Undoing the Alhambra Decree
You&#x27;re giving people alive today a benefit (free citizenship) in compensation for a wrong that was done long before anyone living today was born.<p>I see a lot of ethical problems with this sort of thing [1].<p>It&#x27;s basically original sin [2] in reverse.<p>If you go back far enough, just about everyone&#x27;s a descendant of someone who&#x27;s been wronged by a government, and just about everyone&#x27;s [3] a descendant of someone who has blood on their hands as a participant in those wrongs.<p>Why are some groups more deserving than others?<p>Why does <i>anyone</i> deserve <i>anyone else</i> giving them <i>anything</i> today for stuff that happened hundreds of years ago?<p>If you say that today we should give back stuff that someone unfairly took from someone else, doesn&#x27;t that mean the government of Spain should turn in its keys and put somebody else in charge?  Depending on which historical period you pick, Spain might rightfully belong to France (Napoleon), Algeria (Muslims), Italy (Roman empire) or the Basques (as the descendants of Spain&#x27;s pre-Roman tribes).<p>[1] Reparations for slavery in the US is another example.<p>[2] Original sin is a doctrine in some religions that says it is okay for you to be punished for stuff your ancestors did long before you were born.<p>[3] Genghis Khan is an ancestor of ~0.5% of humanity:  <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nature.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;nature.2015.16767" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nature.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;nature.2015.16767</a>