Trump tells minority Congresswomen to "go back where they came from"

[Straha]

And that's the truth, isn't it? Deep down (or not so deep down), you faux-progressives admire Trump because he "tells it like it is", because in your mind all of America is equally evil, but at least Trump is (in your mind) honest evil, or open evil (because somehow openly embracing and normalizing evil is better than ostracizing it as a society), and he gives you the satisfaction of being able to say that you were right all along about America. There's a part of you that wants him to win, because it will validate your cynicism, and let you have the satisfaction of saying "I told you so". Its also probably why you hate to admit that Russian interference or collusion happened (aside from your ideology requiring you to side with America's enemies regardless of facts). Because if you acknowledge that it happened, that Trump's election was illegitimate, then it interferes with the narrative that Trump is truly representative of the American nation and the will of its people.

BTW, TRR. It's interesting to me that when people in this thread start publicly defending the US's policies towards Native Tribes by stating that the populace is so naively racist that open discussion of their racism will cause horrifying blowback that you let it slide. If your breed of 'progressive' won't fight that battle then why should people believe you'll be around for any other anti-racist struggle?

I haven't "let it slide"- I just haven't been following this discussion closely the last few days. My comments in other threads have made it quite clear on many occassions how I feel about the idea of backing off on discussing racism because it might offend racists. That is, I think its an idiotic, immoral and self-defeating strategy, and that threats of violence from the other side should not be allowed to influence policy.

I find your increasingly tenuous attempts to brand me a racist pathetic, and libelous. I advise you to drop it, because "TRR supports or is indifferent to racism" is not a narrative I am okay with being propagated on this board just so you can score some debating points, and I will report your ass if you keep at it.

Of course, I'm sure its no coincidence that you posted this drivel in response to a post about Russia. Just another round of deflection and Whataboutism. I guess you're just another faux progressive collusion denier, who is perfectly fine with enabling fascism as long as an enemy of the US does it.

1. Neither this thread nor the post I quote are about Russia, you utter lunkhead.

2. For someone who is so quick to jump to insults you can take precious little heat, especially without threatening reporting 'to the mods'. Your skin is so think I'm surprised you're not used to teach anatomy at med schools.

3. No one is calling you a racist either. My comment is more focused. The original discussion that evolved in this thread was between a group of people (Gandalf, myself, etc.) who staked out a position that the United States is structurally racist and that Trump's statements were part of that structural racism which meant that if someone wanted to actually oppose Trump's statements they needed to advocate for a radical restructuring of the United States, and a group of people, notably you, who claimed that racism was by-and-large historical and that what remained was transient and could be swept away by state-led reform. The discussion has now evolved into four+ people who are now defending the status quo structuring of the US by stating that the United States is so structurally racist that to even bring up the admitted moral issues surrounding the United States risks either provoking majoritarian violence or pointed neglect towards minority rights. Now, theoretically, you, and others, sit in between the two poles of the current discussion and should be disagreeing with the people defending the status quo with the same vehemence that was deployed against the decolonizers. That isn't happening. What I am positing is that moderates are more interested in the order provided by the Nation-State than they are in justice, and are willing to tactically align (or at least be passive towards) with the people who are defending the squo if they view it as a way to preserve the order that they cherish. I am certainly not the first person to make that observation, I am simply saying that it has occurred here and find it fascinating how this pattern will reoccur even at the microcosm of an internet BBS.

4. I think this pattern helps to inform why the decolonizers in this thread are as skeptical as they are of claims of state reform viz-a-viz state and national racism and national structuring, and the skepticism expressed towards the scandalized response to Trump's statements.

[Straha]

Like, "slavery was killed by industry" is utterly bullshit- the American textile industry, which was far more critical than steel production to the American economy in the first half of the 20th century, was dependent on King Cotton

So... you're claiming that "the first half of the 20th Century" somehow retroactively affected the outcome of the US Civil War? WTF? YOU are getting history back-to-front with that statement.

How the hell are you reading that out of Effie's post?

[Effie]

Ah, I think I get where you're going with this. You want to prove that America of all nations on Earth is uniquely evil and racist and susceptible to fascism, am I right?

...What?

[Broomstick]

A. Frederick Douglas is a useful analogy here. If you think there's a meaningful distinction between Frederick Douglas and Dumas I want to hear why.

Is this another pissing contest regarding who suffered most/was most discriminated against/achieved the most? Again, YOU brought up Frederick Douglas, I didn't. I was talking about Dumas, in refutation to the blanket statement that "the French" would not/could not recognize a freed man as legitimately a free man. Clearly, it was possible even if not common. Why you insist on dragging Douglas into this I don't know. Who's next? Mohandas Gandhi? I was talking about the status of freedmen in France and point out that viewing a slave stepping onto the territory of France as then freed was better than the Dredd Scott case in the US.... Then you bring up Douglas out of the blue for whatever reason.

B. If you think that the French were happy to recognize freed black folk, why did the French on the island invite the British to intervene to maintain slavery in 1793, and why did the French invasion force in 1801 seek to reimpose Slavery onto Freed Black men?

First, I never claimed they were "happy" to do so and have repeatedly pointed out that black people still faced (and still do) bias based on their ancestry. The French did, however, abolish slavery on their home territory before they abolished it in their colonies and free blacks in France were able to achieve success in French society.

As for the multiple interventions - the French didn't want to lose the revenue from a profitable colony and wanted to suppress a rebellion as much as they wanted to re-enslave people. That's what a lot of nasty shit was perpetrated by European countries in their colonies. They wanted raw materials and profits. They wanted to punish those who defied the overlord's authority. It wouldn't be the first (or the last) time a nation had one set of rules for the home country and another for the colonies and treated colonies like shit for the profit of the home territory.

Again. I'm not sure how the admitted nuances that everyone is aware of in this thread rebut the claim that slavery, and the concept of a free Haiti, were racially coded in an order of white supremacy. I'm especially not sure how you think this means that the French answer to the Haitian revolution wasn't racially coded.

Do you think the French would have ignored the rebellion if it had been a white colony rebelling against French authority? Yes, there was racial bigotry at work, but it is had truly been a case that all people of African ancestry were forever slaves there would have been no category of colored slave owner and there was.

