I see it being less about an agenda and more about acknowledging the precedents that history sets for the future. The citizenship issue you cite doesn't apply to those who don't get to make the same choices now. But maybe there are some useful ideas in there for those who seek both to improve the system and establish a more humane way of dealing with fellow human beings.
I see it being less about an agenda and more about acknowledging the precedents that history sets for the future. The citizenship issue you cite doesn't apply to those who don't get to make the same choices now. But maybe there are some useful ideas in there for those who seek both to improve the system and establish a more humane way of dealing with fellow human beings.
History matters, but mostly on its own terms, not adulterated by the views and ideologies of later times projected back onto it.
From the dawn of human civilization until the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, Right of Conquest was accepted as a legitimate method to change borders under International Law. Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Turkey may have taken issue with my calling 1919 the end date, but my response would be that those border changes were approved multilaterally by the Paris Peace Conference, as all internationally recognized frontier changes have been ever since. International Law changed permanently (we hope) in 1919, and neither the Mexican War nor any other war prior to the First World War has anything to teach us about modern war (including the current one in Ukraine), let alone a subject as unconnected as immigration policy. Immigration policy can stand on its own.
Thx for the info on international law. I didn't know the "right of conquest" was delegtimized at Versailles. So now borders are approved by a multilateral conference?
[neither the Mexican War nor any other war prior to the First World War has anything to teach us about modern war (including the current one in Ukraine)]
I can't go along with that. There are plenty of historical conflicts we can still draw lessons from. Our own civil war, where the larger nation with more men and a bigger economy eventually ground down a smaller nation with better generals and many early battlefield victories comes to mind. Fortunately we in the west seem to be heeding that lesson as we do much more to support Ukraine and weaken Russia than anyone external did in the Civil War for the South (a good thing, too).
I would dispute that the the Confederacy had better generals. Better tacticians, perhaps, but strategically, Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Meade, and their immediate subordinates didn't just overwhelm Lee and company -- they outgeneraled them, too.
I'd stand by the point that wars prior to WWI have relatively little to teach us too, but that's irrelevant to my main point: that the Mexican War has NOTHING to teach us about immigration policy.
Yes, the Union generals in the first two years, especially McClellan, were pretty bad. He was good at training them, but not in leading them into battle.
And I should have said "outside military science". I don't question the ongoing value of studying the generalship of Napoleon -- or Caesar and Hannibal, for that matter. But the topic arose in reference to Sociology and International Law, and I do think that conflicts prior to the delegitimizing of the Right of Conquest as an organizing principle have little to teach us on those topics.
I see it being less about an agenda and more about acknowledging the precedents that history sets for the future. The citizenship issue you cite doesn't apply to those who don't get to make the same choices now. But maybe there are some useful ideas in there for those who seek both to improve the system and establish a more humane way of dealing with fellow human beings.
History matters, but mostly on its own terms, not adulterated by the views and ideologies of later times projected back onto it.
From the dawn of human civilization until the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, Right of Conquest was accepted as a legitimate method to change borders under International Law. Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Turkey may have taken issue with my calling 1919 the end date, but my response would be that those border changes were approved multilaterally by the Paris Peace Conference, as all internationally recognized frontier changes have been ever since. International Law changed permanently (we hope) in 1919, and neither the Mexican War nor any other war prior to the First World War has anything to teach us about modern war (including the current one in Ukraine), let alone a subject as unconnected as immigration policy. Immigration policy can stand on its own.
Thx for the info on international law. I didn't know the "right of conquest" was delegtimized at Versailles. So now borders are approved by a multilateral conference?
[neither the Mexican War nor any other war prior to the First World War has anything to teach us about modern war (including the current one in Ukraine)]
I can't go along with that. There are plenty of historical conflicts we can still draw lessons from. Our own civil war, where the larger nation with more men and a bigger economy eventually ground down a smaller nation with better generals and many early battlefield victories comes to mind. Fortunately we in the west seem to be heeding that lesson as we do much more to support Ukraine and weaken Russia than anyone external did in the Civil War for the South (a good thing, too).
I would dispute that the the Confederacy had better generals. Better tacticians, perhaps, but strategically, Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Meade, and their immediate subordinates didn't just overwhelm Lee and company -- they outgeneraled them, too.
I'd stand by the point that wars prior to WWI have relatively little to teach us too, but that's irrelevant to my main point: that the Mexican War has NOTHING to teach us about immigration policy.
I should have said better generals at the start.
As for wars prior to WWI, I'm still not buying, but I'll definitely grant you the point about immigration policy.
Yes, the Union generals in the first two years, especially McClellan, were pretty bad. He was good at training them, but not in leading them into battle.
And I should have said "outside military science". I don't question the ongoing value of studying the generalship of Napoleon -- or Caesar and Hannibal, for that matter. But the topic arose in reference to Sociology and International Law, and I do think that conflicts prior to the delegitimizing of the Right of Conquest as an organizing principle have little to teach us on those topics.