History proves that empowering women is good for society at large, and human rights proves that women deserve education.
Think
They already do, Some Muslim scumbags thinks that our women wearing next to nothing is us taking advantage of our women, who gives a fuck what some tard thinks, all that matters is what we think.
No
Self-interest is a important part of our societies, its not damning, we should be proud of it.
Everything is permissible; the ends justifies the means.
The knowledge that everybody is human and everybody deserves human rights. At the end of the day, the West knows Best, and if Muslims disagree, tuff shit, its no mistake that our societies are the most prosperous and free when there’s are the worst and retarded. We are the adults in this relationship, they are the children, if a child thinks he knows “whats best” for him, do you listen to him? No, you tell them whats best, and you make them follow your orders, and when they grow up, they thank you for it.
It’s difficult for me to respond to some of these posts without getting into politics, but I’ll try. Can ‘spreading’ democracy in any basic form be considered imperialism? What’s the difference between colonialism and imperialism? Why do many countries have laws against the Americanization–cultural imperialism–taking place in their countries? Drusus, from Denmark, feels his culture has been essentially wiped out by American cultural imperialism. (My words, not his.)
Is there any underlying philosophy behind this perceived cultural ‘take-over’ on either side? I don’t think there is; yet Americans are seen by other countries as arrogant and intent on imposing ‘our’ way of living on the rest of the world, at the risk of submerging other cultures.
This seems to be happening. It seems to be war for no reason other than imperialism. If that war can’t be won through battle, take it to cultural philosophies–or should that be cultural ideologies?
Have people forgotten what 'Imperialism means". What the hell does anyone mean by cultural imperialism, its like saying something like cultural terrorism, its just throwing a sinister word at the end of another word.
Take it from somebody, who does want an conscious, aggressive campaign of cultural elimination and replacement; what some may call Americanization, is not cultural imperialism. What is happening, is that America is the mass manufacturer of high culture and popular culture, which the whole world is drawn into willingly. Unfortunately (Fortunately), America is a open and highly self-critical culture, so its also the greatest produce of poisonous anti-American propganda, which is also exported to the rest of world (especially Europe) and is also consumed by its own citizens who themselves start hating America. You name it, all the great Anti-American campaigners, are Americans themselves, think Noam Chomsky, Gore Vidal, Jon Steward etc. Another example is the conspiracy that 9/11 was done by America, this is an American-made conspiracy theory, but now its exported to all of the middle east who considers it as fact.
This is really a great irony; that America’s virtue of being self-critical, satirical and honest, creates propaganda which is than used by people who claim that America is none of these things.
But to my original point, America’s cultural influence on the world, is not some conspiracy perpetuated by imperialists, its just a natural byproduct of being the single mass producer of great culture.
So in all cases where we think someone is wrong and we are right we intervene?
Rights prove? How do claims about what rights are prove other claims? More importantly: you seem to be a pure consequentialist. Meaning there are no rights, but rather one can do anything to anyone if one thinks the consequences are good. Where did your sudden belief in rights come from?
That clearly has failed, repeatedly.
I don’t think you understood the question. Your methodology justifies anyone’s intervention in our lives.
You are not responding in context. I was responding to someone arguing that if we can see self-interest is the motivation, we can rule out their claim that they are following a moral rule.
Same issue.
Then they are justified in whatever they do to women.
This is not a response to the question, especially in context. Iwas responding to someone saying we can see what those girls want.
This is simply not the case. In generally I see a lot of not thanking.
Further, you don’t share ideas of what is best with many, if not most, in the West. I am not sure you can identify with Westerners.
Sure, if it is spread by war and the only leaders who can reach power are people who will insure various US interests. As one example.
There’s not a great deal of difference.
They value their own culture and would rather have something related to it than Disneyland, Denmark, all their stores exchanged for malls with American - and a few other - outlets. That their movie theaters show their own movies rather than primarily US movies. Likewise with television. And so on. That they can make their own decisions about how the work world is organized, rather than having primarily US corporations determine what the relationships will be between employer and employee, state and business, etc.
The process is certainly happening. One can argue about whether it is good or not, what the consequences of stopping it are, and so on, but it is happening on many levels in most countries.
