8 ms·
Tribal entitlements should be dismantled around the world.
by tiahura 3y ago
Tribal entitlements should be dismantled around the world.
- mr_inspector 3y agointeresting take. Could you elaborate why you think so ?
- jstanley 3y agoAssuming a tribal entitlement entitles you to something based on what tribe you're born into, it seems pretty obviously discriminatory.
- ethbr1 3y agoLike birthright citizenship?
- jstanley 3y agoSure! I'm on board. Let's abolish the concept of citizenship while we're at it.
- smaudet 3y agoSo....you're into anarchy? Sorry to say, discriminatory behavior is fairly common in anarchic systems (see, evolution, mating impulses). You need a bit of discrimination in order to not discriminate. Don't like it? Rewrite the laws of physics! (maybe fix the whole good and evil thing too while you're at it)
- shepherdjerred 3y agoThe parent did not mention anarchy. Abolishing the concept of citizenship is not exclusive to having a functioning government.
- smaudet 3y agoHow so? A government must have those it governs, those must be then members of the set of people whom it governs. You can call it something besides "citizenship", but maybe we're talking about different terms, or you have a more technical definition implying more than simply membership under a governing party? Either way, this is the basic definition of a citizen, so trying to divorce the two seems futile to me: "A citizen is a member of a political community who enjoys the rights and assumes the duties of membership." https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/citizenship/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/citizenship/
- jsnell 3y agoThey govern over non-citizens as well, e.g. over residents and visitors to the geography where the government has/claims sovereignty, but the non-citizens tend to get fewer rights than the citizens.
- smaudet 3y agoI understand your distinction I think...however the parent comment (about abolishing citizenship) is still (on the face of it) advocating anarchy. Degrees of citizenship must exist always, even when the "official" line is that none do - as you state even in the case of "equal citizenship" there is still the degree of citizen, and non-citizen, so really you can never remove that (without also removing government). Being in the position of abolishing _birthright_ citizenship is a very different stance than abolishing the practice of citizenship outright. I think you are speaking of "second class citizenship" e.g. immigrants or temporary who do in fact benefit from and are expected to follow the laws of the land, but who do not get e.g. voting rights. I.e. perhaps the view is the equalize all practical citizens under the law (which is possible but difficult to do wrt to land ownership and community security, especially).
- shepherdjerred 3y agoMy interpretation of the parent comment was that citizenship should not be restricted by the circumstances of birth. Countries would still be governed by those who live within their borders, but you wouldn't be discriminated against based on your place of birth, e.g., you could move around freely. Or, maybe more practically, greatly ease the requirements of immigrating and becoming a citizen of countries.
- denton-scratch 3y agoCitizenship is a modern institution; yeah, the Athenians had it, if you're OK with a notion of citizenship that extended only to a small percentage of the population. But even in ancient Athens, the majority of the population were slaves. In feudal Europe, most people were serfs or vassals; they came with the land, a bit like trees and game. The only people with rights were aristocrats, and then only really if they had land. Poor people might have had some rights in law, but the judge was the local baron; it was meritorious for the sovereign to promulgate "the King's justice", but it didn't happen much. The change came with the Age of Revolutions; rights are something you have to seize. To my fury, I remain not a citizen, but a subject, because the English Revolution was led by landed gentry, not by the populace. The idea of universal rights is a fine idea; but not having been seized, they don't exist.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Uehreka 3y agoSome would argue that the colonialism that created the status quo was pretty obviously discriminatory. Removing the last vestige of their sovereignty would be like saying “now that we’ve undemocratically seized your land, changed how it was governed and moved in enough people to vastly outnumber you, come join in our democratic process where you’ll be overruled by our superior numbers!”
- hattmall 3y agoThat's how conquest, war, and societal progress works. Should we go back and create entitlements for all the European tribes folded into monarchies over the last two millennia? Entitlements are antithetical to equality. Continually attempting to right wrongs from the past simply carries them forward.
- _jal 3y agoIf the tribes had been corporations and the treaties governed under an ISDS scheme, would you find that less objectionable? ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investor–state_dispute_settlement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investor–state_dispute_settlem... )
- janosdebugs 3y agoIn a lot of places in Europe minorities have varying degrees of autonomy, protections and special rights (use of language, schools, sometimes more). History and legal systems are complicated and a lot of it doesn't make sense without the historical context.
- nemo44x 3y ago> “now that we’ve undemocratically seized your land, changed how it was governed and moved in enough people to vastly outnumber you, come join in our democratic process where you’ll be overruled by our superior numbers!” That's sort of how the world works. If you can't defend it (through power and/or political will - you have strong friends that you have a mutually beneficial relationship with) then it's not your land. There's literally no group of people that have lived on some piece of land since the dawn of humanity. In fact there have been untold thousands of groups of people wiped off the earth because another group decided they wanted to live on the land they once lived in. C'est la vie?!
- paxys 3y agoYou are entitled to a lot of things by virtue of being born in the USA. Is that discriminatory?
- broken-kebab 3y agoI often see "discriminatory" used as if it proves something irrefutably. When I don't go to a shop where employees are rude, I certainly do practise discrimination on the basis of communication culture. Also I enjoy my customer's rights, and do the right thing by creating incentives for politeness. There are discriminations which are legal, and illegal, moral, and immoral, pragmatic, and useless. And everything in between.
