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talkpoliticsSince this is Minority Issues Month, I figured I'd look at one elephant in the room when it comes to minority and racial issues: nationalism. Specifically, what nationalism means for people who do not fit the arbitrary and entirely invented categories that fit into the 'nation' as such.
In http://www.amazon.com/The-Dark-Side-Democracy-Explaining/dp/0521538548, Michael Mann made quite a compelling case that genocide is not an aberration of the democratic process, but instead is inherent to it.The reason is that in historical terms, democracy and the idea of the nation-state arose around the same time. Both esteem a fairly simple political process of a limited set of alternatives. There is the nation, and there is the national political culture of a free market of ideas, where the most rational ideas inevitably win out. The problem with that is that only India has made serious effort at a truly diverse democracy with multiple languages, races, cultures, religions, and political structures. All other democracies that are identified with that term have tended to be limited to a relatively narrow in ethnic/racial terms subset of the global population. Among the present-day societies of the 21st Century, the only democracy that hasn't massacred its largest racial minorities in the 20th Century is the United States, and it was quite willing to engage in pogroms against blacks and did commit a genocide of Native Americans in the nineteenth centuries.
Societies that truly do have a more diverse culture and/or are vast in geographical and population terms do not as a rule tend to be democratic. Russia, generally Europe's largest and most ethnically diverse society, as a rule has been autocratic in one form or another ever since the Grand Principality of Moscow emerged as the real winner of the post-Kievan contest for legitimacy. China, of course, has invariably been dictatorial and autocratic since the Battle of Gaixia over 2,000 years ago. It might be a monarchy, or a modern one-party state, but either way the rather diverse Chinese political system has not been one in practice interested in the principles of liberal democracy. So, too, with most of the large empires of the past that existed on continental or global scales. Ruling many peoples, in short, is associated not with freedom and equality, but instead with either tax farming and autocracy or with totalitarian mass execution and military despotism.
So, then, why is it that democracy and nationalism have emerged hand in glove together? This is in no small part a legacy of the French Revolution and Nineteenth Century liberal idealism. This liberalism was not democratic in any sense of the word, but next to the autocratic dynastic systems it opposed, it was indisputably the lesser evil. This idea was that a state for every nation and a nation for every state was the ideal world. Only there were major problems. Not only in Europe and in the Middle East did religions like Islam, Catholicism, and Judaism create major complications for this picture, but these societies in practice were both multi-ethnic and made up in preponderance of peasants who were a-nationalistic at best.
So how did democracies solve this problem? According to Mr. Mann, they simply slaughtered their minorities and inherited an unnaturally homogenous state unified by the blood-dimmed tide of the new ideologies, which flooded out all their rivals. The problem here is that this indicates that in the West, at least, the system was never intended to integrate in large numbers of minorities, as in fact would seem to be indicated by American genocide of Native Americans and mass pogroms against blacks, and by the European Holocaust. And even by the emergence of the Soviet Union in Russia. This is not a factor that can be handwaved or ignored, and persisting in this pattern is one reason why neo-fascist movements like that of the Le Penites and their ideological cousins in the Tea Party movement in the United States have large-scale adherents in the West.
In short, modern democracy was designed by a decided minority for the benefit of that minority. In expanding the system while refusing to recognize this factor exists, democracy opens room for the emergence of imitators of the original genocidal mentality that spawned it. India's steps in pioneering the new system are very real, but that the USA has as many prisoners as the Stalinist Gulag http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2012/01/30/120130crat_atlarge_gopnik?currentPage=all, this indicates that in the 21st Century, perhaps the line between the so-called democracies and the more authoritarian states of the past is narrowing.
