Aboriginal Civil Disobedience

[Rhea]

I meant, has anybody been persuaded of anything I said in post #488 that he didn't already think? I post to try to convince people of the things I say, not to virtue signal.

Surely a lot of good conversation can be had in the vast space between convincing others of something and virtue signalling?

I often think in new directions based on comments of those I agree with as well as those I don’t. The very act of discussing will reveal a way of looking at something that is novel, even if we were in complete agreement.

You don’t find that?

Just because I agree with someone, doesn’t mean I think exactly the same way as them.

Hopefully my replies to your post have contained interesting responses.

 

[Jarhyn]

I meant, has anybody been persuaded of anything I said in post #488 that he didn't already think?

Wow. So attempting to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. A bold move.

The fact is, whether you believed anything in post 488 was the question, and the only one I asked.

I post to try to convince people of the things I say, not to virtue signal.

see here's your problem. You see making response to requests to square knowledge as "virtue signaling". I wonder, do you understand the purpose of a Memory Barrier in code? It is much the same proces.

And no, right up until that moment, you had no reason to believe that I did not believe an ethical course of any kind was in the prescription.

Yes, I did. Namely your evasiveness when repeatedly put to the question, for the sake of preamble of the discussion.

<how dare Jarhyn believe that Bomb does not believe something Bomb has never once said Bomb believed>.

So let's find out whether post #488 did any good. Let's find out whether I persuaded you about anything that matters.

Earlier you wrote:

Angra, andd Bomb - I will ask you straight up. (And anyone else who argues that the church and governments do not owe any apology or action) <rest snipped>

Rhea, I will ask you straight up. Where is it that you imagine you saw me argue that the church and governments do not owe any apology or action?

Bomb, I will ask you straight up. Where is it that you imagine any of us might have even mistakenly perceived as a statement of any shape or size in acknowledgement that church and government owe apology and action?

Because when put point blank with such a question, a lack of an answer is an answer.

Now that you've changed your mind about whether I believe an ethical course of any kind is in the prescription -- now that you've seen the error you<correction: Bomb#20> made -- has this induced you to change your mind about whether "when put point blank with such a question, a lack of an answer is an answer" is an inference procedure you should be relying on?

Your lack of an answer had all the appearance of saying you did not care. It is not my fault you did all the things that people do when they don't care. Be better. Communicate more clearly. Understand the "memory barrier".

And earlier you wrote:

Because when put point blank with such a question, a lack of an answer is an answer.

Like I said, I don't believe in rewarding bad behavior. You are a worse offender even than Rhea.

"I don't believe in answering the pertinent issues of the OP because you are the one asking me to do it!"

That's a strawman. As has been painfully obvious from my posts in this thread, I judge different issues to be "the pertinent issues of the OP"

Then you have bad judgement! The subject is civil disobedience of first peoples. All discussion of protest action starts first at the discussion of why that situation exists, and that discussion revolves around whether the people disobeying have legitimate grievance against the church and government. And whether they have legitimate grievance is, said in another form, "do the Canadian government and RCC have obligations that they are not paying due with respect to aboriginal people".

When you put those words in my mouth, you were painting me as agreeing with you that what the church ought to do...

My you have a wild sense of fantasy. Are you sure YOU are not the wizard between us? Have you seen any faeries recently? Perhaps communed with the Ghost of MacBeth or something? I was in those words saying exactly one thing, regardless of whatever half baked fantasies you have tumblung around in your head: that you refused to answer the question, which is absolutely valid to the discussion of the OP, because "you don't reward bad behavior" and because I am an "offender" in my asking of it.

is the pertinent issue of the OP, even though you had zero reason to think I agreed with you about that.

there's very little that can be "agreed to" on this front. The topic is civil disobedience. It is absolutely on topic whether there are reasons to disobey.

You did this, to all appearances, as a way not to take responsibility for your own role in disinclining me to talk about what you thought I should be talking about.

because like now you drag things off topic so you can launch spin from a position where your denotation spins false connotation

.

If you really wanted my opinion about what the RCC should do you could have gotten it at any time just by being civil about how you asked for it.

it's the topic. It's literally the entire topic. What does the RCC have a responsibility to do, if they want to end the unrest that triggers such attacks.

