Thread by @_centrists_

@ChrisCurran_IRE @LeoVaradkar "You are American, Yes?"

Given that I was born in Illinois, yes I am.

"Your bloodline is that of a migrant - you fool"

Amusingly, I have an appreciable amount of Native American in my personal mix.

@ChrisCurran_IRE @LeoVaradkar I'm not even going to attempt that discussion with you. I've seen the trouble the Irish have with the concept of multi-raciality. But, to anybody rational reading this, I'll pose a question: if we were to return Illinois to its natives, to whom would we return it?

@ChrisCurran_IRE @LeoVaradkar What is now Illinois was largely ethnically cleansed by migrants from other parts of North America shortly before the Europeans showed up. As for the woodland tribes, they mostly survive only in mostly non-native mixed-race descendants like me.

@ChrisCurran_IRE @LeoVaradkar Shall we eject the last remaining descendants of the non-native "indigenous people" of Illinois in order to make room for who? The ghosts of people long dead?

Hardly seems to make much sense at this point.

@ChrisCurran_IRE @LeoVaradkar Which is yet another reason why it matters that these things happened hundreds of years ago. There is huge difference between dealing with the living in a just manner, and making symbolic offerings to the dead by inflicting injustice on the living.

@ChrisCurran_IRE @LeoVaradkar Anybody who honestly can't see the difference, probably needs to be a ward of the state. He certainly doesn't need to be taken seriously.

@ChrisCurran_IRE @LeoVaradkar "Unless your name is Hiawatha"

I'm wishing, as always, that my great-grandparents were still around, because Chris, that line was really racist. There's one great-grandmother I would have loved to hear go off on you about that one.

@ChrisCurran_IRE @LeoVaradkar But let's examine that theory. Some of my ancestors were migrants, therefore I should be in favor of open borders.

Why? You never really tell us, because all we see out of you is as lot of emotionalistic ranting, so we are left to guess.

@ChrisCurran_IRE @LeoVaradkar Am I supposed to be in favor of the notion that the people of a country have not have the freedom to control their own borders and to refuse entry to anybody, because if the Native Americans had been able to enjoy that kind of freedom, I would never have been born?

@ChrisCurran_IRE @LeoVaradkar Is that the ethical principle you wish to establish, Mr. Curran? If so, let's think about its questionable moral implications.

Go back far enough in time, and you will find human beings who are the ancestors of us all, eg. "mitochondrial eve."

@ChrisCurran_IRE @LeoVaradkar At least some of those distant, now-universal ancestors had ancestors who were products of r.ape. Meaning that if no woman had ever been r.aped, not even a single person alive would have ever been born.

@ChrisCurran_IRE @LeoVaradkar If we were to accept this alleged moral principle, that we must be supportive of that to which we owe our existence, we would be led to the absurd conclusion that we were morally obligated to be supportive of a r.apist's right to r.ape.

@ChrisCurran_IRE @LeoVaradkar As the corollary of that proposition is clearly invalid, the proposition must be as well, and good thing, too. On such terms, there would be no laws left.

We're all here because of a long series of historical accidents that often involved horribly immoral actions.

@ChrisCurran_IRE @LeoVaradkar But rational people do not, on that basis, assert the obviously self-contradictory notion of a moral right to commit an immoral act.

@ChrisCurran_IRE @LeoVaradkar Where such a theory would fail would be in its built-in lack of understanding of a basic truth: morality only has meaning to the extent that compliance with it can modify our choices.

@ChrisCurran_IRE @LeoVaradkar We can change our future choices, but not the choices made in the past. One can not, therefore, base any kind of categorical imperative argument on questions about how a suggested imperative (or lack thereof) would impact on the immutable past.

@ChrisCurran_IRE @LeoVaradkar But as d.umb as that argument would have been, I'm probably giving you too much credit for examining the possibility that you were advancing it.

No, in this discussion, you've been pushing an even more absurd position.

@ChrisCurran_IRE @LeoVaradkar One need only listen to your defense of any bullying inflicted on the British to see what that is.

@ChrisCurran_IRE @LeoVaradkar You've taken the position that the descendants of those who committed an offense, or merely lived under the rule of those who did, are responsible for offenses committed long before they were born.

@ChrisCurran_IRE @LeoVaradkar Again, this is indefensible, morally, because as I said, morality only exists as a series of demands that we can be rightly judged for refusing.

Those not yet born at the time of a human rights violation could not have acted to prevent it.

@ChrisCurran_IRE @LeoVaradkar They exist only in the future of those events, in a time when the actions for which you would judge them have become part of the immutable past.

In matters of present concern, posterity has no choices to make and therefore, no guilt to atone for.

@ChrisCurran_IRE @LeoVaradkar In these deliberately vague terms that you choose, because on some level you know that your position is indefensible, you want to argue that I, as the (partial) descendant of migrants am a hypocrite because I don't support the imaginary right to migrate to wherever one pleases.

@ChrisCurran_IRE @LeoVaradkar However you want to argue that shaky proposition, you are left with a challenge - find a place where I've argued that the Native Americans did not have a right to resist the incursions into their territory.

You won't find one, because I've never taken that position.

@ChrisCurran_IRE @LeoVaradkar Even were I of pure "settler stock" (and pure anything is getting hard to find in the New World, Chris), a few hundred years later, I'd have no apologies to give and as it is, to whom shall I apologize?

Myself?

@ChrisCurran_IRE @LeoVaradkar Next time, try to be sober when you post and maybe, just maybe, break down and read a book. Maybe even more than one.

People have done that before. Really.

@ChrisCurran_IRE @LeoVaradkar To anybody reading this: No, her name was not Pocahontas.

@ChrisCurran_IRE @LeoVaradkar More archived ignorance

archive.is/75nYj

Yay?

@ChrisCurran_IRE @LeoVaradkar @threadreaderapp unroll