Israeli settlers

[Arrian]

Agreed.

-Arrian

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Arrian
It's easy to move those people. You just offer them a better deal elsewhere. The ideological nutbags are the problem.

-Arrian

So if somebody could come up with the money to bribe the Estonian Russians to leave, and the only ones who had to be forced out were the ideological nutbags, youd lack sympathy for said Estonian Russians?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse

they genuinely believed in that right

And they are dicks for believing in that "right".

very well. Folks who hold ideological beliefs that you dont share dont merit your sympathy when they suffer on account of those beliefs. At least we know where we stand.

But then you werent the one who expressed sympathy for Russians in the Baltics.

[KrazyHorse]

Again, it's a lot different when you have people living in a normal civil society than when you have settlements surrounded by gates and armed guards simply to prevent the massacre which would take place instantaneously otherwise...

[Arrian]

It depends. If they were the original settlers (been there less than a generation), I wouldn't have much sympathy. I'd have some, but very little. If it was the offspring of the originals that we're talking about, then I'd have more. Whether or not I'd agree with moving them is another matter (I'm focusing on sympathy).

I don't know much about the Russian settlers in Estonia, so I cannot really compare it to what's been going on in the WB and Gaza.

I cannot empathize with the ideological Israeli settlers. I can't wrap my mind around their beliefs, which makes it harder to sympathize with them. I think they're nuts.

This applies, by the way, to many of the Palestinians as well (in case that isn't clear).

-Arrian

[KrazyHorse]

Folks who hold ideological beliefs that you dont share dont merit your sympathy when they suffer on account of those beliefs.

When those beliefs are repugnant either per se or in the way they are expressed, then bingo. I have sympathy for Catholic martyrs in England. I have little sympathy for the Catholics in England who persecuted Protestants only to have it blow up in their faces when the next monarch came along.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Again, it's a lot different when you have people living in a normal civil society than when you have settlements surrounded by gates and armed guards simply to prevent the massacre which would take place instantaneously otherwise...

Again, I dont think the Baltics 1945-1991 could be called a normal civil society.

But youre saying that if A lets settlers B, live in peace, either because A isnt the sort to commit massacres, or because A is frightened of the totalitarian state behind B, then B earns MORE sympathy than folks threatened with massacre.

What if folks who clearly had the right to be where they were were threatened with massacre? Israelis living in a heavily arab part of Israel, like the Galillee, for example? No such threats now, but its not impossible? Does refusing to leave someplace where folks want to massacre you always make you a Cheney?

[KrazyHorse]

LOTM, don't try to start with some relativist tripe. Some people hold beliefs which are wrong, in my mind. Some people hold beliefs which are so wrong as to be repugnant. When these people suffer for their repugnant beliefs I don't see it as noble.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Arrian
It depends. If they were the original settlers (been there less than a generation), I wouldn't have much sympathy. I'd have some, but very little. If it was the offspring of the originals that we're talking about, then I'd have more. Whether or not I'd agree with moving them is another matter (I'm focusing on sympathy).

I don't know much about the Russian settlers in Estonia, so I cannot really compare it to what's been going on in the WB and Gaza.

I cannot empathize with the ideological Israeli settlers. I can't wrap my mind around their beliefs, which makes it harder to sympathize with them. I think they're nuts.

-Arrian

1. Im sure some Russians alive today in estonia moved from Russia. I also note some Gaza settlers grew up there.
2. In the case of Estonia, folks are defending the rights of the russians not to be expelled, to citizenship. In the case of Gaza all im asking for is sympathy. Even if the situations are different, whats being asked for is different.
3. Do you really assume that everyone whose ideological beliefs dont make sense to you are nuts?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse

Folks who hold ideological beliefs that you dont share dont merit your sympathy when they suffer on account of those beliefs.

When those beliefs are repugnant either per se or in the way they are expressed, then bingo. I have sympathy for Catholic martyrs in England. I have little sympathy for the Catholics in England who persecuted Protestants only to have it blow up in their faces when the next monarch came along.

Most of the Gazan settlers didnt persecute anyone, they just lived in their little compounds, growing stuff in greenhouses.

[Arrian]

LotM, re: 3 -

No, I do not. I thought I specified that I thought the more ideological Israeli settlers are nuts. Not everyone who disagrees with me.

KH actually put it better than I did. Repugnant beliefs... not just beliefs I don't understand. I don't get it because I don't know how a reasonable person could hold such beliefs. Ergo, perhaps they're not reasonable (nuts).

You can hold a nutty belief for all I care, but it's when that nutty belief brings you into conflict that things get interesting. You're asking for sympathy for the settlers. As I said, I have some. Not a whole lot, but some.

-Arrian

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
LOTM, don't try to start with some relativist tripe. Some people hold beliefs which are wrong, in my mind. Some people hold beliefs which are so wrong as to be repugnant. When these people suffer for their repugnant beliefs I don't see it as noble.

I consider that there are such repugnant beliefs. Believing that members of a group, like Jews, blacks, arabs, or kulaks have no right to live and must all be killed. Thats repugnant. Believing that you have the right to live in a particular piece of territory, when you dont, is wrong, but I cant see it as repugnant. Not so repugnant that when someone in such a situation is deported, one should hold no sympathy.

I dont say that such lack of sympathy is repugnant. But I do hold it to be wrong. And I find it inconsistent with sympathy for other folks who could be deported, and compensated, and who refuse for their own reasons.

[Edan]

IIRC, one of the early gaza (I think) settlements had been a Jewish town prior to '48 (and, IIRC, some of the original settlers of the settlement had previously lived there then).

In which case, do the Palestinians who had it for 19 years get more or less sympathy?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Arrian
LotM, re: 3 -

No, I do not. I thought I specified that I thought the more ideological Israeli settlers are nuts. Not everyone who disagrees with me.

KH actually put it better than I did. Repugnant beliefs... not just beliefs I don't understand. I don't get it because I don't know how a reasonable person could hold such beliefs. Ergo, perhaps they're not reasonable (nuts).

You can hold a nutty belief for all I care, but it's when that nutty belief brings you into conflict that things get interesting. You're asking for sympathy for the settlers. As I said, I have some. Not a whole lot, but some.

-Arrian

state for me what the gaza settlers beliefs are.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Edan
IIRC, one of the early gaza (I think) settlements had been a Jewish town prior to '48 (and, IIRC, some of the original settlers of the settlement had previously lived there then).

In which case, do the Palestinians who had it for 19 years get more or less sympathy?

i think youre thinking of Kfar etzion, which in the west bank, and will almost certainly not be evacuated.