Tolerance: Muslims Versus Jews

[Mike Cl]

I agree with you overall. Minus the last line. That line is the root of the whole problem you are describing in the rest o f the post.

By that I mean that the US emerged from WWII as the most powerful country in the world.  There were many reasons why that was so.  But we, as a country, were not used to being the most powerful.  There is no doubt that prior to WWII, we had been gaining political strength from WWI.  WWII put us way ahead economically, especially.  So, the US had to come to terms with that power--what to do with it, how to develop it, and so on.  But I am not saying the US prior to WWII was pure as the driven snow.  Far from it.  The Mexican War and the Spanish-American War are two fine examples of how the US played power politics from the start.  It's just that we did not have the global power then that we did when we emerged from WWII.  We have always played power politics with our local neighbors--Manifest Destiny and all that. 

[josephpalazzo]

I am not sure how this can happen, but the US, as a whole, needs to stop thinking the US is 'exceptional'.  We are not.  And it causes us damage in the eyes of the world.  We act as the classroom bully, and expect the rest of the world to accept us as the 'leader' and 'savior' of the world.  Yes, most countries fear us and we then interpret that as respect.  What the repubes don't seem to know is that fear always turns to hate.  Fear is a good short term tool to use, but it almost always backfires on it's user.  Too much we seem to think we are the same country that emerged out of WWII as the leader of the world and that the world is as it was then.

By that I mean that the US emerged from WWII as the most powerful country in the world.  There were many reasons why that was so.  But we, as a country, were not used to being the most powerful.  There is no doubt that prior to WWII, we had been gaining political strength from WWI.  WWII put us way ahead economically, especially.  So, the US had to come to terms with that power--what to do with it, how to develop it, and so on.  But I am not saying the US prior to WWII was pure as the driven snow.  Far from it.  The Mexican War and the Spanish-American War are two fine examples of how the US played power politics from the start.  It's just that we did not have the global power then that we did when we emerged from WWII.  We have always played power politics with our local neighbors--Manifest Destiny and all that. 

Jut to add my 2¢.

Some people forget to ask some fundamental questions: what if some other country had developed the bomb before the US? What would the world be if Hitler had developed the bomb first? Would it have been if the USSR had it first? After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there were outcries in the US from all walks of life. I don't think that there would have been the same outcries had the USSR  developed it before everyone else and started to use it indiscriminately. Now ask yourself: what if the US stops being the world police, what happens next? Politics abhor a vacuum, and soon some other country will fill that role, and some country like China won't be playing the human rights card as they don't have it back home.

[Baruch]

Yeah because it is just Americans on the planet who has no masters and keeps no slaves. But surely every other culture will differ. Pfffft.

The irony in that statement starts with the poverty and the homeless in your country, goes on with your education system and ends with the limits of corporate democracy.

You are just above Turkey in the recognition of evolution as a scientific theory among the general population. Ouch.

American as "ideology" from my POV.  Nobody else's POV, and certainly not a description of any country.  If I want a perfect country to live in, I don't think I will find it, by definition (u-topia).  Do you support Turkey as a country (not necessarily the current government or even constitution) ... as a people or as an idea?  For me it is an idea (yes I am being idealistic, but not fantastic ... I don't think we are getting better, let alone "arrive").  The people are rather horrible.

[Baruch]

Jut to add my 2¢.

Some people forget to ask some fundamental questions: what if some other country had developed the bomb before the US? What would the world be if Hitler had developed the bomb first? Would it have been if the USSR had it first? After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there were outcries in the US from all walks of life. I don't think that there would have been the same outcries had the USSR  developed it before everyone else and started to use it indiscriminately. Now ask yourself: what if the US stops being the world police, what happens next? Politics abhor a vacuum, and soon some other country will fill that role, and some country like China won't be playing the human rights card as they don't have it back home.

There you go, filling in my "impression" of you ... in a way I don't support ... not that you need to.  The US is not the World Police.  Frankly I wish the Europeans had all drown on the way to the New World ... just to see what interesting things the Natives would have developed into.

The US has no human rights, nobody has.  Back to the powdered wig with you ;-)  My idea and your idea of "America" are not the same.

[Baruch]

No, I'm not being ironic. People have different gifts - in sports, arts, science, and so on. And there are people who are just natural born leaders. The difference between you and I is that I accept that reality, and you don't. You resent it, and your resentment leads you to see the worst in things, and conspiracies everywhere. And it seems that you have swallowed line, hook and sinker Nietzsche's philosophy of masters/slaves, which frankly is a bit outdated.

