nobody is talking about whether it is a just law. I already spelled that out to you; it was never the topic. try to keep up.
You wrote that there was no wrongdoer in the case of Europeans taking the land from the native americans. That's an argument that is a matter of justice. You made the ethical decision that nothing was wrong with it. So don't tell me it's not a matter of ethics.
whether it is ethical is not what you disputed. you made an analogy in your initial dispute about laws, not ethics. we will revisit it since you easily lose track of things: the context of your question exists within the existing laws of the United States, that say no, it is not rightfully yours. thus your analogy was not about ethics, because it wasn't a question of right or wrong, that being would you be morally correct to do so. you asked whether you would have the right, i.e. authority to claim it as yours because you took it. that is a issue of laws. ethics are not laws. you don't even grasp your own argument.
While I had meant to imply that it was a question of morality, even if it were to be interpreted from a legal perspective, it is still analogous, because for a country to aggressively attack another country is still a violation of international law.
really? that International Law existed when the settlers took the land from the Indians? if not, it isn't an issue of international law. if so, it validates what I said -- the law only has meaning if it can be enforced, and if the the body that created the international law could not enforce it against the might of the english settlers, the law had no power or authority and was meaningless. I will make it simple for you. let's say the Native Americans or an International Law declared the Native Americans have the right to the land because they were there first. the English settlers did not recognize that right, and the Native Americans or International Law did not have the power to enforce it, and the rights they claimed to have were limited to the extent to which they could enforce it, which was not much. which brings us to your scenario, which you think was analogous to the Native Americans situation but actually is not. My money belongs to me because the government of the United States says it does, and they have the power and authority to enforce that declaration (see the difference with the Native Americans, which did not have the power and authority to protect the rights to the land they claim to have had?). unless you have the ability to resist the government's laws, your action of taking my money would violate the law and my rights, which the government has the ability to enforce. that isn't even a remotely similar scenario as the settlers taking the land from the Indians because no rights had been granted to them (as opposed to rights which have been granted to me) and nobody had the power or authority to protect those rights for the Native Americans (unlike the backing of the government of the United States which I have to protect my rights given to me by that government).
It's an ANALOGY. International law did not exist at that time, and there were countless atrocities against the native americans, africans who were brought here as slaves, as well as many other groups. When I ask a question like, if I rob you at gunpoint and take your money, is it rightfully mine... I am asking your ethical opinion. I am not asking what the laws are. I know what the laws are. I asked your ethical opinion as a response to your own ethical musings that the European Settlers did no wrongdoing towards the native americans. That was the context in which I asked the question. It's not like you're a lawyer whom I've hired for legal advice because I'm considering robbing people at gunpoint. You have to respond to the question in the context in which it was intended.
Also, why do you think international law exists today... it is to stop the kinds of atrocities that were occurring before international law did exist... the kind of atrocities you seem keen to rationalize. Do you not fail to realize that you are putting the cart before the horse and saying that something is ethical simply because there was no law put in place against it??? Anyways, that is it for me tonight... you are relentless, man, no matter how little sense you make, you never stop... and you are dead wrong, on top of it. But I'm going to sleep. P.S. Stick to the Jets. A lot of the stuff you write there is stupid as well, but at least football is less serious.
when you are asking the question "rightfully mine," you are asking an equal question of fairness as you are legal entitlement, so you aren't inherently asking an ethics question, you are equally asking a legal question. if you don't understand the terms you use, that is your problem. but the legality can't be excluded when it is a relevant element to the scenario you presented. if you want to avoid that conflict, it is up to you to make a better analogy in which there is no conflict. but the analogy you made is weak because the scenarios have different factors that differentiate them. make a better analogy. no, I am not doing anything of the sort. I am not making an ethical judgement at all on the scenario. huge difference. try reading my post you quoted originally. I said there was no wrongdoer in the scenario, but that doesn't mean the opposite -- that they were right. but you can't take that statement in isolation, it has meaning n the context of the entire post, which is clearly not taking the side of right or wrong, but simply whether someone had the right to claim ownership to the land to begin with. The Native Americans had no right to the land. whether it was wrong to kill them is a completely different topic. problem is you are confusing the two different topics and not addressing what I actually stated to begin with. which brings us back to your bad analogy. absent of the atrocity of the death of the Native Americans, which I was not discussing, and only discussing the concept of the whether they had a right to the land, your analogy fails miserably. they had no legal right to the land but I have legal right to my money, so the scenarios are completely different and not analogous at all. if you want to discuss whether it is right or wrong to kill the Native Americans, which you have now apparently turned your argument towards, than that is simply an irrelevant argument to my post which was strictly about ownership of the land, not how it was obtained. someone not smart enough to grasp the difference between two different topics and continues to confuse the two has no ground to claim anyone's posts are stupid.