So now that you've changed your mind about whether I believe an ethical course of any kind is in the prescription -- now that you've seen the error You <<Correction: Bomb#20> made -- has this induced you to change your mind about whether strawmanning your outgroup and then judging them according to whether that gets you what you want from them is an inference procedure you should be relying on?

No, because I didn't straw-man you. I asked you repeatedly for your position and made a judgement call when you refused to give it. Excuse me for calling a thing that looked, smelled, and walked like a steaming pile of bullshit what it was; is it really my fault that I couldn't judge it from compost?

I do admit, I was wrong about your position.

Now we can talk about other things, like what people ought do when some group has a responsibility to do some thing and then pointedly does anything else. How is society supposed to react to that?

 

[Angra Mainyu]

The subject is civil disobedience of first peoples.

First, there are several subjects of the thread.

Second, where did you learn the concept of civil disobedience?
As least the most common definitions I can find require that the illegal behavior be non-violent.

Third, all of the first people to arrive in the region are long dead. So, "first peoples" is a misnomer (also, and just in case, their culture is long gone).

 

[Arctish]

The subject is civil disobedience of first peoples.

First, there are several subjects of the thread.

Second, where did you learn the concept of civil disobedience?
As least the most common definitions I can find require that the illegal behavior be non-violent.

Non-violent and non-destructive are two different things. Also, not everyone defines acts of violence as things that can be done to inanimate objects like buildings or institutions.

One of the most pointed protests against statues glorifying brutality I've ever seen was the removal of the right foot from a statue honoring  Juan de Oñate, with a note stating that "Fair is fair". It was destructive, but I wouldn't call it violent.

Third, all of the first people to arrive in the region are long dead. So, "first peoples" is a misnomer (also, and just in case, their culture is long gone).

The cultures of Native Americans and First Nations Canadians aren't all dead. Many of them, especially the cultures of peoples in the Pacific Northwest and Arctic regions are alive and ongoing. And despite the loss of countless children through forced separations, their families and communities still exist as well.

I get the feeling a lot of people would to prefer to think the victims of this heinous inhumanity are long gone, therefore it's okay to not give a shit about all those kids who were treated so very badly, but that's just a lame excuse. People who survived those schools are still with us. They have been telling us for years what went on in those places. We haven't been listening.

Shame on us for ignoring them for so long, and shame on anyone trying to ignore them now that the bodies are being found.

 

[Rhea]

Third, all of the first people to arrive in the region are long dead. So, "first peoples" is a misnomer (also, and just in case, their culture is long gone).

The cultures of Native Americans and First Nations Canadians aren't all dead. Many of them, especially the cultures of peoples in the Pacific Northwest and Arctic regions are alive and ongoing. And despite the loss of countless children through forced separations, their families and communities still exist as well.

I get the feeling a lot of people would to prefer to think the victims of this heinous inhumanity are long gone, therefore it's okay to not give a shit about all those kids who were treated so very badly, but that's just a lame excuse. People who survived those schools are still with us. They have been telling us for years what went on in those places. We haven't been listening.

Shame on us for ignoring them for so long, and shame on anyone trying to ignore them now that the bodies are being found.

All of this.


Shame indeed on saying they and their cultures are “long dead.” It’s especially cruel when the purpose of these schools was to crush and destroy their cultures. And the people who are absolutley still living, who survived that school or mourn their sisters and brothers who did not are the ones you speak to when you make it cllear you don’t care about their siblings, their culture, their language.

I’m really deeply disturbed by that callous disregard, using the fabricated excuse that they are “long dead,” that they don’t even exist n your world.

They do exist, they exist today, they have been trying to tell their story for decades.
And you here saying, “ha, I’m giving the win to your abusers, because I sucessfully didn’t listen to you for long enough that I deem the game over.”

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Non-violent and non-destructive are two different things. Also, not everyone defines acts of violence as things that can be done to inanimate objects like buildings or institutions.

Not everyone defines it like that, sure. But in the most usual sense of the words, arson is definitely violent, and not an act of civil disobedience.


For example, the Encyclopaedia Britannica construes civil disobedience in a way that is incompatible with arson.

The SAP considers different views, including those that argue for the possibility of violent civil disobedience, but points out it's a minority position in philosophy.

