If you are doing worse, then you seem to be in the minority. And see here
Perhaps your personal situation is not representative of the norm, and that the cited data, rather than being "statistical bullshit," more accurately describes the norm than does your anecdote.
Gdanning
2yr ago
crime-ridden cities like San Francisco and Baltimore
SF's murder rate is about 1/9 that of Baltimore and lower than that of Dallas, Houston, Cincinnati and most other major cities other than NYC.
Gdanning
2yr ago
The GDP number is real, not nominal.
Gdanning
2yr ago
You might not have used the explicit term, but it was the concept you asked about in your initial post, when you asked, "Exactly what are the features of a group with the right to claim territory and "self-determination"? Is it races? Ethnic groups? Language groups?" As I said, I personally do not believe in the right to self-determination. But I have been describing the views of those who do, and those who do, believe it is a right that belongs to "nations" (or, sometimes, "peoples", which is the same thing).
so that's probably not the way to go if we want to be able to judge the violent actions of various groups. The question remains, what does?
I just answered that question, which, as I said, is a different question than your initial question about the right to self-determination.
Gdanning
2yr ago
I am not sure what "correct" means in this context. If the violence is legitimate -- eg, it is in self-defense, it is proportionate, etc, I am not sure that level of organization matters. Though the just war requirement of proper authority is problematic for substate actors.
BTW, I see that I forgot one point re your last comment:
The level of feeling that produces group violence is an important milestone, but there are perverse incentives to recognizing it as the dividing line between legitimate and illegitimate violence.
You are conflating two different things. Whether a group constitutes a nation does not determine whether their use of violence is legitimate or illegitimate. That is a separate question.
Do see Gandhi, please. Note the massive ethnic cleansing and the several wars fought with the other side of that partition
Yes, but that was after the states were established. The movement for self-determination vis-a-vis the British did not require violence. Note however that the subsequent ethnic cleansing is precisely why I oppose nationalism, because often the notion that every nation has a right to its own state is conflated with the notion that every state must be composed of a single nation. That is not always the case (see here), but it often is.
disagree somewhat on your definition of nationalism, because I think the causality can run both ways. Nations may or may not become states, and states may or may not become nations.
- It isn't my definition
- Yes, it is possible that the creation of a state can eventually give rise to a feeling of a broad nationhood (that seems to have happened in France, Germany and Italy, as previously local identities were subsumed within a larger identity), but I wasn't making a causal claim. I was merely describing the distinction.
Which brings us to the crux of the question of mine you quote. I take it your answer is the state? If so, with some exceptions I agree with you.
No, because that doesn't make sense in the context of nationalism. The central claim of nationalism is that nations have the right to self-determination, which is defined as the right to form a state.* It doesn't make sense to say that a state has the right to form a state. But again, that is the view of those who believe in nationalism, which I don’t. I don't believe in the right to self-determination at all, so my personal response is "nobody."
*Edit: re self-determination: "external self-determination refers to full legal independence/secession for the given 'people' from the larger politico-legal state."
Gdanning
2yr ago
There are quite a few in Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia. And they can vote for a third party (which is pretty much how Hillary Clinton lost swing states in 2016)
Gdanning
2yr ago
- The international order? No. The international order is composed of states, not nations, and international law largely governs the interactions of states, not nations.
- By using the term "feels," it seems to me that you are failing to engage with the issue. Lots of human behavior/interests/institutions/etc are downstream of "feels" such as love, patriotism, filial devotion, notionsof justice, etc.
-
being a large enough group that feels strongly enough about their "nationhood" to begin organizing militarily is a functional definition of a "nation
No, military organization is not required. See, eg, Gandhi.
4 > we're back at "might makes right
You are conflating what is with what ought to be. Nationalism is a claim about what ought to be (i.e., every nation ought to have its own state). Obviously, nations with more power are more likely to see those oughts come to fruition. But your initial question was an "ought" question. You asked, "Exactly what are the features of a group with the right to claim territory and "self-determination"?" That is an "ought" question.
Gdanning
2yr ago
This seems entirely too broad.
Yeah, that goes back to our original discussion. I do know that there is usually an assumption that a nation is something that someone is born into, so that leaves out gangs and knitting circles. But where to draw the line is obviously going to be highly contested.
there's tens of millions, maybe a hundred million descendants that can look back to the Confederacy and the South more generally as a shared cultural and historic criteria. Are they a nation?
The most important point is that they must see themselves as a distinct nation. I don't think that is the case of the descendants of those who were residents of the Confederacy (in fact, even at the time, as I understand it, those people saw themselves more as Virginians or Texans, rather than Confederastas or Southerners). But, if they do see themselves that way, then they would have a reasonable claim to being a nation.
