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PaperclipPerfector  8d ago (text post)   27438 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 2, 2026

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I mean your OP turned almost entirely on the definition of "legitimate" so yeah, people are going to argue the semantics of it.

Maybe the first paragraph, but I think that's a mischaracterization of the entire post. I think most the replies make a boatload more sense if people stop after 1 to 3 paragraphs and write something up. Like I can see how they make sense if that's happening. I'm not sure what else is going on. I wrote:

(what type of state should there be?).

Now on the other hand the democratists say that the state is justified when it is popular.

I agree, rather, with Socrates (and Plato?) that the aristocratic rule by virtue is more just than the democracy.

And likewise the most legitimate state is the state of Reason (or what was called philosophy). I believe in modern times, Francis Galton and Friedrich Nietzsche have shown us the way to establish a legitimate state.

What sort of just foundation is that? Consider this: when one man declares himself sovereign, he is a laughing stock, like an ape. When a few men do it, they are criminals; yet when many men do it, I am supposed to profess that they are just?

I would prefer to keep my reason and see all such founders, not only Israel's, as laughing-stocks and criminals.

Imagine what could be done with North America if it were not already settled! That is the tragedy.

Some will say all of this is silly because it is impossible. But we know true aliyah is not impossible; Galton showed us that much.

I am not talking about actual Jews or gentiles. Zionism showed that a scattered people can migrate and found a state within a few decades; Galton showed what kind of state would be worth founding.

So the question I am asking is: would it be just for existing states to block the founding of a better one, and would its founders be wronged if they were blocked?

Yeah, I read your post and answered the narrow question of legitimacy. I think this would all be much clearer and maybe lead to better discussion if you didn't pose legitimacy as the question you are asking. People are consistently telling you that legitimacy and morality are separate questions and you keep scolding them for not answering the question of morality. As if legitimate but bad weren't a valid combination of descriptors. If you were asking "is Israel an immoral state" then there's some meat there. I'd argue that it's immoral by western standards but above par by mid east standards. Can you explain why you're insisting on the word legitimate?

Can you explain why you're insisting on the word legitimate?

American Heritage Dictionary, first thing I see when DuckDuckGoing the word:

legitimate /lə-jĭt′ə-mĭt/

adjective

Being in compliance with the law; lawful. "a legitimate business."

Being in accordance with established or accepted rules and standards. "legitimate advertising practices."

Valid or justifiable. "a legitimate complaint."

Based on logical reasoning. "a legitimate deduction."

What law do states submit to but natural law? Justifiable (morally) is the sense I am using, that is definition 3. Based on logical reasoning may seem different but I also hold to the reason theory of justice/legitimacy. So again, the question is more why people are insisting that I can't use the word. It's not weird at all that I'm using it, it's weird that there is difficulty understanding what I mean.

As for whether the state is immoral, maybe. I think I mean something deeper though, that is, whether there is any moral authority, while whether a state is immoral might be seen as less fundamental; a state might have moral authority but be temporarily immoral. Like their King, Solomon. He was immoral but they think he had moral authority / legitimacy. I would like to argue whether he had any moral authority (legitimacy) at all.

Another example, over 200 years ago: legitimists. Somehow everyone understood what they meant when they said Napoleon was not legitimate. They had a specific theory of legitimacy, birth right based on another aristocratic law, which I disagree with but not on the basis that I literally cannot understand their that concept differs from might.

I think my definition fits all of those? It's like the "legitimate" business of a shady scrap salesman who does everything by the books but doesn't ask any more questions than required about where the copper wire the crack head brought him was sourced from. It's only really tricky because there are not widely agreed upon international "rules". So we're left with conventions, comparisons and recognition. It's hard to find some criteria in which Israel is not legitimate without knocking some other widely agreed to be legitimate state out of the category. It's recognize by other states, even ones that condemn it. It polices it's borders. It maintains rule of law and administers basic services to its constituents. The largest thing it's missing is defined borders because it got into the state it is now after a series of wars where it established control of areas of at the time attacking Egypt and Jordan but didn't annex those territories. These are just observations, and if I were to draw a line around the "legitimate states" I would find it difficult to justify a line that doesn't include Israel.

Whether a state is legitimate or not says to me something about its relationship to other states and the expectation of its citizens. Whether what a state does it moral seems to be the thing you're actually interrogating and it's getting hung up on this diction.

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