08-01-2016, 08:00 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-02-2016, 09:25 AM by Bob Butler 54.)
(08-01-2016, 02:25 PM)MillsT_98 Wrote: In my opinion I think racial purity is stupid, because we all descended from the same ancestors from Africa thousands of years ago. If you look back far enough, we all have common ancestors. Because of this, you can't really be "pure" anything. White supremacists would hate to think they were descendents of Africans (although far removed from them). I'm not against anyone identifying themselves as a certain race, but to think one race is better than another is ridiculous. We all have different cultures, and I'd like to respect that diversity.
On the surface level I can give a big thumbs up to the bulk of the above.
Still, cultures evolve. The process is vaguely Darwinian. The cultures best adapted to their terrain, resources and available technology will have a better go of it than others still stuck in the Agricultural Age. Some cultures have never known anything but autocratic tyrants, and have values that have historically allowed autocratic tyranny to work. Saddam Hussain kept the peace in Iraq by terrorizing his people, by making them too fearful to fight the tyrant. It was an ugly peace, but a peace none the less. Stalin, Hitler, Genghis Kahn and ever so many more through history made tyranny work. I wouldn't want to live in their cultures, let alone in a neighboring culture that isn't armed to the teeth, still a strong tyrant could be an effective tyrant. In Syria, Assad and ISIS are still trying to make tyranny work.
Tyranny in the old school just can't compete with modern industrial democracies, though. Even if Assad or ISIS could manage a victory, they would end up ruling an impoverished ruined backwater.
This doesn't justify a cultural hatred of Syrians, Muslims or Arabs though. As a group, they are struggling hard in places trying to make an old culture work in the modern age. They have seen the worst of exploitive capitalism and communist attempts to create puppet states. They have good reason to reject the two most dominant sets of secular modern memes. They seem to be stuck trying to make obsolete Agricultural Age religious and tyrannic cultures work. They have a tough row to hoe, and our attempts to maintain a supply of cheap fossil fuels aren't helping.
They've got problems. It would be nice to try to help their home cultures on their home ground. Still, how well have Eric the Green and Classic Xer done in teaching each other to embrace another culture's ideas and values? I'd expect similar problems with any attempt to go to a foreign place well indoctrinated in a different approach and try to tell them how they are doing it all wrong. Humans are not apt to listen in such situations. The Capitalists and Communists exploiting their resources have taught them all too well to expect white men speaking with forked tongues. Lots of patience and watching them make their own mistakes and grow their own paths seem required.
But what if a member of such a culture leaves a dysfunctional homeland and makes a solid attempt to assimilate into a modern culture? That's different than us sending in an army to nation build at gun point. Aye, under such circumstances welcoming others from different religions and cultures is appropriate. Not always easy, but appropriate. In such a case, what you say is just right.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.