Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 All human beings are equal, **even when they aren't.**
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User ID: 290
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 All human beings are equal, **even when they aren't.**
4hr ago
· Edited 2hr ago
The strongest argument for it, actually. If the only proposition made by Sklavenmoral were that 'the weak ought to be protected from the strong', and the only proposition made by Herrenmoral were that 'the strong ought to be able to do to the weak whatever they feel like', the former would be called 'morality' and the latter by the sort of words discussed in the 'Taboo vocabulary' category on Language Log.
The strongest argument in the other direction, on the other hand, is their respective attitudes towards those who Accomplish things, such as ending the almost-nine-year gap during which America Could Not Into Space.
(cf. Matt Yglesias Considered As The Nietzschean Superman, Astral Codex Ten, July 2024).
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 All human beings are equal, **even when they aren't.**
1d ago
I'm going to push back on the assumption that nurse practitioners, or even registered nurses, tend provide worse care than doctors for most patients. I want something more than an impression of anecdotes--preferably actual studies--because in my circle complaining about getting misdiagnosed made by doctors is a well-honed pastime.
I haven't been able to find it again, but I remember reading a story somewhere (possibly by Dave Barry, but I could be wrong) that went something along the lines of:
My tongue was swollen, and I went to my doctor. He did an examination, then diagnosed me with two Latin words, that when I looked them up later, turned out to mean 'swollen tongue', and told me to come back if it hadn't gone away in two weeks. I then asked a nurse, who told me to gargle with salt water; I did and the swelling was gone quickly. I'm hoping my dog's tongue becomes swollen; if the vet tells him to gargle with salt water, I'm taking all my medical problems to him.
(If anyone knows the source of this, please let us know.)
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 All human beings are equal, **even when they aren't.**
1d ago
· Edited 21hr ago
Laws which in practice aren't really enforced when a man is perceived to have gotten himself in over his head -- that's the point.
Yes, society still has a ways to go before it lives up to the ideal of being perfectly just.
Where $THING <> "force other people to pretend that you've changed your gender" I guess
I would describe it more as 'exist while presenting as the gender opposite that associated with your genitals at birth'.
resort to violence is not a part of the masculine story
There are times when it is perfectly justified to resort to violence; if Albert starts hitting Benjamin, I certainly do not think that Benjamin is obligated to stand there and let Albert continue. What is not justified is to impose an asymmetric standard of inter-personal respect on people smaller than yourself, or to de facto prohibit conduct which does not harm anyone, and which violates no applicable legal code.
to the extent that anything's actually changed
I don't know whether or how much it has changed, but if it hasn't, it needs to.
Who's this 'one'?
Anyone who is trying to move society in a direction in which Andrew being twice the size of Bill does not mean that the norms of society reflect Andrew's opinions more than Bill's, nor that Bill is obligated, under threat of bodily harm, to show any respect to Andrew that Andrew is not similarly obligated to reciprocate.
What does Tim Walz ... have to do with anything?
I was alluding to the speech in which Mr Walz said:
... we respect our neighbours and the personal choices they make, even if we wouldn't make the same choices for ourselves, because we know there's a Golden Rule: "Mind Your Own Damn Business.".
Even if one disagrees with the transgender ideology, a person, born with the genitals associated with one gender, choosing to exist in public while, via clothing choices/bodily alterations/whatever, presenting as the opposite gender is none of the business of the people standing next to them.
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 All human beings are equal, **even when they aren't.**
1d ago
· Edited 21hr ago
"Acknowledging" is the wrong word. You were advocating for or choosing those circumstances
No, I was admitting to where I am least certain of my position. In the circumstances I listed, it would still be better if they were dealt with by something akin to a legal process, so that Adam has just as much recourse even if Bob is much larger and stronger.
based on your own principles of what is most offensive.
Based on my priors of what is most likely to signal the likelihood of impending violence against Adam, or against people he cares about.
These do not turn out to be universal.
I think the notion of "(1.) Speech should not be responded to with force; (2.) if (1.) is ever not the case, it would be when the speech indicates the impending use of force.", if not universal, is at least universalisable in the Kantian sense.
For instance, insulting someone's mother's the way you mentioned is often considered sufficient provocation
Probably as a hold-over from societies in which it was a prelude to "...therefore your family is dis-honourable, therefore my family and our allies can get away with taking your stuff." (This was a much bigger threat in places with-out robust public order, which is why, even though I sympathised with many of the complaints raised in 2020 about the tactics and methods used by police, the calls for the total abolition of police departments never sat well with me.)
