Ethno-Nationalism, or Racism, or Whatever??? ( was Re: a discussion

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "david_russell_watson" <liberty@...>
wrote:

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
> >
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "david_russell_watson" <liberty@>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > No, that's not necessary. Since the list is privately owned
> > > the owner can haul off anybody he likes. No question about
> > > bias comes up when one hauls a trespasser out of his own house,
> > > does it? We accept that one may invite into his own house, or
> > > exclude from it, anyone he pleases and on any basis he pleases,
> > > do we not?
> >
> > I agree. I was talking about the general case.
>
> - edit -
>
> > > If you're asking how that is to be done in the great big world,
> > > then that's a difficult question, and one off topic, but we're
> > > talking only of cybalist,
> >
> > I think I know what I was talking about.
>
> You were responding to my comments about a madman, in which
> I was referring to cybalist. I'm clarifying the context in
> which I was writing myself, not scolding you for anything.

You made a statement which was factually wrong. I corrected it. End of
story.

> When one responds to a comment it's assumed that he writes in
> the same context given by the author of that comment, though
> in this first case maybe I wasn't clear what my context was,
> and thus the clarification. New comments of your own can of
> course change the context, as you will.

You were not clarifying anything about your context. You were
misrepresenting what the subject was in the previous part of the exchange.

> I think I've kept up with the context at each point in our
> discussion, and responded accordingly each time.

Irrelevant, and you know it.

> > > where it's very easy: Piotr owns the
> > > group and his frame of reference works just fine for me.
> >
> > Exactly.
> >
> > > Of course, but why should the rest of us care? I don't like
> > > nations myself, and would love to see them collapse every one.
> >
> > Would you like the one you live in right now to collapse like
> > Yugoslavia did?
>
> Better that than Yugoslavia had remained under communist rule,
> I think. Sometimes an old building must be demolished before
> a new one can be put up in its place. However remember that
> the mayhem in Yugoslavia took place precisely due to the tribal
> mentality about which I've complained. After the weakening of
> central authority ethnic groups strived to carve out ethnic
> states for themselves, each striving to make sure that their
> own group ended up with as much land after the smoke cleared as
> possible, as well as to kill off as many of their traditional
> enemies as possible, with little or no concern for human rights
> or even human life.

I've had the misfortune of being involved in a car accident there when
it was still Yugoslavia. The mentality of the officials in those
public institutions I got in contact with pursuant to that was such
that I would distrust any type of state those people would make based
on whichever ideology.

In specifically the case of Yugoslavia, the scenario as I recall it
was this: Around 1990 all the ex-communist states were converting to
capitalism and some type of democratic rule, but some held out, the
more easterly and southerly, the longer, so that when change happened
in Yugoslavia, federal states (Yugoslavia was a federation) like
Slovenia and Croatia were for change, Serbia against. Slovenia broke
out with not much trouble, since it was ethnically 'clean' already, so
that fact was recognized by most states. The trouble was that that was
the first of increasingly unacceptable stepping stones, since now it
was difficult to maintain that Croatia, even though ethnically mixed,
shouldn't be allowed to do the same. Predictably, England and France
were against, while Germany and Denmark (foreign ministers
Hans-Dietrich Genscher and Uffe Ellermann-Jensen were personal
friends; the latter had great success with his personal involvement in
the liberation of the Baltic states Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania from
Soviet and Russian rule and he probably pushed Genscher in the
direction of supporting the recognition of ethnically based states
elsewhere) were for. Recognition ensued, chaos followed. Similarly,
the Soviet union fell apart into ethnically based states, some
descended into chaos, some didn't.

> So all you've done is to cite a perfect example of the evils of
> ethno-nationalism.

People are not right in the head in that end of the world is all I
can say, which of course I'm not allowed to. The basic principle of
linguistically based ethno-states is that it is nice when everybody in
a state speaks the same language, since then there exists (if you
don't actively suppress it) a public space in which the business of
the state can be discussed by the whole people. In a country with
several linguistic groups with equal rights, you get several public
spaces with limited communication between them, depending on the
number of bi-, tri- or more -linguals participating in politics which
will always be small compared to ther number of monolinguals. You then
get a Millet state on the Ottoman or Austro-Hungarian model, which
will always underperform relative to monolingual states, because of
problems in communication caused by translation, or the lack thereof.

...

> > > And the whole would probably be better off as one big nation,
> > > with such things as language, culture, and religion a purely
> > > private matter, as is proper for all states.

