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And the point that people who were denied representation don't get to have the legitimacy of their implicit support invoked remains. As does the point that they are, in fact, part of regional population majorities.
Franchisement and representation of non-voters was a significant aspect of the foundational american political disputes. The 3/5ths compromise resulted from the slavers wanting slaves to count as much as a citizen for legitimate representation in the political system.
Sure, why not? It's not like Union (il)legitimacy affects whether the Confederacy was or was not legitimate. Independent variables.
We could question whether legitimacy is a binary state (legitimate or not legitimate), or a status of degrees (more or less legitimate), but if you don't want to stake a position I won't force you.
If you define the scope of legitimacy to include illegal aliens, certainly. Hence why various pro-migration coalitions support things like giving Congressional representation based on non-citizen (and thus including illegal) residents, and why other parts of their coalitions are very uninterested in proof-of-citizenship requirements in elections that are routinely popular with the electorate that opponents claim to be defending against disenfranchisement.
Sure, why not?
They wanted slaves to count in giving the states a vote, but they didn't want the slaves themselves to vote.
But then you just have one illegitimate government invading another illegitimate government. Probably every war at that time was like that. If every government is illegitimate, how is it even meaningful to say that some particular side is a valid target because they're illegitimate?
(How do you feel about the Japanese attacking Pearl Harbor? Hawaii was part of the US because it had a coup by people favorable to American interests. You can make a reasonable argument that the US's rule over Hawaii is illegitimate. So was it okay for the Japanese to attack it?)
Well, I didn't expect you to bite this bullet. Not even the Democrats say that Trump is an illegitimate president because the illegal aliens weren't allowed to vote against him. And in the end, this standard just turns into "every government is illegitimate", in which case being illegitimate says nothing useful about the two sides.
By treating legitimacy as a matter of degrees, rather than as a binary state. Same as with most justification categories.
It is very rare for any party to be purely in the right or wrong by any given judgement criteria. That does not mean judgement is impossible. Nor does it mean moral equivalence is necessary.
If it makes your expectations feel better, I didn't. I did say 'If you define...'
I don't restrict myself to your definition. I am just nodding and agreeing that, yes, if you set a condition in which IF X THEN Y, then when X then Y.
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