The cultures of Native Americans and First Nations Canadians aren't all dead.

Jarhyn did not use capital letters. Of course the cultures of Native Americans are not dead, since most Americans are Native. But 'Native American' is a term that gives the impression somehow that the rest of Americans are not Native. Also, "First Nations" gives the impression that those are the first nations in the territory of what is now Canada, while in reality those are long gone, both biologically (they died before a century since arrival, clearly), and culturally.

Many of them, especially the cultures of peoples in the Pacific Northwest and Arctic regions are alive and ongoing. And despite the loss of countless children through forced separations, their families and communities still exist as well.

The First Nations, yes, though that is a misnomer. But the first nations have been gone for thousands of years.

I get the feeling a lot of people would to prefer to think the victims of this heinous inhumanity are long gone, therefore it's okay to not give a shit about all those kids who were treated so very badly, but that's just a lame excuse. . People who survived those schools are still with us. They have been telling us for years what went on in those places. We haven't been listening.
Shame on us for ignoring them for so long, and shame on anyone trying to ignore them now that the bodies are being found.

Why would you think that? Do you believe you are guilty when you say 'shame on us'?
Guilty of what? Do you believe that you have a moral obligation to listen to all of the victims of serious crimes who complain publicly somewhere on the planet?

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Shame indeed on saying they and their cultures are “long dead.”

Again misrepresenting without asking. The cultures of the first people in what is now Canada are long dead. They were long dead thousands of years before these schools existed.

I’m really deeply disturbed by that callous disregard, using the fabricated excuse that they are “long dead,” that they don’t even exist n your world.

That was my objection to the use of "first peoples", somehow implying that they were indeed the first peoples.

And you here saying, “ha, I’m giving the win to your abusers, because I sucessfully didn’t listen to you for long enough that I deem the game over.”

That is not remotely what I am saying. By the way, do you believe that I have a moral obligation to listen to all of the victims of crimes who complain publicly somewhere on the planet? (and by the way, I had no idea this was happening until I read the thread; why should I have known? Do I have an obligation to know about every serious crime everywhere? )

 

[Gospel]

You're incapable of doing so if you were obligated. Why ask such a stupid question.

 

[Bomb#20]

The subject is civil disobedience of first peoples.

Third, all of the first people to arrive in the region are long dead. So, "first peoples" is a misnomer (also, and just in case, their culture is long gone).

The cultures of Native Americans and First Nations Canadians aren't all dead. Many of them, especially the cultures of peoples in the Pacific Northwest and Arctic regions are alive and ongoing. And despite the loss of countless children through forced separations, their families and communities still exist as well. ... Shame on us for ignoring them for so long, and shame on anyone trying to ignore them now that the bodies are being found.

All of this.

Shame indeed on saying they and their cultures are “long dead.” It’s especially cruel when the purpose of these schools was to crush and destroy their cultures. And the people who are absolutley still living, who survived that school or mourn their sisters and brothers who did not are the ones you speak to when you make it cllear you don’t care about their siblings, their culture, their language.

I’m really deeply disturbed by that callous disregard, using the fabricated excuse that they are “long dead,” that they don’t even exist n your world.

They do exist, they exist today, they have been trying to tell their story for decades.
And you here saying, “ha, I’m giving the win to your abusers, because I sucessfully didn’t listen to you for long enough that I deem the game over.”

Good lord, what epic point-missing! Arctish & Rhea, you are both committing the exact wrong that you are falsely accusing Angra Mainyu of. Why can't you get it through your skulls that the history of North America did not begin with first European contact?!?

AM said all of the first people to arrive in the region are long dead and their culture is long gone. And you, totally missing his point, took it for granted that he didn't really mean the first people; in your minds he meant the last people to arrive before Europeans. Why did you make such a foolish assumption? Apparently you assumed he meant that because you treat the history of North America as beginning with first European contact.

