This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Why? If I don't think he is a legitimate authority and am just working through the bureaucracy to move, why should I care? The country and the despotic tyrant are not synonymous, i can accept that i should follow the social rules of my new home, but i am not allowed to join the already existing resistance movement for example?
If you don't think he is a legitimate authority, why are you respecting his authority and acting in all ways like he is? If you don't believe he's a legitimate authority, then you don't engage with his governmental processes. Going through his immigration system and respecting the laws he has set up is actually legitimising him, and I am assuming his system also includes an agreement to be bound by his laws. You can violate that agreement if you want, but you are still voluntarily bound by his legal system (I am assuming rebellion is illegal under this murderous despotic tyranny). If you actually don't believe he's a legitimate authority, then you can immigrate following the rules and procedures of the resistance movement and join their ostensible state.
Because having the appropriate papers is probably going to be pretty important. Remember your bureaucracy is not synonymous with the despot, just as the populace is not. If there were a legitimate authority it too would likely have a bureaucracy to engage with, and quite possibly exactly the same one. The despot is certainly within its rights to punish you for rebellion as well of course.
Otherwise anyone moving to the 13 colonies should not have engaged in rebellion against the Crown. They accepted the authority by moving there and living under those laws and taxes and so on.
Going to be pretty important? You are accepting his authority and regime, and legitimising it by participating in it. You are voluntarily agreeing to be bound by his laws here, because that's the condition he puts on letting you into his country. Again, if you really do think that this tyrant is not the legitimate ruler of the country, then you are either going to immigrate in via the resistance movement or work to bring this tyrant down from the outside. That said, if you do immigrate legitimately you are then free to break the law and rebel against him anyway, but breaking a law does not mean you are no longer bound by it - I am not immune to receiving speeding tickets because I demonstrated a lack of respect for speed limits one time.
The colonies were not a separate country - George was king of them both, so this doesn't actually apply in this situation.
Why does that make a difference? The original point included moving next to an airport in your own country meaning you can't complain about said airport. Thus colonists moving to a place that got taxed without representation could not complain. They could have stayed in places that did get representation, no?
They chose to move to a colony then rebelled when treated like one.
And indeed, most people will severely discount your complaints if you purchase a property at a discount due to the proximity to low-flying plane traffic then start whinging about the low-flying plane traffic. Nobody's going to stop you from complaining about the air traffic, but they are going to correctly point out that you brought it on yourself - after all, if you actually found the noise so terrible, you wouldn't have purchased the property in question. When you try and get the flights cancelled/redirected, you are attempting to profit by purchasing discounted property then removing the reason for the discount while expecting others to cover the costs (i.e. problems caused by moving flight traffic paths and hence potentially devaluing the property of others). This behaviour is actually an attempt to exploit societal commons for personal gain, and people are totally correct to call you an arsehole when you try to engage in it.
Forgive me if my American history isn't quite up to snuff, but I was under the impression that the policy was actually changed on the colonists who had been there for some time, and I'm pretty sure the colonies had existed for a while before the Tea Party and Stamp taxes. IIRC the continental congress actually presented a massive argument for why the King had fucked up to the point that rebellion was their actual duty.
They never had representation in Parliament is the point. That was part of the deal for moving to the Colonies for those who did so. Whether that was the Stamp taxes, or anything else. Those that first moved there, did so knowing the deal. How is this different? They knew Parliament could pass whatever they wanted and they would have no say. Then when parliament did just that they rebelled. Now I agree, they may well have been correct to rebel, but under this "can't complain because you chose it when you moved there rule", they were in fact wrong to do so. They knew they had no representation. They went anyway. Therefore (by this argument) they were bound by the rules of the state (including the fact the rules could be changed without their participation because of where they chose to live without representation).
