i am very happy to support a prohibition of extermination as a moral rule that outsiders might even coercively impose (though in practice they rarely will). 1/

i am not remotely happy to support the same prohibition of “genocide” unless genocide is carefully defined to mean extermination, in which case why do we need the separate crime? 2/

it is sometimes legitimate, sometimes necessary, for states to insist on schooling in a commom language, disfavor signage in minority languages, encourage assimilation to common norms and customs. 3/

all of these practices are sometimes described as “genocide”, sometimes not unreasonably in the sense their intent and predictable effect will be to reduce the numbers of and weaken the identities of some component groups. 4/

strongly, sometimes coercively, assimilative tactics are not my preference. i prefer pluralistic liberalism. 5/

but insisting on pluralistic liberalism under all circumstances at all times amounts to imposing constraints under which many state building and even state maintaining projects will violently fail. 6/

yes, extermination should be taken off the table as a strong moral norm (even though it’s a norm nearly all incumbent states will have violated at some point in its history.) 7/

but taking the broad range of practices that might undermine subgroup identity and numbers off the table is too costly a restriction. /fin