Thus, among the examples listed in the second group, it is the closest to the line, even if I would still not hesitate to find Adam liable were Bob to sue him and I were to be on the jury, whereas I would be less immovable in the first group of examples.
you'd only expect Bob to do it if he WANTED a physical fight
That is the other exception to "The person who threw the first punch committed a tort."; covering professional pugilists, people who mutually decide to settle their disputes outdoors, and certain non-standard carnal practises.
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 All human beings are equal, **even when they aren't.**
1d ago
No, I was merely acknowledging the circumstances in which the argument for an absolute never-respond-to-words-with-violence-never-ever-never-forever policy is at its weakest. (They are also circumstances in which it would be reasonable for Adam to fear that Bob, if not deterred, might escalate to violence against Adam or his relatives. Prior to the genocide in Rwanda, certain Hutu radio broadcasters regularly referred to Tutsi as 'cockroaches' (inyenzi); 'Useless eaters' (Nutzlose Fresser) and 'Life unworthy of life' (Lebensunwertes Leben) were terms used to refer to disabled people by the Nazis prior to murdering them in 'Aktion T4'.)
If Bob said to Adam "Your mum threw herself at me and ten of my friends last night.", or "You can't $OCCUPATION worth beans, they just promote you because you're golf buddies with half the C-Suite and have pictures of the other half in flagrante.", or "It looks like you have a dead rodent glued to your scalp.", Adam would be justified in being upset, but would not be justified in escalating to assault.
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 All human beings are equal, **even when they aren't.**
1d ago
· Edited 21hr ago
everyone knew would spiral into a fight
And then the poltergeist shows up and plates start flying out of the cabinet!
Fights start when someone chooses to attack someone who has not attacked them. Society has an interest in getting them to make better choices.
You moron. Why would you do that?
is the approximate response of everyone from bouncers to cops.
And it is every bit as insensitive as asking a woman who has survived a sexual assault 'why she was dressed that way'.
The principle that Alex should not be obligated to follow the demands of Bob the Random Nobody merely because Bob happens to be stronger than Alex
That's not what we're talking about here though -- we're talking about Alex doing something dumb, which he knows will insult or otherwise rouse Bob's personal ire.
Which, if taken as licence for Bob to assault Alex, allows Bob to impose demands on Alex by becoming personally irate if his demands are not followed.
And doing so in a masculine environment.
Which is why 'masculine environments' are increasingly frowned upon by many of the institutions of society.
(interesting principle though -- does it also apply to the actions of crybullies who are much weaker than their victims, and yet still issue demands expecting compliance?)
Yes. We have a system for establishing a policy of "Do not do $THING or There Will Be Consequences." The Legislative Branch passes a law against $THING; the Executive Branch takes necessary action if someone does $THING anyway; the Judicial Branch makes sure that $THING isn't something one has a right to do (such as 'voting while black' or 'printing a column questioning Professor What's-Xir-Face of the Department of Oppressed People Studies's opinion on the best way to oppose racism').
If the government votes that $THING should remain legal, or the courts find that $THING is a civil right, it is not generally appropriate to turn around attempt to impose Consequences for $THING on one's own initiative, especially if $THING, to quote Jefferson, "neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg", because that way lies madness.
People have spent thousands of years moving us up the entropy-slope, from a world in which the strong can do whatever they feel like and expect the weak to cater to their whims, towards a world where The Rules Are The Same For Everyone; they do not appreciate attempts to shove us back down into the abyss.
Civilisation began when the un-fittest decided that they would like to survive too.
--Jon Stewart
men fight each other over slights real and imaginary, whether you like it or not -- it dates well before and after the Bronze Age
Which is why we have laws against it. Seldom do people make laws against things that nobody does anyway.
and up until very recently if they punished everyone guilty of that there'd be nobody left to bring the grain in and whatnot.
In which case one approaches the problem by degrees -- prosecute the man who becomes violent over a tiny slight before the man responding to a more serious insult; prosecute the man who attacks someone smaller than himself before the man who picks on someone his own size, &c.
As the more egregious incidents decrease in frequency, one can establish stronger standards, and move the Overton Window in the direction of "use your words, not your fists.", or in some cases (things which don't affect anyone else) towards Tim Walz' Golden Rule.
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 All human beings are equal, **even when they aren't.**
1d ago
· Edited 20hr ago
Society has to pick and choose whose safety to prioritize in this instance
Prioritise the safety of whoever is in more danger.
it should come down hard on the side that's doing what its supposed to do.