The brutal fact is that Africans were stolen from their homes because the natives in the Americans died out in droves from European disease which made them poor slaves, and because the Natives were familiar with the local environment they were better able to run away and survive. Europeans made poor slaves because they were more vulnerable to tropical fevers and diseases than Africans (which is not to say Africans didn't suffer, just that some of them had genetic resistance to, say, malaria that most Europeans did not). Also, there was that shameful bullshit that it was OK to enslave people to make them Christian which was used to justify enslaving both Natives (which didn't work out so well) and Africans ... and clearly ignored in subsequent generations that were already Christian. It provided a large and (so long as the continued stealing of Africans was tolerated) disposable work force. If Africans had been unavailable the Europeans would have sent more European people over as indentured criminals. In the British colonies white indentured convicts were openly auctioned to plantation owners when they arrived in the colonies up until the Revolutionary war, the main difference from African slaves being that they didn't pass their status on to children and some of them might eventually be set free. After North America was no longer available as a dumping ground for convict labor Australia became Britain's new penal colony.

1. The reason I said 60s and 70s was not because they stopped at that point out of respect. It's because that was the last time there were treaty violations en masse, with water infrastructure projects. Once the water infrastructure projects were built they didn't need to build anymore... because they already existed. Admittedly, I'll say that I phrased it poorly because the violations are still on-going. The dams still exist. The land is destroyed. The people, moved.

Right. And those moved people are fighting in the courts to get some share of the revenue from those projects built on their lands so they can get something.

It's not just Natives who have had this problem with condemnation for public works and the seizure of property. The US government didn't build those structures there to stick it to the Natives, they built those projects because those locations were suitable for hydroelectric or flood control or the like. Of course, the fact that a lot of white people were also displaced does not in any way make it OK that this also happened to Natives (which obvious thing is being said because apparently people can't tell the difference between describing something and approving of it, which are two different things). The on-going problem is that Native nations just don't have the resources or influences to effectively fight larger government entities that are determined to run rough-shod over prior agreements.

2. I think it's disingenuous, at best, to claim that I'm somehow spotting that treaty violations ended there when the very next paragraph I wrote cites DAPL as a fresh and present violation.

DAPL extends beyond just Native interests. A LOT of people and groups are opposed to it, fear it, and are working against it. Utilizing Native land claims is another means of combating DAPL, just like Greepeace used threats to endangered species to argue against DAPL, environmentalists brought up concerns about contamination of the Missouri river, farmers brought up concerns about drainage and water, 74% of people in Iowa opposed using eminent domain to acquire land for the project (source: Des Moines Register poll in March 2015)... There's nothing wrong with combing forces and it's an area where Native and non-Native interests overlap. While Native concerns and treaties were an important competent of opposition to DAPL it was far from the only one. It wasn't about grabbing land from the natives for the white man to use, it was about grabbing land from everyone along the pipeline route and ignoring everyone's concerns about contamination of water, seizure of land, and other forms of destruction. The Natives weren't singled out on that project so it's not about "treaty violations" in the same way that the Trail of Tears was, even if it does involve treaty violations. DAPL is about an alliance between oligarchs in the petroleum industry and Federal politicians to build the pipeline and profit and to hell with anyone in their way, regardless of ancestry, affiliation, or anything else. Caring about this happening to Natives while not giving a fuck about what happens to white people in Iowa living in close proximity to the pipeline, or the potential effects on everyone downstream of the Missouri if there's a spill (which means not only the Missouri but starting at St. Louis everything south in the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, only the largest and economically most important internal river in the continental United States) is not seeing the forest because you're staring at just one tree.

I wish there was enough respect for Native land claims to have stopped the project but the fact is that once it got rolling NOTHING was going to stop it sort of an outright uprising/rebellion and confrontation with the government. All the peaceful marches, protests, and appeals to science, reason, and treaties wasn't going to work because petroleum is that valuable in today's world. Which is yet another reason to find an alternative.

Not to pull my New Yorker card here, but they never 'lost' Salamanca. It was always on Native Land, always recognized as being in a reservation, with a century's worth of explicit legal precedent saying that they had a landlord-lessee relationship with the people on it, backed by contracts and statutes. When they contractually had the right to raise the rent they raised the rent. People sued to have them not raise the rent. At no point was this truly a natives rights case as much as it was a contracts case.

Nope, the Seneca not only established that they had a legal right to the land, they also established a legal right to "improvements" upon that land. Meaning that with the stroke of a pen they got the land AND the buildings and that was definitely a change in the game.

In other places - Minnesota and Michigan regarding wild rice cultivation, fishing and hunting rights in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest - Native nations are having their rights regarding resources upheld. There's that whole business of casinos - the Natives started dominating legal gambling outside Nevada and New Jersey because they were able to legalize it when the surrounding US regions still outlawed it, and having it was a major advance of the notion that Native groups make the law on their own lands rather than the folks around them doing so. All of this has improved the economy of the Natives involved.

Okay, so Natives have been able to take over a slew of roles and economic rights that White Folk don't care about anymore, meanwhile, when White folk want something (natural resources, oil, access) they get it with the full force of the government. Again, not sure how this points to a positive trend as much white apathy.

Er.... what makes you think the whites (really, non-Natives as not everyone involved in these disputes is solely of European descent) are NOT interested in those things? There have been quite a few cases where non-Natives have tried to set up ventures exploiting those resources to be denied them because under treaty the Natives have exclusive rights to some things, whether that is fields of wild rice, fishing rights on a particular river, or being able to open casinos. Around here the casinos were a particular sticking point, with non-Natives either forbidden entirely from that or subjected to severe limitations whereas the Pokagon Potawatomie opened up a casino that functions under whatever rules they want it to which many non-Natives claimed was unfair competition. Even it if is, too fucking bad in my opinion - if non-Natives don't like the rules under which they live they can damn well vote for a different crew for their government, but it shouldn't be the problem of Native Americans that non-Natives are often a bunch of hypocritical prudes. And in the case of the casinos it wasn't the Natives' problem. For once. Because around 1900 it was quite common to bar Natives from any form of gambling at all, even on their own lands. Now, it's a source of revenue for Natives. At least that's one positive turn-around.

Again - I am in no way trying to oversell this. There are still festering problems like Pine Ridge and any number of Native towns plagued by unemployment and drug use. The point is that it is now possible for Native nations to gain ground and have their rights upheld. Which was simply not existent a century ago. That's the change, and that's the positive. It's a small glimmer of hope. Definitely, it needs to be improved and built upon, it's not nearly enough.

Why is that glimmer of hope an argument to shelve demands for decolonization?

Because it's not realistic. You are not going to get the US government to go along with it and no one on this planet has the power to compel the US government to comply if it doesn't want to do so. Failure to understand this reality will lead to failure in your plan to "de-colonize" the US.

Why does that glimmer of hope legitimate the US occupation of native lands?