Sorry, Nietzsche is upside down with you.  Nietzsche actually was for leadership (of Greek excellence) just like you describe.  The Nazis are the ones who imagined that one gained this thru blond hair and blue eyes.

Yes, I resent ... but it is because of G-d being a monster ... not because I don't want to kiss the butts of master chess players for example.  That excellence is all fine and dandy, but I could care less.  You think of humans as chimps, with alpha males ... and you are one of the alphas ... LoL

[drunkenshoe]

By that I mean that the US emerged from WWII as the most powerful country in the world.  There were many reasons why that was so.  But we, as a country, were not used to being the most powerful.  There is no doubt that prior to WWII, we had been gaining political strength from WWI.  WWII put us way ahead economically, especially.  So, the US had to come to terms with that power--what to do with it, how to develop it, and so on.  But I am not saying the US prior to WWII was pure as the driven snow.  Far from it.  The Mexican War and the Spanish-American War are two fine examples of how the US played power politics from the start.  It's just that we did not have the global power then that we did when we emerged from WWII.  We have always played power politics with our local neighbors--Manifest Destiny and all that.

OK.

The nature of power. After a zone reaches a certain level of power, it has to continue to gain power constantly. And if it fails to gain the power to preserve its station, doesn't matter what changes in the general environment, the power will be gained by other zones and the former zone will automatically lose power and as a result, eventually the station of being a power zone.


There is a crisis in American identity over all. Let's divide it roughly into the Christian and the Secular. These two groups are suffering the same identity crisis in a different way as far as I can see it.

I don't know how to explain how I see it and I will try to caricaturise it to make it easy. Don't take it as an insult or some rant.

-Christians support and defend the ideas which is surrounded around a specific set of rules and regulations of what they see as the building blocks of their society. Ruled by Christianity with the general differences passed after the French revolution; standardisation, modern state, nationalism...etc. They believe that they are the greatest and most powerful nation on earth. They believe their country saved the world. They believe they live in the most democratic country with the most freedom available. They believe they live in the richest country...etc.

They believe and live in that identity as long as their rules apply and they are the first class. Now, it is taken from them as they see it. They are in some sort of a crisis.

-Seculars support absolute secularism. At least in theory. However, those generations grew and raised with the same of the best and the greatest, the -EST propaganda with the Christians since the WWII. So insert here pretty much the same things besides the religious vision of the American society. But now the world; actually the known history of the US has started to 'change'. Good thing with the secular lot, they are open to the information or criticism more or less, muıch better than the first group. Things that looked very square a few decades ago, do not look like that any more. As the time passes, people realise consciously and unconsciously what kind of a bullshit they have been fed all their lives. (Goes for every country more or less) 

They are in some sort of an identity crisis. While Christians miss the golden old days when it was all for them, Seculars miss the other sides of the golden days. Could be anything from the space race to the ...-EST nation.

Now, if you give people this identity; create a hyped up culture defining itself as the greatest, flying on the clouds with fantasy freedoms, teaching them to see themselves as the giant in the mirror, this is how they are going to act. You cannot get ground their ass in a few decades by telling them that they are just an ordinary country with a belligerent, isolated culture and enough military power to bully around, because that's all their govs' policies did roughly for the last 100 years, politely put. And they will see themselves entitled to do or say anything.

These two groups of people actually had/have the same identity -from many aspects- built on different principles. But now that identity looks far away, and what is left feels shrunk -naturally because those ideals are made up and that propaganda has always been a fantasy so POOF! they start to disappear. AND PEOPLE ARE VERY WELL AWARE OF THIS. Nobody is stupid. Nothing got shrunk, it is still the same thing. Kid started to grow up.

I am 39, you wouldn't believe the difference between how Americans talk about the domestic and international policies of their country today and how they did 15 years or a decade ago. I could say that I'm a 'witness' of this, at least in a small dimension.

And do you think that is easy to come by? Or that would happen without a crisis or a struggle? It's not just the Irak war catastrophie, Mike. American society started to change  before it got a black president and legalised gay marriage or marijuana. It

Now, things got interesting.

[josephpalazzo]

The US is not the World Police. 

As the only superpower, the US doesn't need your approval.

Frankly I wish the Europeans had all drown on the way to the New World ... just to see what interesting things the Natives would have developed into.

You have an unrealistic, idealized vision of the Native Americans. They were just as vicious, with less technological advances.

The US has no human rights, nobody has.

