Different parrot breeds have different personalities.
Different dog breeds have different personalities - all are the same species.
Where did Western Enlightenment values come from? Freedom of speech, doubt, skepticism, reason, logic, Greek philosophers, Christianity, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, men on the moon, modern science & medicine, your iphone.
Did the above come about because of good memes, or good genes?
People like Steven Pinker and Jordan Peterson would probably push for the "good memes" route.
People like Ricardo Duchesne (search youtube for recent vids) and Stefan Molyneux (ditto) aren't afraid to give credence to the "good genes" route.
What can we blame whitey for?
1. An end to Universal Slavery, thanks to the UK Parliament, and to the good Englishmen who founded America. Also thanks to 365,000 pink skins (AKA "whites") who died to the American Civil War.
2. The rule of law.
3. Regulating the power of a monarch by an elected representatives.
4. A separation of church and state.
5. Innovation and creativity unmatched by other groups on this planet.
So, was it good memes, or good genes to blame for the above? A complication was that there's a synergy between genes and memes.
Every human flavor has their strong traits. Their advantages, which are frankly probably evolved, and evolved for darn good reasons.
As for whites, it's incredibly racist and utterly unfair to hoist the problems of the world onto white children who are born innocent.
If all races get to be proud of their contributions except for whites, well that really is retrograde and racist.
I married an East Asian and so I have no problem with so-called "race mixing" per se of course. But I also have no problem with people having some degree of in group preference. Freedom of association means the freedom to not associate. That's fine.
Don't treat pink skins like we're vending machines who cough up money when other races try & guilt trip us for past sins.
Amerindians, had slaves, and did pretty much all human groups from the beginning of time.
Aboriginal Australians, had slaves,
Islamic people, promoted slavery.
Yes in the past whitey did things all other human groups did. But is the greatest contribution to the human family, from pink skins, the key concept that we need to doubt what our leaders tell us? Doubt is the foundation of reason, and of science, and of true progress. To separate facts from fiction, we must doubt.
The poodle which are the pink skinned whites of the human family. Good genes which allowed for doubt, or just good memes? Perhaps a combination. And if Steven Pinker & other public intellectuals are made uncomfortable by the truth of origins of the Western Enlightenment, so be it.
Question received: "And if Russia diverted Air Force One? Or should other politicians be grateful for the chance to comply with our government?" My answer:
I'd
only see an equivalence if they diverted Admiral General Aladeen or
Fielding Mellish (ref the films The Dictator and Bananas), or Kim Jong-un. I have no problem with the diversion of the presidential plane
of a banana republic leader who may be attempting to spirit away a
fugitive who otherwise very much deserves to be in jail.
Question: "If
Obama hypothetically might be giving a lift to someone the Russians or
Chinese wanted to imprison, and they used their pull with some countries
to get the plane grounded.. ?"
Answer:
Evo is rather like a flea compered to giant stature of Obama, and so I cannot wrap my brain around an equivalence.
Just goes to show humans with Amerindian DNA can be crackpots also. Whodathunkit.
Speaking
generally, the myth of the noble savage is one of the dogma points of
the ChomskyAmy Goodman ultra left. They've got many others also worth
rejecting, or at the very least examining closely to see if they can be
rejected.
"Democratically-elected
leaders of the things the collective social fiction calls
'nation-states', traveling in airplanes. (By the conventions of the
collective social fiction, the plane a national leader travels in is
sovereign territory.) That's the equivalence."
"I
was aware of the two things you posted, and I'm not the one calling
Morales savage, or noble. But Morales, and the late Chavez, were points
on a trend of Latin American countries shedding USian government and
business influence (without subsequently meeting assassination or a
puppet coup.)"
"That is a trend that is overall positive." "John
Kerry is indirectly quoted in one of the links, referring to Latin
America as the 'backyard of the United States.' That's long-standing
problematic attitude asserting a right to interfere."
"'Giant
Stature', I try not to believe in Great Men. Or do you refer only to
the difference in power of the nations? Would you prefer an analogy
where the leader of some Bolivia-statured African or Asian nation was
shunted aside in travels through the influence China or Russia had on
some other African or Asian nations?"
Regarding
Chavez, and apparently Morales, while the actions of apparent nutbags
may be in part, positive, it's difficult to separate their nutbaggery
status from the partial-good they may (and only "may") have done.
Do
you ever watch Russia Today (RT)? It's pretty much a constant drumbeat
for *supposed* freedom in America, while at the same time Putin's
Russia is becoming less and less free by the day. Authoritarian
governments are happy to glom onto the self-hating lefties. Thom Hartmann comes to mind. There's others. Hey, even Iran's Press TV has
George Galloway. Maybe they can hire Amy Goodman next, or fund in full
Democracy Now!. Makes you wonder who's funding Amy's near constant
hate-everything-American conspiratorial crazed drum beat - at the very
least uneducated drug addled hippies (your average Pacifica affiliate
listener) who're unfortunately & sadly sucked in by her tripe &
fear-mongering. Amy is a legacy of Vietnam, as are the drugie hippies,
but not everything is equal. Both ends of the spectrum have big
problems.
Also
here's something of note re Goodman: "On October 2, 2004, Goodman was
presented the Islamic Community Award for Journalism by the Council on
American-Islamic Relations." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Goodman
CAIR
knows who their friends are, apparently. So do Russia Today
(Putin/Russia) and Press TV (Iran). The left in America play right into
their hands. Does that mean everything the left says or wants is bad?
