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Comment by sophacles | Hacker News Reader

You have a distinctly queer idea of physics. Just because many many assholes in the past have used violence to steal land, does not require any of the following:

* current or future people honor the validity of those assholes' decisions and actions * current or future people choosing to make right the bad things their ancestors did in the past, and giving back what was taken. * current or future people changing the structure of governance to allow groups to co-exist

All of these things are possible actions humans can take. Physics does not stop it - post war "happenings" are just human decisions. So why does your post read like the current situation is immutable just because it was preceded by war?

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Theft is a concept that exists within a legal or normative framework. There is no such thing as theft outside of an established framework. If you want to argue that America unjustly took Native American land, you basically have to start from first principles.

This is kind of the same point I was making. I'm not trying to prove that anything was just or not in some grand scheme of things.

I'm arguing that "what happens after war" is not some fixed law of nature, but a human decision. Human decisions are not laws of nature, they can be changed. Historical precedent can be a useful tool, but it's not the same as "something immutable we must adhere to".

Because that is how this world works. You may be new out of the womb intellectually speaking, but if a child shows up at my doorstep one day and tells me I'm on his ancestors land from 300 years prior and I must vacate the home I bought and have legal title too, on the land my ancestors fought and bled over 300 years prior, even if they were assholes about it at the time, I have zero obligation to hand it over because of feelings.

That is why. You may not find it fair, but there does come past a point where the only fair thing to the present society, that had no hand in the original act, is to "keep on trucking" as they say.

This argument translated to other situations:

* we can't just end slavery - this is not how this world works. There have been slaves forever. We can't change slavery because of feelings.

* we can't give women the right to vote. This is not how this world works, women are supposed to be property of their men. We can't just let them do it because of feelings.

* we can't try to have a geneva conventio. This is not how this world works, excessive torture and cruelty have always been part of war. We cant just expect or troops to show humanity.

* we can't give land ownership rights to commoners. This is not how the world works, nobility has always had special privelege to own a thing. We cant just expect to let lesser humans have land because of feelings.

Finally: if your argument applies equally to a pro- and anit-Isreal stance - it's existence both proves and violates your exact point at the same time, depending on which stance you are already more inclined to.

Lol at your last point. It works very well for the Jews. Not so well for those who oppose Israel. The initial way that Israel acquired the land was by ancestral right, but it’s since defended it by war. Additionally, most of the land that is disputed never had any legal ownership as recognized by any ruling government.

The rest of your post is utter nonsense and not worth addressing.

Seems like all of your points conflate current/ongoing wrongs with past wrongs. At some point things that happened in the past are best left there, read about in history books.

My examples were all historical, as a way to highlight that some things we now think of as obvious, basic rights could have (and did have) opposing arguments consisting of "this is the way this world works". The point being: when it comes to human laws, it's not actually a sound argument.

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