It doesn't. The US occupation of Native lands is not legitimate except where such lands were obtained by unfettered and truly voluntary negotiation and agreement which, maybe, might apply to the island of Manhattan but actually probably never truly occurred anywhere.

But it's not going to be undone, either. There's no way to unseat the US government short of destroying it, which would be quite a task given the resources controlled by that government.

What makes you think that glimmer of hope is substantive as opposed to the glimmer that, for instance, Black folk got in the realm of education after Brown v. Board of Ed, only to now be faced with (as cited earlier in the thread) no real progress.

It's very much damning with faint praise, but...
- Natives are no longer having their children forcibly removed from their tribes, sent to long-term boarding schools, or otherwise stolen.
- Natives language and culture is no longer being systematically and deliberately suppressed, allowing for language-imersion schools and the like to open up.
- Natives are free to leave reservations and no longer forced to remain on them by threat of arms
- Native claims to exclusive resources are now being backed by the courts in more cases (some as opposed to none)
- Native nations are, in some cases, developing their resources and providing services to nearby non-Natives as a means of acquiring the wealth necessary to survive in today's reality

NONE of that was the case 100 years ago. None of it is enough, either, but some progress is better than none. The ONLY way to get the change you want is by persuasion and that's going to take a long time.

I suppose, the better questions: Given that the entire legal and social framework of the US requires not respecting Native rights to property, self-government, etc. what makes you think that gradual movement will erode that to the point of collapse as opposed to, say, hitting a metaphorical wall against which that movement will simply not win?

The same reason that civil rights for those of African descent needed to go through a period of incremental change before the breakthrough of Civil Rights during the 1960's. Which, yes, was still not a complete or sufficient redress of historical wrongs but marked a significant improvement over the past and a break with past practices as well as a change in what was and wasn't socially acceptable in regards to that group. The same reason it was a long road for women's suffrage and rights to, again, a substantial change in the rights of women in society and a change in how they were perceived.

Also, why do you think that this strategy would be better than a political and social push for decolonization?

Because at this point in time a "political and social push for decolonization" can't work. Holy fuck, man, we have an administration putting toddlers in cages for alleged "wrongs" done by their parents. The smartest thing Natives can do right now is develop some business enterprises to eventually become truly self-supporting so they aren't so reliant for their existence on the good will of a government that has none. As long as the Natives remain poor they will be despised by the oligarchs and ignored. It's not right and it's not fair to tell them the time isn't right but in fact it is not the right time. If the US becomes fascist then the Natives could wind up even worse off than they are now if they are perceived as an enemy. So, sure, start agitating for decolonization and see where it gets you.

[Broomstick]

Let's start this as a more basic question: Do you believe the US should, morally, exist? If yes, why? If not, then why shouldn't people advocate for its dissolution regardless of the short-term political viability of that strategy?

Morally speaking the US should not exist... Yet it exists, and short of the apocalypse it's not going anywhere anytime for the foreseeable future.

^ Tribble has a point here. Whether or not the US should exist it does exist. The only things that will make it cease to exist are:
- internal implosion/civil war
- the Yellowstone Volcano having a major blow out
- a giant-ass rock from space splatting down on it

Two of those three would seriously ruin the day of the rest of the world, and possibly all of them would have that effect. Even if the US should not morally exist the forcible removal of it from the world may result in even more unpleasant conditions than currently are in effect. As another example, one could argue North Korea should not morally exist yet it is there and the cost of removing it is sufficiently dire that no one wants to take on that project. For the sake of Seoul we let Pyongyang endure. Is that a fair trade? I don't know, history will be our judge in the long run.

Why shouldn't people advocate for its dissolution regardless of the short-term political viability of that strategy? Or the long-term political viability for that matter?

You can advocate all you want but that doesn't mean others will agree with you.

Plus if any dissolution is going to happen, I guarantee it wouldn't be on behalf of the First Nations; it'll be a state like Texas deciding they've had enough of d'em nasty evil liberals, and splitting off again precisely so that they can stamp minorities further into the ground.

^ This.

If you dissolve the US you might wind up with some entities that meet the goals you desire, but you'll also get little shitholes that are theocracies or autocratic mini-states or places where slavery is reinstated or other nasty outcomes that are the opposite of what you desire. Is that really where you want to go?

Right now, the only thing keeping the various states from running roughshod over the Natives is the Federal government - which yes, is sad and pitiful and some nasty dark cosmic joke but it's also the truth.

[Broomstick]

It’s amazing people assume handovers of power and resources will be peaceful.

Also that loomers response to all the international chaos that would occur is “eh who cares? Justice is more important”

The idea that stability is more important than justice primarily serves to prop up dictatorial governments as they brutalize their subjects.

If you have no stability you will have no justice. The rule of law requires a certain level of stability and order so people will abide by the law even when they aren't entirely happy about outcomes.

It's not that we need to value stability above all else, but it is an important building block in the edifice called civilization.

[Broomstick]

But in my experience people in the U.S. grok property rights. If you tell them "something that was theirs was taken wrongly" people have an intellectual and moral framework that they can fit this into, and even if it doesn't propel them forward it at least lays bare the contradictions inherent to U.S. claims to land and property law. And, generally speaking, people do not feel comfortable avowing overt contradictions. From there real movement is possible.

Yes, I think that makes a lot of sense. Property rights are and always have been hugely important to the non-Native culture, to the point that they generated some of the worst abuses in US history. One big disadvantage the Natives had was that their notions of land, claims to land and property were so vastly different than those of Europeans. (It was not the only one - the Cherokee rapidly adopted European views on land ownership, technology, and sent their sons to Harvard yet in the end their lands and homes were stolen so even if the Natives had had the same concept of land ownership it would not have prevented their conquest).

But presenting it as "our property was stolen and we want just compensation" is a more culturally comprehensible phrase for the average American than "decolonization". That avoids it sounding like a land grab/property confiscation/mass expulsion. Which, as has been pointed out, is not something Natives are arguing for. I think what they really want is the means to make a good living in the modern world, and just compensation for past wrongs can give them the resources to make their own decisions and choices about how to go about that. "Just compensation" can take many forms, from actual land to money to free tuition for education to exclusive rights to certain resources to probably a bunch of other things.

[Broomstick]

And... as energizing as this discussion is, I may have to take a break for a day or two to get shit done so I can pay my bills. So I may or may not be back for a bit but do carry on regardless.

[Darth Yan]

Another issue is that natives themselves colonized land.

https://frontierpartisans.com/16229/the ... -conquest/

The Sioux took land from the crow who took the land from the Kiowa. How would THAT factor in?

