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'My fellow whites' is morphing into 'My fellow neo-nazis? Well, as a fellow neo-nazi, Of course he is right. I would welcome this brother with open arms into the pan-nationalist fold. As anything else? No, he's actually wrong in the most racist way possible. It's a declaration of war against modern liberal societies and their moral identity.
The ideological priors that underpin that identity are very robust and ubiquitous in western societies, from being taught in elementary schools to being depicted in pop media. There is only one race, the human race. We are all inherently good, of equal worth, moral character and our faults are only a product of environmental circumstance. Openness and trust good, prejudice bad. We can all learn and better ourselves if given the chance and resources. Immigration is advertised as a universal good. Economically, culturally, morally and to the exclusion of any preservative conception of an ancestral or genetic ethnic identity. It's actually a moral duty to improve the conditions of others to help elevate them to the privileged point you coincidentally occupy today and any conception of your ancestral lineage or future progeny or majoritarian ingroup bias that exists to the exclusion of others is the greatest moral evil in existence.
'Anyone who doesn't functionally grasp and agree with the principles of Neo-Nazism is disingenuous or stupid'? Apologies if I'm misinterpreting this and you are saying modern liberalism is 'working' for the west. But regardless of that I don't remember anyone proclaiming modern liberalism needs to work to the benefit of ethnocentric jews in particular. We all have to share this earth. Palestinians and jews included.
Sure, it sucks jews are a global minority and will definitely go extinct under this paradigm, but that's the case for most peoples. We will all end up beige.
We generally accept that democracy is good. Stating that non-Japanese people would be incapable of participating in it in Japan without destroying it for the Japanese is the most illiberal and racist thing I've heard in years.
Ethno-states can only be alleged to be common as a result of history and circumstance. But nigh every first world nation, including Japan, is transforming away from that. That is the direction of modern liberalism. Israel is unique in that it's demanding a different direction for itself for profoundly illiberal neo-nazi reasons.
Where are you getting neo-Nazis? Do you think that any group that wants to remain ethnically/culturally/religiously distinctive, in any way, is neo-Nazi?
I think a one-state solution in Israel is impossible for pragmatic, historically contingent reasons. This group of people and that group of people are unwilling to co-exist in the one state. You can judge one group or the other or both immoral, but I'm not making a moral judgement. I'm saying that, like it or not, you cannot jam Israelis and Palestinians together into the one state. Neither group will accept that.
I do not blame Jews (or members of any group) for not wanting to go extinct. No group has an obligation to embrace its own obliteration.
You then bring up 'democracy' for some reason even though I didn't touch on that in the slightest. I think that ethno-states are common, and I did not say that ethno-states are morally impermissible. I think that national communities have a right to self-determine and that includes the right to be an ethno-state. The Japanese people are morally permitted to constitute themselves as an ethno-state, for instance. This is a different and unrelated question to that of democracy. You can have a democratic ethno-state, a non-democratic ethno-state, a democratic non-ethno-state, and a non-democratic non-ethno-state. They are unrelated axes.
I don't think Israel is unique in being or wanting to be an ethno-state, and there are plenty of comparable nations. I just mentioned Azerbaijan, for instance. You can say that ethno-states shouldn't exist if you like - that's your own judgement. But I'm not forbidding that. Some countries are ethno-states and some countries are not ethno-states and I'm fine with this.
The case you are making for Israel is the case every neo-nazi has made for their own country. All of your assertions derive from illiberal worldview that is directly tied to the modern conception of neo-nazism. The idea of ethnostates as a coherent concept in the first place is going over the line, let alone that they could ever be good.
You're not engaging with the contention. We can agree between the two of us to any illiberal view on the world for the preservation of our peoples and whatever else, but what's the relevance of that to the discourse relating to the reigning powers that be who are liberal and don't agree with us at all? Who'd denigrate the very idea that there are coherent and exclusive groups in the first place outside of the conception that the one that is better off should help the one whose worse off.
