--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "david_russell_watson" <liberty@>
> wrote:
> >
> > 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.
Well I don't know what you're talking about then. To what
statement of mine do you refer? Please cut and paste it
so that we can be sure it was my actual words and not your
own misunderstanding of some.
> End of story.
Alright then, cowboy.
> > 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.
You are not to use "and you know it" in this manner with me.
It implies that I know one thing to be true but say another,
which is lying, and I do not lie and will not tolerate being
called a liar.
> I've had the misfortune of being involved in a car accident there
> when it was still Yugoslavia.
I take it there was a head injury of some sort involved? Can
you remember or not if that was the same day your fascination
with shaved beavers first began?
> 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.
Ah, so the bureaucrats encountered in any given country are a
fair indication of the worth of the entire culture, eh? I'm
afraid you'll never find a single culture of any worth if you
insist on that as your test.
- edit -
> > 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,
But I wish you could say more. I mean, by virtue of knowing
something more.
> which of course I'm not allowed to.
In what way are you not so allowed? You did say it, yet none
has come to haul you away, has he? You haven't even as much
as been banned from cybalist.
You're not one of those people erroneously believing another's
right to criticize your speech itself somehow an obstruction
to your own freedom speech, are you?
If you're free to say that Yugoslavs aren't right in the head,
then why should I be any less free to say you're not right in
the head yourself for believing so?
The two rights go hand in hand, though I wonder if yours isn't
merely a case of one calling "foul" when he is losing.
(I don't mean losing this particular argument here on cybalist,
but rather as a hold-out racist in a larger world becoming daily
more enlightened.)
> 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.
Yes. I understand that to be one of the arguments for a mono-
lingual state. It even makes a little sense, however, as far
as I am concerned, the freedom of the individual is the most
important consideration, about which read on below.
> 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,
Didn't the fact that the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires
weren't constitutional democracies have something to do with
their problems?
I don't think comparing a multi-ethnic multi-lingual U.S., for
example, and the Ottoman or Austro-Hungarian empire is ever
going to be very convincing.
> which will always underperform relative to monolingual states,
> because of problems in communication caused by translation, or
> the lack thereof.
What is meant by the "underperformance" of a state, though?
I'm an individual, not a state, and potentially capable of
performing quite well in the context of the larger world and
its economy regardless of how the majority of my co-nationals
are performing. That is assuming that the local protection
racket... err... I mean "government" leaves me alone to do so.
So why should I care how my country, judged as a collective,
is ranked in some list of countries and their success?
My only criteria for the performance of a state is that its
citizens be as free as possible, with the machinery of state
itself absolutely blind to factors such as the race, religion,
ethnicity, language, etc. of its citizens.
> > > > 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.
What are we talking about now; is it not your Islamophobia?
I've never said people need allow one of its religious groups
take over the country, have I? Does it make any sense that a
person, like myself, who places individual freedom above all
else, would want to see the imposition of Shari'ah?
> > > > 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.
And a state which infringes upon the freedoms of its citizens,
such as their individual choice of ethnicity or language, is
better off going up in a blaze of fire, I say, that it clear
the way for something better.
> 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.
No, the part about the "group which is its nation", 'nation'
here being used by you in the sense of 'ethnos', isn't part
of the any definition of democracy of which I am familiar.
If a state doesn't serve all of its citizens, indifferent to
the ethnicity of each, then it has to go.
> That group, in order to implement democracy, should speak the
> same language.
Hardly. I often watch the Spanish television channels, and
the Spanish news covers all the same political stories seen
on the English news.
I don't know how it is in your country, but if the immigrant
Muslims are having trouble participating in your democracy
due to not being able to speak Danish, I'd think that would
only be to your greater delight, Torsten.
> There's your ethnic group. You seem to forget that in your
> eagerness to obliterate ethnic groups you just create new ones.
I don't want to obliterate ethnic groups. That's the wont,
rather, of proponents of ethno-nationalism, whose very goal
requires them to either pressure the minorities among them,
which inevitably always appear, to assimilate to the majority
culture and language, or else leave.
> > 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.
Yes, and obviously there's no significant difference in regard
to what I'm saying, since a group of human beings isn't a human
individual either. Did I not mention, more than once, in the
rest of my post the libertarian concept that groups may not have
rights but only human individuals. Group rights is a fiction
and a smokescreen to cover the violation of individual rights.
The rights and freedom of the individual are the beginning, end,
and entire fabric of libertarian philosophy. The group must
never be allowed to infringe upon the rights of the individual,
even in pursuit of what is supposed to be its collective good,
not even to assure its collective survival, if it comes to that.
Better a state die, as I've said, than be allowed to oppress its
members.
> > 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.
The police don't do much good around here. I'd be better off
getting back the money I paid in taxes, supposedly to pay for
such services, and hire private security. I also make sure
to be armed myself, a government's knowledge that its citizens
are armed being a check on how bold it dare get infringing on
their freedoms. One of the main founding principles of the
U.S. is that ones own government, not foreign invaders, is the
first and foremost threat to his freedom.
Of course most of you Europeans have dutifully handed over all
of your sharp and pointy objects to your nannies, for your own
safety of course. It's no wonder you're shaking in your beds
thinking about the Islamic fundamentalists.
> > 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.
Then put them around your _own_ house.
> 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,
Isn't it possible that there _is_ something wrong with your
ethnic group, which you'd be better off knowing than ignoring?
We've determined, have we not, that there's something wrong
with the Yugoslavs, so then why, in principle, couldn't there
possibly be something wrong with the Danes as well?
Part of what has driven forward the progressive enlightenment
of the world is just such mingling of various cultures and
religions, forcing us all to reanalyze ourselves and what our
cultures have traditionally believed.
> and, next thing you know they'll be telling me I owe them
> stuff based on that.
People are likely to do this anyway. Destitute white Danes may
come to your house and claim you that owe food or shelter to a
fellow Dane in trouble. The solution is simple: say "No".
If your answer is that your government imposes taxes on you for
the welfare of Arnauds and Kishores, then what do you imagine
my next response shall be?
> So you want the state to protect you and to forbid the state from
> protecting itself?
Yes, of course. I'm real, the state is only an abstract, a tool
serving me. I do not serve it.
> 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
Well you seem to be under the delusion that only foreigners
commit crimes.
> and general non-transparency of the resultant society.
I don't understand what the "general non-transparency of the
resultant society" means. Are white Danes truly so pale that
they're transparent?
But seriously, please explain what this means. I truly don't
understand.
> 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.
I don't think you really know what goes on here, even with all
your talk about the one-way window. More and more native-born
white Americans every day will simply go on welfare before they
will ever consider doing for minimum wage the jobs that illegal
Mexican aliens typically do.
So again, the government and its imposed minimum wage and its
welfare system are the at the root of the problem, not the
bugaboo of non-anglophone aliens creeping among us.
> And when sufficiently interfered with they broke loose and formed
> a state based on their own group, as I'm sure you well know.
I'm not interested in going someplace else, and my personal
interests aren't represented by any particular linguistic
or ethnic group. (My god, Torsten, are your merely one head
on an enormous million-headed organism that is your ethnos?!)
I would rather remove the government we have now and replace
it with a libertarian one. After that we'll see what we can
do about Denmark. I have no moral qualms about "imposing"
freedom on others. :^)
> > Yahoo doesn't own any country, does it?
>
> But they do *own* something, right?
Yes they do. So what's your cryptic inference?
> 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.
Well yes, "The Interplay of Language and Group Identity" does
sound a lot better than "An Apology for Racism in Terms of
Ethno-Nationalism".
David