[Effie]

Another issue is that natives themselves colonized land.

https://frontierpartisans.com/16229/the ... -conquest/

The Sioux took land from the crow who took the land from the Kiowa. How would THAT factor in?

As has been said many, many times, the goal is not to create a network of individual nation-states on the territory currently occupied by the US and Canada, so this is fundamentally irrelevant to the discussion. It's like asking what crackers go best with the cheese the moon is made of.

[Rogue 9]

The original discussion that evolved in this thread was between a group of people (Gandalf, myself, etc.) who staked out a position that the United States is structurally racist and that Trump's statements were part of that structural racism which meant that if someone wanted to actually oppose Trump's statements they needed to advocate for a radical restructuring of the United States...

Which is a really strange position to stake out, since the structure of the United States is independent of Donald Trump and his statements can reasonably be opposed by American patriots, a fact that's proven every damn day when precisely that happens. Donald Trump is opposed to the legal structure of the United States, in fact, viewing the Constitution as an inconvenience and exhibiting a complete lack of understanding of how it works. Meanwhile, that same Constitution provides the best mechanism for enforcing treaties between the native nations and the United States in its sixth article, and its dissolution would dissolve one of the parties to the treaties, leaving the native nations with nothing to enforce, no way to enforce that fat load of nothing, and a distinct disadvantage in any replacement arrangement. Trying to pin the whole of the American framework with the failings of Donald Trump is a non-starter, and thinking that a dissolution of the United States on any semi-realistic terms that could cause that to happen will improve the lot of the native nations is laughable. Hell, even back in 1861 Texas' secondary complaint in its secession documents after bitching about abolitionists was that the federal government wasn't killing the natives enough to suit them. That's as close to dissolution as the United States has ever come, and if it should ever happen again it will almost certainly be under similar circumstances rather than a ceding of power to the native nations.

[Darth Yan]

Another issue is that natives themselves colonized land.

https://frontierpartisans.com/16229/the ... -conquest/

The Sioux took land from the crow who took the land from the Kiowa. How would THAT factor in?

As has been said many, many times, the goal is not to create a network of individual nation-states on the territory currently occupied by the US and Canada, so this is fundamentally irrelevant to the discussion. It's like asking what crackers go best with the cheese the moon is made of.

That’s what loomer sure thinks should happen.

[Effie]

The original discussion that evolved in this thread was between a group of people (Gandalf, myself, etc.) who staked out a position that the United States is structurally racist and that Trump's statements were part of that structural racism which meant that if someone wanted to actually oppose Trump's statements they needed to advocate for a radical restructuring of the United States...

Which is a really strange position to stake out, since the structure of the United States is independent of Donald Trump and his statements can reasonably be opposed by American patriots, a fact that's proven every damn day when precisely that happens. Donald Trump is opposed to the legal structure of the United States, in fact, viewing the Constitution as an inconvenience and exhibiting a complete lack of understanding of how it works. Meanwhile, that same Constitution provides the best mechanism for enforcing treaties between the native nations and the United States in its sixth article, and its dissolution would dissolve one of the parties to the treaties, leaving the native nations with nothing to enforce, no way to enforce that fat load of nothing, and a distinct disadvantage in any replacement arrangement. Trying to pin the whole of the American framework with the failings of Donald Trump is a non-starter, and thinking that a dissolution of the United States on any semi-realistic terms that could cause that to happen will improve the lot of the native nations is laughable. Hell, even back in 1861 Texas' secondary complaint in its secession documents after bitching about abolitionists was that the federal government wasn't killing the natives enough to suit them. That's as close to dissolution as the United States has ever come, and if it should ever happen again it will almost certainly be under similar circumstances rather than a ceding of power to the native nations.

Once again, someone attempts to argue against decolonization by arguing Americans are ravening genocidal monsters who, if not restrained by a suitably harsh state which nevertheless appears to operate entirely invisibly in its repression of them, would go about slaughtering Native people wantonly. Even if this was true, surely that would make our destruction even more necessary and urgent, rather than less?

[loomer]

There are several rather peculiar ideas on display in the anti-decolonization and decolonization critical perspectives here, which I'm going to venture to explore.

The US will never dissolve willingly, because it cannot dissolve willingly
This one is especially bleak to see, as it presupposes a fundamental amorality or outright immorality in the American - and Canadian, and Australian, and so on - character so severe and inalterable that it cannot be repaired or altered on any meaningful level. To a sense, I perceive it as racialized - a subconscious negative internalization of the settler-native-slave triad, imputing a fundamental evil to people.

At some point in the following chain of proposals, they perceive a disconnect:

1. All, or at least most, people are not innately evil and prefer justice to injustice, love to hate, kindness to cruelty, and so on and so forth;
2. The colonization of CANZUS constituted an immoral seizure of land, accompanied by a deliberate desire to replace, supplant, and exterminate the Indigenous occupants of that land either immediately or over time;
3. The resulting nations that have developed are built on an inherently immoral foundation, with serious lingering structural effects that render them defacto (if not sometimes openly) white supremacist and settler-supremacist (related but distinct issues);
4. The ongoing dispossession of Indigenous peoples from their land by these nations and the inherently immoral foundation of the nation constitute a delict - a wrong - against the common law and morality of the nation;
5. Therefore, all or most people preferring justice to injustice are (or ought to be able to become) aware of the ongoing delict as a delict and capable of desiring to make right the enduring and ongoing wrongs done during the foundation of the nation and since;
6. If this requires the dissolution of the nation as currently constituted, as a white supremacist and settler-supremacist state, then all or most people being capable of desiring to make right this wrong are in turn capable of desiring to dissolve the nation as currently constituted;
7. That, these nations having a democratic character, a referendum or similar tool of democratic decision making can and ought be employed to dissolve the nation.

This disconnect, except where it is argued that either the foundation was moral or there is no ongoing delict, instead paints the following moral picture:
1. All, or at least most people, are innately evil and do not prefer justice to injustice, love to hate, kindness to cruelty, and so on and so forth; OR
2. All, or at least most people, are incapable of being made aware of or to care about (returning to 1) the ongoing delict as delict out of self interest, racism, and so on and so forth;
3. Therefore, all or most people are not capable of acting morally;
4. Therefore, the settler-states are both built on inherently immoral foundations and composed of fundamentally immoral or amoral peoples;
5. Therefore, it is reasonably open to us to declare the settler-states evil and to pursue violent struggle against them on whatever terms available.

