Thanks for a very thoughtful article. Your remark that today, people are more concerned about "who said that?" than they are about what was said, is spot on! Reminds me of the man-on-the-street interviews where the interviewer says "The president said XYZ (outrageous, shocking, politically incorrect) thing. What do you think about that?" And the man on the street responds "Why, that's clearly outrageous, racist, stupid! The president should be impeached for saying that! It shows what an idiot he is!" And then the interviewer responds "Really? Hmmm. That's interesting. See, I said "The president said..." but I never said WHICH president said this "outrageously racist" thing. In fact it was not today's president, but another, recent president of the opposite party, whose Tee-Shirt you are now wearing."
Then, after a brief look of shock, and "Oh shoot, I've been trapped!" type expression, comes the man/woman on the street's response. "Um, er, well yes, I think I could see how he might have said that. Y'see that whole situation is nuanced, complicated, and if you dig deeply enough, it's actually a perfectly legitimate thing for that president to say."
Uh huh. Right...
Anyway, back to Greenland. Turns out, Greenland has never been a "country." Greenland has always been a possession of another country. Yes, it has always been a place where some hearty souls have lived; scattered tiny clans of Paleo Inuits, Norsemen, and "Thules." And there were times of rough climate change when absolutely nobody lived there.
Greenland has never had her own King, her own Armies, borders, her own sovereignty. She's the largest island in the world. She is about 850,000 square miles, 80% covered by a sheet of ice, only 20% habitable, but the total land area of all developed towns combined is less than 13 square miles. She has no trees, except in a tiny valley of about 10 square miles. In a sense, Greenland is a rock, covered with ice, and few people, and has never been a country, ever. She still isn't.
I have some friends who bought an entire island in the Caribbean Sea. Did they purchase a "country?" Nope. They bought a rock, which has sometimes been a home to small populations, and sometimes not. It has never been a country. it still isn't.
When people say "Donald Trump is wrong to want to buy Greenland," my thought is "Yeah, right. He should do the respectable thing, the traditional thing, and send a navy and army there to conquer it and steal it." Would that make people happier? See the honorable thing about "buying" a land, is that "buying" requires consent of two willing parties. It is a voluntary exchange. It is inherently peaceful (if done right).
Haha, yes! The man-on-the-street interview is the most obvious illustration of this. Everything hinges on *who* said it.
And once you notice that, the Greenland reaction looks upside-down. If buying territory is absurd or immoral, the alternative is… what, exactly? Taking it by force (which is a far more common historical norm).
By that standard, buying territory is a much more restrained and civilized option. Pretending otherwise requires ignoring most of human history.
Yup. We bought Alaska. We bought the Louisiana territory. We bought the USVI. Yah, maybe it would have been better to send troops to kill people, and steal the lands, you know, like Europeans do; Spain, Portugal, Britain, France, Germany, Netherlands, the socialist leaning countries of today who are so virtuous, but circling the drain in their death spirals. Or maybe like Japan, who feels ZERO guilt about the horrors of their conquest of Asia in the 30s and 40s. I don't recall any of them just buying lands. I have a hard time understanding how they all were more virtuous than the USA lawfully, and peacefully purchasing lands.
Ron,
Thanks for a very thoughtful article. Your remark that today, people are more concerned about "who said that?" than they are about what was said, is spot on! Reminds me of the man-on-the-street interviews where the interviewer says "The president said XYZ (outrageous, shocking, politically incorrect) thing. What do you think about that?" And the man on the street responds "Why, that's clearly outrageous, racist, stupid! The president should be impeached for saying that! It shows what an idiot he is!" And then the interviewer responds "Really? Hmmm. That's interesting. See, I said "The president said..." but I never said WHICH president said this "outrageously racist" thing. In fact it was not today's president, but another, recent president of the opposite party, whose Tee-Shirt you are now wearing."
Then, after a brief look of shock, and "Oh shoot, I've been trapped!" type expression, comes the man/woman on the street's response. "Um, er, well yes, I think I could see how he might have said that. Y'see that whole situation is nuanced, complicated, and if you dig deeply enough, it's actually a perfectly legitimate thing for that president to say."
Uh huh. Right...
Anyway, back to Greenland. Turns out, Greenland has never been a "country." Greenland has always been a possession of another country. Yes, it has always been a place where some hearty souls have lived; scattered tiny clans of Paleo Inuits, Norsemen, and "Thules." And there were times of rough climate change when absolutely nobody lived there.
Greenland has never had her own King, her own Armies, borders, her own sovereignty. She's the largest island in the world. She is about 850,000 square miles, 80% covered by a sheet of ice, only 20% habitable, but the total land area of all developed towns combined is less than 13 square miles. She has no trees, except in a tiny valley of about 10 square miles. In a sense, Greenland is a rock, covered with ice, and few people, and has never been a country, ever. She still isn't.
I have some friends who bought an entire island in the Caribbean Sea. Did they purchase a "country?" Nope. They bought a rock, which has sometimes been a home to small populations, and sometimes not. It has never been a country. it still isn't.
When people say "Donald Trump is wrong to want to buy Greenland," my thought is "Yeah, right. He should do the respectable thing, the traditional thing, and send a navy and army there to conquer it and steal it." Would that make people happier? See the honorable thing about "buying" a land, is that "buying" requires consent of two willing parties. It is a voluntary exchange. It is inherently peaceful (if done right).
Thanks for listening to my ramblings...
Ronald D Stauffer
(Ron Stauffer's Dad)
Haha, yes! The man-on-the-street interview is the most obvious illustration of this. Everything hinges on *who* said it.
And once you notice that, the Greenland reaction looks upside-down. If buying territory is absurd or immoral, the alternative is… what, exactly? Taking it by force (which is a far more common historical norm).
By that standard, buying territory is a much more restrained and civilized option. Pretending otherwise requires ignoring most of human history.
Yup. We bought Alaska. We bought the Louisiana territory. We bought the USVI. Yah, maybe it would have been better to send troops to kill people, and steal the lands, you know, like Europeans do; Spain, Portugal, Britain, France, Germany, Netherlands, the socialist leaning countries of today who are so virtuous, but circling the drain in their death spirals. Or maybe like Japan, who feels ZERO guilt about the horrors of their conquest of Asia in the 30s and 40s. I don't recall any of them just buying lands. I have a hard time understanding how they all were more virtuous than the USA lawfully, and peacefully purchasing lands.