Another good cartoon

[[AK]Abaddon]

http://www.coxandforkum.com/

These guys nail it most of the time. :-)

And a link to a great essay.

http://www.aynrand.org/medialink/flagday2003.shtml

[Hale]

Interesting essay. If you enjoyed that one, you will probably find this one and this one to be very similar.

[[AK]Abaddon]

Golly gee ... equating opposition to cultural relativism with nazi propoganda? That's a bit of a stretch. But it's no worse than I've seen on a lot of discussion boards where the left wing has lost all perspective. Liberals, increasingly marginalized, are also becoming quite alarmist and prone to hyperbole.

[Hale]

You'd have to ask a Liberal, I wouldn't know. Feel free not to sterotype me in the future.

However, the two main points of the essay, that we (Americans) are somehow intellectually and culturally superior to every other group on the planet were also two of the main tenants of Nazi Germany. Certainly the Nazi's were more direct in their language than this article is, but the fundamental premise is still the same. People outside of our nation are not as good as we are.

I ignore most of the extremist crap that is posted here, mostly because those that spout it have no interest in actually hearing other viewpoints than their own, but I must have been absent the day that we were told its ok to be a racist, as long as the group that we are degrading is outside the USA.

Even if I were to buy into the shallow logic used to justify the that position, the industrial revolution is hardly something that happened only in the US. It didn't even start here. Every industrialized nation went through this process, and they all have their own Fords, Edisons, and Carnegies. To degrade the non-industrialized nations smacks of British style colonialism (The White Mans Burden) at best, Nazi style racism at worst.

Just who are these mythical Americans that are so better then everyone else anyway? Are Americans that come from 'primitive' cultures not as good as Americans that have been here for 200 years and knew someone on the Mayflower? If they are, what magic transformation happened when the came here? I'd wager that most of the people that visit these forums can trace ancestors back to other countries, maybe they even know relatives that still live there. Are the people still in the old country not as smart or industrious as their cousin in the States?

I also enjoy how the article concludes in a bout of paranoia. Allow me to quote:

"America and its flag are by no means secure. Its core principles are under attack from every direction—not only by foreign terrorists but by people in our own country—by religious zealots who want to undermine the separation between religion and government, and by our own intellectuals, who denounce reason in the name of skepticism, rights in the name of special entitlements, and progress in the name of environmentalism. We are heading toward the destruction of our core values and toward the dead end of nihilism. The Stars and Stripes, which represent the core values and achievements of America, must be waved proudly and defended to the death. And the values underlying the flag must be understood. Our lives depend on it. "


I quote from Dr. Goebbels:

"These days anyone has the right to speak in Germany—the Jew, the Frenchman, the Englishman, the League of Nations, the conscience of the world and the Devil knows who else. Everyone but the German worker. He has to shut up and work. Every four years he elects a new set of torturers, and everything stays the same. That is unjust and treasonous. We need tolerate it no longer. We have the right to demand that only Germans who build this state may speak, those whose fate is bound to the fate of their Fatherland.

Therefore we demand the annihilation of the system of exploitation! Up with the German worker's state!

Germany for the Germans!"


The groups mentioned are different, but the message is the same. All these people are out to get us. They are plotting our downfall, and we better do something about it before its too late. Both articles, in my humble opinion, attempt to inflame stereotypical hatreds against other groups. Once you see a group of people as inferior, you are at the top of a very slippery slope.

[[AK]Squidly]

Originally posted by [AK]Hale
You'd have to ask a Liberal, I wouldn't know. Feel free not to sterotype me in the future.

If it quacks like a duck, and all that.

[Moon]

Look what Ab did! Hey pass the popcorn my way. Oh and give the victim some more rope.

[[AK]Abaddon]

Would it be accurate to say that western civilization (of which the US is currently the largest single example out there) is morally equivalent to a country where Shar'ia (Islamic Law) is practiced? Shar'ia is a brand of extremism that seems like Nazism crossed with a particularly virulent strain of theocracy.

Are we morally equivalent to the region of Palestine, where animals that walk on two legs blow themselves up to kill civilians in an escalating culture of death? (As they did here on 9/11 as well).

Are we the moral equivalent of the Congo, where rebels are currently hunting down and eating pygmies because of a belief that the meat gives them mystical powers?

I read the article as being in support of western civilization, and stating that the U.S. is the flagship of western civilization at this point. I don't think the U.S. is necessarily better in all ways than every country in the world. We have our flaws. Big, glaring flaws, sometimes. But I think we get it right a lot of the time.

But there are people out there who try to say all cultures are equivalent and should be considered on the same footing. That is a patently false premise. (and it's one that Hale did not make, so this is not aimed at you, Hale).

I have to admit, having Nazi links thrown at me ticked me off. It reminded me a lot of other discussion boards, where extreme lefties often equate Bush with Hitler and spout other such drivel. That made me respond in haste, and jump to a conclusion about where Hale was coming from with his post.

But I got his point after reading Hale's other post. I may not agree with it, but I got it. :-)

[[AK]Squidly]

I'll go further. I think our system *is* better than anything else out there.

Better in every minute facet? No, of course not. Better as a whole? Abso-freakin'-lutely.

It's not even close.