Step 5, of course, requires us to take the presupposed positions that a, justice is good and a system that is inherently and deliberately unjust is evil, b, where justice cannot and will not be delivered peacefully, it is permissible to utilize violence, c, where an unjust system attempts to oppress a person, they are not obligated to follow its dictates, d, where an unjust system cannot be changed peacefully it is permissible to change it through force, and thus e, violent rebellion against an unjust system perpetuating serious crimes against a population is morally just. I do not believe any of those propositions are especially contentious. Indeed, America in particular celebrates this logic in the Revolutionary War!

Indigenous states will displace millions from their homes
The logic goes something like this:
1. Indigenous lands were omnipresent,
2. If we return them to Indigenous statehood, settler peoples will have to move, and because of 1, there is nowhere to go or too many people displaced.

However, this process relies on a hidden intermediary step - 1.5: Indigenous states must be ethnostates.
There is no such requirement in the vast bulk of decolonization proposals, and indeed, the crux of decolonization efforts in settler-states is the dismantling of the settler-native-slave triad. Kicking out all the Settlers is not part of this dismantling process - in fact, it goes against the core concept of dismantling the triad and undergoing a process of reconciliation and indigenization. While it is accepted that some will have to move to restore areas of special sacred significance etc, this is no different to any other nation-building project; it is not desired that every settler will leave, but rather, that a new and better future may be created in which settler, native, and slave become not a triad of oppression, but three hands in hands as friends, brothers, and allies. To exile the settler is so fundamentally contrary to what is sought as to be self-defeating of the ethos of decolonization.

This notion, then, is born out of a fundamentally false conception of what is proposed in decolonizing settler-states. It presupposes both that the decolonization intends only to 'flip the script', as it were, and step 1.5. Neither notion is correct.

Indigenous states will be poor, small, and unable to fight
This position utilizes a logic something like this:
1. The Indigenous population is poor and small and outgunned now;
2. Therefore if we dissolve the government and institute Indigenous statehood, the indigenous population will be poor and small and outgunned still.

But this logic misses that the decolonization proposals again do not call for ethnostates, and instead call for settlers to voluntarily dismantle their systems of oppression. Thus, it is erroneous to speak of Indigenous states as though they consist solely of Indigenous assets, resources, and persons - they will in fact be largely the same in terms of population (barring those who, during the dissolution, move either out of necessity or voluntarily to be with family elsewhere/because they'd prefer to be a citizen of State X than State Y, or out of fear in settler-flight), material resources, and military resources as whatever preceded them in the region, or potentially enriched in some areas (e.g. it is foreseeable that a state without a local military presence may receive, for the purposes of self-defence, assets from the dissolving government).

It is a weirdly racialized position to take, as far as I'm concerned. It makes the assumption that the poverty, weakness, and small population of the Indigenous now is somehow inherent, and not something that will be rectified during the course of decolonization.

The transition will be chaotic madness and the rule of law will vanish
This position utilizes a logic I cannot begin to fathom, but which seems to operate something like this:
1. The democratic transition of a nation-state cannot be orderly,
2. The new sovereignties will be ignorant of the existing body of law of nations,
3. There will be no attempt to create an orderly transition of powers.

I don't really know where to begin with this notion because it is so batshit absurd. It requires the presupposition that, during the long decolonization process, the referendum/similar device debates and process, and the actual transition period, no one will do anything. That, for some reason, there will be no efforts whatsoever to formulate effective constitutions and laws for the new states; that the existing states will not create transitional legislation in order to smooth the road; that it is utterly impossible for such a transition to take place without violence (Australia may wish to disagree - we went from 6 to 1, then we - through a process of democratic transition and law - shrugged off the mantle of a colony to emerge as an independent state); and that, for whatever reason, the ordinary principles of law - e.g. that a state can decide citizenship policy, that land compensation has precedent, etc - will vanish despite every successor state's leaders, legislators, bureaucrats, and population having existed under the former legal order, and having successfully negotiated it to bring about the process of dissolution and the transfer of power.

All of this is absurd nonsense, and it ties into a secondary logic where anti-decolonization posters and decolonization critical posters assume that the process is to somehow magically happen tomorrow, in an instant. This is an absurd view on its face, as no decolonization proposal calls for such an immediate shift - even the most radically optimistic call for negotiations first, if only to work out which states should emerge where.

The international order makes decolonization impossible
The logic:
1. Stability is more important than justice,
2. The US is a major international power and contributes to regional and global stability,
3. Dissolving the US could cause significant disruption locally and globally,
4. Therefore, regardless of the majority of the population's wishes or the immorality of its actions, it must continue to exist as a unified polity.

I am pleased to announce that dictatorial regimes are free to carry on as they please without sanction, censure, or any other consequence so long as they contribute to regional or global stability. The logic is precisely the same - if this is a moral logic you are comfortable with, then there's not much I can do to debunk it, as it is a logically consistent if morally abhorrent position. However, I would hope you apply it universally, and therefore do not support any insurrection in any country, domestically driven pushes for democratization in third world states, and so on. If you do not, then this is not a consistent proposition but in fact nothing more than masked self-interest and American exceptionalism.

I refer in this instance to the majority of the population's wishes as, when arguing why decolonization must not and cannot happen due to the global ramifications, the crux is not 'decolonization will not happen because people don't want it' but rather that it can't happen for purely practical, international reasons. The position must be consistent whether or not decolonization is the will of the majority or not - otherwise, this position is not being genuinely held.

We might even take the logic to its final conclusions:
5. Therefore, the US should cease to be a democratic nation if the population wishes to dissolve it.

Afterall - if the international order demands the US remain, and this demand is good enough reason to continue against both the common law and morality of the nation and a democratic demand for dissolution, then the US should cease to be a democracy if such a threat to the global order appears.

As it happens, this issue of security and stability has already been engaged with by Aileen Moreton-Robinson, who argues that the discourse of security in settler-states is inherently tied to the fear of dispossession. Isn't it curious that, as other avenues fail, to try and refute proposals for decolonization (which it necessarily cannot do - it can only suggest a different value ought to be emphasized) people are now pointing to 'but stability and security!'?

We may also ask the following question: At what point does the stability of a nation or the global order cease to outweigh the conduct of that nation? At what point in a genocide does it the position of 'well, they're keeping order elsewhere, therefore their internal politics are irrelevant' cease to be valid? During the initial rumblings? The first killings? Halfway? Only at the end, at which point it ceases to be be a relevant matter? At what point during the repression of democracy does it cease to be a valid position?

[loomer]

Another issue is that natives themselves colonized land.

https://frontierpartisans.com/16229/the ... -conquest/

The Sioux took land from the crow who took the land from the Kiowa. How would THAT factor in?