- everybodyknows 3y agoCouldn't the same argument be advanced against inheritance from family, who after all differ from tribe only in selecting by narrower genetic criteria?
- vbezhenar 3y agoI thought americans won war against indians. Why would they have any obligations? It's the other way around, those who lost the war pay contributions.
- mikrl 3y agoIn the case of Canada, the ‘war’ was won/avoided by giving them concessions and treaties, that were reneged on and violated by the colonial government. The current government tend towards ‘truth and reconciliation’ is an attempt (or at least a gesture) to investigate and rectify these wrongs and treaty violations. I’m sure the same holds in the US in areas where there was not a wholesale genocide.
- cyberlurker 3y agoAnd the results in Canada offer positive and negative examples to choose from when it comes to the current governments approach to indigenous issues. I only say that to caution advocating for other countries to adopt the approach Canada has taken. I am of the view there were a lot of classic examples of well intentioned policies with disastrous results. At the same time, I don’t know enough about the issue to offer alternative policy without worrying about the sensitivity of the issue.
- mikrl 3y agoI was neither praising nor deriding Canada’s approach, I was providing context for the parent. The logic of ‘conquest->hegemony’ does not quite work in parts of North America because the ‘conquest’ was not a traditional one, but rather because of duplicity and breaking treaties, which- in a rules based order- typically have methods of restitution. Parts of the USA, like the Russian conquest of Eurasia, were traditional conquests where the invaders drove out the inhabitants by force, but that is not a universal narrative in the European colonization of North America.
- Eumenes 3y agowhite guilt
- CoastalCoder 3y agoIt's hard to discuss that assertion unless you also provide an argument.
- ebiester 3y agoSo long as you give them their entire claim to land as a sovereign nation, including water, mineral, and air space rights… And at that point you don’t have much space for the colonial powers left.
- DrThunder 3y agoName one other nation in the history of the world that has given any consideration at all to the people who's land they took. Indians were stealing land from each other for generations before "colonialism" was a thing. It's just part of human history. Time to move on, they're certainly not getting much societal benefit from government gifted land. It's only served to isolate them more and impoverish their communities. Instead of integrating they continue to live in a past that no longer exists. Either they're Americans or they're not.
- nemo44x 3y agoWhy would anyone give up land they conquered if they want to live on it? No one has a right to land outside of borders they can't defend. If you can't defend a border then you aren't a sovereign nation. You're a group of people that need to work with the sovereign nation to allow you to live on the land they conquered.
- JohnFen 3y ago> Why would anyone give up land they conquered if they want to live on it? To avoid being evil? To be the sort of people who keeps promises?
- maxwell 3y agoWabanakis also fought the British and maintained their freedom. https://www.penobscothistory.com/historic-preservation/12-tribal-chiefs/10-joseph-orono https://www.penobscothistory.com/historic-preservation/12-tr... The Penobscot Nation, the oldest government in the Western hemisphere, has never been conquered.
- GlassOwAter 3y agoWhere do you live? I bet I can conquer your house.
- agent327 3y agoMy great-grandmother and her sister were the last two women who wore the tribal clothing of the tribe I suppose I belong to. That tribe no longer exists; we are all Dutchmen in the nation of the Netherlands now. Is that bad? I don't think so: cultures evolve, humanities' future seems to be aimed towards larger groups, and trying to stick to a tribal structure that would have largely rejected the progress made in the outside world, had they had the chance, would have been a miserable existence. Instead of doing silly dances for tourists I'm a software engineer working for a major space agency, and I'm fine with that. Something unique may have been lost (a language, a clothing style, and a harsh way of life), but so much more has been gained (access to all the world has to offer). The tribal structures that still exist in many parts of the world aren't really about preserving culture or identity anymore; to me they seem to be mostly about preserving the power of a handful of tribal elders, and upholding discriminatory practices both inside and outside the tribe. Those structures are a relic that wouldn't have survived anyway, European colonists or not, and casting them aside now, and joining the rest of the world in the 21st century is neither shameful nor bad. Just to be clear: I applaud anyone who wishes to celebrate their culture and their identity, and I think having those preserved enriches our world. But staying within the confines of a preserve, where life is hard and opportunities are few, just because you were born there, makes no sense to me. You can be both proud of your heritage and a citizen of the 21st century. So the question, then, is this: are tribal entitlements necessary for the preservation of something worthwhile, or are they merely tools to further disadvantage a group that is already severely lacking in opportunities? If it's the first, there is a place for them. If it's the second, it's time they were dismantled.
- crazydoggers 3y agoThis is a thoughtful and insightful comment, and brings up issues I wouldn’t have thought about or understood. Even though the parent comment was terse, this comment shows why we shouldn’t be downvoting / flagging opinions into oblivion. Free speech and listening to opposing views can bring about meaningful discussions and help is all understand the world better. Flagging uncomfortable topics because they violate modern wokeism is a disturbingly Orwellian practice.
- Brian_K_White 3y ago
- paxys 3y agoAs long as people who stole their land restore them and go home, yeah.
- Eumenes 3y agoAgreed. Its just a money laundering front for casinos and sports betting at this point.