4 ms·

interesting take. Could you elaborate why you think so ?

jstanley 3y ago
Assuming a tribal entitlement entitles you to something based on what tribe you're born into, it seems pretty obviously discriminatory.
- ethbr1 3y ago
  Like birthright citizenship?
  - jstanley 3y ago
    Sure! I'm on board. Let's abolish the concept of citizenship while we're at it.
    - smaudet 3y ago
      So....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 ago
        The parent did not mention anarchy. Abolishing the concept of citizenship is not exclusive to having a functioning government.
        smaudet 3y ago
        How 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 ago
        They 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 ago
        I 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 ago
        My 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.
        isilofi 3y ago
        It pretty much is. A government does govern two things, a population and a corresponding land area. You may try to have one without the other, but that would lead to massive problems because of the way humans and their home area interact. If you govern a population without a land, you are practically instantly at war with some other population because both populations will want their way of life as well as their property rights enforced around the place they call "home". For a current example, see the palestinian exile population, who have a government but no land of their own, thus leading to constant conflict with their host countries. If you govern a land without a population, you are lacking any kind of compass and attachment to values. Land alone is a dead thing, and a government cannot just be recruited from land, it has to be people doing the governing. Basically, there is nothing to govern without a society. Citizenship can have a number of definitions, but the loosest one is something like "currently inhabiting the land area of that corresponding government". You may change those definitions, introduce various classes of citizenships, modify the ways in which it can be obtained. But for the aforementioned reasons, any definition that doesn't involve something like "a citizen is strongly associated with a land area and comes from a corresponding populace (governed by a corresponding government)" is a weak and fragile definition that will not last the test of time and human interactions. Note that the government part is in parentheses, because actually governments are far more interchangeable than population and land area.
        ethbr1 3y ago
        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Military_Order_of_Malta https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Military_Order_of_...
        smaudet 3y ago
        "Its two headquarters buildings in Rome enjoy extraterritoriality". The article claims they have no territory, but what they mean is there is no territory capable of supporting a military + institution. I don't know this is a practical counterexample. Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that clubs and private militaries, and independent autonomous intelligence agencies exist, even if they are on the extreme end of what could be considered a "government".
    - denton-scratch 3y ago
      Citizenship 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 ago
  Some 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 ago
    That'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 ago
      If 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 ago
      In 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 ago
  You are entitled to a lot of things by virtue of being born in the USA. Is that discriminatory?
- broken-kebab 3y ago
  I 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 ago
  Couldn'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 ago
I 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 ago
  In 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 ago
    And 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 ago
      I 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 ago
  white guilt

Assuming a tribal entitlement entitles you to something based on what tribe you're born into, it seems pretty obviously discriminatory.

ethbr1 3y ago
Like birthright citizenship?
- jstanley 3y ago
  Sure! I'm on board. Let's abolish the concept of citizenship while we're at it.
  - smaudet 3y ago
    So....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 ago
      The parent did not mention anarchy. Abolishing the concept of citizenship is not exclusive to having a functioning government.
      - smaudet 3y ago
        How 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 ago
        They 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 ago
        I 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 ago
        My 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.
      - isilofi 3y ago
        It pretty much is. A government does govern two things, a population and a corresponding land area. You may try to have one without the other, but that would lead to massive problems because of the way humans and their home area interact. If you govern a population without a land, you are practically instantly at war with some other population because both populations will want their way of life as well as their property rights enforced around the place they call "home". For a current example, see the palestinian exile population, who have a government but no land of their own, thus leading to constant conflict with their host countries. If you govern a land without a population, you are lacking any kind of compass and attachment to values. Land alone is a dead thing, and a government cannot just be recruited from land, it has to be people doing the governing. Basically, there is nothing to govern without a society. Citizenship can have a number of definitions, but the loosest one is something like "currently inhabiting the land area of that corresponding government". You may change those definitions, introduce various classes of citizenships, modify the ways in which it can be obtained. But for the aforementioned reasons, any definition that doesn't involve something like "a citizen is strongly associated with a land area and comes from a corresponding populace (governed by a corresponding government)" is a weak and fragile definition that will not last the test of time and human interactions. Note that the government part is in parentheses, because actually governments are far more interchangeable than population and land area.
        ethbr1 3y ago
        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Military_Order_of_Malta https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Military_Order_of_...
        smaudet 3y ago
        "Its two headquarters buildings in Rome enjoy extraterritoriality". The article claims they have no territory, but what they mean is there is no territory capable of supporting a military + institution. I don't know this is a practical counterexample. Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that clubs and private militaries, and independent autonomous intelligence agencies exist, even if they are on the extreme end of what could be considered a "government".
  - denton-scratch 3y ago
    Citizenship 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 ago
Some 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 ago
  That'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 ago
    If 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 ago
    In 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 ago
You are entitled to a lot of things by virtue of being born in the USA. Is that discriminatory?
broken-kebab 3y ago
I 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 ago
Couldn'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 ago

I 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 ago
In 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 ago
  And 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 ago
    I 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 ago
white guilt