It is true that the USA doesn't murder its prisoners or have work camps, but at a point where American 'democracy' disfranchises vast numbers of disproportionately minority populations in pursuit of an overzealous prison system, perhaps it's time to start questioning at what point a police state exists in practice, even if not in label. And whether or not the direct pattern of harsher sentences and many more felonies for people of color over white people isn't a return to some very unpleasant old days that should not have been in the first place, let alone again?
http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Crow-Incarceration-Colorblindness/dp/1595586431
In http://www.amazon.com/The-Dark-Side-Democracy-Explaining/dp/0521538548, Michael Mann made quite a compelling case that genocide is not an aberration of the democratic process, but instead is inherent to it.The reason is that in historical terms, democracy and the idea of the nation-state arose around the same time. Both esteem a fairly simple political process of a limited set of alternatives. There is the nation, and there is the national political culture of a free market of ideas, where the most rational ideas inevitably win out. The problem with that is that only India has made serious effort at a truly diverse democracy with multiple languages, races, cultures, religions, and political structures. All other democracies that are identified with that term have tended to be limited to a relatively narrow in ethnic/racial terms subset of the global population. Among the present-day societies of the 21st Century, the only democracy that hasn't massacred its largest racial minorities in the 20th Century is the United States, and it was quite willing to engage in pogroms against blacks and did commit a genocide of Native Americans in the nineteenth centuries.
Societies that truly do have a more diverse culture and/or are vast in geographical and population terms do not as a rule tend to be democratic. Russia, generally Europe's largest and most ethnically diverse society, as a rule has been autocratic in one form or another ever since the Grand Principality of Moscow emerged as the real winner of the post-Kievan contest for legitimacy. China, of course, has invariably been dictatorial and autocratic since the Battle of Gaixia over 2,000 years ago. It might be a monarchy, or a modern one-party state, but either way the rather diverse Chinese political system has not been one in practice interested in the principles of liberal democracy. So, too, with most of the large empires of the past that existed on continental or global scales. Ruling many peoples, in short, is associated not with freedom and equality, but instead with either tax farming and autocracy or with totalitarian mass execution and military despotism.
So, then, why is it that democracy and nationalism have emerged hand in glove together? This is in no small part a legacy of the French Revolution and Nineteenth Century liberal idealism. This liberalism was not democratic in any sense of the word, but next to the autocratic dynastic systems it opposed, it was indisputably the lesser evil. This idea was that a state for every nation and a nation for every state was the ideal world. Only there were major problems. Not only in Europe and in the Middle East did religions like Islam, Catholicism, and Judaism create major complications for this picture, but these societies in practice were both multi-ethnic and made up in preponderance of peasants who were a-nationalistic at best.
So how did democracies solve this problem? According to Mr. Mann, they simply slaughtered their minorities and inherited an unnaturally homogenous state unified by the blood-dimmed tide of the new ideologies, which flooded out all their rivals. The problem here is that this indicates that in the West, at least, the system was never intended to integrate in large numbers of minorities, as in fact would seem to be indicated by American genocide of Native Americans and mass pogroms against blacks, and by the European Holocaust. And even by the emergence of the Soviet Union in Russia. This is not a factor that can be handwaved or ignored, and persisting in this pattern is one reason why neo-fascist movements like that of the Le Penites and their ideological cousins in the Tea Party movement in the United States have large-scale adherents in the West.
In short, modern democracy was designed by a decided minority for the benefit of that minority. In expanding the system while refusing to recognize this factor exists, democracy opens room for the emergence of imitators of the original genocidal mentality that spawned it. India's steps in pioneering the new system are very real, but that the USA has as many prisoners as the Stalinist Gulag http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2012/01/30/120130crat_atlarge_gopnik?currentPage=all, this indicates that in the 21st Century, perhaps the line between the so-called democracies and the more authoritarian states of the past is narrowing.