What he meant, obviously!, was that thousands of years ago somebody arrived first in the area that's now southern British Columbia. And long after that, somebody else most likely arrived and killed or drove off the descendants of the first people there. And long after that, somebody else most likely arrived and killed or drove off the descendants of the second group of people to come and take the area for themselves. And so on, until the Nth group arrived: the ancestors of the Similkameen who live there now. So AM was calling on the folks who label the Similkameen "first people" to spare a thought for the actual first people in the area and for their descendants who were killed or driven off, people who are as he said long dead along with their culture, almost certainly wiped out at some point during the ebb and flow of ten thousand years of pre-European-contact North American history. But you guys would evidently prefer not to think about those long dead victims of that heinous inhumanity. You'd rather ignore them, and cling to your fairy-tale version of history where the Similkameen were there "first" merely because they were there when the English arrived. You'd rather make believe that the guy who's reminding you of a long-dead nation whose very name is forgotten is instead talking about the still-living successors of the people who murdered that nation, who murdered all those people who evidently don't even exist in your world. Shame on him? No. Shame on you.

 

[Arctish]

Not everyone defines it like that, sure. But in the most usual sense of the words, arson is definitely violent, and not an act of civil disobedience.


For example, the Encyclopaedia Britannica construes civil disobedience in a way that is incompatible with arson.

The SAP considers different views, including those that argue for the possibility of violent civil disobedience, but points out it's a minority position in philosophy.



Jarhyn did not use capital letters. Of course the cultures of Native Americans are not dead, since most Americans are Native. But 'Native American' is a term that gives the impression somehow that the rest of Americans are not Native. Also, "First Nations" gives the impression that those are the first nations in the territory of what is now Canada, while in reality those are long gone, both biologically (they died before a century since arrival, clearly), and culturally.

No, most Americans aren't Native Americans. Most Americans are native born. That capital 'N' denotes an important distinction.

Many of them, especially the cultures of peoples in the Pacific Northwest and Arctic regions are alive and ongoing. And despite the loss of countless children through forced separations, their families and communities still exist as well.

The First Nations, yes, though that is a misnomer. But the first nations have been gone for thousands of years.

What makes you think that?

What makes you think the Eyak, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Inupiaq, Yup’ik, Cup’ik , Alutiiq, Unangax, Tanana, Gwich'in, Hwt'ana, Koyukon, etc. aren't continuations of the same Nations that formed millennia ago?

And anyway, they were here when Captain Cook, George Vancouver, and the men on the Bering Expedition 'discovered' Alaska, so they were here first.

I get the feeling a lot of people would to prefer to think the victims of this heinous inhumanity are long gone, therefore it's okay to not give a shit about all those kids who were treated so very badly, but that's just a lame excuse. . People who survived those schools are still with us. They have been telling us for years what went on in those places. We haven't been listening.
Shame on us for ignoring them for so long, and shame on anyone trying to ignore them now that the bodies are being found.

Why would you think that? Do you believe you are guilty when you say 'shame on us'?
Guilty of what? Do you believe that you have a moral obligation to listen to all of the victims of serious crimes who complain publicly somewhere on the planet?

I think I am guilty. Because I knew about the child abuse scandal that rocked the Catholic Church in the early 2000s. I learned about the Magdalene Laundries in Ireland when that story broke. I know why an original oil painting by a famous Alaskan artist depicting Native children learning from priests among others, was removed from display at the University of Alaska library. And I know that, for all our joking about it, parochial school students like me really did fear the nuns. We understood just how much power they had and just how willing they were to beat us into submission.

And yet despite knowing what I knew, until now I never really thought about what it must have been like for a young child to be forced into a residential school far from home, to have no contact with their parents or siblings except for sending the occasional letter about how wonderful school was (or be punished for being honest), beaten for speaking the language or singing the songs their parents lovingly taught them, given crappy food. even worse than what was served in the cafeteria at my old school, and frightened into silence when their friends and classmates disappeared or were found dead in the dorms.

Shame on me for not paying attention. And shame on me if I just shrug my shoulders while those church leaders weasel out of their responsibility to turn over their records and help the searchers find the bodies. They should show some respect and compassion for the families. They really should. But I don't expect them to do anything other than try to rebury the misdeeds of their clergy and lay people as quickly as it comes to light.

 

[Bomb#20]

I’d say we should have always been saying it…

And we should probably have always been saying Suomalaiset instead of Finns, but what are you going to do? English names for ethnic groups are very often borrowed from the neighbors of those groups instead of from the groups themselves; if we tried to systematically stop using those words we'd systematically have no idea who other people are talking about.

