The Box of Chocolates Thread (You never know what you're going to get!)

The Box of Chocolates Thread (You never know what you're going to get!)

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24 December 2022 at 08:57 AM
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1924 Replies

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by corpus vile P

We never did try to colonise anyone or invade anyone or enslave anyone.
We did admittedly screw up by inventing whisky though.

you sure?

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books...


by jalfrezi P

You named one book you've been influenced by, and it was a Monetarist publication by Friedman.

No it was a book about how to apply concept of freedom in many areas of society, and how capitalism and freedom go together and self reinforce each others.

The monetarist part, which was actually not even that much monetarist (he wanted an increase in M1 every year, a stable one, which is approx what nominal GDP targeters are asking now decades later), was only a small part.

The negative income tax part as the best form of welfare, the freedom to do any job part, the "the government is almost always worse than the public at doing thing becaues no competition" part and so on were far more relevant in the book


Your article talks about piracy.


by jalfrezi P

Your article talks about piracy.

ye which in the early phases meant slavery as well, taking prisoners to sell, and raiding the coasts of britan (and i think northern france as well)


by Bobo Fett P

Well, you should probably progress a bit beyond having heard about it before summarizing it that terribly. First of all, no one here referred to it as a genocide, and the article simply referred to the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission's naming of it as a "cultural genocide", which is a pretty clear and important distinction from a genocide. And I'd suggest that's pretty accurate from what I already understood, and what is described

Obviously I was being flippant in my response to Victor as he had just lied about me.

I did read that entire article, though I knew everything in it already. No matter what you think about what was done with the native children, I certainly would not call it colonization.

Apart from the abuse cited, which is of course horrible, I don't think anything that was done was necessarily bad, and was mostly likely done with good intentions. Cultural assimilation is a good thing, and children who are given a modern education will be better off than those learning ancient superstition.
And I'm sure you know that I see no negative in removing children from their biological parents.


Yes I'm absolutely 100% sure. I'm talking about the Republic of Ireland as a western nation, founded in 1922. I thought that would have gone without saying. Show me where Piracy was advocated by the Irish government. Furthermore, you're talking pirates, not government decree. Besides those pirates were prolly Celts Vikings or Normans, remember? 😀


by jalfrezi P

Your article talks about piracy.

I was talking about Ireland as a country since its founding. I reckon he's just being cute.


by Luciom P

ye which in the early phases meant slavery as well, taking prisoners to sell, and raiding the coasts of britan (and i think northern france as well)

Show me where the Republic of Ireland engaged in slavery, piracy, invasion or colonialism, thanks. Best of luck with that too.


by Luciom P

ye which in the early phases meant slavery as well, taking prisoners to sell, and raiding the coasts of britan (and i think northern france as well)

You need to show that those pirates were funded or governed by the Irish state to claim that it's been involved in colonialism or slavery. Pretty hard to do when they precede it by centuries.


Dont get your hopes up.


by chillrob P

I did read that entire article, though I knew everything in it already. No matter what you think about what was done with the native children, I certainly would not call it colonization.


Just because the process of taking over the land and calling yourself a country is finished doesn't mean colonization is over. Oppressing indigenous people in the horrible ways that residential schools did is a continuation of colonization.

by chillrob P

Apart from the abuse cited, which is of course horrible, I don't think anything that was done was necessarily bad, and was mostly likely done with good intentions.


Yikes.

by chillrob P

Cultural assimilation is a good thing


I hardly even know what to say to this. There's nothing good about forced cultural assimilation in this fashion.

by chillrob P

and children who are given a modern education will be better off than those learning ancient superstition.


I see. So...those kids were better off because rather than "learning ancient superstition", they were taught the more modern superstition of Christianity?

by chillrob P

And I'm sure you know that I see no negative in removing children from their biological parents.


I know about your very unique beliefs about the selfishness of parents, how people shouldn't have kids, etc. But I don't know how that leads you to believe it's better for the state to raise them, and given your view of religion I'm perplexed as to how you'd think having the church raise them is a good thing.

Also, I thought a lot of your beliefs about having children were tied to modern society. I wasn't aware you also had an issue with people who lived off the land in a sustainable way continuing to have children, as was the case pre-colonization.


by Bobo Fett P

Just because the process of taking over the land and calling yourself a country is finished doesn't mean colonization is over. Oppressing indigenous people in the horrible ways that residential schools did is a continuation of colonization.