As has been said many, many times, the goal is not to create a network of individual nation-states on the territory currently occupied by the US and Canada, so this is fundamentally irrelevant to the discussion. It's like asking what crackers go best with the cheese the moon is made of.

That’s what loomer sure thinks should happen.

First, there is a distinction between conquest and colonization. This has been repeatedly laboured.
Second, no one present is arguing that pre and peri-colonization Indigenous states were flawless.
Third, you misrepresent me. I argue for the dissolution into a network of states linked by cultural, economic, social, and political ties with regional or even national (by the old borders) groupings for common policy. What I propose is closer to creating a new EU.
Fourth, your concession was accepted. Either go and refute my points - which you consistently refuse to do - or shut the fuck up.

[Straha]

The original discussion that evolved in this thread was between a group of people (Gandalf, myself, etc.) who staked out a position that the United States is structurally racist and that Trump's statements were part of that structural racism which meant that if someone wanted to actually oppose Trump's statements they needed to advocate for a radical restructuring of the United States...

Which is a really strange position to stake out, since the structure of the United States is independent of Donald Trump and his statements can reasonably be opposed by American patriots, a fact that's proven every damn day when precisely that happens. Donald Trump is opposed to the legal structure of the United States, in fact, viewing the Constitution as an inconvenience and exhibiting a complete lack of understanding of how it works.

A. What Trump has done is try to push the constitution to the limits of what executive power allows. He has succeeded in some areas, and failed spectacularly in most. But his attempts to do so aren't aberrations from the US constitutional order, they are the entire point of having separated branches that have vested self-interest in expanding their power. This is something hammered home again and again in the Federalist Papers, and expanding the powers of the executive branch has been a repeated trend for every President in history. In other words, Trump's power grab isn't a bug, it's a feature.

B. I talked about the positioning of the President and the USFG and occupied land at some length earlier on in this thread. If you want to have a serious discussion about that revisit it there.

Meanwhile, that same Constitution provides the best mechanism for enforcing treaties between the native nations and the United States in its sixth article, and its dissolution would dissolve one of the parties to the treaties, leaving the native nations with nothing to enforce, no way to enforce that fat load of nothing, and a distinct disadvantage in any replacement arrangement.

Except Treaties have been unilaterally moved out of the question of international law and into the world of domestic matters by congress in the Indian Appropriations Act. The Supreme Court has ruled that it can abrograte Treaty obligations unilaterally and that "'the exclusive right of the United States to extinguish' Indian title has never been doubted. And whether it be done by treaty, by the sword, by purchase, by the exercise of complete dominion adverse to the right of occupancy, or otherwise, its justness is not open to inquiry in the courts." In other words, Congress can do whatever the fuck it wants to Native Tribes and they can do jack squat about it, and precedent (and the court's reading of the constitution) means that the Court cannot interfere.

'Best Mechanism' my ass.

Trying to pin the whole of the American framework with the failings of Donald Trump is a non-starter, and thinking that a dissolution of the United States on any semi-realistic terms that could cause that to happen will improve the lot of the native nations is laughable. Hell, even back in 1861 Texas' secondary complaint in its secession documents after bitching about abolitionists was that the federal government wasn't killing the natives enough to suit them. That's as close to dissolution as the United States has ever come, and if it should ever happen again it will almost certainly be under similar circumstances rather than a ceding of power to the native nations.

So, to be clear, your argument for the reason to defend the United States is that its populace are bloodthirsty murderers who want to kill Natives? And you argue that the courts and constitution, which give complete control over Native lands to an elected congress in a way that can't be reviewed by the courts, are the best protections that Native Tribes have in the United States?

Can you detect my skepticism?

[loomer]

It is a depressing logic that argues because the American people are racist now, they will always be racist and are incapable of ever not being racist. It presupposes that the biggest part of the decolonization effort is doomed due to some inherent trait of the Settler - that the Settler cannot be reformed, cannot be educated, cannot be educated, and will never be able to contain their violent tendencies without a jackboot on their throat keeping them in line.

It's an extremely racialized logic that boils down to 'Settlers innately - maybe even biologically - hate.' If it cannot be changed from within or without by education, by cultural exchange, by religion, by all the various means by which cultural viewpoints shift and societies evolve, then it must always return to something innate within the being itself.

It's especially weird to me that it's those of us arguing against the United States, Canada, etc - against settler dominion, in a nutshell - that seem to have the most faith in the capacity of the Settler to change and the least belief in the idea of heritage as inescapable sin. Maybe it's because either being of, or being affiliated with, those most abused by racial logic we are less inclined to essentialize cultural conditions as inherent to the being.

[Straha]

It is a depressing logic that argues because the American people are racist now, they will always be racist and are incapable of ever not being racist. It presupposes that the biggest part of the decolonization effort is doomed due to some inherent trait of the Settler - that the Settler cannot be reformed, cannot be educated, cannot be educated, and will never be able to contain their violent tendencies without a jackboot on their throat keeping them in line.

It's an extremely racialized logic that boils down to 'Settlers innately - maybe even biologically - hate.' If it cannot be changed from within or without by education, by cultural exchange, by religion, by all the various means by which cultural viewpoints shift and societies evolve, then it must always return to something innate within the being itself.

It's especially weird to me that it's those of us arguing against the United States, Canada, etc - against settler dominion, in a nutshell - that seem to have the most faith in the capacity of the Settler to change.

I go back to it being a kidnapper's ransom demand, but on reflection it may be more like an abusive spouse. "If you bring this up it will upset me, and then I'll hurt you, and it will be your fault." I don't know how someone looks themselves in the mirror after saying that, much less what I should say to get them to realize what they've done.

[Darth Yan]

It is a depressing logic that argues because the American people are racist now, they will always be racist and are incapable of ever not being racist. It presupposes that the biggest part of the decolonization effort is doomed due to some inherent trait of the Settler - that the Settler cannot be reformed, cannot be educated, cannot be educated, and will never be able to contain their violent tendencies without a jackboot on their throat keeping them in line.

It's an extremely racialized logic that boils down to 'Settlers innately - maybe even biologically - hate.' If it cannot be changed from within or without by education, by cultural exchange, by religion, by all the various means by which cultural viewpoints shift and societies evolve, then it must always return to something innate within the being itself.

It's especially weird to me that it's those of us arguing against the United States, Canada, etc - against settler dominion, in a nutshell - that seem to have the most faith in the capacity of the Settler to change and the least belief in the idea of heritage as inescapable sin. Maybe it's because either being of, or being affiliated with, those most abused by racial logic we are less inclined to essentialize cultural conditions as inherent to the being.

