Alright, as said in my edit above I talked with people in DMs and realized my words weren't exactly the best, and I figured I should break them down and try my best to explain better the actual intentions behind them. The issue I was having was that I was in an analytical mindset when speaking of history, I did not want to speak about certain events and how bad they were in the past, as there is endless discussion on how bad things can get in history. Your comments had completely caught me off guard, and honestly made me a little uncomfortable, when all I wished to do was to discuss the facts of the matter at hand and make some comparisons to history.
So prepare thyself for another, hopefully better wall of text one last time.
Romanization
So to those that may be unaware, Romanization is something the Romans typically attempted of those they conquered. It was the act of effectively assimilating a foreign peoples into the Empire and making them, well, Roman. They had successfully performed this on a number of occasions, including in Gaul. It is a process that often takes generations. It starts by settling their veteran Legionaries in the new conquered territories, making certain a Roman-friendly local government is in power, and bringing a great many advancements that Rome was fortunate to have to these lands. From sewers, to aqueducts, to education, to medical aid, to the more refined culinary arts, to wine, and so on. This had the effect of making the Roman culture more desirable, often, than the original one.
Thus, the populace slowly become Roman, thus the term 'Romanization'. It did fail, on occasion, ironically in the Israeli region (Judea), as the people resisted the idea of Romanization so fully that it backfired.
When I was referencing this, I was in no way suggesting that is what Israel should do, or even could do. I was simply stating that this is one of history's methods to dealing with asymmetrical warfare and guerrilla tactics, you effectively breed your enemies out of their own population. It's not a good thing by any measure, it is indeed a bad thing. However the alternatives, which is what I was mentioning here:
I was stating how Romanization is bad, but I think we may agree that genocide is significantly worse. Far **far** worse. The only other two options I know of, in history that civilizations have chosen, is effectively what the US did to the Native Americans, which is displacement, which appears to be what Israel may attempt to do which is why I was attempting to bring it up. The final option is also extremely brutal, which is to effectively cause so much restriction and suffering upon a local populace, that you *force* a revolution. Effectively you turn what is a civilian populace into a uniformed foe that can more easily be destroyed. You are dividing a populace by 'twisting the screws' and separating out the meek who will remain under your power, and the more volatile who will resist you, like separating out a solution in a flask via boiling. This is also, extremely bad. I was not suggesting these things be done, I am not a military advisor to the IDF, I would never want to see these things happen in my life time. I was merely bringing them to attention as things that have been done, and may be done in the future.
Ancestral Homes Comments
I also, was not arguing for Romanization, and I believe this is where the confusion began. I didn't recognize that you were believing that I was SUGGESTING this at this point in the conversation. When I was referring to 'you' it is just a weird habit I have when referring to these kinds of things, as if placing the person I'm speaking to in the shoes of a leader during this time period. Clearly it added extra confusion to the argument.
When referring to 'these things are incompatible', I meant that there is no possible instance in which I can see the Palestinians and Israelis dropping this issue, especially now. It is an ancient problem, literally thousands of years in the making. Both peoples were originally from this region, as far back as the early bronze age. The region of Israel is both of their ancestral homes, for they were once effectively the same people (Canaanites). They had been conquered many times by various large Empires, but it all changed during the Roman Empire's rule of their lands. Emperor Hadrian had effectively expelled the Jewish people from their ancestral home, and renamed the land to Syria Palaestina after the Bar-Kokhba revolt. So with the Jewish people deposed, and the remaining people now the Palestinians, this was nearly 1800 years ago. So you have 1800 years of this land being owned by the Palestinians, only for the Jewish populace to suddenly return and depose them. Thus this anger, and hatred, is not something that can be so easily solved. When I said "there is no nice way to end this", I imagine it could be misconstrued to be more violent than I intended. I only meant that there is no peaceful resolution that I can personally see as possible anymore, as much as I would prefer one.
"You wouldn't like the answer"
Again, probably bad wording that can be misconstrued, but I meant it literally. History has shown that humanity and civilizations have never shown any sort of insight into the practices we have stuck to over century after century. "so governments can be called out when they do it again" is what I meant by you wouldn't like said answer. Because they have done it. Countless. Countless. Countless times. If I seem cynical when it comes to history, it is because I am. I have read of so many atrocities that they sometimes blur together.
