With respect, are you familiar with the acronym JADE (Justify, Argue, Defend, Explain)?
If you feel that you have done something wrong then apologise and move on. Stating the reasons why you were wrong does not help anything.
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Rage issues. We gots 'em. Ever seen Samira getting her butt kicked in a video game? (I’M KIDDING, SAMI, I KNOW YOU ALWAYS KICK MY ARSE DON’T KILL ME AAAAAAAAAUGH!)
Not necessarily true. It can, for example, be used to illustrate to those who observed your behavior that you understand why it was wrong, and how it happened. It’s a reinforcement that ‘this isn’t an insincere, empty apology for something I’ll happily do again’, and an indication that you can work to avoid it in the future. People who do what you’re suggesting, who apologize without showing they understand what was wrong and why… it’s hard to trust that apology.
Understanding is important. Demonstrating it can be, too. Don’t minimize or discount that importance, especially in discussions about, you know… why people have the reactions they do.
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It’s a balance. Sometimes explaining can give the impression that you’re apologising, but are trying to say that you’re a good person really.
You’re a good person if you can recognise when you have done something wrong and can, sincerely, admit to it. I’ll grant sincerity is difficult to project through writing though, like a lot of the more subtle emotions.
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Well, thank you Arrendis for saying more eloquently what was my intent.
I agreed in both what both posters above me said - that ones origins should not be used to disparage them. When I did so, I did so in a fit of emotional upheaval. I acted like an idiot, and I apologize.
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My brother’s penchant for courting controversy aside, I would like to take a moment to address the original message in this thread.
The murder of Madam Karin Midular at the hands of an extremist such as Gerne Broteau was a tragedy, one made ever more so by the nature of a life and work of such esteem was cut short by the actions of a villain. That being said, I do not share the same grief over her death as her family, clan and Tribe do at the loss of the Ray of Matar. This is not because of any lack of compassion on my part, but rather an honest admission that I am incapable of the same level of grief over her loss as many Minmatar because I am not Minmatar.
I cannot empathize to the same extent as the Minmatar over the death of Madam Karin Midular, not due to callousness, but human nature: if I lost someone who was important to me, I would grieve and mourn their loss, but I cannot expect others to understand my pain if the person I lost was a stranger to them. Madam Karin Midular was a stranger to me, and while the Minmatar who live within the Federation would understand fully what her loss meant on a fundamental, personal level, they are feelings I cannot share in.
To attribute a deliberate malice or spite on the entirety of the Federation and its people due to failing to understand, “kin and blood”, from a Minmatar perspective ignores that actions were taken against Gerne Broteau – he was prosecuted and tried. To imply that such was patronizing and arrogant would also ignore that between Broteau’s arrest and sentencing in the Caille district court was under two months, which given the usual time frame of criminal proceedings would mean that his case was expedited on the Judge’s dockets.
To say that the Federation disregarded Republic or Minmatar concerns due to not immediately extraditing Broteau ignores that requiring it do so means the Federation would have to disregard its own laws: Broteau was in the custody of the district of Caille, but a member-state has no power to deal with a foreign power directly, only the Federal government does, but the Federal government cannot extradite a prisoner that was not transferred to them first by a member-state after a trial and sentencing has occurred. The very moment this happened, the Federation did not hide Broteau, it did not shield him, it did not deny the request of the Republic to extradite – it handed him over immediately.
Now all that said, the real tragedy of Colelie was that Madam Karin Midular’s murderer got exactly what he wanted. Gerne Broteau was an avowed racist and extremist, his assassination of Madam Karin Midular precipitated the very suspicion, mistrust, and violence between Gallente and Minmatar that he desired.
I would rather not let such men as Broteau win, and so I at least will admit, while I might not understand or empathize fully with the reasons behind the Republic incursion at Colelie, I will at least accept them as justified.
They were understandable, not justified.
I don’t think any of the Matari in this thread have claimed the Colelie incursions were justified. Indeed if RSS had been doing their job properly they would have had analysts that could have done a proper job of advising on liaising with the Federal justice system and government. What would have been justified would have been a strongly worded request for Tribal & Republican officials to be part of the process, at the least as observers.
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Correct. While the word ‘justified’ was used, it was used in the context of ‘this is how people justified those actions’ not ‘those actions were just or defensible’. Analysis, not excuse.
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I was agreesing to Ms. Rhiannon’s statement here:
That the Republic was justified to feel it had a right to dispense justice for the murder of Madam Karin Midular. If that means the Republic government felt compelled enough to conduct an armed incursion into Federal territory in order to press that claim – so be it. I do think there was a vicarious liability on the part of the Federation over the death of the Ray of Matar.
