[Mel]
So, an extra breath would be good...before characterizing someone's post.
[Arlo]
I've been dealing with Ham's (and Platt's) bigotry for years. So
perhaps I had a context to Ham's post you have not yet "discerned".
:-) The MOQ is used here to justify a supremicist ideology that
(conveniently) always ends up with these two on the glorious zenith.
Yes, some things are better than others. Yes, we should judge those
who hold freedom of speech as being morally superior to those who do
not. But I add, in this regard. What the MOQ allows us to do (intends
for us to do), is to be able to cast aside static social patterns and
discriminate among intellectual ideas. What these two do is use this
as justification for saying one group is absolutely morally superior
to another... period.
Ask them, since they demand discrimination, in what ways are ANY
other cultures superior to America's? If "black culture" is inferior
in some regards, as they claim, then ask "okay, now in what ways is
it superior?" What are the "racial differences" Ham alludes to? Are
there any that cast whites worse of than blacks? You will see that
the proclamations of superiority are blanket proclamations. So the
issue is not "X is better than Y", but "people A are morally superior
to people B because X is better than Y". Conveniently, as I said, Ham
and Platt always end up being part of "people A". We are to also
judge nations, we are told, so I ask, if America is better than other
nations in some regards, in what ways it worse? And who is better in
those regards? See what kind of answers you get to these questions.
Its not about "discrimination", its about creating a hierarchy that
at once and always has YOU on top, in all regards, in all manners,
and with absolute certainty.
Make no mistake, in his ongoing condemnation of "multiculturalism",
Ham traces this "great evil" back to desegregation. In your opinion,
should we resegregate the schools? Should those inferior blacks have
their own schools so they don't bother our morally superior white
kids? (BTW, when I first joined MD many years ago, a topic of debate
was The Bell Curve, where Platt was firmly arguing that this
constituted scientific evidence that blacks are biologically less
intelligent than (inferior to) whites.) Is it no wonder, also, how a
short time ago Ham lamented that the influx of "Hispanic values"
would "may not be "the end of liberty and the enslavement of
mankind", but is will surely "lead to
the destruction of America" as we know it." Hispanic values, it
seems, are threatening "the values that are indigenous to American
culture". (I asked Ham to outline these "indigenous American values"
but he never has. I was curious, because I have many Hispanic
friends, and I wanted to know which of their values presents a threat to me).
The isolationism Ham speaks of retreats to an era of xenophobia and
fear, which is small wonder considering this is platform rhetoric for
them. Be afraid of Muslims. Be afraid of Russians. Be afraid of Iran.
Be afraid of commies and Marxists and darkies and Mexicans. Go into
your house, lock the windows and shiver and shake about the great
mongrel horse that is waiting to come charging over the hill. Yes,
freedom of the press in the West is morally superior to the
state-censored press of Iran. But that does not make Americans
superior people. What such thinking does is dehumanize the world into
inferior "others" who don't matter as much as us (except to keep us
afraid). I know several Iranians. They are good people, who, when you
strip away the extraneous wrappings of culture (clothing, food,
habit, etc.) are the same as we are.
And this is what multiculturalism is all about. It is about
tolerating the meaningless differences between peoples. Who wears a
NASCAR hat and who wears a Hijab. Its primary foundation is that
stripped of the veneer and paint of our local cultural historical
traditions, as well as the particular genetic traits we are born with
(eye, skin, hair colors, height, weight, girth, etc.), we are all
people. We all bleed. We all love. And although we have different
customs and different gods/beliefs, and different customs about
eating, sleeping, relaxing and living, our fears about "the other"
are chains by which we bind ourselves. Sure, there have been misteps,
unexpected pitfalls and supremicist/fear reawakenings along the way,
but this the direction we should go.
Also make no mistake. Tolerance must cut in all directions. We should
NOT be tolerant of an ideology that seeks to curtail our freedoms of
speech. But we must also be intolerant of only those things, and not
move in outward spirals to consider whole groups morally inferior.
For example, a law FORCING women to wear hijabs is immoral. But so is
OUTLAWING it for those who choose to wear one (something Platt once
claimed was a victory for intellectual patterns, to forcibly outlaw
this clothing). If others choose to wear hijabs, that is no different
than those who choose to wear NASCAR hats, they are people. They
love. They cry. They feel. They bleed. They should not be excluded
from schools because they choose to wear this, nor should they be
treated with any less respect than ANY human being should have.
To sum. We can certainly discriminate moral and immoral in our world.
We must not translate that into a superior race or people. I am
always weary of those who do, and conveniently end up in the
"superior" column each and every time.
Anyways, this went on a little long. Blame the coffee.
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