What I meant by "Shouldn't have done it" and "Should have done it better", is that is effectively what it boils down to when these civilizations do these atrocities. In their case they often do a poor job and leave an ancient enemy that grows in strength, such as in the case of the Ancient Germans, or they perform an atrocity that bites them in the ass later (The destruction of Carthage was actually a problem later for Rome, as they later realized how important the positioning of Carthage (Modern day Tunisia) was for trade). Again, no where in this am I advocating for anything of the sort, I'm just analytically providing the reasoning of those civilizations, hopefully to enlighten you as to why they did what they did. If they had left Carthage alive, it would have continued yet further with more wars, so from the perspective of the Roman senate, it was a 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' situation. Rome had lost so much of its population to the numerous Punic wars with Carthage, 20% of ALL Roman males between the ages of 18 and 50 died in a SINGLE battle (Cannae) to Hannibal. So you could imagine the urgency and anger which led to the famous term 'Carthago delenda est' spoken by Cato the Elder.
I am not trying to justify what they did as a good thing, what I meant when I said repeatedly as 'history just is', is that there is no amount of guilt that can bring Carthage back. It just happened, it was, it is, it cannot be changed. It is a lamentable fact of history, like often reading a book with a harrowing ending that makes you sad.
"Blood and soil"
If I am to be completely honest, I didn't even register what you were implying by blood and soil. I kind of glossed over it mainly because it didn't make sense to me at the time as to why you would bring in Nazis into the argument. I never spoke of Nazis, I never brought up the concept of blood and soil, and I don't know why you decided to bring it up. It, once again, made me uncomfortable so I just glossed over it. I should have addressed it, but I just didn't want to talk about it, I was focused more on the subjects I was interested in talking about.
"They let the Germans live, and thus allowed for the migration period to occur which severely fucked over an already weakening Empire"
This is just me stating a cause and effect. By Augustus Caesar granting mercy to the Germans over the ambush at Teutoburgerwald after Germanicus had made his first expedition, Germanicus had asked for a second expedition to Germania in order to 'finish the job' so to speak. Augustus declined Germanicus' second expedition, thus sparing the Germans. This ultimately led to the migration period, with numerous power vacuums, and ultimately the Germanic tribes led way to more anti-Roman tribes. This is what happens in reality when you destroy a bunch of people/things and then just leave, power vacuums occur, and they remain bitter. I am not suggesting it was a good or bad thing that Germanicus was denied his second expedition, I'm just stating what happened.
"It doesn't matter if it's good or bad when it comes to history."
This was me, once again, attempting to steer you away from trying to make the conversation about morality. To me whether something was good or bad doesn't enter in to my mind when I'm analyzing history, because it had already happened, and the circumstances were different then, than now. I have always considered it better to learn 'why' something happens. This, once again, does not mean that I support the bad parts of history. I have come to tears from reading certain excerpts that have placed mental scars upon me, and made me question my own species. However I would rather not bring those up in that conversation, when we're also talking about what could be happening today. It is a harrowing thought to imagine what the future may bring, but the past is already written.
"Moral relativism of killing children"
This comment caught me off guard, and confused me greatly. I did not imagine you would suddenly take a weirdly moralist stance on something that had happened many thousands of years ago, especially when in MY mind I had made no attempt to suggest anything like that. I got frustrated, because while I was trying to analyze history you repeatedly went into 20 questions to try and get me to talk about morality and right/wrong when I simply wanted to talk about history without going into what I considered to be a pointless argument about right/wrong. As I was frustrated, I snapped back with:
Because I was actually surprised that you were trying to pull this into a conversation, for seemingly no reason in my mind. It was as if you thought I was suggesting doing all of those things **today** to the Palestinian or Israeli people. It was so strange, that I didn't even want to humor the question.
The reason why I had brought up 'atom bombs' is because I was going to go into a rant about perspectives in history. How we vaporized two Japanese cities in the name of the 'greater good', and how so many people died so that so many more people wouldn't die. I wanted to explain how history isn't so 'black and white' and that bad things happen with good intentions all the time. However you gave me no chance to even continue with that thought, as you snapped back with:
This proceeded to frustrate me even further, this question was so utterly out of the blue for me, and actually infuriating to me. It was like you were ignoring everything I was attempting to talk about, to try and crucify me for some invisible criteria you thought of. It made me feel yet further uncomfortable, and I really just didn't even want to talk to you anymore, but I continued against my better judgement.
