Some would argue that the colonialism that created the status quo was pretty obviously discriminatory. Removing the last vestige of their sovereignty would be like saying “now that we’ve undemocratically seized your land, changed how it was governed and moved in enough people to vastly outnumber you, come join in our democratic process where you’ll be overruled by our superior numbers!”
That's how conquest, war, and societal progress works. Should we go back and create entitlements for all the European tribes folded into monarchies over the last two millennia?
Entitlements are antithetical to equality. Continually attempting to right wrongs from the past simply carries them forward.
In a lot of places in Europe minorities have varying degrees of autonomy, protections and special rights (use of language, schools, sometimes more). History and legal systems are complicated and a lot of it doesn't make sense without the historical context.
> “now that we’ve undemocratically seized your land, changed how it was governed and moved in enough people to vastly outnumber you, come join in our democratic process where you’ll be overruled by our superior numbers!”
That's sort of how the world works. If you can't defend it (through power and/or political will - you have strong friends that you have a mutually beneficial relationship with) then it's not your land. There's literally no group of people that have lived on some piece of land since the dawn of humanity. In fact there have been untold thousands of groups of people wiped off the earth because another group decided they wanted to live on the land they once lived in.
Is that what you'd say if a few guys with guns came and pushed you out of your home, so that they can live there? Historically, it's correct: that's how the world works.
Correct which is why we formed tribes which allowed groups of people to form a common culture and bond which protected each other. And tribes would firm alliances with other tribes and work together to destroy rival tribes. These groups of tribes became nations which have evolved into the political organization of the nation state we see today.
Now if a few guys with guns pushed me out of my home my nation state would send more guys with better guns to remove them and my property would be back in my possession.
What happens when your "nation" doesn't have a state, or the state youre in isn't made up of your "nation", or you just have a phony rump state, as in the case here? Those guys get to get pushed around?
Just to make sure - it's fine to ignore legal treaties, etc., because if "they" aren't willing to take up arms to defend what's theirs, that's how the world works. But when I run you out of your house because I'd prefer to sleep there, then laws and the legal system are a perfectly reasonable avenue to expect to save you?
Hmm? I said the opposite - that the law is all we can rely on. Without the law, we’re left with might makes right, which is precisely how the world works.
I often see "discriminatory" used as if it proves something irrefutably. When I don't go to a shop where employees are rude, I certainly do practise discrimination on the basis of communication culture. Also I enjoy my customer's rights, and do the right thing by creating incentives for politeness. There are discriminations which are legal, and illegal, moral, and immoral, pragmatic, and useless. And everything in between.
Citizenship is a modern institution; yeah, the Athenians had it, if you're OK with a notion of citizenship that extended only to a small percentage of the population. But even in ancient Athens, the majority of the population were slaves.
In feudal Europe, most people were serfs or vassals; they came with the land, a bit like trees and game. The only people with rights were aristocrats, and then only really if they had land. Poor people might have had some rights in law, but the judge was the local baron; it was meritorious for the sovereign to promulgate "the King's justice", but it didn't happen much.
The change came with the Age of Revolutions; rights are something you have to seize. To my fury, I remain not a citizen, but a subject, because the English Revolution was led by landed gentry, not by the populace.
The idea of universal rights is a fine idea; but not having been seized, they don't exist.
It pretty much is. A government does govern two things, a population and a corresponding land area. You may try to have one without the other, but that would lead to massive problems because of the way humans and their home area interact.
If you govern a population without a land, you are practically instantly at war with some other population because both populations will want their way of life as well as their property rights enforced around the place they call "home". For a current example, see the palestinian exile population, who have a government but no land of their own, thus leading to constant conflict with their host countries.
If you govern a land without a population, you are lacking any kind of compass and attachment to values. Land alone is a dead thing, and a government cannot just be recruited from land, it has to be people doing the governing. Basically, there is nothing to govern without a society.
Citizenship can have a number of definitions, but the loosest one is something like "currently inhabiting the land area of that corresponding government". You may change those definitions, introduce various classes of citizenships, modify the ways in which it can be obtained. But for the aforementioned reasons, any definition that doesn't involve something like "a citizen is strongly associated with a land area and comes from a corresponding populace (governed by a corresponding government)" is a weak and fragile definition that will not last the test of time and human interactions. Note that the government part is in parentheses, because actually governments are far more interchangeable than population and land area.
How so? A government must have those it governs, those must be then members of the set of people whom it governs.
You can call it something besides "citizenship", but maybe we're talking about different terms, or you have a more technical definition implying more than simply membership under a governing party?
Either way, this is the basic definition of a citizen, so trying to divorce the two seems futile to me:
"A citizen is a member of a political community who enjoys the rights and assumes the duties of membership."
They govern over non-citizens as well, e.g. over residents and visitors to the geography where the government has/claims sovereignty, but the non-citizens tend to get fewer rights than the citizens.
My interpretation of the parent comment was that citizenship should not be restricted by the circumstances of birth.
Countries would still be governed by those who live within their borders, but you wouldn't be discriminated against based on your place of birth, e.g., you could move around freely.
Or, maybe more practically, greatly ease the requirements of immigrating and becoming a citizen of countries.
Couldn't the same argument be advanced against inheritance from family, who after all differ from tribe only in selecting by narrower genetic criteria?