And where will you stand when the leopards eat your face? When someone bigger and stronger than you decides that something about your life, that contravenes no legal code in the jurisdiction, is 'not doing what you are supposed to do', and that he is entitled to suppress it by force?
Consider Thomas More:
And, when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you – where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast – Man’s laws, not God’s – and, if you cut them down – and you’re just the man to do it – do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.
A transwoman, in existing publicly while appearing as the gender opposite that associated with her genitals at birth, has broken no law of Man (at least in North America or Western Europe); do not cut down Man's laws against assault, lest you call up that which you cannot put down.
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 All human beings are equal, **even when they aren't.**
1d ago
Why are they usually in those?
Probably because they cover New York City, which is the primary financial centre for the United States. ('Wall Street', home of the New York Stock Exchange, is often used as a metonym for U. S. investment activity.)
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 All human beings are equal, **even when they aren't.**
1d ago
· Edited 1d ago
You're welcome. Again, We Apologise For The Inconvenience¹; I usually connect to the Internet using a desktop browser with a mouse-and-keyboard interface, in which I can open a new tab by pressing the scroll wheel, and forgot that some people are using systems in which opening a link is less convenient.
(That was what the phrase 'check your privilege' started out as meaning [e. g. a dog forgetting that a gecko is less able to withstand cold] before it got twisted into "I am a member of the oppressed class, you are a member of the oppressor class, therefore ipso fatso I am right and you are wrong.")
I will try to explain things in footnotes in the future, so that you and anyone on a smartphone, non-tabbed browser, or otherwise unable to open links conveniently can still be part of today's lucky 10,000².
¹Spoiler for a 1980's sci-fi novel:
²From an xkcd comic making the point that if 'everyone' knows something, 10,000 people (in the U. S.) are first hearing about it today; therefore, one should not judge people for not knowing something.
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 All human beings are equal, **even when they aren't.**
1d ago
· Edited 21hr ago
...there are a million 'bad decisions' a guy can make in a bar that will 100% get him beat up....
...society ... mostly treats barfights over dumb shit as plus-or-minus [consensual]....
Yes, I am aware that there are many ways in which our society falls short of perfection.
If Adam and Bob get into a bar fight, with Adam being the first to escalate to physical attack, then Adam not being charged with assault does not mean that Bob was not wronged, any more than a lack of response to Charles stealing David's bicycle means that the bicycle in question was Charles' property all along.
(Although I could see the case for dismissing charges against Adam if Bob had referred to Adam's ethnic group as 'cockroaches', or called Adam's disabled relative a 'useless eater' or a 'life unworthy of living', or accused Adam of some grave act of moral turpitude such as sexual assault against an infant; but anything short of that....)
if the aggressor is too hard to ignore
...which includes any instance in which the aggressor is substantially stronger, or arranges to have a half-dozen friends when the victim is alone. (If it is two people of approximately equal strength inflicting approximately equal damage on each other, one could make the case for limiting the societal response to a sternly-worded "Don't. Do. It. Again.".)
maybe you meant to say 'protecting women from extralegal violence?'
No, when I said 'people' I meant 'human beings.' The principle¹ that Alex should not be obligated to follow the demands of Bob the Random Nobody merely because Bob happens to be stronger than Alex does not depend on Alex's gender.
¹A principle originally dating back to at least the Bronze Age, even if inconsistently applied.
To bring about the rule of righteousness in the land, so that the strong shall not harm the weak."
-- Code of Hammurabi.
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 All human beings are equal, **even when they aren't.**
2d ago
· Edited 1d ago
I mean, the solution for this poor unfortunate is to work through whatever issues drive interest in transgenderism rather than transitioning. Make your bed and now lie it, I suppose- using the men’s locker room is a risk for some biologically male transgenders, but society oughtn’t to be in the business of protecting individuals from the consequences of their own bad decisions at the expense of people who haven’t made such bad decisions.
This proves too much¹; your argument could be adapted to defend either cancel culture or Jim Crow laws!
I mean, the solution for this poor unfortunate is to work through whatever issues drive interest in
transgenderism[wrongthink] rather thantransitioning[expressing their opinions]. Make your bed and now lie [in] it, I suppose-using the men’s locker room[disagreeing with grievance studies departments] is a risk for somebiologically male transgenders[white males], but society oughtn’t to be in the business of protecting individuals from the consequences of their own bad decisions at the expense of people who haven’t made such bad decisions.
or
I mean, the solution for this poor unfortunate is to work through whatever issues drive interest in
transgenderism[race-mixing] rather thantransitioning[integrating]. Make your bed and now lie [in] it, I suppose-using the men’s locker room[using the whites' water fountain] is a risk for somebiologically male transgenders[[racial epithet redacted]s], but society oughtn’t to be in the business of protecting individuals from the consequences of their own bad decisions at the expense of people who haven’t made such bad decisions.
