Ham, I guess what I have difficulty in understanding is that how people who are devoute individualists reject multiculturalism. It seems to me be a bit of a conflict of intrest.
"Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, or social outlook that stresses independence and self-reliance. Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires, while opposing most external interference upon one's choices, whether by society, the state, or any other group or institution. Individualism is opposed to collectivism or statism, which stress that communal, community, group, societal, or national goals should take priority over individual goals. Individualism is also opposed to any tradition, religion, or other form of external moral standard being used to limit an individual's choice of actions." -Ron ________________________________ From: Ham Priday <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Monday, January 5, 2009 1:21:43 PM Subject: Re: [MD] Multiculturalism scam Marsha and all -- > Does multiculturalism exist? Where? If it exists within this little postal > battleground, isn't there a variation for each participant? And won't they > dissipate when the thread ends? Then, where will these patterns exist? > Maybe this thread is > interesting after all. Since I do not have an opinion about the > rightness or wrongness of "multiculturalism", what is my part? > > Anybody like a cup of Milk Thistle tea? Multiculturalism is a topic for social polemics rather than philosophy, but it is clear that Americans over the last half-century have resigned themselves to an egalitarian value system that recognizes all culturally-induced behaviors as acceptable if not superior to our own cultural heritage. Having written on this aspect of cultural values, I thought a few pertinent quotes might be useful in explaining how Platt and others view this issue. As a retired Supreme Court justice, Robert Bork was particularly concerned with the teaching of this ideology in the public schools. Here is how he summed up the phenonemon in his book "Slouching Towards Gomorrah": "A curriculum designed to foster understanding of other cultures would study those cultures. Multiculturalism does not. Courses are not offered on the cultures of China or India or Brazil or Nigeria, nor does the curriculum require the study of languages without which foreign cultures cannot be fully understood. Instead the focus is on groups that, allegedly, have been subjected to oppression by American and Western civilization - homosexuals, American Indians, blacks, Hispanics, women, and so on. The message is not that all cultures are to be respected, but that European culture, which created the dominance of white males, is uniquely evil. Multiculturalism follows the agenda of modern liberalism, and it comes straight from the Sixties counterculture. But now, in American education, it is the dominant culture." As to how the U.S. fell into this moral lethargy, Judge Bork quoted Carol Iannone, NYU literature professor: "Quite simply, it happened because America lost its grasp of its own historic character, and embraced 'diversity' as a national goal. In the name of equality and nondiscrimination we invited mass immigration from every part of the globe, and made no demands on the newcomers to become Americans. In fact, we gave up our American core, adopted multiculturalism and declared all cultures equal. We invited the new groups to celebrate themselves while we cravenly permitted libelous denigration of our own past. Like fools we prated that diversity is our strength, when common sense and all of history tell us that strength comes from unity. "Absolute nondiscrimination meant we no longer enforced standards, made judgments, distinguished between good and evil, friend and foe. We grew lazy, stupid and careless - about our borders, about national security, even about previous terrorist attacks against us. We worried over our 'hate crimes' and our 'racial profiling,' while men resided in our midst who seethed with murderous fury even against our children and plotted our destruction. Now we have a fifth column, fear further assaults and labor under a draconian security regime that is changing the nature of our lives." Bork goes on to say ... "Since the 1960s, America - from her government to her schools and even to her churches - has steadily fallen away from the Judeo-Christian values that previously illuminated and gave life and strength to the nation's institutions. This is equivalent to turning out the country's lights: And when you turn out the lights, everything looks the same color in the dark - that's multiculturalism. "Moreover, no longer guided by universal standards of right and wrong, Americans have had nothing more reliable than their own feelings to guide them in the moral realm. And as modern marketing well knows, when people are operating primarily on the basis of feelings and emotions, they're wide open to every sort of manipulation imaginable." The desire to retain the values and traditions of one's sovereign nation is not racial bigotry or xenophobia. It is in fact the moral rockbed of civilized society, as I tried to show in my archived essay "Empires Also Die" which is based on the fall of the Roman Empire: "History has shown that among all powerful peoples, when the creation of real wealth and true economic power is neglected, when the belief that the status quo is pre-ordained and will last forever, when what happens today becomes more important than what will be the situation tomorrow and next year, when enjoying life becomes more important than preserving values such as individual freedom, honesty, fairness and integrity, when the electors cast their votes for celebrity and charisma rather than envisioned leadership, when those in power find that they have to deceive and defraud the man on the street in order to protect their own personal wealth and power -- when all that happens, the peak has been passed and the end is not far off. "In his book, Why Civilizations Self-Destruct, Elmer Pendell surveyed historians' theories and concluded that a civilization arises when natural selection produces a people of above-average intelligence. As the founders conquer natural culling forces, those who would have been removed from the population due to their lesser abilities survive and produce more children than the more intelligent founders. Francis Galton, Charles Darwin's cousin and author of Hereditary Genius, first noted that 'men of eminence' have fewer children than the average. Eventually the average intelligence level falls below that of the original population. "Dr. Pendell suggests another factor in the collapse of civilizations -- the gradual adulteration of ethnically homogeneous founding populations through losses in wars and, in ancient times, the taking of slaves. Tenny Frank, in his book History of Rome, wrote: 'The original peoples were wasted in wars and scattered in migrations and colonization and their places were filled chiefly with Eastern Slaves.' The modern analogue of slavery is immigration. When an empire nation opens its borders to immigrants of diverse cultures and backgrounds, it stands to lose or gain, depending on the talents and working skills of its new citizens and their willingness to assimilate. Lacking these attributes, the 'melting pot' simile falters, allowing a disenfranchised class to emerge that not only must be sustained by the state but that represents a potential source of dissent within its ranks." I hope these statements help to clarify the meaning and significance of multiculturalism as it affects Western Society. Thanks for the opportunity. Regards, Ham 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/ 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/
