Somalia & Israel

[August1991]

I am fearful that we in the Western world will soon fall into a world that we once called mistakenly, Romanticism, but in fact is Barbarism.

This foreign world of barbarism is not based on poverty, or even frustration. It is most certainly not based on humiliation. At its base, it is not even envy. It is based, ultimately, on traditional stupidity. That is, our only difference from our ancestors is our education.

We in the West, a few hundred million in the world, have benefitted from the Enlightenment. It is our duty to ensure that people elsewhere and future generations understand these ideas, and promote them. They must know Newton, Smith, Voltaire and Einstein.

----

With that said, we must use the Scientific Method to deal with people living in, to name some examples, Pakistan, Palestine, Afghanistan, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Jordan.

IMV, the Enlightenment can speak best to young women in these countries.

[August1991]

No response?

We in the West will face what is happening now in Israel, on the coast of Somalia and what happened in Bombay and Beirut a decade or so ago.

Our children, here in the West, like Galileo and Voltaire ages ago, will face traditional stupidity.

[DogOnPorch]

Well, I agree 100%. Cultural Relativism is just plain daft. Barbarism (as you put it) didn't get us to the Moon.

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A friend to all is a friend to none.

---Aristotle

[KeyStone]

I am fearful that we in the Western world will soon fall into a world that we once called mistakenly, Romanticism, but in fact is Barbarism.

This foreign world of barbarism is not based on poverty, or even frustration. It is most certainly not based on humiliation. At its base, it is not even envy. It is based, ultimately, on traditional stupidity. That is, our only difference from our ancestors is our education.

We in the West, a few hundred million in the world, have benefitted from the Enlightenment. It is our duty to ensure that people elsewhere and future generations understand these ideas, and promote them. They must know Newton, Smith, Voltaire and Einstein.

----

With that said, we must use the Scientific Method to deal with people living in, to name some examples, Pakistan, Palestine, Afghanistan, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Jordan.

IMV, the Enlightenment can speak best to young women in these countries.

Well, while we certainly have a responsibility to share our learnings with the rest of the world, just as the Greeks shared their knowledge, it is something quite different to suggest that we impose our 'more civliized' belief system upon them. There are some that say that Canada and the US are far behind Western Europe when it comes to civilization.

[blueblood]

Well, while we certainly have a responsibility to share our learnings with the rest of the world, just as the Greeks shared their knowledge, it is something quite different to suggest that we impose our 'more civliized' belief system upon them. There are some that say that Canada and the US are far behind Western Europe when it comes to civilization.

Take a stroll around Europe, and you tell us who has better lifestyle's us or them?

[bush_cheney2004]

....There are some that say that Canada and the US are far behind Western Europe when it comes to civilization.

Talk is cheap.....a count of European immigrants to North America demonstrates that is was/is not so grand after all.

[Drea]

Take a stroll around Europe, and you tell us who has better lifestyle's us or them?

Problem is that "better" is a subjective term. Like "butter is better than margarine"... it is an opinion.

Some would think that our lives are terrible... all we do is earn money for more and bigger "things". This may not be "better" in someone else's eyes.

So no, we are not "better", just "different".

[Oleg Bach]

Problem is that "better" is a subjective term. Like "butter is better than margarine"... it is an opinion.

Some would think that our lives are terrible... all we do is earn money for more and bigger "things". This may not be "better" in someone else's eyes.

So no, we are not "better", just "different".

All European males are gayified - In the west we are partially gayified...so manhood still is stronger in the States ---- Canada is quickly following in the footsteps of super liberal Europe - give it time and we will be breeding out of test tubes and wedding the dog. Europe stinks...there immigration policy has led to chaos and destruction from within - exactly what they wanted ----all equal ---all equally poor in the end. The modern European mindset stinks - when they speak I smell the rot of a formerly great bunch of nations that at one time had individual tribal identity ---now they are all hetrofags...

[sharkman]

Your definition of what our lives consist of is just plain wrong, Drea, can't you see more to the lives we lead than that?

The world is getting smaller and meaner at the same time. I really do think the barbarians are at the door. Perhaps we are seeing the threshold of the post-enlightenment. We may try to see that other weaker nations and cultures gain the benefits of the Enlightenment, but many of these nations clearly reject anything coming from the west, and prefer their backward ways.

I remember Bill Clinton being quoted at some speech or other a couple of years after he left office. He had similar thoughts, saying that once some of these nations experience the benefits of our ways, they will want to embrace them. It sounds good, doesn't it? But when you hate someone obsessively (as Muslim nations do the west) will you respect or listen to a thing they say?

[eyeball]

No response?

We in the West will face what is happening now in Israel, on the coast of Somalia and what happened in Bombay and Beirut a decade or so ago.

Our children, here in the West, like Galileo and Voltaire ages ago, will face traditional stupidity.

Especially if we keep going about the world trying to save it from itself when its clearly too late for that. I fully expect there will be a massive die-back of civilization and humanity and we should draw up the drawbridge so to speak and focus on preserving what we can. Its not only too late to save the Israel's and Somalia's of the world we're also perilously close to the point of no return in terms of what we can do here before the same tsunami of stupidity hits.

I admit to a certain Darwinian pessimism and optimism in my outlook. Its not borne of any sense of a eugenic superiority but more of the nature of one who is simply standing in front of a functional well outfitted life-boat (North America) on a sinking burning ship (the part of the world that isn't North America) with fewer poorly outfitted and dysfunctional lifeboats than passengers. If we had the luxury to jump ship i.e. leave this planet for a new one, I wouldn't think twice about it or look back once but we don't. So we either go down fighting with everyone else or cast off with what we've got and hope for better times.

We can always come back for survivors after the danger of being swamped has passed.

Edited January 24, 2009 by eyeball