Do nations have the collective right to own land, control that territory and engage in group violence to acquire/protect it?
Well, since nationalism is the belief that every nation has the right to its own state, then those who believe in nationalism would mostly say "yes", since a state by definition controls territory and has the right to engage in violence to protect it. Whether a nation without a state has a right to engage in violence to acquire it is a different question. I would say no, but then as I said I don't believe in nationalism. As I understand it, there is no single answer to that question that is inherent in the idea of nationalism itself.
The question as I see it is which level of human organization is recognized as the proper scale for violent conflict.
Well, under international law, I believe that only states can legitimately engage in violent conflict. And under just war theory, war is permissible only if it is engaged in by a "proper authority".
Gdanning
2yr ago
Well, the standard distinction (note that I am merely describing the standard usage rather than advocating for it. I think that nationalism (this one, not the vernacular synonym with patriotism) is a pernicious doctrine). This does a decent job re the distinction:
A State is an independent, sovereign government exercising control over a certain spatially defined and bounded area, whose borders are usually clearly defined and internationally recognized by other states. . . . A nation is a group of people who see themselves as a cohesive and coherent unit based on shared cultural or historical criteria.
Hence, the Kurds are arguably a nation. But they don't have a state. Ditto the Basques. Ditto the Uygyurs. Ditto the Catalans. Perhaps even the Walloons or the Quebecois.
I don’t buy it. Yes, those were political documents, but they were aimed at at least three audiences: 1) the federal govt; 2) foreign powers, esp Great Britain; and 3) their own citizens. Their incentive was to convince all of them that secession was legitimate, and saying "we want to preserve slavery" was not the way to do that.
Gdanning
2yr ago
Ok, but this seems to be a different sort of claim. First, you seem to be talking about who is going to be able to create their own state at some point, rather than what merits deeming a particular group to be a nation. Second, the key point of the right to self-determination is that it is a right, which is a claim that "might makes right" is illegitimate (what is the right to free speech, or the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, if not a claim that govt power to act is not relevant to determining how govt and the individual must interact with one another). And of course, the right to self-determination was quite consciously a repudiation of imperialism, which of course is perfectly justified under your formulation.
To be violent and weak is simply to dig one's own grave
Yes, but that is a peripheral issue. We are talking about what groups have the right to self-determination, which is a completely different question from what tactics should be employed in pursuit of that goal.
Gdanning
2yr ago
Yeah, this is one of many reasons that I am dubious of the entire concept. Part of the problem is that the "answer" to the first question is that each "nation" has the right to self-determination, but a "nation" is largely self-defined. To quote Wikipedia:
Carl Darling Buck argued in a 1916 study, "Nationality is essentially subjective, an active sentiment of unity, within a fairly extensive group, a sentiment based upon real but diverse factors, political, geographical, physical, and social, any or all of which may be present in this or that case, but no one of which must be present in all cases."
And:
Nationalism is consequently seen an "invented tradition" in which shared sentiment provides a form of collective identity and binds individuals together in political solidarity. A nation's foundational "story" may be built around a combination of ethnic attributes, values and principles, and may be closely connected to narratives of belonging.
Re Israel/Palestine, a complication is that both have a legitimate claim to being nations, but want to locate their state in a particular place. Though afaik, there is no requirement that a nation have its state in a particular place (see, eg, past proposals to locate the Jewish state in places other than the Middle East).
Gdanning
2yr ago
It wasn't just the Davis Administration. All four states that issued explanations of their reasons for secession put the threat to slavery as the primary reason.
Gdanning
2yr ago
So in both cases there is a legitimate claim to right of self determination
Is there? The right to self-determination belongs to "peoples.". You are assuming that both Palestinians and southerners are/were "peoples", but what constitutes a "people" is the most contentious part of the right to self-determination. Not only are you skipping over the hard part, you are ascribing to progressives views (ie, re what constitutes a "people") that they might or might not hold. (And note that African-Americans in the antebellum South would also seem hold a claim to be a "people" under some views of what constitutes a "people.").
Gdanning
2yr ago
Most people who complain about the legal system (in general, not just here) are complaining about inaccurate stereotypes or misleading claims by advocates or the media*, and/or are ignoring the many Chesterton's Fences that have been erected in the course of hundreds of years of Anglo-American jurisprudence.
*See, eg, descriptions of the Citizens United case.
Gdanning
2yr ago
Sure, but that really isn't the point. The point is that the OP is incorrect in stating that few real black people immigrate to the US (as anyone who has visited certain neighborhoods in Brooklyn can attest).