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This was another attempt by me to get you to understand that history isn't black/white. I was going to try and ask you what your preferred solution to these things were, so we could start a dialogue about how hard these decisions could be, and why they might have occurred to otherwise reasonable people. Once again, during this entire conversation, I have not advocated or denied *anything* what so ever.
"History just is"
At this point in the argument I was so frustrated, uncomfortable, and generally just trying what I could to get back onto a reasonable analytical discussion, rather than this side path you were forcing me to be on. I was entirely unaware that you were vetting me, preparing to ban me if I didn't answer in a way that you thought acceptable.
I decided to humor you and answer your question, but I did not want to answer 'yes/no'. I simply didn't. I despise yes/no answers in intellectual conversation because it is incredibly reductionist, and I only wanted to elaborate further. Clearly a mistake, in hindsight, but I couldn't read the room and had no idea of your intentions.
When I said "Pointless, in most cases", I meant that it serves utterly no purpose to the people in power. In most cases it is pointless violence - because sometimes it does benefit those people in power to destroy an entire peoples. That isn't a good thing, I did not want to take a side, as during this entire conversation we had, I was trying to remain as neutral and impartial as possible, which was not to your liking.
"It is something that has been done, continues being done, and will be done. It is an unfortunate reality of the human condition"
This is me effectively condemning our species for this same mistake that is repeated constantly. Not 40 or so years ago, there was a genocide between the Bosnians and Serbs. It just a factor of life that is regrettable and extremely depressing. I didn't want to be depressed, so I didn't want to elaborate much further. "We are deafened to the suffering of those we hate" is my explanation as to **why** it keeps happening over and over. It is so much easier to inflict suffering upon someone you dislike, and be uncaring as to their fate.
"It's talking about something that happened nearly 2,000 years ago" was actually me responding to Jebediah, specifically about the conversation at hand. It was just me basically trying to say "It's not that fucked up, we're talking about things that happened a very long time ago.", but I suppose I wasn't aware of how 'fucked up' it looked. In my mind, I was still just analyzing stuff that happened in the past, and I was unaware of your intentions.
The final line "History has no fucking morals, it just IS" was the final lash out of frustration I had about the course that you had steered this conversation. Since the very beginning I had no interest in debating morality or ethics with you, especially the morality of things that had happened thousands of years ago. It was never my intention to suggest any of the past history as viable, or advocate for anything. My drawing of comparisons to today, were just as an educational illumination to what may or could happen. I do not remotely like the idea of any of this happening again, as it has so many times throughout our history as a species. Had your questions been posed in a different way, I would have answered differently.
I could, if you truly wanted to, talk for hours upon the horrors that we have inflicted upon ourselves. I recently even read a book about Unit 731 of the Japanese Imperial Army, and the horrors they had performed. However, it would just be a depressing conversation, and I didn't want that. It's depressing enough realizing that we may be upon the verge of another conflict, which I had already spoken my displeasure at previously when I posted the video of the IDF effectively trying to absolve themselves of any wrong doing before the fighting even starts.
Ultimately what transpired in the polcon chat was a culmination of frustration and confusion, exacerbated by my inability to explain myself properly, which has been made far worse by current events. I understand fully that these are tense times, it was not my intention to make them seemingly worse. I am upset that you have attempted to paint me as something that I am not, even going so far as to bring up an irrelevant past with Goon which I have stated countless times, openly, in that very discord was wrong. Hopefully we can better understand each other's position now, and that this was a sufficient explanation that I am not what you think I am, I'm just passionate about subjects I love.
I recognize that discord's TOS are an issue with this kind of chatter, and I would have wished for a warning of "This convo is dangerous, enough". I got lost in thought and didn't consider the ramifications of it. I would not want to put the discord at risk, as I very much enjoy speaking to the community and posting memes.
I am sorry for this wall of text, I hope it was more helpful than my first two. In hindsight I should have waited and collected my thoughts the first time before launching the appeal.