But while the Haudenosaunee were known for fierce fighting, it does not mean that either my land was the site of a massacre or that it’s a good reason to end the conversationn about the catholic church and turn to something else.

There are definitely mass graves of hundreds of Huron children somewhere on "Haudenosaunee land".

Not mine. The Huron were residents of Southern Ontario Canada, north of Lake Ontario. That is not where I live.

It's where I used to live. I'm not trying to end the conversation about the Catholic church; I'm just providing historical facts to back up Derec's abstract challenge to your characterization of your real estate as Haudenosaunee land. I'm not on board with the theory that being the same ethnicity as whoever were the last people to occupy some piece of land before the English took control of it makes it your land. That's the theory underlying the argument upthread to the effect that the arsonist had the right to burn down the churches for being on his land without his permission.

 

[Bomb#20]

No, most Americans aren't Native Americans. Most Americans are native born. That capital 'N' denotes an important distinction.

Yes: it's the same distinction as the distinction between a Christian who's bright vs. an atheist who's Bright. The point of the distinction is to belittle by comparison the respective nativeness or brightness of every person who doesn't get capitalized.

Everybody born in America is exactly as native as everybody else born in America, whether his forebears walked from Beringia in 10,000 BC, or sailed over the Atlantic in 1620, or swam across the Rio Grande in 2021.

 

[Bomb#20]

But the first nations have been gone for thousands of years.

What makes you think that?

What makes you think the Eyak, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Inupiaq, Yup’ik, Cup’ik , Alutiiq, Unangax, Tanana, Gwich'in, Hwt'ana, Koyukon, etc. aren't continuations of the same Nations that formed millennia ago?

In a lot of cases you can compare linguistics with geography and figure it out. Eyak, Tlingit, Tanana, Gwich'in, Hwt'ana, and Koyukon are all Na-dene languages, a family that entered Alaska after it was already occupied. The ancestors of the cultures we find farther south in the Americas got to where they are through Alaska; since we don't find related languages in Alaska any more it means the Na-dene people overran their territory and displaced them. Similarly, Inupiaq, Yup’ik, Cup’ik, Alutiiq, and Unangax are all Eskimo-Aleut languages; they entered Alaska even more recently so they must have displaced Na-dene languages in the areas they predominate now. Based on linguistic considerations, the Haida and Tsimshian people might possibly be continuations of the same nations that originally occupied their present territories millennia ago; I don't know what archeology has to say about that hypothesis.

And anyway, they were here when Captain Cook, George Vancouver, and the men on the Bering Expedition 'discovered' Alaska, so they were here first.

Well that's a rather Eurocentric way of looking at it.

 

[Arctish]

Third, all of the first people to arrive in the region are long dead. So, "first peoples" is a misnomer (also, and just in case, their culture is long gone).

The cultures of Native Americans and First Nations Canadians aren't all dead. Many of them, especially the cultures of peoples in the Pacific Northwest and Arctic regions are alive and ongoing. And despite the loss of countless children through forced separations, their families and communities still exist as well. ... Shame on us for ignoring them for so long, and shame on anyone trying to ignore them now that the bodies are being found.

All of this.

Shame indeed on saying they and their cultures are “long dead.” It’s especially cruel when the purpose of these schools was to crush and destroy their cultures. And the people who are absolutley still living, who survived that school or mourn their sisters and brothers who did not are the ones you speak to when you make it cllear you don’t care about their siblings, their culture, their language.

I’m really deeply disturbed by that callous disregard, using the fabricated excuse that they are “long dead,” that they don’t even exist n your world.

They do exist, they exist today, they have been trying to tell their story for decades.
And you here saying, “ha, I’m giving the win to your abusers, because I sucessfully didn’t listen to you for long enough that I deem the game over.”

Good lord, what epic point-missing! Arctish & Rhea, you are both committing the exact wrong that you are falsely accusing Angra Mainyu of. Why can't you get it through your skulls that the history of North America did not begin with first European contact?!?

AM said all of the first people to arrive in the region are long dead and their culture is long gone. And you, totally missing his point, took it for granted that he didn't really mean the first people; in your minds he meant the last people to arrive before Europeans. Why did you make such a foolish assumption? Apparently you assumed he meant that because you treat the history of North America as beginning with first European contact.