It is true that the USA doesn't murder its prisoners or have work camps, but at a point where American 'democracy' disfranchises vast numbers of disproportionately minority populations in pursuit of an overzealous prison system, perhaps it's time to start questioning at what point a police state exists in practice, even if not in label. And whether or not the direct pattern of harsher sentences and many more felonies for people of color over white people isn't a return to some very unpleasant old days that should not have been in the first place, let alone again?
http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Crow-Incarceration-Colorblindness/dp/1595586431
1/2
Date: 7/5/14 22:00 (UTC)And even by the emergence of the Soviet Union in Russia. This is not a factor that can be handwaved or ignored, and persisting in this pattern is one reason why neo-fascist movements like that of the Le Penites and their ideological cousins in the Tea Party movement in the United States have large-scale adherents in the West.
That you line up the Tea Party as "neo-fascists" is troubling and uncompelling, not to mention nonsensical. The French Nationalists saw immigration as a cancer because they view diversity as a cancer, as opposed to the issues of crime and dependency that illegal immigration is believed to be the root of in the United States. There are serious contextual points you're failing to acknowledge as to why the sort of closed border protectionism has any sort of popularity in the mainstream in France, and it's not exactly the best move to equate that to "no amnesty" in the United States.
Furthermore, the French Nationalists are extremely authoritarian, in contrast to the Tea Party which was formed in part to reduce the governmental authority in favor of a more Constitutional republic. The French Nationalists are extremely protectionist economically while the American Tea Party is a fairly standard conservative free market ideological group.
You're only weakening your argument by appealing to this sort of comparison. There's no "nationalism" to speak of in the Tea Party movement, just a lot of patriotism. It's incorrect and ahistorical to compare the two.
(no subject)
Date: 7/5/14 23:41 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/5/14 00:28 (UTC)Arpiao is extreme in his unorthodox practices, but the problem with the totalitarian police state is not making prisoners wear pink outfits, but rather the prevalence of no-knock raids and army-style vehicles in small towns to combat drugs. The Tea Party is increasingly being the group pushing back on those things.
The Tea Party's favorite politicians tend to be rather authoritarian in practice, and I seldom hear them denouncing the police state and surveillance apparatus as such. And even fewer of them denounced it from 2005-8, during the first three years of its revelation.
The Tea Party didn't come into play until 2009, so your criticism of them not speaking up makes no sense. That you continue to view the Tea Party as authoritarian means you misunderstand the Tea Party, authortiarians, or both.
(no subject)
Date: 8/5/14 01:19 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/5/14 03:56 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/5/14 16:27 (UTC)also...
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/17/science/the-rational-choices-of-crack-addicts.html?ref=findings&_r=1&
ETA:
Unfortunately, legalize drugs, all drugs is one of those issues that makes libertarians a "fringe" ideology, and is often one of the opinions that gets droped as a canidate moves to appeal to center. It would be nice if the establishment would make up their minds, is this an "extremist" view or is it not extreme enough?
(no subject)
Date: 8/5/14 17:17 (UTC)Removing marijuana from Schedule 1 would be a smart start, along with reforming the banking regulations so they can deal with marijuana providers in states that allow it. I don't think there's any big public push to go full Portugal on all drugs.
(no subject)
Date: 8/5/14 11:19 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/5/14 16:46 (UTC)That said, so did senator Obama so take that with a MASSIVE grain of salt.
(no subject)
Date: 8/5/14 01:50 (UTC)In a vote on February 8, 2011, the House of Representatives considered a further extension of the Act through the end of 2011.
Well, wouldn't that have been a most opportune moment to speak up? If there were some speaking up, you could cite some now.; aside from Senator Rand Paul's objections about privacy concerns (something he should be praised for) there were NO threats of a government shutdowns, stomping of feet, etc. And how many Tea party variety Republicans will be primaried for signing the extension, or have their vote for the extension made into a campaign issue? There was however quite a bit of whining from some Republicans about the constitutionality of the President signing extension into law with an auto-pen.
(no subject)
Date: 8/5/14 11:24 (UTC)The Patriot Act is a problem, but it's not as big a deal as a lot of other legislative efforts that impact far more people on a regular basis.
(no subject)
Date: 8/5/14 02:05 (UTC)The Tea Party's favorite politicians tend to be rather authoritarian in practice, and I seldom hear them denouncing the police state and surveillance apparatus as such.