Don’t be an idiot. What we’re saying is that people don’t want to give up their homes over a crime they as people had nothing to with, that dissolving the US would create chaos because big nations dissolving always cause chaos (look at the soviet unions collapse and how much bloodshed came out of that) and would have ramifications over the planet (to say nothing of all the regional tensions held in check that would be unleashed), and that forcing people who had no role in the crime is somehow justice is basically sins of the father mentality.

You can use whatever flowery language you want. But it doesn’t change that your idea of decolonization is about as likely as hell freezing over. You can’t undo the wrong but you can mitigate it.

And the idea that conquest doesn’t equal colonization is dishonest. The Sioux stole land by force. They COLONIZED land for their own gain. And yet it’s okay because they’re not white?

No one disputes that the ethnic cleansing enacted by the us government was a crime against humanity, and that the aftereffects continued for so long afterwards is disgraceful. But what you advocate is not going to make things better. And saying that your ideas are flawed doesn’t translate to being white supremacist

[loomer]

It is a depressing logic that argues because the American people are racist now, they will always be racist and are incapable of ever not being racist. It presupposes that the biggest part of the decolonization effort is doomed due to some inherent trait of the Settler - that the Settler cannot be reformed, cannot be educated, cannot be educated, and will never be able to contain their violent tendencies without a jackboot on their throat keeping them in line.

It's an extremely racialized logic that boils down to 'Settlers innately - maybe even biologically - hate.' If it cannot be changed from within or without by education, by cultural exchange, by religion, by all the various means by which cultural viewpoints shift and societies evolve, then it must always return to something innate within the being itself.

It's especially weird to me that it's those of us arguing against the United States, Canada, etc - against settler dominion, in a nutshell - that seem to have the most faith in the capacity of the Settler to change and the least belief in the idea of heritage as inescapable sin. Maybe it's because either being of, or being affiliated with, those most abused by racial logic we are less inclined to essentialize cultural conditions as inherent to the being.

Don’t be an idiot. What we’re saying is that people don’t want to give up their homes over a crime they as people had nothing to with, that dissolving the US would create chaos because big nations dissolving always cause chaos (look at the soviet unions collapse and how much bloodshed came out of that) and would have ramifications over the planet (to say nothing of all the regional tensions held in check that would be unleashed), and that forcing people who had no role in the crime is somehow justice is basically sins of the father mentality.

But again - it isn't asked that they give up their homes. The position that 'we must not dissolve the US because of stability' is an inherently amoral position that views morality and democracy as secondary to order and stability. No one is advocating force except where peace fails - indeed, the proposals are democratic, so rather than 'forcing people', they call specifically for giving people a voice and say in the matter.

Again. Refute my points, or shut the fuck up.

You can use whatever flowery language you want. But it doesn’t change that your idea of decolonization is about as likely as hell freezing over. You can’t undo the wrong but you can mitigate it.

No one seeks to undo the wrong. We don't have time machines. We seek to mitigate and make good - exactly what you say we can do.

And the idea that conquest doesn’t equal colonization is dishonest. The Sioux stole land by force. They COLONIZED land for their own gain. And yet it’s okay because they’re not white?

Did the Sioux take the land as part of a doctrine that the land was not in use and that its inhabitants constituted a lower form of life whose claims to the land were inherently valid?

If you don't start actually engaging with the arguments and continue the broken record, I'll have no choice but to invoke DR4.

[Straha]

It’s amazing people assume handovers of power and resources will be peaceful.

Also that loomers response to all the international chaos that would occur is “eh who cares? Justice is more important”

The idea that stability is more important than justice primarily serves to prop up dictatorial governments as they brutalize their subjects.

If you have no stability you will have no justice. The rule of law requires a certain level of stability and order so people will abide by the law even when they aren't entirely happy about outcomes.

It's not that we need to value stability above all else, but it is an important building block in the edifice called civilization.

I don't think I've ever seen a more comprehensive self-own in the history of this board.

Yan: 'We need stability over justice!'
Effie: 'The prioritization of stability over social justice in this way is the hallmark of how democratic support for fascist regimes develop.'
Broomstick: 'Well, you know. Stability is really important and there's no way we can conceptually enforce justice without prioritizing stability.'

[loomer]

Did the Sioux take the land as part of a doctrine that the land was not in use and that its inhabitants constituted a lower form of life whose claims to the land were inherently valid?

Missed the edit window. That should be 'inherently invalid'. Mea culpa.

No one disputes that the ethnic cleansing enacted by the us government was a crime against humanity, and that the aftereffects continued for so long afterwards is disgraceful. But what you advocate is not going to make things better. And saying that your ideas are flawed doesn’t translate to being white supremacist

I didn't spot your edit either. My bad. Have I at any point called you a white supremacist, rather than suggesting that the extant CANZUS nations are built on a foundation of, and continue to embody a form of, white supremacy? Please demonstrate where you feel I have done so so that I may either apologize or explain.

[Straha]

Let's start this as a more basic question: Do you believe the US should, morally, exist? If yes, why? If not, then why shouldn't people advocate for its dissolution regardless of the short-term political viability of that strategy?

Morally speaking the US should not exist... Yet it exists, and short of the apocalypse it's not going anywhere anytime for the foreseeable future.

^ Tribble has a point here. Whether or not the US should exist it does exist. The only things that will make it cease to exist are:
- internal implosion/civil war
- the Yellowstone Volcano having a major blow out
- a giant-ass rock from space splatting down on it

The US seeking to dissolve itself or change itself fundamentally. Like the US did in 1792, and like a litany of other countries have done in, more ore less peaceful ways, as listed above.

Plus if any dissolution is going to happen, I guarantee it wouldn't be on behalf of the First Nations; it'll be a state like Texas deciding they've had enough of d'em nasty evil liberals, and splitting off again precisely so that they can stamp minorities further into the ground.

^ This.

If you dissolve the US you might wind up with some entities that meet the goals you desire, but you'll also get little shitholes that are theocracies or autocratic mini-states or places where slavery is reinstated or other nasty outcomes that are the opposite of what you desire. Is that really where you want to go?

Right now, the only thing keeping the various states from running roughshod over the Natives is the Federal government - which yes, is sad and pitiful and some nasty dark cosmic joke but it's also the truth.