No, but as of now Amy Goodman is essentially in the same camp as tin
foil helmeted Alex Jones, as is Glenn Greenwald.
So,
should journalists, especially self-hating ultra-lefties like
Greenwald, be the arbiters of what passes for classified information?
No. How about Assange? Probably not. Did Assange & Snowden release
info which probably should be released? Maybe. But I do think there does
need to be classified information. Should embarrassing info be
protected? Well, probably not. But "journalists," particularly the
self-hating liberal types who play into the hands of governments like
Iran & Russia, cannot be fair arbiters as to what should and what
should not be released.
Some
presidents have gone too far in what they classify. But on the other
hand just opening the spigot so that any old "journalist" can decide for
themselves, that also goes too far. Greenwald seemed quite happy to be
the new arbiter for the entire body of classified info, as per what he's
said in interviews. That's a dangerous state of affairs in my view.
So, since journalists should not be the final arbiters of what passes for classified info, should Assange be in jail? Maybe.
Assange
is hiding behind a diplomatic structure which he himself has helped to
undermine. Is that fair? Not really. Should the integrity of the embassy
he's hold up in be honored in this case? Maybe not. Do I believe in
diplomatic immunity? Not really.
Now,
as for whether I personally feel Amerindians are "savages," they are no
more and no less savage than any other group of humans. They are just
as capable of doing just as much evil and good as any other group. And,
just because of the color of my skin, that doesn't make me or my family personally responsible for the sins of other humans who also happen to
share my same skin color. Children are not responsible for the sins of
their parents, nor for the sins of other people who may happen to share
the same "race" or skin color, or geographic origin. Now, that is an
abusive idea present in Amerindian culture. The constant drumbeat of
what "white culture" did to us, on and on - it's not healthy, and, it's
racist, retrograde, and may I venture to say "savage," but any group of
humans could well do the same, and I'm sure have.
Does
that mean I think the Indian Health Service should be abolished? No.
Does that mean I agree with what happened in places like Brigham City?
No. But, I didn't do it, my family didn't do it, and the current U.S.
and Utah governments did do it. We all agree it was a bad idea. So going
further than this, and assigning blame to people who are currently
alive & who had zero to do with past sins, that is abusive. Also
allowing Indian tribes to have things like casinos has resulted in
rather unsavory things like mass disenrollment. http://www.natlawreview.com/article/tribal-membership-revocations-dialing-dollars
So
anyway, all this goes to show there's more complexities than at first
glance. Name a group. Any group. Any hyphenated group who is just oh so
special and great, and dig a little deeper & be honest & we'll
find out what really lies underneath the veneer: Humans.
Lastly
I still have no problem with baring Evo from flying over any country,
and I have no problem with going in and arresting Assange, today, now,
and even baring in mind of where he is. Same goes for Snowden. Since, I
believe that journalists should not be the final arbiters of what passes
for classified info, and perhaps even more importantly, because
journalists can end up being chumps for otherwise authoritarian regimes
and groups (Russian, Iran, and Islam), I believe we should not allow the
Alex Joneses, Amy Goodmans, Glenn Grenwalds, or Julian Assanges of the
world to be the new classified info gatekeepers - because they can and
often are chumps and thin fronts for otherwise oppressive regimes. Question: "I
can't see most of it as any direct response to what I wrote so I assume
I'm serving as a proxy for the public figures you name."
Answer:
Not as a proxy. Issues were raised & so I responded generally as I saw fit. I realize you may or may not agree with the other protagonists mentioned.
Here's a more succinct list:
I don't have a problem with blocking Evo's plane.
Morales & Chavez are/were nutbags worth dismissing out of hand. Friends of Fidel are no friends of Americans (Americans not sucked in by the ultra left self hating propaganda & party line).
The sins of the CIA from the past are worth calling out. But that doesn't mean everything the CIA or NSA does today is necessarily bad, or not worth protecting.
I don't have a problem with stating Obama's stature in the world is greater than that of tiny flea Evo. And for those who view Obama as The Joker, he's your president too (to the tea baggers who wish The South had won the civil war).
Regarding Latin America today & intervention: I don't see a need for a blanket ban on intervention. Depends on the situation. Yes we can criticize what happened in the past. But on the other hand any country can be a candidate for intervention given the right circumstances. An Afghanistan situation, definitely. An Iraq one, maybe. And so on.
If some other country were to bar Air Force One from travel, well, we could retaliate in other ways. But, itsy bitsy (world stage size wise) Bolivia is not in much of a position to do much of anything, other than elect an oh so noble Amerindian who's otherwise a crackpot banana republic style leader, in my view.
The USA should support it's own companies just as much as China & Russia support theirs. Aggressively. Not illegally or in uncouth ways. But I don't have a particular problem with tying US economic aid to whether a country buys American.
Both my wife and I ate some chicken this past week & we haven't turned gay yet.
People are people & savages are no more noble than anyone else.
Also people born here are just as much a 'native' as anyone else. That's
what native means - born in a given place. Also everyone here is a
descendant of immigrants, whether it's 100 or 500 or 10,000 or 20,000 years ago. And children should not be saddled nor blamed for the sins of
their parents or people who happen to have the same skin color. Again
people are people regardless of color. Sometimes noble & sometimes
not so much.
