PROUD!!!

[rigney]

Not looking for any reply unless you feel it necessary. Just listen and give the words some thought.

Supplant USA with your own countrys name, image, zip code; and "Listen again".

Edited May 13, 2011 by rigney

[mississippichem]

Is that Chuck Norris there at the beginning? Sorry, had to ask.

[lemur]

Can we substitute "global republic of Earth" or "Gaia" or does it have to be a national-identity?

 

Also, have you ever noticed how pride interferes with people's ability to rationally contemplate things like the meaning and value of democracy and freedom? Sure, they love it but because they love the idea of it being "their country," they would sooner live in denial before ever considering the possibility of their country betraying its own ideals.

 

why must people live in the clutches of submission to pride and shame? why can't they embrace the true freedom of intellectual independence and reason instead?

Edited May 13, 2011 by lemur

[Marat]

Just about every country in the world claims to be promoting freedom, even though the extent to which they actually provide structures which enhance freedom varies enormously. This suggests that using freedom as the reason for being patriotic is formulaic and misleading. The U.S. thinks it is free because it keeps taxes low and thus plunges everyone into a perpetual state of enslavement to their fear of not being able to pay medical bills, not being able to afford university fees for their children, or sinking into utter penury when some capitalist decides to close the only industry where they can find a job.

 

With an equal but distinct absurdity, in the 1984 election in Canada, candidate John Turner described Canada as the freest country on earth, even though Canada is the paradigmatic nanny-state and censors all speech it doesn't like by government 'human rights tribunals' which forbid anything they can manage to characterize as 'hate speech.' There is also a criminal code provision that can send you to prison for saying anything not politically correct, as long as it is not said as part of a religious opinion, which is for some reason privileged above normal secular speech.

 

Finally, I was at an historical display of World War II posters once and saw a group of Nazi banners urging foreign citizens in occupied Europe to join the foreign branch of the SS to preserve the 'freedom of Europe' against the crassness of American capitalism and the oppression of Russian Bolshevism. If freedom can be claimed by every political movement then it is an empty concept.

[lemur]

Finally, I was at an historical display of World War II posters once and saw a group of Nazi banners urging foreign citizens in occupied Europe to join the foreign branch of the SS to preserve the 'freedom of Europe' against the crassness of American capitalism and the oppression of Russian Bolshevism. If freedom can be claimed by every political movement then it is an empty concept.

Did the Nazi freedom include the freedom to dissent and question nazi views regarding freedom?

[Stefan-CoA]

Did the Nazi freedom include the freedom to dissent and question nazi views regarding freedom?

 

I think hardly any country/system looks favourably upon people questioning it's ideals. Except these days we've moved away from killing people to marginalising them.

 

What I also don't understand is why America has to kill people in other countries to ensure it's own freedom. Or have it's own men and women die on foreign soil for that matter. Or why it thinks it's own special brand of freedom is the only acceptable one. Or why it thinks it has to impose this on other countries. Personally I think the paradigm of freedom that America perpetuates is just another way of inciting in its populace some sort of nationalistic fervour. It's how I suppose Bush stayed in office for two terms. No matter how much you screw up as a public figure, if you can get them frothing at the mouth over "freedom" it's pretty much a done deal.

 

I guess it's similar to religious fundamentals "If you don't believe what I believe, well then I guess I'll have to make you believe."

[lemur]

I think hardly any country/system looks favourably upon people questioning it's ideals. Except these days we've moved away from killing people to marginalising them.

 

What I also don't understand is why America has to kill people in other countries to ensure it's own freedom. Or have it's own men and women die on foreign soil for that matter. Or why it thinks it's own special brand of freedom is the only acceptable one. Or why it thinks it has to impose this on other countries. Personally I think the paradigm of freedom that America perpetuates is just another way of inciting in its populace some sort of nationalistic fervour. It's how I suppose Bush stayed in office for two terms. No matter how much you screw up as a public figure, if you can get them frothing at the mouth over "freedom" it's pretty much a done deal.

 

I guess it's similar to religious fundamentals "If you don't believe what I believe, well then I guess I'll have to make you believe."

