Aboriginal Civil Disobedience

[Arctish]

We need to acknowledge what happened to those children and their families. To do that, we need to support CRT being taught in our schools.

No; one may very well acknowledge many children were kidnapped and abused, and some of them murdered, and that their families suffer, without supporting CRT at schools.

CRT is the honest acknowledgement of why they were treated so badly.

You can't teach the truth about those schools without informing students of the racism that fueled their creation.

 

[Patooka]

That's because the RCC does not have a mind - except in the sense that its members do -, and minds are necessary for guilt.

Literally every court on the planet proves that is a bullshit argument.

That is certainly false. First, not every court on the planet declares that things that do not have minds are guilty. Most do not, as they do not declare anything guilty.

James Hardie Industries was guilty of unsafe work practices. The Trump Foundation was guilty of fraud. So maybe not every court in existence, but certainly enough. At the very least the vast majority.

Second, I am talking of course about morally guilty, that is blameworthy, regardless of what a law might say.

Whatever the fuck that means. There is no such thing as a universal code of morals.

Third, even if every court declared that things that do not have minds are morally guilty, that would not prove that my assertion is false. It would of course remain true, and all of the courts would be in error.

You do understand how arrogant that sounds, right? You are the sole arbiter of morality and anyone who disagrees with you is wrong. How does that make you any different from a fundamentalist?

Just think about it for a moment: when you blame some entity X, when you say that some X is guilty, when you are morally outraged because of some unethical behavior, do you really not have in mind guilty human beings?. Are you seriously thinking about some non-human entity, mindless entity ? (I'm pretty sure you're not blaming non-human monkeys)

Nope, the group and the individuals are both guilty. Simple. That's why being a member of certain organisations is illegal. Because the organisations were guilty of something.

 

[Jarhyn]

The question I keep asking then, and which I haven't seen any good answers to, is "what is to be done to respond to a situation where neither the government nor the responsible organization does anything to reveal the truth of what happened, and to make amends as is necessary?"

That's difficult to answer.

Was the current government aware that there were thousands of bodies buried there? If they were aware, then sure, I think there should be some anger at it being covered up by the current Canadian government. If they were not aware, then how should they have revealed a truth of which they were unaware?

Was the current RCC aware that there were thousands of bodies buried there?

Who do you think should be making efforts to reveal the truth of what happened? And how should they go about revealing that truth? What is involved in revealing the truth?

Who should be making amends? Are the people that you expect to make amends directly responsible for those deaths? Or are they only indirectly responsible by dint of belonging to the same organization today that committed the atrocities in the past? What kind of amends do you feel are appropriate to make, from who and to whom?

And where in all of that does burning down buildings come into the mix?

I didn't ask about 'the current government'.

I asked, specifically, "what is the proper course when a government is complicit with a criminal in committing and hiding criminal acts?"

We can get to Canada and the RCC later.

Right now we are still on squaring principles. Once principles and reality are both square, we can apply them and see where that takes us.

 

[Rhea]

But "Native American" has two significant differences:

The first one is that being native is not a distinctive characteristic of the descendants of tribes that were in what is now America when Europeans arrived. Nearly all Americans are native Americans.

The second one is that it capitalizes a word (namely, 'native'), which is an adjective and is not normally capitalized. This makes it look superficially like "Chinese American", "Italian American", etc., but it is not so; those words refer to a national (or in some caes regional) origin, whereas 'native' does not.

A similar usage would be something like 'Comanche American', or 'Apache American', or 'Sioux American', etc., but those are not in use.

You’re really arguing about the shorthand north Americans use to refer to the group that includes Comanches, Apaches and Inuit? Seriously? THAT’s your focus in this thread?


Interestingly, I understand from Native Americans that they would indeed prefer to be known as Comanche and Apache and Inuit. But white people are too fucking lazy, so they shrug and say “Whatever,”

Nevertheless, their culture is native to this continent, and mine is not, so I can’t imagine quibbling at the word Native, even if I were unable to name them as they wish.

I would ask why do you think it would be unethical to contribute in some other way to make the world a better place. Given that your time is limited and that the time you use working to eliminate those legal and cultural mechanisms is time you do not work doing some other stuff - which can also be good, like developing vaccines, or something else.