Nobody is going to grab you in the middle of the night, throw you in jail and leave you there to rot, which FYI, it does happen in other countries.

My idea and your idea of "America" are not the same.

Agree, yours is colored with hatred, resentment and a dose of CT's.

[drunkenshoe]

American as "ideology" from my POV.  Nobody else's POV, and certainly not a description of any country.  If I want a perfect country to live in, I don't think I will find it, by definition (u-topia).  Do you support Turkey as a country (not necessarily the current government or even constitution) ... as a people or as an idea?  For me it is an idea (yes I am being idealistic, but not fantastic ... I don't think we are getting better, let alone "arrive").  The people are rather horrible.

No, American as an 'identity' from your POV, not 'ideology'. American ideology = capitalism+nationalism

And that is not idealism, but propaganda. There is a big difference between fantastical bullshit and idealism.

And you know I don't support the current gov in the country. However, Turkey is a very convenient example. I could give you Scandinavian countries and a few other European ones to compare, but  I guess we could do a favour to the US by starting from Canada to compare the 'no masters and no slaves'. Start by trying to imagine some places where your average left is far right.

[drunkenshoe]

You have an unrealistic, idealized vision of the Native Americans. They were just as vicious, with less technological advances.

Europeans came to their land, invaded their home, committed genocide and enslaved their people for hundreds of years. They wiped out their entire culture(s) and their people -they'll die out soon- AND they do not even agree to recognise the crime offically.

BUT THEY WERE JUST AS VICIOUS?! And if you don't agree with that you have an idealised-unrealistic vision of Mesoamericans?


You are so fucking full of shit, you got to the levels of retarded rube dribble. And you get annoyed when you are called an American idiot? You are golden quality.

[Shiranu]

Europeans came to their land, invaded their home, committed genocide and enslaved their people for hundreds of years. They wiped out their entire culture(s) and their people -they'll die out soon- AND they do not even agree to recognise the crime offically.

BUT THEY WERE JUST AS VICIOUS?! And if you don't agree with that you have an idealised-unrealistic vision of Mesoamericans?


You are so fucking full of shit, you got to the levels of retarded rube dribble. And you get annoyed when you are called an American idiot? You are golden quality.

The best part of it is he wants to hold Turks responsible for the Armenian genocide, then trivialized the largest genocide in human history.

And I'll say the natives were aggressive... but then, humans are aggressive. And many tribes wanted to just be left alone and didn't interact with the white man. The most "peaceful" whites at the very least aggressively wanted them to convert to Christianity.

[drunkenshoe]

The best part of it is he wants to hold Turks responsible for the Armenian genocide, then trivialized the largest genocide in human history.

And I'll say the natives were aggressive... but then, humans are aggressive. And many tribes wanted to just be left alone and didn't interact with the white man. The most "peaceful" whites at the very least aggressively wanted them to convert to Christianity.

Yeah well, genocide is something that happens in other countries, don't you know?

The irony is that he is talking exactly the same way genocide deniars and right wingers here talk. They would get along very well.

[josephpalazzo]

BUT THEY WERE JUST AS VICIOUS?!

Before the Europeans arrived, they were warring among each other, committing atrocities - they were no better than any other groups of people. Get your facts straightened out before spewing stupidities as you usually do.

Despite myths to the contrary, not all Native Americans were peaceful. Like Europe, the American continent faced tribal warfare that sometimes led to human and cultural destruction.

http://www.ushistory.org/us/1.asp

[drunkenshoe]

Before the Europeans arrived, they were warring among each other, committing atrocities - they were no better than any other groups of people. Get your facts straightened out before spewing stupidities as you usually do.

Nobody said they are different than other humans, you genocide apologist, toxic nationalist piece of shit. You are not in a position to question anyone's intelligence or to demand some respect to your opinion.

[josephpalazzo]

Nobody said they are different than other humans, you genocide apologist, toxic nationalist piece of shit. You are not in a position to question anyone's intelligence or to demand some respect to your opinion.

Sure, when the facts contradict your asshole opinions revert to insult. Great thinking.

[mauricio]

Ahem ... "race" has always been a political term, not a biological term ... because "racism" is purely political .. usually for bad politics.

This is not true race was a legit scientific term and it still is:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_%28biology%29

Also gotta love the fight in the talk page because people do not like the term, same shit as why they changed transsexualism from gender identity disorder to gender dysphoria, the concept remains the same but the word must be changed because it is too un-PC, scientists need to bend over and change their terms because layman cannot be bothered to understand their definitions.