Nazism wants you to believe that there is no deviation from nazism; or that any deviation of nazism is a variation of it. The relationship between freedom and democracy is that people are indeed free to think how they want as long as they don't attempt to dominate each other with authoritarianism/terrorism. The problem for democracy is what to do when people abuse freedom to suppress democracy/freedom. At that point, you have to ask yourself how to intervene so that the oppressed once again feel free to think for themselves and express themselves independently of the will to authoritarian power. How would YOU stop people from bowing to authoritarianism?

[John Cuthber]

Was that video meant to be a spoof?

[rigney]

Was that video meant to be a spoof?

No John! No spoof. Actually there are many Americans who feel that we have run the gamut of placating the so called, "opressed". This was just to show that there is a better way of doing things. At times even I would like to feel envious of these have's. But then I would know it was envy, not reasoning. A person looking at that plowed farmland in the video and thinking it just materialized, is dreaming. That took hard work and lots of it. You couldn't get me back on a farm again even with a gun at my head, unless that was the only way for me to survive. I've washed a lot of dishes, swept many floors, did my time in the military, and as a family man. But i've never regretted a minute of it. Yes, some times were better than others, but nothing regrettable. Memorial Day is coming soon and I thought the song was just something to think about. Edited May 14, 2011 by rigney

[Marat]

The whole problem with affirming 'freedom' is that you then have to decide what kinds of freedom are acceptable for each person to exercise, even if these irritate or harm other people, and which types of freedom are justly limited because of their injury to the legitimate security or autonomy interests of other people. As soon as you start calibrating this equilibrium, you start imposing highly questionable value judgements on other people, with the result that everyone can once again complain about a lack of freedom! So since you cannot separate the affirmation of freedom from the affirmation of some values which define its legitimate scope, and all these values are disputable, you cannot get around denying freedom by imposing your own values on others.

 

Thus for example in Canada it is a crime to say anything that injures the feelings of certain groups which are designated as vulnerable, because this is deemed to be illegal hate speech. It is seen to be an illegitimate over-extension of your general liberty to say what you want if your statements encourage discrimination against other people, just as it is an illegitimate over-extension of your general liberty to swing your arms if you do so in a crowd and start knocking other people with your elbows. But in America the view is that you are still entitled to say racist things no matter how much they hurt the feelings of vulnerable races or encourage discrimination against them, since that is just the legitimate price they have to pay for living in a free society where they can also say offensive things.

 

Depending on how you determine which is the more important freedom -- freedom from the threat of racial discrimination promoted by the racist free speech of others -- or freedom from the government censoring what you want to say -- either America or Canada is the more free country. To take a more extreme case, the Nazis may have felt their own society was more free because Aryans could live free of the threat of cultural contamination by Jewish influences. If you could really accept the foundational thesis of Nazism, that Jewish influences are genuinely toxic and unambiguously harmful, then you would have to see a society which segregated Jewish influence out of it as 'more free' than one which tolerated it, since the poison of Jewishness would limit everyone's ability to act creativity, enjoy good culture, and avoid morally perverting influences -- and thus limit the freedom of the majority of people.

[rigney]

Marat: Thus for example in Canada it is a crime to say anything that injures the feelings of certain groups which are designated as vulnerable, because this is deemed to be illegal hate speech. It is seen to be an illegitimate over-extension of your general liberty to say what you want if your statements encourage discrimination against other people, just as it is an illegitimate over-extension of your general liberty to swing your arms if you do so in a crowd and start knocking other people with your elbows. But in America the view is that you are still entitled to say racist things no matter how much they hurt the feelings of vulnerable races or encourage discrimination against them, since that is just the legitimate price they have to pay for living in a free society where they can also say offensive things.

 

Humans will never live in a commingled society where some sort of prejudice doesn't always exist, regardless of freedoms. America has came a long way in trying to deal with this issue, but it's a menza menz. Unlike water, which eventually finds its own eqilibrium/level, plants and animals can't seem to make that distinction. When a pendulum swings in the direction of one ethnicity, vacuum created by its departure, demands a return swing. If we could stop the swing in mid stroke, who knows? But! if we should stop it in mid-swing, who knows?

