I acknowledge there has been long-standing government oppression of these groups. In response, I suggest that these groups no longer be subject to the government that oppressed them. When a parent is mean to a child, a child deserves its parents apology. When a friend is mean to a friend, they won't be friends anymore. In a partnership of equals, the behavior you described would result in the equals separating their interests and continuing on with their existence, not continued apologies starting again the cycle of abuse.
>In response, I suggest that these groups no longer be subject to the government that oppressed them.
I'm curious what your experience is with historically oppressed populations. A lot of your comments in this thread come off, frankly, as overly simplistic and as ignoring the very real lasting effects historical oppression can have in the present.
To use your analogy: if your friend forcibly removes you from your house and makes you live in a cardboard box in the alley, ruling the alley and not being friends anymore is hardly a just resolution.
I mean, I'm a minority in America from a historically oppressed faction in my parent's country. I have experienced racism first hand from peers, as well as systematic racism from government agents. So my experience with 'historically oppressed' populations is quite broad, and informs my belief that the first step to reconciliation between an oppressing group and the oppressed is that the oppressed group gets to be treated as absolute equals. You seem to want to treat them paternalistically. As a current father, I can tell you that the relationship between me and my child is not one of equals.
> To use your analogy: if your friend forcibly removes you from your house and makes you live in a cardboard box in the alley, ruling the alley and not being friends anymore is hardly a just resolution.
Exactly. This is what has happened to the Native Americans. The US removed them from their home and is making them live in a cardboard box (reservations) in an alley (the nation of America) that is ruled by the federal government. I advocate carving out the cardboard boxes from the alley's jurisdiction, allowing the box occupants to leave and make deals with, purchase goods from and sell goods to other neighbors on neighboring streets. You want to simply promise to be a nicer alley owner as long as they stay in their boxes.
My belief is that if someone is wronged, they deserve to be made whole. If they are systematically wronged, then the just thing to do is to change the system to make them whole. If you tilt the scales in one direction for generations, and then suddenly cry "everyone is equal, no more favoring anyone", you're not actually treating people equally. You're papering over real inequality and pretending it doesn't exist.
>I advocate carving out the cardboard boxes from the alley's jurisdiction... You want to simply promise to be a nicer alley owner as long as they stay in their boxes.
Not at all. I want to help them build a new house.
Sure, and you can then agree with me that the first step in building a house for someone on land you own is to give them title to that section of land. Then you get to help them build. Otherwise, you're just holding them hostage.
> My belief is that if someone is wronged, they deserve to be made whole
You can't make someone whole after killing off all their ancestors. The US has done undoubted wrong. You can't fix it. It's only pride that makes you think that the government is in any way capable of making this whole. Leave that to God, man can't do it.
I have no support for this supposition, but it seems to me that this could easily result in abuse if Native Americans no longer had the protections of being a US citizen.
Can you imagine two British, on verge of losing their empire, sitting around thinking 'what will happen to those poor Indians. Once they become an independent nation, they won't have the protections of being British subjects. We must fight for the right of Indians, South Africans, Syrians, etc to be British subjects'?
Because if you can imagine it. That's exactly what you're arguing for here.
> So our government oppresses a group of people for centuries, and the response is to wash our hands of the situation and wish them well.
Of course not. There is room for arrangements with the United States regarding foreign aid, defense assistance, policing assistance, etc for some number of years. These are to be negotiated as treaties between two co-equal nations, not as laws between a country and its citizens. We make these arrangements with poor countries around the world everyday. Why do we treat the native americans worse than literally every other oppressed nation?
They’re not. You’re choosing maximally loaded phrasing at all points and then acting like you’ve been wronged when your posts are read into with the tone with which you decided to write them. If you are actually interested in discussion, it would help if you didn’t have a predilection for immediately poisonous phrasing after which you want to be granted generosity and assumptions of good faith.
Like, we've had this discussion before. You don't get to write like a jerk and then take umbrage when people react to you like you're a jerk. You get out what you put in.
> If you are actually interested in discussion, it would help if you didn’t have a predilection for immediately poisonous phrasing after which you want to be granted generosity and assumptions of good faith.
I am interested in discussion that does not add to what I've said based on other kinds of people that may have beliefs similar to me. That is surely not too much to ask for. What maximally loaded phrasing have I used in this discussion? Certainly suggesting the native americans get countries shouldn't be met with accusations of not wanting to provide them whatever compensation should be deemed necessary by treaty. The two issues (sovereignty and aid) are not necessarily related, as has been suggested.
I'm honestly quite curious, because I often do use loaded phrasing, but in this instance, I don't really see what is loaded. Perhaps something is loaded for you that is not loaded for me?
Man, I’m not going to play this game. This is /r/iamverysmart “ah, but you assumed” stuff, and I feel like you are easily smart enough to know that.
Perhaps, if you don’t want people to assume that you are advocating dumping people in the middle of nowhere without the protections of U.S. citizenship, you should not write in such a thuddingly absolutist manner that makes that assumption the apparently-obvious one, because there are plenty of internet edgelords who try to troll with exactly the half-a-position you led with--but hold only that half a position, ‘cause they’re as a general population racist pricks. I get that it requires some exercised empathy to critically read one's own stuff with an outsider lens, but if that's not something you can easily do you can also default to indicating that you have thought this through at more than the prima facie level that a normal-person reader would infer, to explicitly saying more than the barest minimum that invites misapprehension.
What I’m saying is that if you want to be afforded good faith, it helps to act like you deserve it and are giving it to others. But you write like you’re comfortable being perceived as a jerk, and that comes with some downsides, yeah? If you’d like to not be perceived as such, there are ways to work on more empathetic communication. Maybe try some?
Your argument is that, because some people you've talked to only say things without believing in them to troll, i must be trolling too. I mean okay. I still don't want words put in my mouth and that is a very reasonable thing to ask in a discussion.
I write my opinion forcefully because my opinion is absolute. This is a good thing that more people ought to work on. We should all know what the other thinks and we shouldn't feel the need to hide behind ambiguity to make ourselves more popular
But if you cant have a discussion without ad hominems, then i think im done here. Have a great day!
