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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   29676 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 18, 2023

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Palestine in whatever shape it exits, continues to get in Israel's face.

Hamas does, yes.

But what you're talking about here is collective punishment, and the duty for an ethnic group to police it's own members or face consequences.

This is along the same lines as 'men need to police other men' and 'men need to teach boys not to rape'. It's along the same line as holding all Christians accountable for the Westboro Baptist Church and the evangelicals who got Roe repealed. It's along the same lines as making all white people pay for reparations or take a back seat in hiring until racial inequities have been repaired. And etc.

Which are not things I'm necessarily against! To me, the main difference between these cases is consequentialist, in that on one hand people are maybe being shamed a little and maybe receiving mild financial penalties, and on the other hand thousands of innocents are being killed.

But, people who argue this type of logic in the case of Palestine and Hamas, should realize how the logic applies to other cases where they might be on the other side of the issue.

But what you're talking about here is collective punishment, and the duty for an ethnic group to police it's own members or face consequences.

Correct. If Germans don't think about the consequences of electing a radical party to control the Reichstag, and the Nazis get control of the country and start annexing and invading the neighbors, the result is that other countries declare war on the entire country of Germany and not just on the individuals controlling policy. This is because the basic assumption of the modern nation-state system is that the nation is the sovereign unit, and has the right, ability, and duty to ensure it is governed in the manner it prefers.

If the Palestinians can't even ensure their representatives to the rest of the world match their preferences, then it's hard to call them a "nation" in any meaningful sense.

Hamas is indeed not recognized as the governing body of a nation.

Not for any logical reason. Gaza, from the mid 2000s to 10/7/23 was a sovereign state that was not occupied by any foreign power. The sole reason for them not being recognized internationally was so NGOs and the like could justify sending them lots of money and aid (which they knew would fund terrorism).

De facto, it was.

This is along the same lines as 'men need to police other men' and 'men need to teach boys not to rape'.

What is wrong with those sentiments? Women are physically weaker than men, and most men listen more to male authority figures than female ones. Men are held in check by other men. Even on the most literal level, rape is investigated and rapists arrested by the police and convicted felons incarcerated in prison, both those institutions are largely run by men.

I need to find a poet to immortalise this sequence of events. Brava!

? It’s not an opinion I haven’t expressed before.

Aww, well it's still great even though it wasn't on purpose. Basically guess posted a common (in my experience) progressive misunderstanding of a popular argument here (the actual argument being not that men shouldn't teach boys not to rape but that we already do, and rapists are defectors) and you cut through it by holding them to their word, a rebuttal technique they've used often in the past. Throw in the fact that in isolation someone reading these posts might conclude that guess is right wing and you are left and it's chef's kiss chaotic beauty.

I didn't even advocate for that sentiment!

If Hamas didn't have popular support, I wouldn't make it. If Palestinians have any issue with Hamas at all, its because they aren't gung ho about wiping Jews off the face of the earth enough. Polling data from the West bank shows this.

Doesn't apply because the Palestinians aren't in a position to police hamas, they WANT hamas to do what Hamas does.

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