My argument before had been that, sure, writing, editing, discussion, etc., took up effort (and thus money) from Congress, but it’s not like that effort would’ve been spared if it weren’t for the apology; it would just have gone towards something else. However, I have to concede that this wasn’t a well thought-out argument on my part, because, undoubtedly, your feeling is that the something else in which to invest Congress’s time would have been of more utility than the apology, and thus there was a wasted opportunity.
So I’ll have to resort to the mere assertion “Well, I don’t think the opportunity cost here was very great”.
(Also, why do you ask if lobbyists were involved? The money lobbyists spend in voicing their views isn’t taxpayer money, is it? And if taxpayer money ends up being allocated to their cause by Congress, surely that decision is good or bad independently of who advocated for it how?)
I’m not sure why we’re apologizing to the Native Americans. This state was founded in 1776 [aside: I know that the Articles of Confederation were not signed until 1777, and the United States Constitution wasn’t ratified until 1788, however I believe that from the point of 1776 on, we functioned as a state. Much like France has functioned as a state for arguably over 1,000 years despite changing governments many times], and like all states we have the right to whatever lands and resources we can achieve through the various means. Conquest is one of those means, and it is an entirely acceptable form of state power.
Using the collective “we” to refer to prior actions of our state, we conquered many Native American tribes. Primarily because we had greater numbers, greater technology, and all around superior military force. We certainly cannot deny that the Native Americans suffered any tragedies, but it would have been a far greater tragedy to let a backwards, primitive myriad of disorganized and antiquated tribes rule over the portion of North America that ultimately became the United States.
Now, once we had subjugated these tribes we should have integrated these people into our society. It took far too many years for them to be granted basic citizenship rights and far too many years after that for them to be granted actual equality under the law. And it is still the case that they are being fundamentally neglected by their government (our government is their government), and that is certainly a problem. I’m fine if the apology is for that, but for conquering them, we owe no apology.
That’s a very loose definition of the term ‘state’. Largely the state is a modernist construct. French wasn’t even spoken in many rural parts of France until the middle of the 19th century. I don’t think in 1008 you could really call France a ‘state’, during the height of feudalism. What we know of as the ‘state’ is somewhat anti-thetical to feudalism. The ‘state’ arose around the time that Colombus was out exploring. It arose from the Monarchies of Europe when the Kingdoms became too big for a King to truly govern, and the power moved into the hands of the bureaucrats. ‘The State’ really was established around the time of Henry VIII and Charles V.
I tend to disagree, you shouldn’t even mention “language” when talking about a state. A state can have a thousand different languages and still be a state. Language/culture is primarily a characteristic of “nations” not states.
I still view the feudal states as being states, they were just highly decentralized. It’s actually not dissimilar from the United States, which was a coalition of several very-much sovereign states from the very beginning.
Actually, no it wouldn’t. I think it would be a noble gesture, actually. The United States (as an entity) has existed since 1776 (or 1789, depending on how you keep track of things). Our entire form of government exists based on the say so of dead white guys in their graves for 200 years. Obviously as a society continuity counts for something. We can’t pretend that the present has nothing to do with the past when it’s obvious that the opposite is true.
It’s not just George W. Bush, the man, that fucked up in Iraq. The United States as a collective entity fucked up as well, and I think we should own up to it.