There’s a concept of how humans can be overwhelmed by the scope of the needs - into paralysis. That if they are made to look at a problem they can’t fix immediately, they can’t take it in and they withdraw.

Perhaps that is what you are feeling, Angra?

 

[ZiprHead]

..

 

[Rhea]

The question I keep asking then, and which I haven't seen any good answers to, is "what is to be done to respond to a situation where neither the government nor the responsible organization does anything to reveal the truth of what happened, and to make amends as is necessary?"

That's difficult to answer.

Was the current government aware that there were thousands of bodies buried there?
[…]
Was the current RCC aware that there were thousands of bodies buried there?

This is what we’ve been discussing.

Once the Indigenous people complained, the government and the Catholic Church should have looked for those children (this is decades ago)
Once the first 215 were found, the government, and the Catholic church KNEW that 215 bodies had been found in one place. Morally, they should have acted.
Once the next 700 were found at a different Catholic site, the government, and the Catholic church KNEW that 915 bodies had been found in two places. Morally, they should have acted.
Once the next 500+ were found at a different Catholic site, the government, and the Catholic church KNEW that 1415 bodies had been found in three different places. Morally, they should have acted.

If they were aware, then sure, I think there should be some anger at it being covered up by the current Canadian government.

Are you making a joke? “If they were aware”? There are still 136 MORE SITES to look at. Have they started looking?

If they were not aware, then how should they have revealed a truth of which they were unaware?

By pretending that the families have not been asking for records for almostt 100 years? Oh, wait…

Who do you think should be making efforts to reveal the truth of what happened? And how should they go about revealing that truth? What is involved in revealing the truth?

Who should be making amends? Are the people that you expect to make amends directly responsible for those deaths? Or are they only indirectly responsible by dint of belonging to the same organization today that committed the atrocities in the past? What kind of amends do you feel are appropriate to make, from who and to whom?

We’re asking you that. But you re apparently still not sure that bodies exist.
“Was the government aware,” indeed. They are as aware as we are, certainly.

 

[Rhea]

The other very interesting manifestation here is the really detailed and persistant refusal to talk about the actual tragedy. The 1500+ bodies of dead children buried in unmarked mass graves on the site of religious residential schools.

I find it unexpected, and immensely interesting how several people can work so hard to avoid talking about that tragedy. It takes a lot of work. And it is work done by entering a thread on the topic, and writing thousands of words to avoid the topic.


Some people just avoid threads on topics like this. But others come to the topic and expend vast amounts of energy to change the conversation to something else. It’s very interesting to think about it what drives that.

I suspect it's more a case of every poster here agrees that the death of those thousands of children was a horrific abuse, a terrible thing to have happened. Nobody has any counter to that, nobody thinks it was a good thing, or even that it's not a big fucking deal that so many bodies have been found.

We all agree on that. There's no real discussion to be had on that aspect of it. Thus, it doesn't get air time.

Nobody is trying to avoid talking about the tragedy, because we all agree that it was a tragedy.

Aaah, but you have missed what we don’t agree on - and that it’s a tragedy that needs public discussion because quite a few people don’t think it is a big enough deal to insist that the Church turn over records.

You say, “we all agree it’s a tragedy,” but several people here think it is a past tragedy, with all players “and their immediate family long dead,” and “their culture long dead.”


We do not agree on that.

 

[laughing dog]

The other very interesting manifestation here is the really detailed and persistant refusal to talk about the actual tragedy. The 1500+ bodies of dead children buried in unmarked mass graves on the site of religious residential schools.

I find it unexpected, and immensely interesting how several people can work so hard to avoid talking about that tragedy. It takes a lot of work. And it is work done by entering a thread on the topic, and writing thousands of words to avoid the topic.


Some people just avoid threads on topics like this. But others come to the topic and expend vast amounts of energy to change the conversation to something else. It’s very interesting to think about it what drives that.

I suspect it's more a case of every poster here agrees that the death of those thousands of children was a horrific abuse, a terrible thing to have happened. Nobody has any counter to that, nobody thinks it was a good thing, or even that it's not a big fucking deal that so many bodies have been found.

We all agree on that. There's no real discussion to be had on that aspect of it. Thus, it doesn't get air time.

