I’m happy that they rejected Trump and I really support their desire for independence… but Trump’s reign will be absolutely a lot worse than whatever Denmark is doing now. And the link to Denmark is the only thing protecting them at this moment.
Of course there are better and worse colonizers.
I suppose you consider yourself “one of the good ones” right?
Yeah you tell those native people what’s good for them. You know better than them. Those silly native people who have dealt with colonizers for centuries and have all this experience with it they can’t know more than you can. No you’re the good kind of colonizer I’m sure.
You’re at a hospital and you have 5/10 pain. You have two options, one gets you 3/10 pain and the other gets you 7/10 pain. Which is better for your pain situation? Is neither better because neither is 0/10?
I think the issue is they would argue that independence would be a 0/10. Why fight for 3/10 when you can fight for 0?
That still proves their statement false which makes them sound dumb.
And you being such an intelligent doctor can tell the patients how much pain they are experiencing and don’t even need their input right? That sounds ethical.
This isn’t about doctor or patients or colonies or oppression. It’s about the word “better” and how they objectively misused it and undermined what they were trying to express by doing so.
I totally get it. Those stupid silly natives aren’t smart enough to know what words like objectively mean. So it’s up to you to tell them how to feel and think. I understand what you’re laying down. They’re just not civilized enough, they’re like children to you right? So obviously it’s up to you to do what’s best for them since they couldn’t possibly know for themselves. Totally understand.
They can all be shit but one can still be more shit than the other. I don’t want to lose one eye but I’d rather that than go fully blind.
Though the argument here is more that “we are the better colonizer, trust us bro” should never be taken as a reason to want a new colonizer to take over.
This is a rather poor argument against the U.S. takeover of Greenland. If neither Denmark nor the U.S. is better, then it makes no difference if the U.S. takes over.
Edit: not sure why I’m being downvoted. I would appreciate someone explaining the headline to me because I honestly don’t get it.
It makes all the difference if you’re the slightest bit interested in consent.
can you please explain how that relates to the argument? For sure I think consent is important, but I don’t see how it relates to the headline.
It’s not about the headline, it’s about your statement:
If neither Denmark nor the U.S. is better, then it makes no difference if the U.S. takes over.
It makes all the difference to the people who live there, who don’t consent to becoming American. The question isn’t, “who can better administer the landmass and its populace”, the question is, who has the right to? The population is not consenting to America imperialism, so it makes all the difference to them. Consent matters.
Yes obviously it would be terrible if the U.S. took over Greenland. Though I don’t think Denmark having “the right” to colonise is what the people who said that were intending to convey.
If both were equally bad, then a US takeover would still come with a lot of violence and upheaval for absolutely no gain. If their relationship with the Danish has more or less settled into some arrangement (however fair or unfair it may be), uprooting it all and forcing them to readjust to their new overlords would just be a waste.
Edit: To add some more points from the actual article:
“We’ve been able to work together based on mutual respect. We’ve been able to maintain a zone of peace in the Arctic even through difficult times before,” she [Sara Olsvig, chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council] said
If they have found a respectful working relationship where they have some measure of self-determination (albeit not as much as they’d wish), it seems very likely that the US would be the worse colonizer. That doesn’t make the Danes saints, but the chances of more self-determination certainly are better with them, given Denmark passed a law that allows them to become fully independent.
Laakkuluk Williamson, an Iqaluit resident who’s Greenlandic on her mother’s side of the family, said she fears Greenland becoming the Arctic equivalent of American Samoa or Puerto Rico: U.S. overseas territories where residents lack constitutional protections and representation in Congress.
As it stands now, Greenland sends representatives to the Danish Parliament and recently (2008/9) has won some important political concessions in governing themselves, including the legal process I mentioned for full independence their government can trigger. They also have an independent representation in the EU and the US.
Can you imagine Trump sustaining that status?
Neither can I.
A thought experiment:
Suppose, for something to “better” or “worse”, it would have to surpass some absolute threshold of “goodness”. This would mean “betterness” is no longer transitive with “worseness”.
If this were the case, then it’s possible for American colonization to still be worse than Danish colonization without Danish colonization being better than American colonization. Neither would meet the requirement for being “better” and as such are incomparable, but both would be meet the requirement of being “worse” and can be compared in that respect.
OK but that’s not how people generally use “better” or “worse.” I think transitivity – and reflexivity – are generally respected by people’s usage of the terms.
That’s just silly. Would it be better to have someone break one of your arms or two?
Eh… One.
Or… two, if you have an Oedipus complex.
Nice
