Reply #44: Are you talking about the land inherited from Spain?

[Igel]

Land seized by Aztecs? By Mayans? Na-Dene?

So many conquerors, so many oddly adopted ethnic identities to identify others as Other, so many partial readings of history to justify one's sense of victimhood and supremacy.

Does one claim dignity because one's genes at some point oppressed another set of genes? Mayan, Aztec, Olmec? Does a regional empire in the Yucatan merit claiming land inhabited by peoples far from those empires, with no connection to that empire? I've had discussions with people here that seem to think that the Aztecs were in S. Calif., or the Mayans in Arizona. Surely the Tohono O'odham resent the language unfairly imposed by their overlords, and desire reunification with their long-lost brethren in the Yucatan? Surely the Chumash revel in the Mexican part of their history? Hmmm ... maybe not. Reduction ad absurdum, part I.

Because I'm Celtic in ancestry, do I get to go and tell the French to get off my land, land that was wrested from the Celts by the Romans, with an additional Germanic adstratum? Maybe the Greeks should kick the Turks out of Asia Minor. And the Palestinians certainly deserved being removed from Palestine: the indigenous population largely eradicated, that leaves the next claimants in chronological line. Oops. That's not very progressive. Sorry. Reduction ad absurdum, part II.

The Mexican empire was an imperialist empire; why people that decide to call themselves progressive defend imperialism and colonialism is beyond me, but apparently there are higher, more pure motives in play. I'll call it an empire, since it was a large fragment of a colonial-era empire inherited from that country, with much of its territory settled by foreign, disparate indigenous peoples that never gave their consent, and so sparsely settled that it even advertised abroad for immigrants at one point. The brotherhood of like-minded indigenous peoples now read into such a creature is an exquisite, self-serving myth; granted, people need their myths, but it's not my myth so I don't much care. It was no more just, in principle, than the British empire. Its native population wasn't as diminished, nor driven out, as that in North America, at least in part, because of differences in colonial policy largely dictated by immigration flow, cultural differences, revenue demands, and Catholic pressure for converts. I've seen Native Americans in the US defend the US, but never try to draw justification or solace from how their ancestors were treated by the US government or many Americans. Then again it's been shown that ethnic differences can be a strong motivating force, underpinning much apparently irrational human behavior.

As for the morality of one empire fighting with another empire over illegitimately held territory, I'll leave that bit of philosophizing for those better versed in sophistry and casuistry than I.