However, to imply that there was some kind of deliberate malice on the part of the Federation, or that it was simply arrogance that did not have Gerne Broteau handed over immediately ignores what it would have meant for the Federal government to have done so. Would it have been justified hand over a racist, extremist, and murderer like Broteau over to the Republic without trial? Yes, I think it would have been.
If the Federation had done so though, it would have set a dangerous precedent. To not allow due process under the law in the case of Gerne Broteau for justifiable or good reasons means a revocation of his rights under the constitution. If his rights were revoked in that instance, then the question becomes, what other rights might the Federal government repeal and revoke for justifiable and good reasons. The Rule of Law is an essential and foundational principle of Federal democracy, and it is very much an all or nothing concept: if it is not followed in one instance then it might as well not be followed in all of them.
Democracy does not die overnight, but it does die with the slow erosion of rights and liberties for good and justifiable reasons. What the Republic was asking of the Federation in the case of Broteau was to essentially violate its own principles and establish a precedent of the repeal of civil liberties by the Federal government. It was not arrogance or a desire to be patronizing that did not have Broteau extradited prior to his trial under the law, but rather conviction and a deeply held belief that the rule of law must be followed and applied in all instances or not at all.
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I would clarify further that what I accept is that the Republic felt justified in its incursion at Colelie - even if I do not, and cannot feel the same way. Because the alternative is that the Republic would have known such an incursion was unjustified beforehand, yet still did so anyway knowing what they were committing was indefensible.
I would prefer to believe the former, and not the latter from the Republic and its citizens.
I think it’s fair to say that those who gave the order felt justified in the heat of the moment, yes, but likely realized afterwards that their judgment was impaired by intense emotional trauma.
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I consider that an understandable sentiment.
However, the deed has been done, and bickering over the rights and wrongs of Colelie only serves to further the agendas of craven people like Gerne Broteau who desired division and discord. Such division and discord between the citizens of both the Federation and Republic only serves as a distraction from more important matters in my opinion, such as the effective containment of the Amarr Empire and the strategic security risk it poses to us both.
Certainly. The intent, so far as I understand it, wasn’t to rehash Colelie, but to use it to illustrate continuing patterns of behavior and sentiment. The Gallente, for example, seem to feel free even in this thread to lecture us on our own culture, and what the purposes of our government are.
This is not an isolated incident.
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The Gallente, plural, have done this? Is this not a platform for expressing personal opinions? How do individual opinions presented here represent a majority?
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You cannot just “identify yourself” whatever you want to be. You are identified by the analysis of your genotype, by your language, your cultural behavior, cultural education, knowledge and upbringing, phenotype, abilities and loyalty.
Your personal perception doesn’t matter. Only facts do.
For example, the fact that ‘identity’ is a construct of the mind, and nothing else. My mind, your mind, that’s all any label is: a construct of the observing mind. So it can be constructed however that mind chooses to do so.
The fact that you insist on certain criteria for construction of certain labels doesn’t mean others do. And that, too, is a fact.
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The Gallente, plural, have condescended in this thread, yes. And that’s my personal opinion.
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Then all I can say is that you are welcome to your own opinion and perspective.
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Being in majority often means being wrong.
People represent what they are the part of. Being in majority for that is absolutely not necessary. Even counterwise, being in a majority means you are the most abundant and thus insignificant, easily replaceable part.
There exists an old joke:
A Gallentean walks into a pub – How dare they! I am both outraged and offended!
The inherent humour is that while the Federation permits a wide diversity of opinion and beliefs among its citizens by allowing them to define themselves as they wish; it also means those external to it will see whatever they want to see in it and most likely due to that very diversity, have enough examples of that which they might find objectionable to fit into the confirmation bias of their own personal prejudices and stereotypes.
As such, if someone wants to hold a particular stereotype such as, “All Gallente are condescending” then I would say they are welcome to that personal prejudice – it is after all their own prerogative to do so.
However, if I do not care enough about a person or their own prejudices because after all, haters are always going to hate, then I will feel no need to waste an expenditure of time or energy to disabuse notions held by a person that mean nothing to me.
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We do, actually, have pubs with “No foreigners allowed” signs, so, entering them would be indeed offensive.
Or laws, or common sense. There is a thing about freedom: it is a concept that allows people to do things that laws, codes and morals prohibit.
I think I have also pointed elsewhere that defining yourself is an outrageous act of arrogance and weakness. People shall be defined officially, not by themselves.
That’s neither prejudice nor stereotype. It is a conclusion based on observation and knowledge of other gallentean traits. Though I believe it would be more correct to say “Majority of Gallente are condescending”, because any one counter example can easily break that conclusion into being false.
Well, luckily, it’s not my conclusion, so I am not going to defend it, but, taking into account your way of “contradicting” it, I can make my own conclusion that a probability of that claim being true is significantly higher than probability of you being right.
The best way to describe behavior of Federals, thank you.