Nobody is trying to avoid talking about the tragedy, because we all agree that it was a tragedy.

Aaah, but you have missed what we don’t agree on - and that it’s a tragedy that needs public discussion because quite a few people don’t think it is a big enough deal to insist that the Church turn over records.

You say, “we all agree it’s a tragedy,” but several people here think it is a past tragedy, with all players “and their immediate family long dead,” and “their culture long dead.”


We do not agree on that.

Also that
1) Catholic hating in this thread,
2) the Catholic Church is more than its members,
3) the RCC should accept responsibility, and
3) that the Pope can issue a rational and sincere apology on behalf of the Catholic Church.

 

[Angry Floof]

Another thing not agreed on in this thread is that abuse will always come from organizations like the RCC, where authority is unquestioned and authority figures are unaccountable (beyond the flimsiest PR shows and lip service when society demands it). The RCC doesn't actively create abusers per se, but the culture of secrecy and celibacy do serve to foster the spreading of certain activities among the clergy. In other words, someone can go into the priesthood without a single sexual thought about children but end up abusing them because of pent-up sexual urges plus exposure to the secret sexual activities of those around him, topped with all manner of other beliefs and attitudes that allow for and cover up abuse.

The RCC is designed to abuse and perpetuate abuse. The indigenous children's bodies found under those Catholic schools were there because the RCC allows for abuse and neglect of children, and for disposing of their bodies without regard for their or their families' humanity. And the RCC will continue to harm and kill children if they are not held accountable for accepting responsibility and for changing their organization so that it no longer abuses or produces abusers.

Once again, the RCC is a corrupt organization that is designed to allow and perpetuate abuse, and it does this under myriad beliefs and attitudes, including bigotry toward brown people, rigidity preventing new ways of thinking, authority worship, unquestioned belief in its own moral superiority, the punishment/sin/hell mentality that encourages hiding crimes, and of course, vast riches and power to remain perfectly comfortable while rationalizing its crimes and ignoring the world's cries of outrage.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

We need to acknowledge what happened to those children and their families. To do that, we need to support CRT being taught in our schools.

No; one may very well acknowledge many children were kidnapped and abused, and some of them murdered, and that their families suffer, without supporting CRT at schools.

CRT is the honest acknowledgement of why they were treated so badly.

You can't teach the truth about those schools without informing students of the racism that fueled their creation.

CRT is another loosely defined but at its core false set(s) ideology (or part of a larger ideology, however one classifies it). One can find neutral-sounding definitions, but what is being taught is just very bad in all sorts of ways - false, unwarranted, and it contributes to racial hatred.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

James Hardie Industries was guilty of unsafe work practices. The Trump Foundation was guilty of fraud. So maybe not every court in existence, but certainly enough. At the very least the vast majority.

No, the vast majority of courts in the world do not even hear criminal cases against companies. It's just not their business.

But that aside, again I am talking about moral guilt. Obviously, the Trump Foundation is not morally guilty (or blameworthy, or however you put it) of any decision X except in the sense that some of its members are guilty of that decision X.

Whatever the fuck that means. There is no such thing as a universal code of morals.

Well, it's a human universal. I do not expect aliens to have morality. But that aside, what I mean is understandable in English, even if you support a moral error theory. Let me give you an obvious example: imagine that the law does not criminalize rape by a husband against his wife - as it was the case in many parts of the world, say, a century ago. Then, a husband who rapes his wife still behaves immorally; he is guilty of raping her; he is blameworthy, and he deserves to be punish for raping her, even if he isn't actually punished.

In English, we understand the meaning of the words I just say, so "Whatever the fuck that means." would not be a proper reply even if your claim that "There is no such thing as a universal code of morals" were true. In that case, we would have a moral error theory (well, some sort of culture relativism might be consistent too, though it is false), but that would not make my words difficult to understand, let alone incoherent.

Third, even if every court declared that things that do not have minds are morally guilty, that would not prove that my assertion is false. It would of course remain true, and all of the courts would be in error.

You do understand how arrogant that sounds, right? You are the sole arbiter of morality and anyone who disagrees with you is wrong. How does that make you any different from a fundamentalist?

