Corruption of blood

I love discovering something unknown to me, but this is rather embarrassing. From Corruption of Blood? by TXRed.

I comment with some frequency on the observed and widespread tendency of people of the left towards antisemitism. The US has, as best I can tell, had some three waves of antisemitism. There was the antisemitism of the late Gilded Age circa 1880-1930 in the northeast in the sunset of the old WASP ascendancy when Jews were excluded from Law and Finance and the Ivy League. Excluded or tolerated only on exception. An antisemitism somewhat mitigated in the sense that the intolerance was extended to broad classes. Perhaps more persistent and vindictive towards Jews but also encompassing Catholics, Continental Europeans, rural folk, non-elite Southerners, the working class, etc.

Then there was a period of Country Club antisemitism from perhaps the 1950s to the 1970s. Less pointed and vindictive perhaps, more casual perhaps, but perhaps more pernicious for its casualness.

And now in our modern era, the sharp antisemitism of the Left and of Academia. A decade ago it was incidental but notable. Now it seems increasingly a central plank and a flag to rally behind. Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the British Labor Party, is probably the most prominent exemplar, but it is easy to find it everywhere on the Left. The ideas of inclusion and tolerance and diversity don't extend to cover Jews anymore on the Left.

One of the historic charges of antisemitic Europeans was that they were inherently guilty as a people for the death of Jesus Christ. I have always referred to this as Blood Guilt - the idea that guilt can be passed between generations from father to son for a deed which might have occurred in the distant past. Part of my condemnation of antisemitism has been rooted in a condemnation of the idea of Blood Guilt.

Age of Enlightenment values frees us from the archaic concept. Individuals are only accountable for their own acts. They cannot be held accountable for acts by others or held accountable for acts by others in the past. They carry no inherent guilt. Focusing on the individual, we are freed from these ancient tribal fetishes and hatreds.

I have always considered that to be a great step forward in our development, the letting go of tribal animosities and the condemnation of people for their descent not for their action. The Left's obsession with group identity has, it seems, made it easy for the resurrection of the idea of Blood Guilt and inherited communal guilt. Ugh.

My sentiments have, I like to think, been right, but apparently my wording has been all wrong. Blood Guilt does not denote the passing of guilt across generations by the blood of the family.

TRex's post forces me to go back to check my definitions. Apparently Blood Guilt in the Bible are crimes involving the shedding of blood (murder, assault) or crimes requiring the death penalty (robbery, adultery, dishonesty).

Somehow, at some point in my youth, I fused the Biblical concept of Blood Guilt with the medieval English concept of attainder. From Wikipedia

Medieval and Renaissance English monarchs used acts of attainder to deprive nobles of their lands and often their lives. Once attainted, the descendants of the noble could no longer inherit his lands or income. Attainder essentially amounted to the legal death of the attainted's family.

Monarchs typically used attainders against political enemies and those who posed potential threats to the king's position and security. The attainder eliminated any advantage the noble would have in a court of law; nobles were exempt from many of the techniques used to try commoners, including torture. Likewise, in many cases of attainder, the king could coerce the parliament into approving the attainder and there would be a lower or non-existent burden of proof (evidence) than there would be in court.

I see why I probably became confused. As Bible Gateway notes (emphasis added):

There is a sense in which the people corporately are guilty of bloodshed whenever homicide occurs until justice has been satisfied (Deut 21:1-9; Num 35:33). If the guilty party is unknown the elders and judges of the people shall determine which city lies closest to the place where the person was slain so that the priests and elders of that city may offer sacrifice and declare the innocence of their people. As they wash their hands over the sacrificed heifer they are to say: “Our hands did not shed this blood, neither did our eyes see it shed. Forgive, O Lord, thy people Israel, whom thou hast redeemed, and set not the guilt of innocent blood in the midst of thy people Israel; but let the guilt of blood be forgiven them” (Deut 21:7, 8).

Bloodguiltiness is taken so seriously in the OT that, when it is not atoned for according to law, God steps in to avenge the wronged party (Gen 4:10-12; 9:5f.; Isa 26:21; Ezek 24:6-9). Guilt must be expiated (2 Sam 4:11) and it may be exacted of one’s descendants (2 Sam 3:28f.; 21:1-9; 1 Kings 21:29; 2 Kings 9:6ff.; 24:3f; Hos 1:4; Matt 27:25).

Still, I am astonished I have labored so long in linguistic error.

Especially when there is an actual term that means precisely what I intended. And this is where Corruption of Blood? by TXRed comes in.

There is eager talk once again among the social justice theory/group identity statists about racial reparations - a concept so evil and incomprehensible I find it scarcely credible that anyone would broach it much less many presidential candidates from the extreme left eagerly pursue it. But we live in strange times when the progress of past centuries is slowly being undermined and overturned by reemerging barbarian concepts. That we don't hold groups of current day individuals accountable for heritable guilt of past actions by others should be a foundational idea but it clearly does not apply on the Left.

The talk floating around once more of the United States taxpayers paying reparations to the descendants of enslaved Africans and African-Americans raises an interesting question. Does this fall afoul of the Constitutional protection against “corruption of blood?”

Article Three, section 3, reads “The congress shall have power to declare punishment for Treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted.” In modern English, children and other relatives are not guilty of the crime of treason if they did not actively participate in it, and their assets cannot be taken except during the life of the convicted. Corruption of blood in the 1700s meant that the family of the convicted were no longer permitted to inherit, and so the entire estate forfeited to the crown.

Granted, this applies only to treason, but given how other parts of the Constitution have been interpreted and expanded, it seems reasonable that this should be treated in a similar fashion. If applied to chattal slavery as practiced in the colonies and later United States between 1640 and 1865*, then only those who have held others in involuntary servitude should be asked/forced to pay reparations. And being descended from a slave owner should not carry “corruption of blood.” If you inherited a painting, or a silver set, or part of a family fortune that started with your slave-owning ancestor, you should not be forced to sacrifice it to “make amends and atone the wrongs” done to the enslaved people.

Good grief.

Corruption of blood is the term I should have been using all these years.

Pursuit of corruption of the blood by the left is not restricted to reparations. You see it constantly with the social media mobs who go after Christian bakers and nuns and authors and anybody else who has transgressed the passing obsessions of the postmodernists. Corruption of the blood comes into play whenever they dox someone, going after the family of the person they hate. A recent example was that of FCC Chairman Ajit Pai whose policy positions inspired leftwing protesters to seek him out at home and targeting hateful messages towards his young children. Punishing his family for his actions.