Hello, Ham,
<snip> >ham: > I "feel your pain", Platt. Like you, I also lament America's drift from the > constitutional republic laid out by our Founding Fathers. Appeasement was > certainly not one of their principles, and they could not have foreseen the > multiculturalism that would infest the free world. Rather than returning to > isolationism, though, I tend to side with the "America First" philosophy of > Pat Buchanan and Newt Gingrich. A nation has to look out for itself just as > an individual does. And that means accepting moral and fiscal responsibilty > for happenings within its borders and never overextending its resources in > foreign causes. I think we have failed on both counts. > > Multiculturalism in the U.S. was fostered by the Supreme Court's outlawing > of school segregation in 1954 and became "politically correct" following the > Civil Rights revolution and liberalization of immigration laws in the > mid-60s. The object, of course, is to render society colorblind to cultural > and racial differences. In effect, it alters our traditional value system > to make discrimination in any form immoral. Thus, all people are viewed as > equal and no nation is culturally superior to any other. mel This is an interesting assertion, but I think that the picture is backward here. Before the 1940's American cities were more of the character of aggregates of neighborhoods than anything we recognize today. Many of those were in reality self-organized 'ghettos' of ethnicity. The Italians didn't care to mix with the Poles, who didn't want to mix with the Germans, who didn't care to be with the Irish...etc for all the ethnicities. Multiculturalism in a self-imposed arrangement was the rule, not the exception. People met at public schools, sporting events, in business exchanges, but that was about it. Until this little thing came along and showed the American public the shift in understanding that stayed with us for most of the last half of the twentieth century. WWII. Suddenly the guy next to you was from one of the other neighborhoods. It shook the old-habits out of the social fabric. HOWEVER, IT DID NOT CHANGE HUMAN NATURE. So, the 'ethno-tropism' to stay with one's own kind is still a part of the future that we need to be aware of. Canada disperses immigrants throughout their country to avoid this creation of ethnic ghettos. I do not know how well this has worked. Anyone for the GWN able to tell us 'entre amis' how this is working? >H: > In an Ayn Rand Institute paper on Diversity and Multiculturalism, the > authors describe this campus-driven movement as "The New Racism": > > "Advocates of "diversity" claim that because the real world is diverse, the > campus should reflect that fact. But why should a campus population > "reflect" the general population (particularly the ethnic population)? No > answer. In fact, the purpose of a university is to impart knowledge and > develop reasoning, not to be a demographic mirror of society. m: Ah, this is one instance of the "lie of the normal." Anyone with a passing knowledge of statistics knows about 'normal distributions' and many social scientists are only comfortable in that mind-space. Unfortunately, there are 'currents' and 'eddies' in the real world that delierately create non-random distributions. Students going to college is one of these non-random events. To try and turn a student popolation 'normal' vis society is counter to the forces that formed the campus in the first place. > H > "Racism, not any meaningful sense of diversity, guides today's > intellectuals. The educationally significant diversity that exists in "the > real world" is intellectual diversity, i.e., the diversity of ideas. But > such diversity - far from being sought after - is virtually forbidden on > campus. The existence of "political correctness" blasts the academics' > pretense at valuing real diversity. What they want is abject conformity." > > Frankly, I don't see this as a contest for biological, social or > intellectual dominance. I see it as a diminution of value sensibility and > discriminative judgment, which is the very core of individual freedom. If > there is any truth to the "globalist conspiracy", this would be its > strategy: 1) indoctrinate the masses to the immorality of thinking for > themselves so that they become dependents of the state; 2) encourage > immigration of Third World populations into developed nations who will then > acquiesce to the multicultural differences; and 3) abolish the sovereignty > of nation-states. We've already taken major strides toward toward achieving > the first two steps. Do you suppose that if the world's most powerful > nation were to elect a president with a globalist agenda backed by > international support, he might just pull it off? > m I guess we'll know shortly. although the phrase: "diminution of value sensibility" is an interesting one. is seems to carry a sense of moral betrayal. The higher level of the intellect is surrenderred to the lower level of the social. Something of course that non-MOQ folks may not clearly see. thanks--mel Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