I do understand that it should not sound arrogant to you, but it does because of your mistakes. My claim is no more arrogant than, say, "Third, even if every court declared that Jesus is our Lord and Savior, that would not prove my claim that he isn't false. It would remain true, and all of the courts would be in error".

At any rate, remember, I am talking about moral guilt, and your reply was "Whatever the fuck that means", so surely you are not even claiming that the courts claim that things without minds are morally guilty, right?

Nope, the group and the individuals are both guilty. Simple. That's why being a member of certain organisations is illegal. Because the organisations were guilty of something.

The group is only guilty in the sense the individuals are. Consider this: suppose the individuals are not at all guilty of anything. Do you believe the organization could still be guilty, in a moral sense?
Or think about this: imagine that all of the guilty members have been punished to the extent they deserve it. What further punishment is deserved, by whom, and by which action?

As for the reason being a member of certain organizations is illegal depends on the organization and the law in question. There isn't a single explanation. But surely it is not that the organizations are morally guilty in a sense that their members aren't.

 

[Arctish]

CRT is the honest acknowledgement of why they were treated so badly.

You can't teach the truth about those schools without informing students of the racism that fueled their creation.

CRT is another loosely defined but at its core false set(s) ideology (or part of a larger ideology, however one classifies it). One can find neutral-sounding definitions, but what is being taught is just very bad in all sorts of ways - false, unwarranted, and it contributes to racial hatred.

I changed the wording of my post almost immediately after hitting 'Reply'. This is the revised text:

We need to acknowledge what happened to those children and their families. To do that, we need to support the truth about how minorities were treated in this country being taught in our schools. The only people who benefit from concealing this ugly truth are the abusers and the institutions that benefited from the inhumane treatment of children.

There's a thread here about CRT where you can offer your definition and post links in support of your interpretation. I won't discuss it with you in this one, as that would be a derail.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

There’s a concept of how humans can be overwhelmed by the scope of the needs - into paralysis. That if they are made to look at a problem they can’t fix immediately, they can’t take it in and they withdraw.

Perhaps that is what you are feeling, Angra?

No, I'm still replying, even though I know I can't fix the problems here. But now I'm no longer allowed to reply to the rest of the points in your post. That is too bad. Now I am considering leaving, as I'm not allowed to make my case and defend my arguments properly.

 

[Angry Floof]

Still wondering how many bodies Angra and Bomb expect will be found under the 160 or so churches/schools yet to be searched.

 

[Patooka]

Well, it's a human universal. I do not expect aliens to have morality. But that aside, what I mean is understandable in English, even if you support a moral error theory. Let me give you an obvious example: imagine that the law does not criminalize rape by a husband against his wife - as it was the case in many parts of the world, say, a century ago. Then, a husband who rapes his wife still behaves immorally; he is guilty of raping her; he is blameworthy, and he deserves to be punish for raping her, even if he isn't actually punished.

This is the best example of someone charging headfirst towards the point and then missing it completely. I'll spell it out for you; what you arbitrarily decided as "moral" and "immoral" differs to every other person, every other region and every other point in history. You are trying to claim that you and you alone can decide what is moral and what is immoral collectively and individually. Good luck with that. Literally everybody else in this thread can understand that the RCC is guilty of atrocities and then covering it up. Have fun with your esoteric argument over irrelevant semantics.

 

[Jarhyn]

Well, it's a human universal. I do not expect aliens to have morality. But that aside, what I mean is understandable in English, even if you support a moral error theory. Let me give you an obvious example: imagine that the law does not criminalize rape by a husband against his wife - as it was the case in many parts of the world, say, a century ago. Then, a husband who rapes his wife still behaves immorally; he is guilty of raping her; he is blameworthy, and he deserves to be punish for raping her, even if he isn't actually punished.

This is the best example of someone charging headfirst towards the point and then missing it completely. I'll spell it out for you; what you arbitrarily decided as "moral" and "immoral" differs to every other person, every other region and every other point in history. You are trying to claim that you and you alone can decide what is moral and what is immoral collectively and individually. Good luck with that. Literally everybody else in this thread can understand that the RCC is guilty of atrocities and then covering it up. Have fun with your esoteric argument over irrelevant semantics.

Moreover, AM wants to ignore that morality has sprung up and emerged from wider principles governing strategic direction among groups of agents.

