Good post Arlo. Now I wonder if Ham will yet again, NOT respond to yours or my post. I'm still waiting for Ham to respond to his position on people being able to freely think. He said he was against this. He said philosophy and thus reality ought to not have differing opinions. That's what he said, and when I pointed this out and asked, yes asked, for further explanation he never responded to this request.
woods ________________________________ From: Arlo Bensinger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2008 3:02:25 PM Subject: Re: [MD] the empire [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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