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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 8, 2023

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Protection in exchange for taxes doesn't require hobbes, it's just feudalism. Earlier, even. The world's oldest profession... for men.

As long as the jews or goths or cumans pay taxes and obey the king, they should not be treated as a foreign army or persecuted by the rest of the king's subjects. One doesn't need liberalism to justify this arrangement.

As long as the jews or goths or cumans pay taxes and obey the king, they should not be treated as a foreign army or persecuted by the rest of the king's subjects.

Why?

I mean it, explain as you would to a catholic ruler why you shouldn't persecute those who have no kinship, cultural ties to your realm and whom you don't even share a religion with.

Why not just kill them and take their stuff or convert them except that it might be impractical at the moment?

The catholic church explicitly extended protection and tolerance to the Jews, something not extended to other religious minorities who were persecuted. The only reason Jews could exist in catholic and orthodox Europe was that they were Jews and not something else.

Mutual benefit. Loyalty without competition (as in, a jew cannot replace you as the new king like a catholic could). Honoring your word. You're asking why anyone would act morally. I doubt they do it because of 'cultural ties'.

Just because a policy is ruthless does not make it beneficial to the realm. The dutch and americans soaked up all the religious freaks nobody wanted and it made them rich. Has that king ever heard of the goose with the golden eggs?