Some of the most successful people are those who learn from their mistakes.
But admitting you’re wrong does not seem to be a natural human trait.
And it’s unrealistic to expect everything to be resolved by compromise. If a
store has a sign “no shirt, no shoes, no service”, do you compromise? Yes, by
going to a different store.
The whole thing about not thinking it was a mistake because it was resolved by
force is interesting. Slavery and racism aside, as a person who grew up in the
north, I’ve never understood why some people seem to reject the idea that the
Confederacy lost the war and the issue is settled.
Germany didn’t accept the outcome of WWI, but both Germany and Japan seem to
have accepted they lost WWII and the issue was settled. At least until
recently, with a resurgence of neo Nazis in Germany among later generations.
Is it that way with wanting to reject or revisit the outcome of the Civil War?
I don’t feel like it’s just a recent thing. 40 years ago I would visit certain
states and get the feeling the Civil War was viewed as just a temporary
setback. And in Texas, sometimes I got the feeling that statehood was viewed
as a trial period and they might call the whole thing off.
From: AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com> On Behalf Of Bill Prince
Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2020 10:41 AM
To: af@af.afmug.com
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] OT - political
Maybe that's the issue with slavery. The north won the war and emancipated the
slaves, except parts of the south never admitted it was a mistake (and parts of
the north as well).
bp
<part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com>
On 7/20/2020 7:16 PM, Forrest Christian (List Account) wrote:
I would argue that sometimes the correct compromise is actually for one side to
realize they were wrong and to abandon the practice. Murder, Slavery, etc.
I also realize that often these are the types of compromises which don't happen
without forceful action.
On Mon, Jul 20, 2020, 7:18 PM Adam Moffett <dmmoff...@gmail.com
<mailto:dmmoff...@gmail.com> > wrote:
What would be the reasonable compromise between one caveman's right to kill and
other's not to be killed?
Perhaps "kill whoever you want on Sunday, otherwise no killing"
On 7/20/2020 7:29 PM, Forrest Christian (List Account) wrote:
Since this doesn't really reply to anyone's specific points, I figured I'd just
post this separately in the thread.
I've recently realized that pretty much all of the conflicts we see are where
two sides 'rights' come in conflict with each other.
Back before there were rules, I'm sure there was one group that thought killing
other humans was just fine and it was their right. Another group just wanted
to live their lives without being worried about being killed by other humans,
and it was their right to do so. When those groups came in conflict their
'rights' didn't match so a rule had to be made - in this case, 'the right to
live is more important than the right to kill others'. So we now have laws
against murdering others.
What I think people miss is that 'rights' are really nothing but a construction
of societal norms and laws built up over years. You have the right to not be
killed (life). But it could have just as easily been "you have a right to
kill anything you want, including other humans". Of course, I have a feeling
that a society with that as a right might not have a long lifecycle...
As time has progressed, more and more things have moved into the realm of
'rights'. Right to free speech, right to peacefully assemble, and so on.
In our current situation, there seem to be several 'rights' being fought over
right now. Whether my desire to not wear a mask is more important than the
desire of society to reduce the transmission of a virus. Whether the color of
your skin should determine if you are more or less likely to be shot or abused
by a police officer in some areas. And on and on and on.
If you look at the civil rights movement, a lot of the protests (peaceful or
violent) came about where 'rights' were in conflict. For example, the rights
of black people to be non-segregated vs the rights of the white people to not
want black people to share their facilities/businesses. At some point, there
is going to be conflict and disagreement. In an ideal society, one would hope
that you could come to an agreement that both sides would at least be equally
unhappy about without resorting to protests and civil disobedience. But when
you're the party who's perceived rights are being trampled on, it's kinda hard
to get the people who are doing the trampling to listen, since you'd end up
trampling on their rights if things changed. In this circumstance, often some
sort of protest or refusal to go along with the societal norms is unfortunately
needed to bring the topic up to the light. Thus you saw the lunch counter
sit-ins and the freedom riders and similar.
The ignition for a lot of the current events seems to be the George Floyd
death. This is obviously a conflict between the perceived rights the police
officers believed they had, and the right of a black man to not be killed at
the hands of those officers. And obviously, this has been bubbling under the
surface for some time. There are a lot of these types of conflicts going on
right now... one doesn't have to look very far to find some.
I think to bring this back to another point of this discussion made by others,
it seems like a lot of this country has lost the ability to stop and listen to
both sides to understand what 'right' it is that the other side thinks is more
important than your right you're not happy with being curtailed. And to come
to some sort of reasonable agreement.
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