I already explained why this line of thinking is invalid. Ethnostates can only be alleged to be common as a result of history and circumstance. But nigh every first world nation, including Japan, is transforming away from that. That is the direction of modern liberalism. Israel is unique in that it's demanding a different direction for itself for profoundly illiberal neo-nazi reasons.
To highlight this further with your example of Azerbaijan, if Azerbaijan was becoming an economic powerhouse, with opportunity that would make the life of foreign immigrants better, would they or would they not be obligated to open their borders to immigration under liberal priors? I'll repost them here:
Which one of these do you disagree with? What do liberals call people who disagree with their core values? Who do you think you are to them?
The Palestinians and Israelis can make peace and if the neo-nazi conception of Israel has to perish for that peace to happen liberals have no reason to care. It's a process that's already ongoing in the west. Why shouldn't it happen to Israel?
I don't think that's the case. Neo-Nazism is a much more specific, narrow family of ideologies than that. The analogy to neo-Nazism is not helpful or relevant here because neo-Nazism is obviously not the same thing as ethno-nationalism simpliciter.
You're talking with me, though. I don't have an army of ghosts behind my shoulder, and I'm not going to take the heat for this imaginary audience you appear to be bothered by. It's not an argument against me if some other group of people somewhere else think ethno-nationalism is always wrong. I don't think ethno-nationalism is always wrong, clearly the Israelis don't think ethno-nationalism is always wrong, Americans who support Israel don't seem to think that ethno-nationalism is always wrong, and as far as I can tell a great many people all around the world don't think that ethno-nationalism is always wrong.
Well, I don't accept that Israel is unique in that regard - there are plenty of other nations that are ethno-nationalist, some in a quite assertive way. You just don't seem to think they count. At any rate, I think that nations may constitute themselves in an ethno-nationalist way if they want. That's true for Israel, Azerbaijan, or indeed Japan. Who cares about 'the direction of modern liberalism'? Okay, it's true, there are people and organisations in the world who think that ethno-nationalism is always wrong. But those people are not everyone or everywhere, they're not me, and they don't appear to be controlling the situation in the Middle East.
What more do you want me to say? If 'modern liberalism' forbids ethno-states, then modern liberalism is wrong. That was easy.
What difference does it make whether they're rich or not? That's not germane to the point under discussion.
I'm sorry, is this meant to be a gotcha? I have said already that I think ethno-nationalism can be acceptable and that ethnic or national groups can set the terms of entry. That implies, for instance, that I think the statement "immigration is a universal good" is false. Certainly it means that I disagree with the statement "immigration should always be permitted". I think it is acceptable to have a preservative conception of an ancestral ethnic identity - come on, I just said that I think you can't blame Jews for wanting to maintain 'Jews' as a distinct ethnic, cultural, and religious group, and what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
Should I keep going through it? I think you've come up with this aggressive maximalist, even strawman, conception of liberalism, and you're... uh... who are you disagreeing with again? You don't appear to be disagreeing with me.
You're clearly angry at someone, but that someone is not me and does not appear to be in this conversation.
If I'm clearly angry it's because you're not interacting with the topic on the level ideological priors that drive beliefs or tactfully sidestepping the factual points that don't line up for you. I don't buy the sudden 'ethnostates are OK, actually' now that the topic is Israel. Or the idea that, coincidentally, ethnostates have just happened to be bad idea up until this specific point. Or the idea that, just now, we're going to walk away from all the moral priors of the liberal world, including the belief that populations can change in their belief and behavior.
If that doesn't apply to you, and you're here as a non-biased rational actor who just judges things on thing at a time, with no moral code or overarching ideological view, fine. But I genuinely don't believe you at all. I think that if I bothered to walk through your comments I'd find a moral quandary where your disposition is the polar opposite to what it is in this case.
