Ya know, if post Civil War reconstruction had actually happened and we'd de-confederated the South like we de-nazi'd Germany and Japan the GOP wouldnt exist today.

[–] kashifshah@lemmy.sdf.org 12 points 4 months ago (1 children)

And we’d probably have actual human rights laws in America, instead of means-tested, drug-tested government aid.

[–] freagle@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Probably not. The North didn't see enslaved people through some sort of egalitarian lens. They made their money financializing the slave trade.

[–] kashifshah@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Fair point. I wonder what would have happened if they’d have amended the constitution so that states could actually secede, instead of having a war. I guess eventually international war instead of civil war?

[–] freagle@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

It would have immediately created conflict over natural resources. There was no alternative. They had to unify and they had to get the capitalists on both sides into an alliance in order to proceed.

[–] kashifshah@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

So, given that global society has advanced 150 years or so, what lessons can we take away from Brexit, USSR, Chechoslovakia, etc. on how to safely split a country or governmental organization?

[–] freagle@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Give a nation of people their own state on their native land. That's what the USSR did when it was founded. They worked to give every nation of people's their own government and self-determination, they gave them all the right to secede, they elevated their national heritages

The USA, however, is a colony that went rogue. It's people are not a nation - there are many nations present. The nations that were here before the Europeans arrived need to be given full sovereignty, the American descendants of slaves are a nation unto themselves and they need the right to self-determination. The many persons of the various European nations need to lose their sovereignty in this place. That national self-determination is how it becomes sustainable and effective. Letting colonists run their little fascist fiefdoms is not and will never be a solution.

[–] kashifshah@lemmy.sdf.org -3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

True social justice would be to send everyone packing, then?

[–] freagle@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Sovereignty transfer doesn't mean displacement. If European settlers want national self-determination, they can go back to their nation-states, or they can live under the sovereignty of another nation. Social justice requires that the colonizers cede back the power over the land that they took through centuries of genocidal violence.

Edit: also good to note, restorative justice would be for all the European settlers to return the land to a healthy state under the dominance of the indigenous peoples of the land. Retributive justice would be for the indigenous peoples to invade and violently occupy Europe for 600 years. No one is even asking for restorative justice at this point, just an end to the genocide and occupation.

[–] kashifshah@lemmy.sdf.org 0 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Ah, well, I’m for any or all of the above, at this point. My preference is the peaceful dismantling of colonial nation-states, a la USSR or Brexit

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