[ExI] What the France!?

Lee Corbin lcorbin at rawbw.com
Tue Apr 7 05:58:17 UTC 2009


Eschatoon Magic wrote:

> Many Muslim residents of France are citizens -- on which legal basis
> could, or should, be expelled?
> 
> There is no defensible legal basis of course. There is only one
> precedent in the modern history of Europe for expelling and abusing
> citizens based on their religion and ethnic origin, and I hope we have
> learned the lesson and don't wish to repeat it.

Ah! What a welcome relief! An actual *argument*, composed
of rational sentences, one right after the other. Thanks,
Giulio!

I totally concede that there is no legal basis in any
established *western* nation for mass deportations.
(The U.S. did manage to deport numerous criminals in
the old days, and I assume that the new laws that were
passed to make this possible didn't conflict very much
with existing ones.)

> Might is usually right -- but it creates very dangerous
 > precedents.

I also had previously conceded the risks involved in
such a move. To me, it's a balancing of risks, that's all.

> If Muslim citizens of France become a majority in the next
 > decades,_they_ may decide to expel non-Muslims on the
 > basis of might is right.

You seem to have joined my side of the debate! Look at
the logic here: I am advocating a move that would completely
*nullify* the possibility that you bring up, namely that
a Muslim majority may act in an unprecedented way against
the non-Muslims. Unprecedented, that is, in a western nation!

So you seem to be arguing that if the French were to come
*close* to expelling them, or if they were to talk about
it too much, then this would only increase the chances of
them being on the receiving end in the future.

What's a *logical* analogy? It's like, say, for a small
tribe of American Indians to fail to go kill a murderer
among them because (1) murder is wrong (2) if we do kill
the murderer, then that will only encourage him to do
more killing.

Well. Okay, I admitted an improvement. Let me try again:
It's like arguing (1) for us to go kill someone is wrong
(2) if we debate whether or not to go kill Long Knife
then that will only make him angry, and so (3) more
people---namely us---will die when Long Knife and his
growing sons get capable of taking us all out.

Of course, no American Indian tribe who reasoned like
that would have survived long, having been replaced by
vigorous homicidal maniacs long ago. At one point or
another, many tribal members strove towards, or stumbled
onto an ESS (Evolutionarily Stable Strategy). And in
such a circumstance, Long Knife would know that his
days were numbered.

Lee




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