Edited May 15, 2011 by rigney

[lemur]

The whole problem with affirming 'freedom' is that you then have to decide what kinds of freedom are acceptable for each person to exercise, even if these irritate or harm other people, and which types of freedom are justly limited because of their injury to the legitimate security or autonomy interests of other people. As soon as you start calibrating this equilibrium, you start imposing highly questionable value judgements on other people, with the result that everyone can once again complain about a lack of freedom! So since you cannot separate the affirmation of freedom from the affirmation of some values which define its legitimate scope, and all these values are disputable, you cannot get around denying freedom by imposing your own values on others.

 

Thus for example in Canada it is a crime to say anything that injures the feelings of certain groups which are designated as vulnerable, because this is deemed to be illegal hate speech. It is seen to be an illegitimate over-extension of your general liberty to say what you want if your statements encourage discrimination against other people, just as it is an illegitimate over-extension of your general liberty to swing your arms if you do so in a crowd and start knocking other people with your elbows. But in America the view is that you are still entitled to say racist things no matter how much they hurt the feelings of vulnerable races or encourage discrimination against them, since that is just the legitimate price they have to pay for living in a free society where they can also say offensive things.

 

Depending on how you determine which is the more important freedom -- freedom from the threat of racial discrimination promoted by the racist free speech of others -- or freedom from the government censoring what you want to say -- either America or Canada is the more free country. To take a more extreme case, the Nazis may have felt their own society was more free because Aryans could live free of the threat of cultural contamination by Jewish influences. If you could really accept the foundational thesis of Nazism, that Jewish influences are genuinely toxic and unambiguously harmful, then you would have to see a society which segregated Jewish influence out of it as 'more free' than one which tolerated it, since the poison of Jewishness would limit everyone's ability to act creativity, enjoy good culture, and avoid morally perverting influences -- and thus limit the freedom of the majority of people.

Democracy is when conflicting points-of-view are able to work out their differences without resorting to domination or elimination. Freedom is the ability of individuals to decide for themselves how to negotiate their conflicts and to self-govern by reason to the extent it doesn't harm others. To the extent hate speech harms or promotes harm against others, it could be argued that governments with stronger approaches to dealing with hate-speech promote greater freedom than those that protect it as freedom of expression. On the other hand, it may also be that by allowing such speech to be expressed and responded to, freedom to negotiate and self-govern is promoted. In my impression, something that happens in continental political expression is that people tend to find approaches to speech that put others in a corner, e.g. the way Nazism treated any transethnic activity as Jewish and thus a contamination/threat of national solidarity and belonging. So when the only function people use free speech for is to harass and bully people into submission or eviction, free speech becomes nothing more than a means to suppress individual freedom. In that case, it makes sense to regulate free speech whereas in a situation where there is adequate diversity of political opinion/will, it makes sense to allow free speech as a means of letting people work out their differences in a democratic way.

 

Humans will never live in a commingled society where some sort of prejudice doesn't always exist, regardless of freedoms. America has came a long way in trying to deal with this issue, but it's a menza menz. Unlike water, which eventually finds its own eqilibrium/level, plants and animals can't seem to make that distinction. When a pendulum swings in the direction of one ethnicity, vacuum created by its departure, demands a return swing. If we could stop the swing in mid stroke, who knows? But! if we should stop it in mid-swing, who knows?

Some humans are able to respect each other and individuals despite cultural differences. Many others continue to cling to groupism as a means of avoiding dealing with diversity at the individual level. Various forms of groupism and collectivism will always be present in a social situations from the smallest nuclear family to the global level; but that doesn't mean that there will not always be resistance to it in various forms. As much as it is possible to repress human individuality in subordination to grouping ideologies, individuals always resist subordination as well because it is contrary to the fact of their innate ability to think and act at the individual level despite what social restrictions may be imposed on them. Your claim that there is something like a pendulum that swings between favoring one ethnicity or another only addresses the level of groupist discourse. At another level, people of all ethnicities are questioning it when they're regarded as just part of a larger group by other individuals. These people are less concerned with whether a pendulum is swinging toward or away from their group as they are with being viewed, treated, and allowed to live as individuals whose ethnic identity/ies are not the primary determinant of their lives.