Yikes.


I hardly even know what to say to this. There's nothing good about forced cultural assimilation in this fashion.


I see. So...those kids were better off because rather than "learning ancient superstit

I didn't know that the government run schools were also teaching Christianity. If that is true, of course I don't support that part of the process.

However, if one assumes a particular person is going to believe in superstition, it's better for it to be the majority version. Every religion that dies off is progress; if everyone in the world had the same religion, things would be a lot more peaceful than they are now.

Similarly, it's a good thing every time a culture or language dies out. I personally find different languages and cultural practices to be interesting, but there's no denying that they lead to human conflict to the extent of being a net negative to the world.

The forced aspect isn't ideal, but everything done to children is forced. Forcing a child to move to the city and learn English is not inherently worse than forcing them to be raised in a tribal society just because that's where their parents live.

My view on procreation has nothing to do with modern society or technology, apart from the fact that modern methods of birth control are very reliable so there is less excuse for children resulting from the basic human sex drive.

The main reason why I believe procreation to be wrong is that it involves the nonconsensual imposition of a lifetime of pain on another person. Some modern issues make it even worse, especially the damage to the environment and climate resulting from increased population, but they have never been my primary objection to deliberately bringing new sentient beings into existence.


by jalfrezi P

You need to show that those pirates were funded or governed by the Irish state to claim that it's been involved in colonialism or slavery. Pretty hard to do when they precede it by centuries.

I might have misread something, I never understood it was about state entities, Ireland has been unified under Irish control only since 1937, what has that to do with what the Irish people actually did in the past?

If it was common for Irish people to take slaves in some era, why does it matter if it was state sanctioned or not, they had like a gazillion microstates at the time


by corpus vile P

Yes I'm absolutely 100% sure. I'm talking about the Republic of Ireland as a western nation, founded in 1922. I thought that would have gone without saying. Show me where Piracy was advocated by the Irish government. Furthermore, you're talking pirates, not government decree. Besides those pirates were prolly Celts Vikings or Normans, remember? 😀

For me it's about what people do, regardless of the legal structure. If a population engages in some activity in mass, I don't care about whether that is state sanctioned or not. Especially if we are talking periods of time in which the state was not one but hundreds, and was close to powerless


by TeflonDawg P

All 3 seem to have done things considered to be great and also terrible. But you only picked one as a "great man" and seemed to downplay the other two

No, the point was that the other two were also great. But you could make them out to be monsters.


by corpus vile P

No it isn't true as empires are anti freedom

I think not enthusiastically fighting Hitler is anti freedom


by Luciom P

For me it's about what people do, regardless of the legal structure. If a population engages in some activity in mass, I don't care about whether that is state sanctioned or not. Especially if we are talking periods of time in which the state was not one but hundreds, and was close to powerless

For me it isn't. I'm talking in terms of nations and Ireland as a nation never bothered anyone. And speaking of periods of time, empires and indeed events in general of the 20th century have more gravitas than events/empires of the antiquity and before that as they and their effects are within generational memory. It's why Rafiki can claim admiration for Churchill and not without validity in some respects to clarify, but I can also have issues with him and not without validity either.


by rafiki P

I think not enthusiastically fighting Hitler is anti freedom

Yeah because you don't know what words like neutrality means and you're engaging in bad faith trolling here as I already highlighted how Ireland broke its neutrality by surreptitiously helping the allies, which you're willfully disregarding.


by corpus vile P

Yes I'm absolutely 100% sure. I'm talking about the Republic of Ireland as a western nation, founded in 1922. I thought that would have gone without saying. Show me where Piracy was advocated by the Irish government. Furthermore, you're talking pirates, not government decree. Besides those pirates were prolly Celts Vikings or Normans, remember? 😀

The Republic dates from 1949, as created by the Dail's Republic of Ireland Act 1948. The Irish Free State was created as an independent Commonwealth Dominion under the Crown by the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921, effective one year later, and was succeeded in 1937 by the new 'Ireland / Eire', a virtual republic in which the Crown had almost no power except the accreditation of foreign diplomats (weirdly, during the Second World War, this meant that the Nazi diplomatic mission in Dublin was formally accredited by the Court of St James), so the final Republic Act in '48 could be done and dusted in just five lines of text with practically no fuss at all -- though Attlee's government in London did have to rush through their own Republic of Ireland Act to see that Irish citizens still had the same rights to reside, work and vote in the UK.


