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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   27694 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 23, 2023

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Below, there is a discussion of the civil war due to Robert E Lee statute being torn down. The other main event of the day is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I would say as a general matter the biggest supporters of Palestine in the US are progressives. Progressives also hate the confederacy.

Question is can you separate them? The south was arguing for their right of self determination? Of course, imbedded within that is they wanted to savagely deny that right to blacks held in chattel slavery. Likewise, the Palestinians claim the right of self determination but their stated intention is to kill the Israelis (from the river to the sea has a meaning).

So in both cases there is a legitimate claim to right of self determination. But that claim is bloodied by what those people would do with such right and at least in the confederacy context that “bad thing” was enough to invalidate their right to self determination.

My question then is whether the right to self determination is properly thought of as as a right? If so, it seems at best it is a contingent right. If it is a contingent right, what contingencies are unimportant enough to “trump” the right?

Why do you expect consistency from social posturing? The college kids chanting River to the Sea are just making mouth noises that they've been told are the mouth noises non-excluded, invited-to-parties people make. They wouldn't know what to do with a Jew even if they caught one.

Why do you expect consistency from social posturing? The college kids chanting River to the Sea are just making mouth noises that they've been told are the mouth noises non-excluded, invited-to-parties people make.

This may very well be true, but it is not really a sufficiently effortful response for this space. It is always the case that one possible response to $PERPLEXING_THING is "eh, nobody is serious anyway, this is all play-acting, there's nothing to be feared from play-actors, and nothing to be gained from engaging on substance and merits." But it's rarely a charitable response (to either the person making the argument or the people under discussion) and often just false in various ways. So if you're going to imply that someone shouldn't expect consistency, you're going to need to do it with a bit more effort.

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