What he meant, obviously!, was that thousands of years ago somebody arrived first in the area that's now southern British Columbia. And long after that, somebody else most likely arrived and killed or drove off the descendants of the first people there. And long after that, somebody else most likely arrived and killed or drove off the descendants of the second group of people to come and take the area for themselves. And so on, until the Nth group arrived: the ancestors of the Similkameen who live there now. So AM was calling on the folks who label the Similkameen "first people" to spare a thought for the actual first people in the area and for their descendants who were killed or driven off, people who are as he said long dead along with their culture, almost certainly wiped out at some point during the ebb and flow of ten thousand years of pre-European-contact North American history. But you guys would evidently prefer not to think about those long dead victims of that heinous inhumanity. You'd rather ignore them, and cling to your fairy-tale version of history where the Similkameen were there "first" merely because they were there when the English arrived. You'd rather make believe that the guy who's reminding you of a long-dead nation whose very name is forgotten is instead talking about the still-living successors of the people who murdered that nation, who murdered all those people who evidently don't even exist in your world. Shame on him? No. Shame on you.

You are assuming that 'killed' or 'drove off' are the only options.

Whatever happened to 'married into the other tribe' or 'exchanged ideas and techniques until the parallel development of cultures became a complete merging into a single cultural group' or 'found some unclaimed land and figured out how to make a living there'?

Why do you assume that Native Americans and First Nations Canadians aren't members of nations that have existed for as long as there have been nations there?

BTW the designation First Nations became the term for the pre-Colombian nations of what is now called Canada because Canadians of European ancestry were pretending Europeans were the first ones to create a nation there. It's far more accurate than what children were being led to believe back in the 18th-20th centuries.

 

[Gospel]

I wonder how Canadian Law applies to the school's actions & these graves likely made between 1899 & 1990.

 

[ZiprHead]

This issue of the definition of a native seems to be a derail for the purpose of distracting from the issue of the OP.

 

[Jarhyn]

This issue of the definition of a native seems to be a derail for the purpose of distracting from the issue of the OP.

So, as I have AM blocked, I only get the quotes others provide of their sophistry. I recall something about discussing my statement of being a native of earth as being dragged into this?

At any rate, I'd much rather talk about the next step of this discussion, the one that happens after "we agree there is a bad, done by the Catholic church": "what happens when people do a bad and refuse to own up to it and make things right, and they are complicit with government?"

Because that's the next step.

Then, once those two things are determined (and one is, already), we can then apply the principle to the situation and see what stands to be done.

 

[TomC]

This issue of the definition of a native seems to be a derail for the purpose of distracting from the issue of the OP.

I don't think so.

I see the point as an illustration of the problems created by trying to right old wrongs by blaming the current members of some group or demographic.

And trying to make two wrongs equal a right.

Tom

 

[Gospel]

This issue of the definition of a native seems to be a derail for the purpose of distracting from the issue of the OP.

I don't think so.

I see the point as an illustration of the problems created by trying to right old wrongs by blaming the current members of some group or demographic.

And trying to make two wrongs equal a right.

Tom

Canada doesn't have statutes of limitations sir.

Edit: BTW, this is not about individuals, it's about the Catholic Church & the Canadian goverment.

 

[TomC]

This issue of the definition of a native seems to be a derail for the purpose of distracting from the issue of the OP.

I don't think so.

I see the point as an illustration of the problems created by trying to right old wrongs by blaming the current members of some group or demographic.

And trying to make two wrongs equal a right.

Tom

Canada doesn't have statutes of limitations sir.

So?
I doubt that is really true. Are modern people expecting to right every wrong(by modern standards) ever done on the real estate now known as Canada? Even the ones done by "First Nations"? I doubt it.

Humans have been butchering each other for thousands of years.

Edit: BTW, this is not about individuals, it's about the Catholic Church & the Canadian goverment.

Yeah, it is about individuals. The individuals who used and valued those buildings. It's not like burning a century old church building inconveniences the RCC or the Canadian government. It's about destroying the day-to-day life of modern individuals, many of whom are First Nation.

Tom