My point remains though in response to formula's post and re piracy.

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showp...


by chillrob P

I didn't know that the government run schools were also teaching Christianity. If that is true, of course I don't support that part of the process.


You "didn't know"..."if that is true"...JFC dude, for a guy who "did read that entire article, though I knew everything in it already.", this is pretty ****ing amazing. So I'll go back to what I said in an earlier post - I wouldn't expect you to have in-depth knowledge of this dark portion of Canadian history, but when that's the case, it's best not to try to simplify it down to six words.

These weren't government-run schools that also taught Christianity. They were government-sponsored schools run by the church, which is why this happened:

As part of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, approximately 50 Catholic entities, such as dioceses and religious congregations, agreed to make financial and in-kind contributions with a value of $54 million to $79 million to support healing and reconciliation programs. They had three specific obligations:

  • A cash contribution of $29 million. $8,344,575 paid out in compensation for residential school abuse claims before the IRSSA was counted as part of this contribution, leaving a further $20,655,425 (the "Net Amount") to pay.
  • In-kind services valued at $25 million.
  • A seven-year "best efforts" fundraising campaign with a target of $25 million.[6]: §3.9  The seven-year period for the campaign began in September 2007 with the implementation of the IRSSA and ended in September 2014.[b] "Best efforts" would be "deemed to have been made where the fund-raising campaign demonstrates on a Canada-Wide level in each of the seven years an approach and means that is consistent with the approach and means used by professionally managed national fundraising campaigns, including those operated by universities and hospital foundations".


The Catholic entities established the Corporation of Catholic Entities Party to the IRSSA (CCEPIRSS), a not-for-profit corporation, "for the exclusive purpose of implementing and carrying out the Catholic Entities’ obligations under the Settlement Agreement."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fontaine_e....

As for the rest of your post, I think it would just be a waste of both of our time to try to go back and forth on that.


by corpus vile P

For me it isn't. I'm talking in terms of nations and Ireland as a nation never bothered anyone. And speaking of periods of time, empires and indeed events in general of the 20th century have more gravitas than events/empires of the antiquity and before that as they and their effects are within generational memory. It's why Rafiki can claim admiration for Churchill and not without validity in some respects to clarify, but I can also have iss

Excuse me but the genocide of native Americans in what we currently call the USA is considered starting from before the USA was an actual country and even actions taken before the USA existed as a country, by populations that then ended up being called the USA, are counted as part of the USA sponsored genocide.

Whatever the East India company did to India that people consider wrong, is accounted as a British national fault even if technically it was a private company.

Moreover when you are completely irrelevant in power terms, absolutely insignificant on the international scale, as Ireland was since it's a republic, it's kinda weird to claim moral superiority given you never had a chance to do anything serious to anyone else no matter intentions.

That's like saying the repubblica of San Marino is particularly moral because in 1500 years of history it committed very few serious moral crimes.


That's not true. They do some solid cocaine trafficking. Two of their citizens have a 5 milly bounty on their heads from the feds.


They also scored first against england


by Bobo Fett P

You "didn't know"..."if that is true"...JFC dude, for a guy who "did read that entire article, though I knew everything in it already.", this is pretty ****ing amazing. So I'll go back to what I said in an earlier post - I wouldn't expect you to have in-depth knowledge of this dark portion of Canadian history, but when that's the case, it's best not to try to simplify it down to six words.

These weren't government-run schools that also taugh

If everything you say here is true (and I have no reason to doubt you), my 6 words do not even apply to the situation so there is no reason to be offended by them. I said I had no problem making children go to public schools. I didn't say anything about Catholic schools. I'm sure you know me well enough to see that I certainly wouldn't agree with anyone being forced to go to Catholic schools. If you had immediately said "they weren't public schools, they were Catholic", I would have bowed out and none of the rest of this argument would have happened. I guess here in the US we aren't as informed about the situation as you are in Canada. I actually did read that article, and I didn't see any mention of the schools being religious. Maybe it was there and I missed it; I can't find the original link now.

However, I still wouldn't consider any of that to be "colonialism" which was how the whole thing started. Obviously some people have a different definition of colonialism than I do, one that doesn't require there to be any colonies involved.


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