Rachel Maddow covered this notion at great length, but more regarding Republican social policies. You may enjoy it; I find it pretty compelling stuff, like former Virginia governor Bob McDonell's M.A. thesis in public policy written for the College of Law at Pat Robertson’s Regent University. "The Republican Party's Vision for the Family "The Compelling Issue of the Decade" and he wrote "every level of government should statutorily and procedurally prefer married couples over cohabitators., homosexuals, or fornicators" The thesis is full of Christian "Reconstruction" policies that have informed much of the right and conservative / libertarian policy making in Republican controlled states since the 2010 mid term elections.
(no subject)
Date: 8/5/14 16:56 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/5/14 17:10 (UTC)2/2
Date: 7/5/14 22:00 (UTC)Are we more of a police state than many are willing to admit? I think that's clear, and, more to the point, I think many are coming around on this particular issue. Are the results disproportionate? Yes, but the question is not so much the results as much as the causes. If the crime is being disproportionately handed out by a specific group, so too would the results.
At the end of the day, though, most of our prison problem is rooted in the drug war. Until we solve that problem, we're not going to really have a good grasp as to who is doing what and how different crimes root themselves in illicit drug trading and usage. And until we solve that drug war, it means we're still going to be "tolerating" more and more police militarization to combat a plague of the government's own creation, leading to people going to jail for longer and longer times for "crimes."
And whether or not the direct pattern of harsher sentences and many more felonies for people of color over white people isn't a return to some very unpleasant old days that should not have been in the first place, let alone again?
There is no law on the books anywhere that I'm aware of that would create harsher sentences and more felonies simply because of the race of the criminal. The issue here, again, goes back to a firm hand on drug laws and three strikes laws that keep people in jail for things that don't deserve that much jail time. Those laws are considered successes, unfortunately, so it's a sea change in public opinion that must occur to get there.
You can, however, get someone out of jail. You can overturn their sentences, you can release them, and you can change the laws to ensure that it doesn't happen again. That does not make it some sort of de facto and/or modern "genocide," which means you're outright cleansing a group never to return - we can reverse this trend, and quickly. Nor is it disenfranchising any specific group. Even if we're willing to say "the poor have no other choice," that goes against very basic principles we know about human beings in general, and that's really a much broader psychological discussion that may not really be on topic for this.
As is typically the case, the issue here goes back to the government. The government creates more and more policies that result in increased difficulty to leave your own class. The government then criminalizes things that shouldn't be criminalized. Then the government punishes the poorest for engaging in the former in an attempt to deal with the latter, and instead of addressing the problems at hand, we instead ignore the role of government and class in favor of more comfortable racial narratives. Why? Well, no one talking about these things is racist so there's no culpability on a personal level and we can blame X group for the problem instead. Talking about it in terms of government or class creates a culpability issue, however, since the same people who want to blame race probably voted for that politician that raised taxes or increased welfare spending, or supports laws that reduce individual rights and responsibilities.
What's the answer to "The New Jim Crow," in other words? The same as the answer to the old Jim Crow, laws passed by the government to create a racial underclass. The answer today is to get rid of the laws that are creating a perpetual economic underclass. This means more sane drug laws and more promotion of the individual. It means making it easier to be an entrepreneur. It means making it harder to remain on state assistance until the end of your days. And it means starting to own what your beliefs create in society on a whole.
(no subject)
Date: 7/5/14 23:42 (UTC)However, I don't see that the Drug War is *all* the fault of the government. Keep in mind the number of scandals involving for-profit prisons. Privatized profit-motive prisons hardly have a motive to *shrink* prisoner populations, and where there are strong associations of the people who run them and say......state governors.....
(no subject)
Date: 8/5/14 00:33 (UTC)The War on Terror certainly helped push through the Patriot Act, but guess what it's mostly used on? Drugs (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/patriot-act-used-to-fight-more-drug-dealers-than-terrorists/2011/09/07/gIQAcmEBAK_blog.html).