As an aside, employment-based green cards are a distinct minority of those issued each year. Though there is also a substantial backlog on family-based greencards for certain countries, including India.
Gdanning
2yr ago
sorry, is it "obviously" true or not that "Flood" is a clear reference to the Hamas-run terrorist attack?
- Obviously? No, because it also an extremely common English language metaphor for a large number of persons, items, etc, arriving somewhere at the same time.
- More importantly, given OP's claim, the issue is whether attendees at the protest understand it to bea reference to the attack. Because OP's claim is that broad support for Hamas has expanded.
As for the rest, you don't seem to understand my objection. As I said:
You are making a causal claim here, but in order to determine whether it is actually true, you need to have:
- Actual data, not just anecdotes re support for Hamas (not Palestine) before the attack
- Actual data, not just anecdotes re support for Hamas (not Palestine) after the attack
- The ability to control for the effect of the subsequent and ongoing air raids by Israel on Gaza
There might well be evidence of #1 and #2 that will come to the fore at some point. There might be survey data that has been collected by some researcher or another, or it might eventually be found in one of the many datasets of contentious poiitics that are out there, though they don't generally capture low level events such as might have occurred pre-attack. But as of right now, the evidence that there has been "increased support for Hamas in the West", as OP claims, let alone that any such increase was caused by "the brutality of the terrorism," as opposed to the Israeli response, is so lacking that it is silly to hypothesize about the mechanism behind that causal relationship, for the simple reason that we have no reason to believe that that causal relationship exists.
Note also that for every anecdote of yours, I can counter with someone who was formerly fine with the DSA's support for Hamas leaving the organization. I can spin that as a drop in support for Hamas. That's why we need actual data, not cherry picked anecdotes.
Gdanning
2yr ago
"to the shores of Tripoli" is surely a reference to the Barbary Wars, which had nothing to do with ending slavery per se and everything to do with ending the practice of seizing ships and their crews and holding them for ransom. And note that the first war was initiated by a declaration of war by Tripoli, not by the US.
Gdanning
2yr ago
Ironically, the only black people immigrating to the US are South Indians.
It looks like about 120,000 people per year are granted permanent residence from Jamaica, Haiti, and "other Africa," which seems to be mostly subSaharan Africa. Compared with 50-69K from all of India.
Your link to the "Flood Brooklyn for Gaza" seems to reinforce my point about the methodological challenges that OP's claim ignores. Gaza is not Hamas. A rally calling for support for Gaza at a time when a hundreds or more civilians in Gaza are dying each day cannot be assumed to be pro-Hamas, and even if it is, the causal relationship between the attack and the level of support for that protest is obviously confounded by the effect of Israel's response.
And if, as you note, there were all those pre-attack events you link, where is the evidence for OP's assumption that the attack led to an increase in support?
Edit: And, btw, I don't give a damn about the "right to return" or adjacent ideas like nationalism, or self-determination, or anti-imperialism, because none of those things have any intrinsic value for actual, individual human beings, which is all that matters. They are claims about the "rights" of groups, and hence they are illegitimate claims, as far as I am concerned.
Gdanning
2yr ago
the future affects you anticipate are unrelated to the conversation’s context
This is the very first thing I said: "It would, nevertheless, probably have been in Israel's long-term best interests to have "[left] the depravity and hatred of the Hamas project for the world to behold." Which was in response to a criticism of someone who implicitly made the same claim. So, if you think the future effect I mentioned is unrelated to the conversation's context, you are misremembering what that context was.
so your solution is not a solution,
And your "solution", ie, kill all Hamas members, is a short-term solution with enormous short-term costs, possible enormous medium term costs if it leads to a wider war, and serious long-term costs. Hence, it, too, is not a solution.
As for Hamas, I didn't only mention the Saudi deal, did I? I also mentioned "various other arrangements between Israel and local governments which are not particularly enamored of Iran and its proxies." There are other countries in the region that would like to see Hamas (and Hezbollah, and other Iranian proxies) disabled, but their cooperation with Israel becomes less politically tenable as civilian casualties in Gaza mount.
Gdanning
2yr ago
It doesn’t solve the issue, though, so I don’t see the point.
There is not going to be a perfect solution. The point is simply that there are choices other than the imperfect solution of doing nothing and the imperfect solution of using force in a manner that is guaranteed to kill large numbers of civilians. But making leaders pay for their decisions will certainly encourage the next leaders to make different decisions in the future.
How does a deal with Saudi help with removing Hamas monsters from Gaza?
I didn't say it did. You asked what would happen that "would be in some way advantageous to Israel."
But the problem is that no one else can know that.
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