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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   27707 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?

Most (but certainly not all) progressives I've seen are careful to distinguish that when they express support for the Palestinian cause, they are not defending Hamas. There's no question that Hamas's goals include complete extermination of the Jewish people, they don't even pretend otherwise, but one can in principle support the Palestinian cause and Palestine "from the river to the sea" without also calling for a final solution.

Perhaps this is just a motte-and-bailey argument no different from the revisionist claim that the Confederacy was fighting for "states' rights". I honestly don't know and can't offer an opinion on what proportion of Palestinians sincerely support the extermination of the Jewish people, or see that as a necessary evil in the establishment of a Palestinian state. But in principle I see no reason why pursuit of a Palestinian state must require the extermination of Jews (or even just Israelis).

I don't think the mirror image argmument of supporting the Confederacy's aims of independence but objecting to the Davis administration would hold much water anywhere.

It wasn't just the Davis Administration. All four states that issued explanations of their reasons for secession put the threat to slavery as the primary reason.

Be careful with historical documents - those were political documents written for public consumption. You're not entirely wrong - the seceding states clearly thought slavery was a central pillar of their unique civilization (though they were not unconflicted about it). However, they also had every incentive to try and bring the northern abolitionists, who were a small minority widely-viewed as radical, humorless, and radical (not in the good sense), front and center. When you're reading those, take the same attitude you'd take towards Lindsey Graham talking about the invasion of Iraq in 2003, or AOC talking about the Floyd riots - it's basically the same thing.

I don’t buy it. Yes, those were political documents, but they were aimed at at least three audiences: 1) the federal govt; 2) foreign powers, esp Great Britain; and 3) their own citizens. Their incentive was to convince all of them that secession was legitimate, and saying "we want to preserve slavery" was not the way to do that.

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