Your argument also begs the question² of whether transitioning is a bad decision; furthermore, even if it were, if the 'consequences of a bad decision' include extralegal violence, protecting people from it is one of the most fundamental functions of society, and protects you from somebody else deciding that some aspect of your life-style is a 'bad decision' that they are entitled to assault people over. (You still Kant dismiss univeralisability.)
¹Proving too much: an argument which, if valid, would also prove something known to be false; elaborated here.
²In its older sense of 'a proof of P that assumes P'.
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 All human beings are equal, **even when they aren't.**
2d ago
I'm a bit surprised that foreign oligarchs and billionaires haven't set up a scheme to flood those districts with ex-pats who are available for jury duty.
That would require changing federal law, as currently, non-citizens are ineligible.
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 All human beings are equal, **even when they aren't.**
2d ago
Not necessary to it, although I did notice, and it adds another level to it....
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 All human beings are equal, **even when they aren't.**
2d ago
· Edited 2d ago
I dislike the continual minimizing/maximizing of windows and the break in flow of thought
I forgot that not everyone here is using a desktop browser. Would footnotes¹ be a better alternative?
linking to a website instead of simply explaining in words what it is you yourself have intended in your post.
OK, I will try to explain it in words. "wow. very revenge plot. which caskete choose? argument much clever." is a description of the plot of The Merchant of Venice in the dialect associated with the 'doge' meme, for which Elon Musk has a particular fondness.
The Merchant of Venice is a play by William Shakespeare, containing the line "Thou calledst me dog before thou hadst a cause. But since I am a dog, beware my fangs.", meaning that Shylock was treated as villainous before he had done anything questionable, and therefore was not incentivised to be forgiving. (Act III, scene 3.) I was alluding to that line in the first part of my comment, in that Mr Musk was also treated as deplorable by the chattering classes prior to having thrown in his lot with the Trump campaign²; the spelling of 'doge' and 'fange' was an allusion to the same meme.
¹Like these.
²A comparison can also be made to the Dazexiang Uprising in late-3rd-century China, in which two officials realised three things:
-
The then-ruling dynasty imposed the death penalty for being late.
-
The then-ruling dynasty imposed the death penalty for rebellion.
-
The roads being impassable due to rain, they had no chance of arriving on time.
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 All human beings are equal, **even when they aren't.**
2d ago
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 All human beings are equal, **even when they aren't.**
2d ago
... because the other side called him a doge before they had a cause; if he is a doge, beware his fanges. (wow. very revenge plot. which caskete choose? argument much clever.)
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 All human beings are equal, **even when they aren't.**
2d ago
I wonder how many of them ever un-ironically used that line about those accustomed to privilege perceiving equality as oppression....
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 All human beings are equal, **even when they aren't.**
3d ago
· Edited 2d ago
Rotherham
- 80% is not, by any stretch of the definition, a 'minority'.
- Per the article you quoted, the gangs preyed on many children of South Asian extraction.
- Many of the people who ignored the problem were white; they did not take measures against it because (3a.): the victims were largely working-class, (3b.): they didn't want it to be seen that there had been a problem (a common failure mode, even when everyone involved is the same ethnicity), and (3c.): they feared that a mostly-white police force arresting mostly-South-Asian criminals would spark a backlash.
The last, I believe, comes from an ideology which seems to approach the notion that the relevant subject of moral enquiry is racially-defined subsets of humanity, that individual human beings are rightfully thought of as cells within the racial super-organism, and that the 'white' super-organism has wronged the other super-organisms and is obligated to atone for its sins; the last point being the largest difference between them and the ideology which killed 6,000,000 people who had done nothing to provoke so much as a sharp glance, thus leading to the necessity of a Jewish State.
The antidote to this ideology is not to say "Ackchyually, the white super-organism has never done anything wrong and is entitled to its demands.", but to reject the entire framing of races being more fundamental than individual human beings. This brings us closer to a world in which the principle of 'states should not be defined by ethnicity' can be applied without exception, and the State of Israel can extend citizenship without regard to ethnicity. Giving more ethnic groups the entitlement to stay the majority in "their" countries moves us further away from that world.
the ethnic cleansing that befalls Christians in so many Muslim-dominated countries
The perpetrators and victims in this case are usually either the same ethnic group, or groups more closely related to each other than to Northwest Europeans.