I realize this is a little bit of beating a dead horse, but it really is interesting to me that the original posts in this thread all staked out that Trump's recent rhetoric represented a fundamental shift away from the nature of the United States and were ominous portents of the immediate future. Now some of those very same posters are claiming that no, in fact the US isn't just a simmering hot bed of racism but has active pockets who would love to engage in mass slavery and genocide which are only held back by the threat of punitive retaliation from the same Federal Government that Trump runs. Implicitly positing him as significantly more moderate than a significant chunk of his electorate and an enforcer of morality to whom we should all be grateful.

Which... sure? I guess?

[wautd]

Trump calls Swedish prime minister to release a prisoner

Trump Says He’s ‘Very Disappointed’ Sweden Hasn’t Freed Rapper

President Donald Trump has lambasted Sweden’s government for not forcing state prosecutors to free A$AP Rocky, after the U.S. rapper was caught on video committing what appeared to be a physical assault in Stockholm.

Swedish Prosecutor Daniel Suneson said on Thursday that evidence he’d seen meant that criminal proceedings would be started against A$AP Rocky and two of his associates. The three are “suspected of assault causing actual bodily harm,” Suneson said.


In a Tweet, Trump said he was “very disappointed” in Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven for not intervening. The U.S. president also implied Sweden owed the U.S., saying “We do so much for Sweden but it doesn’t seem to work the other way around.” Lofven has pointed out that the Swedish constitution bans the government and parliament from interfering in legal cases.

Very disappointed in Prime Minister Stefan Löfven for being unable to act. Sweden has let our African American Community down in the United States. I watched the tapes of A$AP Rocky, and he was being followed and harassed by troublemakers. Treat Americans fairly! #FreeRocky

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 25, 2019

The president, who is facing allegations of racism at home after telling four U.S. Congress women of color to “go back” to the countries they came from, contacted Lofven last weekend at the urging of Kanye West. In that call, he offered to “personally vouch” for A$AP Rocky, whose real name is Rakim Mayers. That included an offer to post bail, even though the legal tool doesn’t exist in Sweden.

A$AP Rocky was detained on July 2 for his alleged role in a street fight the night of June 30. Video of the episode obtained by TMZ appears to show the rapper and two associates punching and kicking a man, and court documents obtained by CNN allege they used a glass bottle as a weapon in the assault.

Lofven has pointed out to Trump that Sweden’s judiciary is independent, meaning politicians can’t intervene.

“In Sweden, everyone is equal before the law, including visitors from other countries,” Lofven told Swedish news service TT. “The Swedish government neither can, nor will, try to influence prosecutors or courts.”

Trump, who has repeatedly faced accusations of racism in the U.S. and whose treatment of migrants at the U.S. Mexico border has drawn widespread condemnation, said the Swedish government’s decision not to act in the case of A$AP Rocky means it has “let our African American Community down in the United States.”

A$AP Rocky’s lawyer told the celebrity news website that his client was acting in self-defense. Swedish public prosecutor Suneson said he had access to videos and other evidence in addition to the publicly available material that cast doubt on that explanation.

Suneson said he studied the videos made available to the inquiry, which he said was more than had “previously been available on the Internet.” In addition to video material, the injured party’s statements were supported by witnesses, Suneson said.

Give A$AP Rocky his FREEDOM. We do so much for Sweden but it doesn’t seem to work the other way around. Sweden should focus on its real crime problem! #FreeRocky

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 25, 2019

The rapper has considerable backing among Hollywood’s elite, with West and his wife, Kim Kardashian West, leading a social media campaign to call for A$AP Rocky’s release.

Kardashian West, who has repeatedly met with the president to lobby for the release of incarcerated Americans, tweeted her gratitude for what she characterized as his commitment to justice reform.

The arrogance and stupidity is strong in this one. But what to expect from an oligarg where concepts like judicial independence and separation of powers must be completely alien concepts to him

[Darth Yan]

Did the Sioux take the land as part of a doctrine that the land was not in use and that its inhabitants constituted a lower form of life whose claims to the land were inherently valid?

Missed the edit window. That should be 'inherently invalid'. Mea culpa.

No one disputes that the ethnic cleansing enacted by the us government was a crime against humanity, and that the aftereffects continued for so long afterwards is disgraceful. But what you advocate is not going to make things better. And saying that your ideas are flawed doesn’t translate to being white supremacist

I didn't spot your edit either. My bad. Have I at any point called you a white supremacist, rather than suggesting that the extant CANZUS nations are built on a foundation of, and continue to embody a form of, white supremacy? Please demonstrate where you feel I have done so so that I may either apologize or explain.

The way I see it is this. My issue is that whether you intend it or not there will be some expulsions even if things went as well as possible (that means that military and economic resources were successfully divided between the new states.) Many of the people being expelled would not really care about anything except their being forced to leave the homes over something they had nothing to do with. They don’t have to be racist to not want that to happen. Yet to me it felt that you were implying that ANYONE who didn’t want to leave their home even after mass education was a bigot or white supremacist. Maybe I’m wrong but that is what it came off as. Still I’m sorry if I misjudged you.

Bit of a side note: my cousins grandfather was Palestinian. He was forcibly expelled during Israel’s campaigns. A lot of Palestinians still want to return. Thing is.....the villages are still abandoned. It might take some money but the infrastructure to support the people is there. The only real justification is that it would “threaten the Jewish character of the nation.”

In that case it’s more clear cut. If enough money was spent the villages could be made livable again and the crime could be undone. The only justification against it is keeping it an ethnostate. So in that case......I’d be absolutely for resettling refugees because in this case it’s feasible enough to do as well.

Making former Native American lands viable states.......that’s a much more Herculaneun task. How do you build infrastructure? How do you make sure one group doesn’t make off with the bulk of the military codes and armaments? What of areas like the Deep South, where racism really IS embedded in the culture? What of treaties with nations like Japan? Those would have consequences for the entire planet and while I love humanity the fact is we can be pretty fucking stupid. It felt like you were just writing those off, and it also felt that you were saying “oh you’re just making a smokescreen” or “you think people are inherently racist.”



I also brought up South Africa. One could argue that maybe Mandela should have dissolved all those white farms. Certainly he had reason (those farms were built on stolen land). But he didn’t pursue it; you could argue it was cowardly but one could also argue that with all the misery and violence on both sides that Mandela was choosing to be the better man and trying to move on. Considering that South Africa is more stable and prosperous than Zimbabwe one cant help but wonder if he made the right call.

Tl;dr: pointing out that dissolving a country of that size and influence almost always results in violence despite best intentions does not translate into “we’re all racist and people can’t change.” Also that in some cases (Palestine) resettlement is more feasible so there’s less excuse not to push for it