« Après moi le déluge » said Madame de Pompadour to her lover, Louis XV, after his losing the battle of Rossbach. A certain political elite in the US has made it their motto, making statements that benefit them and harm the more vulnerable among us. Take the Senators who were informed of the health crisis to come earlier this year. They stated that COVID wouldn't be disruptive all the while rebalancing their investment portfolios. One example among so many. Why do these Senators believe they are stripped from any responsibility towards their constituents?

hmm...had to take time to look up google 'apres moi...' after reading alfredo's comment above...
answer - in short, because humans do a lot of sh-- if we think no one knows...and the more power one has, the greater the temptation to do sh--. the curtain is lifted for any of us only occasionally, thank god. it's not clear how many of our leaders across the board exploit their power in similar or worse ways...even those of us with stellar constructed reputations... it's pretty straightforward human condition madness and filth... god only knows what mother teresa or the dalai lama or jesus himself was up to when they thought no one was watching....
(see also, 'Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely' - dunno the latin)

...but anyway.. really i am writing with a technical question for the philosophy talkers, which is:
Has anybody been tracking the decrease in the 'syllables/second' rate of Merle Kessler since his "Duck's Breath Mystery Theater" days, when the rate was truly phenomenal? Is there a graph somewhere? Tried googling for one but can't find.. Thanks for the help in tracking this statistic down,
Greg Slater

这部剧在赔款上让我不知所措。如果有的话，他们都应该得到回报。这个国家没有因为肤色而欠下历史债。有些人以牺牲自己的种族为代价获利。他们会被要求支付吗?“国家可以纠正历史”的想法和“历史可以纠正”的想法一样有缺陷。它不能。

Germany was made to pay reparations for WWI. Look where that got us.

Let's start with healthcare for all and free education. Let's progress to UBI. That is reparation enough for being human in an inhumane world.

向后赔款就是向后赔款。

On TS' remarks: i too have puzzled over paybacks. They seem, on their face, counterintuitive. Why? Because they encourage continuing the practice, which implies there would be no end to it. I wonder if this is one reason why some want to resort to revisionism; to cancel culture, using the currently popular phrase. The notion of equal opportunities and level playing fields might still be tenable if only there were the will to make it so. It appears there has always been the us vs them mentality.
我们都是这样的吗?还是说我们所有人都进化(厌倦了?)到了直觉上，我们不能再相信任何人的地步?我希望我完全错了。我宁愿错而不愿对。

Most of us hold some culpability We have to make things happen, within the limitations of the serenity prayer. Because when we only watch and wonder, we lack the courage to do better. It can be said that laziness is the father of inaction, sure. But the results are, as a practical matter, the same. At times, it is hard to say whether lack of courage or initiative are at bottom of inaction. Other motives, profit; self-interest, etc., are self-evident and cannot evade scrutiny. There is a thin line, unlike the Supreme Court Justice who said he knew pornography when he saw it. And, ironically, thin lines are the hardest to differentiate.