The persecutions are often motivated on religious grounds; they ask not so much 'is Fulan al-Fulani white or brown' as 'is he a Christian or a Muslim', and if the latter, 'what kind of Muslim'; they often show no less vitriol towards the 'wrong kind' of Muslims than towards Christians.
the unofficial anti-white quotas that are now present at every level in the UK and hold back many talented white men because they have the wrong skin colour
... caused by the same 'races-over-individuals' ideology mentioned above.
From now on, anyone who wants my support for anything has to earn it. You want my support for a feminist initiative? Great, let’s talk about what you can do to solve the problems I think men have. You want my support for an ethnostate for Jews? Fair, let’s talk about what you’re going to do for the native British. And I’m far from alone in this.
Which is at the root of many of the issues plaguing us today; people asking "What can I get out of this?" rather than "What is the right thing to do?".
However, we can talk about 'what you’re going to do for the native British'. (I'm not sure what you mean by 'native British'; sensu strictissimu, it would only include Welsh, Scottish, and Ulster Irish people; sensu latissimu, it would include anyone born in the United Kingdom to a British citizen or permanent resident. I will assume we are setting the cut-off in 1491, thus including the aforementioned Celtic peoples, plus the Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian, and Norman peoples arriving between the 5th and 12th centuries.)
If Omega-the-super-intelligent-computer-with-a-100.00%-track-record-of-being-right were to predict that, if ethnically British people become a minority in Britain, they will be expelled by the whatever ethnic group becomes the majority, regularly driven from whatever countries they have lived in for 2,000 years, and ultimately targetted for industrialised mass murder, then I would concede that you are justified in wanting to maintain your current majority status. (Note that ethnic British in Britain and Jews in Israel both constitute approximately three-quarters of the population.)
Furthermore, if Omega-tsicwa100ptrobr were to predict that there will be a backslash against racism, ethnonationalism, and nativism in the United States, that, from ~2040 onward, the United States will not privilege any ethnic group over any other, and will admit anyone who might plausibly be in danger of ethnic/religious violence in their current country of residence, disirregardless of any of the usual reasons for limiting immigration, and that opposition to these policies will not rise above the lizardman constant at any time in the next 10,000 years, then I would be more sympathetic to a secular, ethnically-neutral, union of Israel and Palestine, admitting any of the descendants of the Arabs who fled in 1948 on the condition that they respect the right of their Jewish neighbours to live peaceably as equals.
Otherwise every man who ever bought his child an ice cream instead of buying mosquito nets is racist.
No, there is a difference between favouring one's immediate relatives and favouring one's own ethnic group. If two people can trace each generation of their lineage back to a common ancestor, and that ancestor is recent enough that, as I linked to previously, the ninth-century Catholic Church would have considered a marriage between them to be incestuous, then one of them favouring the other over a random stranger becomes more justifiable in your example, and, in cases such as favouring someone for employment, is 'nepotism' rather than 'racism'.
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 All human beings are equal, **even when they aren't.**
3d ago
True; we should have re-negotiated, changing '10-15 years' to 'until the signatories unanimously agree to lift the restrictions, which won't happen as long as you keep supporting Palestinian claims on Tel Aviv.'
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 All human beings are equal, **even when they aren't.**
3d ago
· Edited 2d ago
My ruling on that particular case would have been something along the lines of "Before the Civil Rights Act, Defendant explicitly excluded black people from the higher-paid jobs. Therefore, the Court can conclude that Defendant harbours animus toward black people. Defendant did not require white people to pass any kind of test before hiring them. Therefore, by revealed preference, Defendant had no objection to a low-scoring white person holding higher paid jobs. Therefore, Defendant's imposition of the testing requirement, on the same day that the Civil Rights Act took effect and Defendant could no longer exclude people on the explicit grounds of skin colour, indicates that,
- Defendant is attempting to keep black people sub-ordinate to white people (the exact thing Congress just outlawed), and
- Defendant apparently thinks that they can pee on Uncle Sam's leg and tell him it's raining."
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 All human beings are equal, **even when they aren't.**
3d ago
Do you genuinely believe that businesses do not have a preference for intelligent employees over non-intelligent employees?