The abuse of power stemming from the Patriot Act in that regard is the same abuse of power used before it was put into play. The Patriot Act just made it easier, and that it was fully bipartisan didn't hurt matters.
Privatized profit-motive prisons hardly have a motive to *shrink* prisoner populations, and where there are strong associations of the people who run them and say......state governors.....
Privatized prisons account for 10% of all prisons (http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/top-5-secrets-private-prison-industry-163005314.html), so it's hardly something that's driving any sort of lawmaking. There's no motivation to shrink prison populations because no one wants to be viewed as "soft on crime," not because this 10% of prisons are driving people into the cells. The expansion of laws and the trend toward criminalization of things that shouldn't be criminalized predates the growth in private prisons.
I'm not a fan of private prisons, but let's not attack them based on false ideas of what they mean.
(no subject)
Date: 8/5/14 11:20 (UTC)I haven't seen that from him at all. I've seen him crack down harder on marijuana dispensaries and do nothing about the drug war at all. If anything, the promises he made in 2008 in this area made it sound like he'd be better on this issue, and he's been the opposite.
(no subject)
Date: 8/5/14 04:03 (UTC)But it gets better! Not two paragraphs later you go on to say that the poor have ceded rationality for 200 bucks a month in food stamps. And nevermind that segregation in cities in the South after Jim Crow, and in cities outside of Jim Crow's scope, is as bad as ever. Its clearly too much government intervention. What a convincing argument...
(no subject)
Date: 8/5/14 11:26 (UTC)Well, I can't force you to read, I suppose. My sentence stands as it is, it doesn't seem to be a problem.
Not two paragraphs later you go on to say that the poor have ceded rationality for 200 bucks a month in food stamps.
It's entirely rational to simply take what's given in exchange for doing less and having less. We see it all the time, and I don't necessarily blame them. It's why I want to fix it.
nd nevermind that segregation in cities in the South after Jim Crow, and in cities outside of Jim Crow's scope, is as bad as ever. Its clearly too much government intervention. What a convincing argument...
So what's your refutation?
(no subject)
Date: 8/5/14 21:46 (UTC)I read it. It is tautological. You even admit that you aren't going to justify it in your post. In other words, its only justification is self-referential. That you don't understand the definition of a tautology is made crystal fucking clear by you REFERRING BACK TO THE WORDS THEMSELVES. There is nothing inherently fallacious about tautologies, it's merely a meaningless statement. Your statement isn't merely tautological, it's also bullshit.
The reason its bullshit is you don't ever concede the premise, you assume it not to be true because it clashes with the conclusion you've already reached, which despite your 'we' is not taken as a universal given.
I can't make you understand a concept in elementary logic, I suppose. My logic stands as it is, your statement is meaningless at best, and in the real world isn't actually true and is logically fallacious.
It's entirely rational to simply take what's given in exchange for doing less and having less. We see it all the time, and I don't necessarily blame them. It's why I want to fix it.
Um that is not at all rational. I may work less by virtue of being paid a stipend(that depends on substitution and income effects) but I would never choose to work less and have less consumption. Nevermind that the EITC practically compliments any practical effect of welfare stipends anyway.
So what's your refutation?
Persistent economic and social inequality despite supposed de jure equality.
(frozen) (no subject)
Date: 8/5/14 21:51 (UTC)Um that is not at all rational. I may work less by virtue of being paid a stipend(that depends on substitution and income effects) but I would never choose to work less and have less consumption.
That's your rational choice, then. Your choice is that you'd prefer to work and have more consumption. Some people are perfectly happy with less in exchange for more free time. Entirely a rational choice.
Persistent economic and social inequality despite supposed de jure equality.
How is that a refutation?
(frozen) (no subject)
Date: 8/5/14 23:19 (UTC)Being a mod and insulting community participants isn't an argument and fails to address the participant's argument at all. Not much to say other than, 'By what right are you a mod?'