Which is why that rule is not very well thought out. Someone born in the colonies can legitimately rebel, but one who chose to move there could not, even with the exact same rationale, is just contrary to how humans behave, so it makes no sense. Whether your rationale to obey or rebel against the government or local rules or your airport or whatever else, being predicated on when you moved there, rather than on the actual merits of your argument has huge logical problems. A hugely polluting airport that ruins the lives of everyone around it, does so whether or not the people were there long ago or not, and they should be able to vote for politicians who promise to shut it down or whatever.
Setting aside even that requires you to have perfect knowledge of where you are moving to, if you knew there was an airport but the realtor lied about how low the planes overfly and that they dump toxic waste are you then allowed to complain? If the despotic tyrant holds elections and only once you move, you realize they are fake, can you start a resistance?
When I read their list of grievous acts by the King it seemed to me like the argument they were actually making was that the king was in fact being so odious that they had a duty under the law to rebel, and they considered themselves to be bound by the law even as they were in the midst of rebelling against the king. But while this argument could continue along these lines, I freely admit to not knowing enough about the situation to draw a firm conclusion either way. Maybe there's a lot of subtext I'm just not getting, or maybe I'm misinterpreting their writing. If you want me to actually provide a real debate on this point I'd have to do a lot of homework (I'm not American, this shit wasn't taught in my history classes).
But rather than that, I'd prefer to go back to the central point. To clarify, I'd like to state that I made my original point in the context of migrants moving to one country and then working to make it more like the country they came from in direct opposition to the wills of the majority. The various hypotheticals presented have different confounding factors, and hence deserve different responses.
Colonists rebelling? Given that from my understanding of their stated perspective the deal was changed on them in a way they had not agreed to beforehand, complaining is perfectly justified.
Moving to a tyrant's country and then joining the resistance movement? You are knowingly taking on the problem and don't get to complain about it because you knew what you were getting into.
Moving to a country and discovering it is a tyranny after it is too late? You were deceived, and there's no problem complaining because you did not in fact know what you were getting into.
Buying a house that's cheap due to low flying planes and then complaining about low flying planes? See the asshole post I made earlier.
Moving to a country because of how much better it is than yours, then complaining that it is also different in ways that materially contribute to that "betterness"? Again, you knew what you were signing up for, and the precise complaints matter as well - there's a big difference between "Actually this traditional lead-based plumbing system is bad for everyone and here's why" and "My people should be allowed to continue our tradition of slavery in your western democracy".
The main point being made is that if you know about something and voluntarily invite it upon yourself, most people are going to take a dim view of your complaining about it. If you vote for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party, people on the Motte are going to make fun of you rather than sympathise with you when you complain about what happened to your face.
So you do accept you can make some complaints, and want SOME changes. Which means we basically agree, I think. My point is saying you can't try and make ANY change at all is a terrible rule.
The issue with our version of course it there is no objective standard. You think I can try and campaign for lead pipes being phased out, (even though I presumably knew about the lead pipes before moving because that is good for everyone, but not for re-introducing slavery, because that is bad). Great, I would agree with those choices. Where things get trickier is everywhere in between. If I think abortion is worse than lead pipes do I get to campaign for abortion to be made illegal in the US? If I think State and Religion being separate is a bad thing do I get to campaign for that to be changed in my new country? Is this complicated if there are "natives" who are also campaigning for those same things? Can I vote for a "native" politician who wants to ban abortion or does that count as trying to change the country I am supposed to accept?
I think HylnkaCG's rule of having to accept anything because you agreed to it when you moved in, is clearly not a great rule (and your lead pipes example is a good counter-example actually). But I also understand that means there is no objective stopping point, and that it's tricky to work out what they should be allowed to mess with and what they shouldn't. What exactly is the American culture they are not allowed to mess with, given that Americans themselves don't always agree? Even the answer, you can try to change whatever the native populace allows you to try and change has holes in it, as the native populace is not likely to be in 100% agreement themselves.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
@doglatine, I hope this reassures you that we’re still capable of concocting elaborate hypotheticals.
Extremely reassuring 😄
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link