Re:Twitter deletes China embassy's Xinjiang 'emancipation' t...
by tsimionescu on Sunday January 10, 2021 @02:54PM
(#25718918)
> Perhaps, but that difference is not given in the U.N. definition.
Of course it is! The definition explicitly says "any of the following acts committed with the intent to [...]".
One more thing that the definition says that I hadn't even noticed and that significantly simplifies my examples, and immediately makes your example clearly NOT genocide, is that point (d) talks about imposing reproductive restrictions, which offering free condoms will never do.
> All of this goes far beyond the original definition and is quite ad hoc.
Yes, I was going beyond the strict definition of genocide and exploring similar concepts. The idea of defining what "ethnic groups" etc. means by historical precedent is probably the exact intent of the UN definition, though.
> And that is too how laws work. I find that in practice the written text of the law is largely irrelevant vis à vis the gut feeling of whatever man vested with the power to interpret the law and I believe that not much would change in practice if entire law books were simply replaced with “The judge may do as he will and punish what he finds immoral on a case by case basis.”
This is completely wrong for 99% of law, and might be slightly true for a few aspects of criminal law. In 99% of cases, the judge is ruling entirely on the law, there is no moral cause to be explored.
Of course it is! The definition explicitly says "any of the following acts committed with the intent to [...]".
One more thing that the definition says that I hadn't even noticed and that significantly simplifies my examples, and immediately makes your example clearly NOT genocide, is that point (d) talks about imposing reproductive restrictions, which offering free condoms will never do.
> All of this goes far beyond the original definition and is quite ad hoc.
Yes, I was going beyond the strict definition of genocide and exploring similar concepts. The idea of defining what "ethnic groups" etc. means by historical precedent is probably the exact intent of the UN definition, though.
> And that is too how laws work. I find that in practice the written text of the law is largely irrelevant vis à vis the gut feeling of whatever man vested with the power to interpret the law and I believe that not much would change in practice if entire law books were simply replaced with “The judge may do as he will and punish what he finds immoral on a case by case basis.”
This is completely wrong for 99% of law, and might be slightly true for a few aspects of criminal law. In 99% of cases, the judge is ruling entirely on the law, there is no moral cause to be explored.