I mean, they are okay. It's just demonstrably true that there are a huge number of them in the world and even liberal Westerners treat most of them as legitimate.
I take the subtext of your complaint to be that you think the United States should be an ethno-state, and specifically a white ethno-state. It's true that most Americans don't want that. It's true that liberals generally consider the idea of turning the USA into an ethno-state to be grossly immoral. If you ask me specifically, I think the idea of making the USA an ethno-state is ridiculous - it requires going against the last few centuries of American tradition and it's extraordinarily impracticable.
Perhaps less centrally, maybe it's also that you think European countries should be ethno-states, and my view there is that some are, many are not, and I agree that institutions like the EU think that ethno-states are bad and that EU countries should not be that way. I also think there's a significant groundswell against that point of view, and over the next few decades I expect that groundswell to get stronger.
To get even more provocative, I think that probably you are a neo-Nazi, or at least neo-Nazi adjacent, hence your bizarre attempt to drag neo-Nazism into this discussion. The impression I get is that your worldview is that countries, especially white countries, ought to be ethno-states, that an international progressive liberal consensus forbids this, is gradually destroying the identity and heritage of white countries, and that this consensus treats Israel as an exception to the rule, because this consensus is heavily Jewish and Jews are hypocrites who promote their own racial welfare while undermining that of whites. I trust you don't need me to explain why I think that's wrong.
But ultimately going back to the top-level comment, my feeling is - you, me, and Adam Smith all agree that ethno-states are okay. It's rather bizarre of you to be angry that Adam Smith holds a perspective that you and I both share. I think your real complaint is this:
In other words, this is just garden variety anti-semitic rambling about the supposed Jewish conspiracy.
The United States is not an ethno-state, and there is no plausible pathway to making it an ethno-state. This is not because of the Jews. They did not do this to you. America is not an ethno-state because Americans don't want it to be. It's not some sort of Jew-influenced false consciousness, and if you remove the Jewish influence the people will rise up, like what Marxists think will happen if you remove the capitalist class. No, it's genuinely that most of your countrymen disagree with you. Deal with it.
It's not a question about what the public wants. The moral order is dictated to the people and then the people vote for the speed by which the moral order will be implemented. Your object level analysis is just inaccurate and perfectly illustrates this.
If we broach the factual terms, such as the reality that the first immigration law signed in the US limited immigration to white men of good character, that's never been relevant to a modern liberal. Or the Hart-Celler act. Under your conception, the US was a white ethnostate until that point in the 1960's. Or how the majority of Americans have supported segregation or worse for longer than they have not. Modern liberalism just paves over that with propaganda about a nation of immigrants and an entire genre of diversity propaganda. And you're just blatantly dipping into that modern liberal framework when it's convenient.
But that's exactly the thing, that framework is universalist and totalitarian. It applies to all. So when a person like you or Adam try to carve out an exception that contradicts that entire framework on the basis that the survival of a specific ethnic group is actually super important, and they can't coexist with any other ethnic groups because those ethnic groups are unchanging in their hatred of them, then yes, I do wonder if this is not just the Dual Morality that's alleged to afflict many diaspora jews rearing its head yet again. What even else do you call this sort of thing?
Because it turns out that when the shoe is on the other foot and they are dealing with other members of their group in their homeland, they prefer the same thing I prefer for my group in mine. Even though that's what I've been told all my life is really bad and evil. They want segregation, all of a sudden, rather than to rely on the fundamental moral good of all people. It doesn't make any sense.
The case for open societies was never made on a case by case basis. It's an absolute and complete moralizing ideology. Saying that you believe in it for one case and not another doesn't work.
There's no explanation given by you or anyone else for this. You're just not supposed to notice.
Sorry, how does any of that even apply to what I said?
The United States is not an ethno-state today. There is no route to it becoming one, and the reason is because there is no way that the American people would ever support it becoming one. That is not a universalist claim, but a specific, local one. The people of the nation you are talking about would not support that policy.