That's your rational choice, then. Your choice is that you'd prefer to work and have more consumption. Some people are perfectly happy with less in exchange for more free time. Entirely a rational choice.
So minorities, in aggregate, prefer leisure to work at poverty levels... OK... thanks for walking right into that one for me.
How is that a refutation?
Persistent inequalities across social and economic groups suggests that your "war on drugs targets poor people who just so happen to black" is at best insufficient as an explanation. Modus tollens and all that.
Nevermind that you've ignored that conservatives were the ones that started the drug war in the first place.
(frozen) (no subject)
Date: 9/5/14 02:33 (UTC)That you see that as an insult at you is your own issue and not mine. Also your issue is the continued lack of engagement with the point.
So minorities, in aggregate, prefer leisure to work at poverty levels... OK... thanks for walking right into that one for me.
Not sure where minorities come into play here, but this is exactly what's discussed when the "culture of dependency" comes into play.
(frozen) (no subject)
Date: 9/5/14 02:47 (UTC)Keep projecting.
Not sure where minorities come into play here, but this is exactly what's discussed when the "culture of dependency" comes into play.
Right... keep fucking that chicken.
(frozen) (no subject)
Date: 9/5/14 07:01 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/5/14 00:19 (UTC)Er, what? I'm not really in disagreement with your larger point, but this seems like a wildly inaccurate sentence.
Of course there was the Tulsa race riot in May of 1921, and numerous other small purges. But if you mean nation-scale pogroms and purges, then you must be defining "democracy" differently from the rest of us.
I don't recall any ethnic massacres in the UK in that period--well, outside of Northern Ireland? And while France did some horribly misguided things to hold onto Algeria, the French Republic as such seems to have expressed its racism more through imperial projection (outside of the collaboration with the Nazis). On the other hand, there were infamous massacres of religious minorities a couple of times in the centuries of the French monarchy.
In any case, the USA has been more likely to massacre their citizens than our European cousins, since 1900. The World Wars were international.
And if you somehow are counting the UK and and France as massacre-happy (?!) another counter: If there were any major ethnic massacres in the Nordic States in that period, I'd like to know about it.
(no subject)
Date: 8/5/14 02:56 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 9/5/14 13:52 (UTC)If you qualify Algeria for France, I'll just direct you to Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, India, and Kenya.
(no subject)
Date: 8/5/14 02:59 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/5/14 04:55 (UTC)Felon Voting Laws Disenfranchise 5.85 Million Americans With Criminal Records: The Sentencing Project (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/12/felon-voting-laws-disenfranchise-sentencing-project_n_1665860.html)
(no subject)
Date: 8/5/14 06:48 (UTC)http://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=vot&dir=bkg&document=ec90545&lang=e
This might be useful when attempting to apply same common sense to the US system.
The way we figure it citizenship has certain constitutional rights. Citizenship does not cease just because of incarceration, so neither do constitutional rights.
(no subject)
Date: 8/5/14 11:30 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 9/5/14 11:16 (UTC)Technically, yes. In operation, the government has really gone above and beyond in expanding the overall franchise even if it doesn't have to. Really, the only impediment in the law is for felons, and ID laws are immensely popular even if they basically don't disenfrancise anyone.
I always disagreed that it was both, but truthfully the US is really NOT a democracy at all in terms of legal construction because there's nothing there about all citizens being guaranteed a right to participate in the political process.
It is and always has been a democratic republic.
(no subject)
Date: 10/5/14 12:16 (UTC)In practice, you really have to dig to find people who cannot vote because they don't have and cannot get an ID.
(no subject)
Date: 8/5/14 17:02 (UTC)But I'll leave it at this about democracy, recalling Churchill's quote:
"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
(no subject)
Date: 8/5/14 17:09 (UTC)Then imagine if the left somehow went along with this, and anti-abortion protesters found a way to hack the signal.
(no subject)
Date: 8/5/14 17:18 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 9/5/14 13:48 (UTC)