Inasmuch as neither forms an organization with the purpose of
violently overthrowing the state, ie. that they are all in a weakened,
harmless form.

> > > Better yet, let the whole world be so united.

Yes, let's hope that.

> > > Ethnic groups don't have the inherent right to monopolize
> > > regions, I don't believe.

Without a state with a monopoly on the use of force, a region descends
into chaos. A state must be governed by one of the known methods of
which democracy is preferable. A democracy is based on the rule by the
people. A people, namely the group, for which it is its nation. That
group, in order to implement democracy, should speak the same
language. There's your ethnic group. You seem to forget that in your
eagerness to obliterate ethnic groups you just create new ones.

> > So this analogy: 'No question about bias comes up when one hauls
> > a trespasser out of his own house, does it? We accept that one
> > may invite into his own house, or exclude from it, anyone he
> > pleases and on any basis he pleases, do we not?' doesn't apply
> > to regions?
>
> Certainly not. You, just as the vast majority of people I come
> across, make the enormous error of equating a state with a human
> individual. Is it really necessary to explain that a "region"
> and a human being are two very different things?

And now you are again misrepresenting me, this time by ascribing to me
a categorial mistake. I am equating a group with a human being,
obviously not a region with a human being.

...

> > > I strongly resent others presuming to set up borders between
> > > me and potential employers, employees, or business partners;
> > > landlords or tenants; teachers or students; providers of raw
> > > materials, arts, crafts, services, or entertainment; or mates,
> > > friends, or sex partners.
> >
> > Presumably you don't lock your door either and have no firewall
> > on your computer?
>
> Of course I do, because my house and my computer belong to me,
> and borders put up by me around person and my property are
> perfectly proper.

Presumably backed up by police, ie those invested with the state
monopoly of power.

> However borders put up between you and me by a third party when
> neither of us want them, and maintained by violence and threat of
> violence, are certainly not.

But I want them.
Otherwise the place I live would soon be swarming with Kishore's and
Arnaud's telling me something is wrong with the ethnic group I
belong to, and, next thing you know they'll be telling me I owe them
stuff based on that.

So you want the state to protect you and to forbid the state from
protecting itself?

> Did you not understand the reality behind my paragraph, quoted
> above, about access to products, services, etc. across borders?
> That is a real problem, especially here in the U.S. where the
> government daily interferes with U.S. citizens trying to employ
> citizens of Mexico. Many, probably the majority, of Americans,
> under the popular delusion of group rights, believe they somehow
> own any job opportunites that come into existence within U.S.
> borders. Naturally they do not, for any job belongs to the
> would-be employer alone, and the labor belongs to the would-be
> employee alone, and no third party has any right to interfere
> with their freely entered exchange.

The problem with that argument is that this employment entails the
physical presence of the employee in or near the area of employment,
and that the employer bears none of the concomitant possible negative
consequences in the form of crime and general non-transparency of the
resultant society. That tab is picked up by the community of the group
that used to enjoy safety, and the state, ie. that group again. You
employ Hispanics in your economy, you get a economy in the style of a
Hispanic country, constantly underperforming. It is that simple.

> There are countless other examples now and throughout history
> of states similarly interferring with the rights of individuals,
> as I'm sure you well know.

And when sufficiently interfered with they broke loose and formed a
state based on their own group, as I'm sure you well know.

> > > Where do they get the right?
> >
> > The same place the moderators got the right to moderate cybalist
> > to your satisfaction?
>
> Yahoo doesn't own any country, does it?

But they do *own* something, right?

> > > P. S. Isn't (other people's) offtopic chat annoying?
> >
> > Those that disagree with you?
>
> I was referring to the annoyance that other list members are
> surely feeling having to read about _my_ political ideas no
> less than your own, and my real point is that this thread is
> off topic and should probably be dropped. That would put an
> end to me talking about my political ideas no less than it
> would you talking about your own, would it not?
>
> Another Yahoo list to which I once belonged became at one point
> extremely bogged down with off-topic chat, especially political
> discussions, and sometimes religious, which led naturally to a
> lot of heat. Finally the owner and moderators decided to open
> a separate list for off-topic discussion open solely to people
> already members of the main list. Maybe cybalist should think
> of doing the same thing.

If the moderators decide this is OT, then that's that. Personally I
think the subject of the interplay of language and group identity is
interesting.


Torsten