No, I was attempting to present the strongest possible case for disparate-impact laws. Thus, in the situation I described, the standard wasn't 'must be more mentally capable than McNamara's 100,000' so much as 'must have 'professional-looking' (i. e. white) hairstyle' or 'must be able to lift 50 pounds' for a desk job that won't involve lifting anything heavier than a full cup of coffee.
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 All human beings are equal, **even when they aren't.**
3d ago
· Edited 3d ago
I can only think of two reasons why someone might come to that conclusion, neither of which I would consider even close to reasonable.
The first is if one values 'costs and benefits to someone of the same ethnicity as me' more highly than 'costs and benefits to someone of a different ethnic group'. This covers pretty much all of what 'racism' meant before the 'prejudice-plus-power' gerrymandering. It tends to end badly.
The second is if one has an understanding of history and current events that, to put it charitably, is very different from what I understand to be the case. The only examples I know of in which white people qua white people were, or even may have been, persecuted are:
- Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia, formerly Southern Rhodesia)
- South Africa (questionable to what extent it is racially motivated, but I will concede the point for the sake of argument)
- Haiti, following the overthrow of the slavers.
All of these occurred in countries which had, until immediately before-hand, been governed under a system in which black people were oppressed, the people doing the oppression were white, they attempted to justify the oppression using a world-view in which one's ethnicity is more relevant than one's character as an individual, and there were few if any white people questioning the system and advocating for racial equality. This was not conducive to making the distinction between 'this white person who personally wronged me' and 'this person who didn't technically do anything to me, but shares skin colour with the people who did.'
Anti-Semitic persecutions, however, were generally not preceded by any action by Jewish people other than 'existing while not being exactly like us', and were perpetrated under circumstances which had very little else in common.
I am willing to listen if you can offer any examples of white people who were minding their own business, not harming anyone, and were persecuted for being white; or if you can describe a 'way of drawing the cost-benefit differently' that does not fall into either of these two categories.
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 All human beings are equal, **even when they aren't.**
3d ago
· Edited 3d ago
At this time, I would like to steelman disparate-impact legislation.
Some people decide that they don't want to hire (or sell to, or admit to their schools) black people (or women or Chinese people or Irish people...), but are forbidden by law from having such a policy. They then impose a standard that many white people can meet, few black people can meet, and that they most likely wouldn't give a rat's arse about if it were un-correlated with race, and in some cases didn't give a rat's arse about when they were allowed to discriminate openly. (Sometimes they go further, and enforce a zero-tolerance standard on black people while ignoring violations by white people.) The government than comes in and says "That sounds like a whites-only sign with extra steps; I thought we had made it perfectly clear that you are not allowed to do that! What part of 'do not discriminate on the basis of race' did you not understand?"
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 All human beings are equal, **even when they aren't.**
4d ago
· Edited 3d ago
Let’s suppose that Jews do indeed have the greatest past history of genocide, and that this makes them the most liable to be genocided again, and that as a consequence they ought to be first in line for a homeland. I can follow this line of thinking. What I fail to see is why any white person would be persuaded to abstain from forming their own homeland.
Because maintaining an ethnostate involves discriminating on the basis of ethnicity, which has major costs, almost always greater than the benefits (if one is primarily concerned with the well-being of individual humans.) In the case of Israel, past events create a sufficient threat that the cost-benefit calculation passes the zero-line (the MS St. Louis passengers et al. being the factor pushing it over the top); white people do not face any threat great enough to outweigh the reasons for avoiding ethnostates in general.
Ideally, there wouldn't be any countries deciding citizenship based on ethnicity; however, given both past events and current attitudes towards ethnicity and immigration, the N deliberate N maintenance N of N a N Jewish N majority N in N at N least N one N state N is, N at N least N at N this N time, N an N un-fortunate N necessity N for N the N well-being N of N individual N Jewish N people, N in N much N the N same N way N as N poking N someone N with N a N pointy N bit N of N metal N is, N given N our N current N medical N technology, N an N unfortunate N necessity N for N telling N the N immune N system N 'watch N out N for N this N specific N microbe'.
(The 'N's stand for "Not to be taken out of context".)
Children who have grown up in a WEIRD¹ society that teaches them barking-mad ideas like "When you're hiring someone with Other People's Money, you should pick the best person for the job, rather than the applicant who gave you a wad of cash." or "It matters whether someone did something wrong, not just whether they are related to you."
¹cf. The WEIRDest People in the World (Joseph Henrich), which postulates that "Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic" societies have world-views which are very un-common elsewhere.
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