These are properties of agents with arbitrary goals, and properties of the interactions of goals. Aliens, computers, pretty much any other socially interactive self-replicator will emerge similar solutions around such similar problem. I completely reject AM's contention that "morality" (really, here, we are discussing 'ethics' not morals!) can be a human universal and not emergent among communicative replicating agents. Other organisms may organize slightly differently given different relationships with death, symbiosis, and such, but the core of goal oriented action is not a unique function of earth life.

You can see these facts in that the elements that we apply to social situations, morally, echo themselves in the elements we apply to logical processes and functions, which are about as alien as any thing can be, But the solutions for problems still apply ethics, the thing our morality is an approximation of

 

[Jarhyn]

Another thing not agreed on in this thread is that abuse will always come from organizations like the RCC, where authority is unquestioned and authority figures are unaccountable (beyond the flimsiest PR shows and lip service when society demands it). The RCC doesn't actively create abusers per se, but the culture of secrecy and celibacy do serve to foster the spreading of certain activities among the clergy. In other words, someone can go into the priesthood without a single sexual thought about children but end up abusing them because of pent-up sexual urges plus exposure to the secret sexual activities of those around him, topped with all manner of other beliefs and attitudes that allow for and cover up abuse.

The RCC is designed to abuse and perpetuate abuse. The indigenous children's bodies found under those Catholic schools were there because the RCC allows for abuse and neglect of children, and for disposing of their bodies without regard for their or their families' humanity. And the RCC will continue to harm and kill children if they are not held accountable for accepting responsibility and for changing their organization so that it no longer abuses or produces abusers.

Once again, the RCC is a corrupt organization that is designed to allow and perpetuate abuse, and it does this under myriad beliefs and attitudes, including bigotry toward brown people, rigidity preventing new ways of thinking, authority worship, unquestioned belief in its own moral superiority, the punishment/sin/hell mentality that encourages hiding crimes, and of course, vast riches and power to remain perfectly comfortable while rationalizing its crimes and ignoring the world's cries of outrage.

This is an interesting point. It is institutional. The structure of the organization is, much like the brain of a sociopath, missing vital mechanisms which in healthy organisms prevent the instantiation of certain bad behavior.

This implies that if the organization wishes to continue existing, it must invent, implement and then faithfully apply those mechanisms or see severe sanction on their authority structure, with no future shield to liability and an expectation of prompt, even demure action on any newly discovered historical abuses.

 

[Gospel]

It does not grant you any capability. Rather, if you are obligated, then you have it. And since you do not have it, then you are not obligated. Well, that is at least if ought implies can; you seem to be challenging that. So, we disagree.


Actually, no, I do not make it about me. Rather, in some of their posts, my debate opponents make it about me by claming I have such-and-such moral obligation, saying or implying I am behaving immorally, etc.. You can see that for yourself, by reading the exchanges.

At no time do you discuss this issue in a broader sense taking into account all of what lead to the current issue. It's all about the arson and the people who did nothing to deserve the Church burning down.

No, it's not all about that. That is one of the topics under discussion. It's also the collective blaming of people. It's also the accusations against dissenters. It's also the misrepresentation of what others say. And so on. There are many things being discussed.

Both you and TomC seem to be happy with saying "someone burned the church down, get them and be done with it!" but don't give two shits about 1000's of children in unmarked graves being discovered.

That is not true. Rather, I have a limited amount of resources, and I try to argue against the behaviors - including blaming the innocent - that happen in the thread, committed by thread posters, and including the condoning of the behavior of the arsonists. No one defends the actions of the kidnappers, abusers, murderers, etc. and at any rate, there is nothing I can do about that.

But when you asked me about those crimes (i.e., the kidnappings, etc.), I did answer.

Crime is a crime, right? Yet you both seem okey-dokey with the graves themselves.

You should not believe that, given my previous reply to you. No, the graves are not okay, though the culpability for each choice to dig them is a matter that has to be assessed on a case-by-case basis. Again, if someone engaged in murder of children, I think they deserved to be executed. And the kidnappers - graves or not - deserve to go to prison for a long time. And again, I already told you that those are heinous crimes. You keep making things up about me.