Any rational person would realize that I was asking an ethical question. Since you, sir, appear to be far from rational, you can be excluded from the equation. You wrote that saying there was no wrongdoer was not an opinion on ethics. Too funny. You can't even make this stuff up, lol.
"If someone calls me a name that I say offends me, but insists, "I mean it with honor and respect, Alison. You're a c--t," how am I supposed to feel?"
no, I said because I was saying there was no right or wrong in the scenario (the two required tenants of ethics), it is not an issue of ethics. so when I said no wrongdoer, I also was saying there was no "rightdoer" when taken in the context of the entire statement, because there was no right or wrong in the scenario. you made the illogical leap to conclude that if there was no wrong, there must be a right. that just isn't so. once again you simply fail to grasp a very simple premise. you can blame that on being tired, but stupidity is more likely the cause.
Except it was the invaders who made the aggressive act of invading the territories. So if you say that no wrong was done then that is inherently an ethical judgment in favor of the invaders. Same as a court of law, you have guilty/not guilty. A Not Guilty judgment is still an ethical judgment - it is a judgment of innocence. That is the judgment you make in this scenario, and it is inherently an ethical judgment.
no, not guilty is not a judgement of innocence, hence why it is "Not Guilty," not "innocent of the charges." Not Guilty means you could have committed the crime, but there was not enough evidence or the prosecution failed to make a strong case. the fact that you are even remotely attempting to make the claim that Not Guilty equates to innocence is just statement of stupidity number 111 in this brief exchange. and same with ethics. ethics is about right or wrong, but it doesn't prevent anyone from declaring their is no right or wrong. at this point you have shown not only an inability to grasp simple concepts, but also a dependence on reducing complex scenario into simple black and whites, such as Not Guilty equating to innocence. and the same with ethics. I can say they invaders were neither right or wrong in invading the land. nothing about your belief in an absolute ethical principal requires me to do so. so it is sheer fucking stupidity to jump to the conclusion that saying there was no wrong inherently means it was right. no, you simpleton, there could be a large gray area in between that you can't grasp because you can't comprehend complex situations and have to reduce them to their simplest forms.
In a court case, not guilty means that they failed to prove that the crime was committed. In this instance, it is already fact that the crimes have been committed. As a matter of fact, Obama signed a bill of apology for the US's actions just a couple of years ago. So if you say that there was no wrongdoing, you are dead wrong. There was plenty of wrongdoing, and it was all done with the intention of gaining the native americans' land. And of course that is an ethical judgment. As for your attitude, it is arrogant and absurd. But there is no stopping you, you seem compelled to say nasty bullshit no matter what, which is a testament to your character. Time to grow up. This will be my last post here for the sake of the entire message board since it clearly just inspires you to write more and more idiotic stuff. Good riddance.
irrelevant. we were talking about the concept of guilt and innocence against the back drop of a not guilty verdict. when you asserted that not guilty equated to innocence, it had nothing to do with native americans. which is simply an opinion, which you are entitled to, just as it is my opinion that there was no right or wrong in the scenario. as opinions, neither of us can be right or wrong, so even your assertion that I am dead wrong has no merit.
Native Americans had no conceptualization of land ownership as defined then/today, so that point is moot. Seriously though, Washington Wetbacks has a nice ring to it.
