Roderick Long has an essay on Cato Unbound, promoting (of course) that opposition to corporate power is consistent with free market advocacy.  Jesse Walker linked to it on Reason’s Hit’n'Run.  Philosophical hilarity has ensued.

Somehow, the arguments in the comments turned an unforseen corner, and someone quipped the following in response to a point about benefit from previous force:

There is an excellent case to be made that it is better to black in America in 2008 than to be black in Africa in 2008. Would we not say that the current generation of African-Americans benefitted from the slave trade? If not, why not?

In case Reason has handed control of their servers to AIG, I’m sharing my response to this crap below:

No.  Because by that logic, if someone enslaves you & your family, and hundreds of years later someone descended from you is rich, that means they did you a favor…

It’s a logical fallacy.  There’s no way of telling how we would’ve turned out had our ancestors not been enslaved because they WERE enslaved.  For all I know they could’ve turned out to be Africa’s best & brightest, bound to advance their society, until some people decided to make them pick cotton overseas instead.

I’d rather be here than in Africa right now.  My ancestors would’ve rather had a choice in the matter.  Both statements should be filed under “no shit, sherlock”.