Now, before I go on, please re-read the post of yours I am replying to, and see what you just did. Again, you say

You are not Catholic, you are not the arsonist, you are not the indigenous people and I don't (and I do mean this with respect) give a fuck about seeing things from your perspective. In every one of your posts, you make it about you as if we're to argue about what you should or should not do if you were metaphorically plopped down in Canada as a member of the Catholic church. At no time do you discuss this issue in a broader sense taking into account all of what lead to the current issue. It's all about the arson and the people who did nothing to deserve the Church burning down.

and in the very next sentence you make it about me - and about TomC - by saying

Both you and TomC seem to be happy with saying "someone burned the church down, get them and be done with it!" but don't give two shits about 1000's of children in unmarked graves being discovered. Crime is a crime, right? Yet you both seem okey-dokey with the graves themselves.

That is obviously an accusation. A false one, and one that you should realize is false on the basis of the posts I made in the thread. I already replied to that one, but here I would like to highlight that you make it about me - again - by accusing me. I have of course other accusers that keep making it about me as long as they accuse me. Generally, when you accuse someone, you make it about that person - not exclusively about that person if you talk about other stuff too, but at least in part about that person.

Sorry about that Angra Mainyu. I crossed the line. I'm still learning how to avoid making my posts personal & I agree I was wrong about some things.

 

[Emily Lake]

The question I keep asking then, and which I haven't seen any good answers to, is "what is to be done to respond to a situation where neither the government nor the responsible organization does anything to reveal the truth of what happened, and to make amends as is necessary?"

That's difficult to answer.

Was the current government aware that there were thousands of bodies buried there? If they were aware, then sure, I think there should be some anger at it being covered up by the current Canadian government. If they were not aware, then how should they have revealed a truth of which they were unaware?

Was the current RCC aware that there were thousands of bodies buried there?

Who do you think should be making efforts to reveal the truth of what happened? And how should they go about revealing that truth? What is involved in revealing the truth?

Who should be making amends? Are the people that you expect to make amends directly responsible for those deaths? Or are they only indirectly responsible by dint of belonging to the same organization today that committed the atrocities in the past? What kind of amends do you feel are appropriate to make, from who and to whom?

And where in all of that does burning down buildings come into the mix?

I didn't ask about 'the current government'.

I asked, specifically, "what is the proper course when a government is complicit with a criminal in committing and hiding criminal acts?"

We can get to Canada and the RCC later.

Right now we are still on squaring principles. Once principles and reality are both square, we can apply them and see where that takes us.

The timing isn't something that can just be ignored though. Thus, the reference to the current government, and the current RCC.

The perpetrator of a crime should be held accountable for the crime. That's a fairly straightforward principle. But it gets a bit more complex when the perpetrator is no longer alive, and the accountability is being dropped onto the shoulders of a someone who is associated with the perpetrator solely through belonging to the same group as the perpetrator.

 

[Emily Lake]

Moreover, AM wants to ignore that morality has sprung up and emerged from wider principles governing strategic direction among groups of agents.

These are properties of agents with arbitrary goals, and properties of the interactions of goals. Aliens, computers, pretty much any other socially interactive self-replicator will emerge similar solutions around such similar problem. I completely reject AM's contention that "morality" (really, here, we are discussing 'ethics' not morals!) can be a human universal and not emergent among communicative replicating agents. Other organisms may organize slightly differently given different relationships with death, symbiosis, and such, but the core of goal oriented action is not a unique function of earth life.

I'm curious what other planets' life is it a function of?

You can see these facts in that the elements that we apply to social situations, morally, echo themselves in the elements we apply to logical processes and functions, which are about as alien as any thing can be, But the solutions for problems still apply ethics, the thing our morality is an approximation of

I'm going to quibble here. You're conflating cause and effect. These elements didn't emerge within logical processes and functions, we imposed them. Your comment here is kind of like remarking on the implicit superiority of generally man-height bipeds as an evolutionary adaptation by observing how well tables and charges are fit to that shape

On a more generally note... I think I agree with your core concept - morality (and ethics) are not universal, there is no objective and externally imposed standard. They are the result of evolution within a social species. But, given that they are a result of selection pressures, they are also not entirely stable. They change with the social group. Thus, morality varies from culture to culture, belief system to belief system, and across time.