I don't think I gave you a definition, but no, the United States was not a white ethno-state in the 1960s. I commented on the US just before - the US has frequently had an implicit ethno-religious foundation, but it has not had such formally. The Hart-Celler Act, incidentally, passed with massive democratic majorities (318-95 in the house, 76-18 in the senate), and therefore I'd suggest that the Hart-Celler Act does represent what the American people of the 1960s wanted. Opinion polls at the time showed the majority of Americans in favour - wiki claims 51%, though I can't read this page specifically. Therefore I think what I said was correct. Even if you think that Act was the end of America as an ethno-state, it was that because that was what the American people wanted.
As I've said, I think different nations have the right to constitute themselves as they wish, and to set their own terms for entry. The United States has chosen to be open to migrants. Just as Japan is allowed to have very little immigration, the United States is allowed to have a lot of it. This is permitted! And to that end, firstly, Jews did not singlehandedly foist this on a population that didn't want it, and secondly, if you don't like it, you are free to advocate for reversing it and trying to transition the US into being an ethno-state. You'll fail, because Americans genuinely don't want that, but you are free to try.
Firstly, I'm not Jewish. Secondly, I'm not carving out any exceptions. I'm saying that every country and every people has the right to a kind of self-determination that includes setting its own boundaries and defining its own policies on citizenship and migration. That includes both the right to be an ethno-state and the right not to be an ethno-state.
The same standard applies everywhere. I don't know why you think I'm treating Israel as exceptional when in this conversation I have noted other ethno-states, and other countries with restrictive migration policies. I have no special interest in Israel because I think that Israel is basically a normal Middle Eastern country.
Please don't try to debate an imaginary person or ideology that you see behind me. I am not saying that there is a single correct way for a nation to be. I am saying that different nations constitute themselves in different ways, and that I think this is acceptable. I do not accept responsibility for positions that I do not hold and have not argued for.
You claim that there is a public will that exists independent of the liberal moral order. When we look at time periods before that moral order was established people were more in favor of segregation than not. Forget about mass immigration of brown people, such a thing was just unthinkable.
The US under the 1924 Immigration Act, which lasted until Hart-Celler, was just as much an ethnostate as modern Azerbaijan is in practice. Even more explicitly so when accounting for Jim Crow laws. It's not until after the Liberal Moral Order starts asserting itself that you get the 'will of the people' you allude to.
The Hart-Celler act was presented as a minimal update of sorts. One of the first big lies of the LMO. To quote LBJ:
And to further the point of Dual Morality as exemplified by some jewish people, Emanuel Celler fought his entire life to expand immigration into America. Despite being an ideological zionist.
The LMO is not a coincidental thing that dropped from the sky. It was an ideological push that modulated the views of the public through distortion of fact and outright lies. The people who pushed it had views and opinions. Many of the ones who were jewish had separate opinions for the US and for Israel.
You keep saying every country should have the right, but if you don't deal with the actual moral premise that precludes that. To highlight this:
If it is a given that White America does not benefit from the majority of the black population in America, would you consider it amoral and perfectly within White America's right to distance themselves from the broader portion of the black population just like Israel distances itself from the Palestinian one? Proportionally, discounting Oct.7, around 600 white Americans are killed compared to 20-30 Israelis by Palestinians annually. Assuming the US white population is roughly 20 times the size of Israel, living with black Americans is roughly as deadly as the current state of the Israel Palestine conflict is for Israelis.
What should the broader European and white American world feel like? Is your assessment of the current state of affairs that it is good for them? The endless immigration, constant self flagellation, and everything else that the LMO dictates. Do you feel that the current state of affairs should continue or should white Americans feel differently? Should they not take the maximal self benefitting position, as you prescribe to the Israeli's, and do you support them even if they started engaging in the same tactics Israel engages in regarding how they've been handling the Palestinians.
And please, don't dip into the LMO again when answering these.
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