though it ended

centuries ago, the effects have nevertheless been long-lasting and have had ramifications down to

the present. But in bringing this up, I'm making no concrete proposals of a settled nature. I am

merely making suggestions. It is simply that I believe that it is time for us as conservatives

to have some hard conversations. And that is all that it is time for us as conservatives to have some hard conversations.

And that is all that this is.

Conversation.

I said African slavery, but perhaps I ought to be more specific.

Most of us are aware of the Atlantic slave trade, where slaves were being brought to the New

World via the Middle Passage.

But during those same centuries, there was also an extensive traffic in slaves in

North Africa as well. Only here the slaves were being imported to Africa, not exported. The Barbary

corsairs were the terror of the Mediterranean and captured thousands of Europeans. And they would not

just capture ships and enslave their crews, but would also conduct raids on coastal European

settlements, as far north as

Iceland and Ireland. They would carry off countless numbers of hapless victims. One estimate

has placed the number of captured Europeans over this time period at over a million victims.

Indeed, the very word slave comes to us from the Slavic peoples. Is it not time to start putting

some of this right? But there's no way to

start a conversation about reparations, which is what I'm seeking to do here, without also

suggesting a metric for sorting all of this out. As anyone who's done any genealogical

work knows, most everyone's ancestral lineage fades into obscurity pretty quickly. Except in rare cases,

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