Didn’t it? They now live in one of the most advanced societies in the world. Compared to places which did having manifest destiny, like Nigeria, they are doing relatively well.
Likewise for the Aboriginals in Australia, if it wasn’t for the white man and his steamroller, they would be living a squalor life, with rampant sexual abuse, dieing of basic diseases and having a life expectancy of 25.
Native Americans were doing vastly better than most Europeans in terms of physical health and longevity upon contact. Many groups had a lot of leisure time, and a rich social and family life. And of course they had particular values and preferences which they could no longer follow, those that survived. The steamroller killed many of them.
JSS–how could what you wrote be either a moral code or a culture? Are you writing something just to see it in print, or do you have something to say? If so, why not say it?
The US isn’t even 230 yrs. old and is taking in immigrants (both legal and not) every day. Many of them remain separate, living in small, self-established ghettos. They speak their native language at home (over 100 of them in our county alone,) dress in their traditional ways and do what they can to keep from integrating themselves into the American way of living. Given that, we haven’t had time to establish a culture. If moral codes differ from state to state within our country–and this country is home to many, many cultures each with its own sense of morality–we have no unified moral code to export to other countries.
And sometimes, I don’t really blame the immigrants. What we seem to show the world can be seen as scraping under the dregs and lees at the bottom of the barrel. Step back, James, and take a good look at how the US can be seen by other countries.
PS, I got the language data from a compilation of input from the superintendents of the public school districts within our county which has been backed up by the 2010 census data. Enjoy
The people who founded the country already had a morality which they brought from the old country and adapted to the new circumstances. They were not starting from scratch in 1776.
The US exports the moral code of the ruling classes and the big corporations. It does not export the moral code of Mexican migrant workers.
Longevity was comparable to the Europeans although somewhat lower. They were in good physical health by the standard of the day.
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From : American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492 By Russell Thornton
I was going by what I read in 1491 - that’s a book title. It came out a few years ago and had much more recent research than what you presented. He focused in the part I remember on Northeastern tribes, who were much better fed than European colonists, with a much more nutritionally varied food supply. They were taller, stronger, had better complexion and lived longer, and this was according to both Natives and colonists at the time. They also considered children children, unlike Europeans who considered them little adults and made them work in ways the natives did not. This allowed a more healthy development and the children also looked healthier.
It is tricky to judge since contact introduced diseases and I would guess that these diseases lead to the data earlier writers assumed was culture based, rather than based on historical factors like the exposure of natives to European diseases. Recent researchers have tried to separate out the factors - hence the title of the book - and at least according to his research - which I can see was vast from his notes and bibliography ((not that this guarantees accuracy)) - natives were more healthy than Europeans.
To me it makes sense. They had rich complex environments with a vast array of life forms. They also did not have the kinds of hierarchical society as in Europe where some people, in fact most people, were servants, serfs, peasants, much of this quite similar to being a slave, at least by our modern standards. Natives had huge food supplies and were very clever about using and not destroying these. They had more leisure time and did not have to work to create excess wealth for the royal classes and the land owning classes. So I am not surprised that they were healthier, and I tend to accept 1491’s conclusions over the older ones you present.
Absolutely. Neo liberalism or neo Conservatism. For example the idea of a common property amongst people is foreign to neo cons and liberals. They also consider nothing sacred and connections to a particular place are considered mere superstition. There is a lot more, but these ideas under the heading of free markets, are a culture and is right now sweeping through the last corners of the world because of who has the power.
A great read for one part of this is Confessions of an economic Hit man by John Perkins or Shock Doctine by Naomi Klein.
The first book is simply horrifying and has a powerful impact because this guy actually did this shit. He actually went into developing countries and fucked them up for the powers that be. Later he regretted what he had done and he lays out how some of these processes take place.
Dude, well-fed, no slavery, diverse environments, leisure time… These are like, all your opinion, man. I mean, you know, whether they’re good’n’shit. You totally shouldn’t raise an eyebrow at someone who values hunger, slavery, conformity, and no breaks. It would be like, “imperial” of you to be like, “yo, fous, we’re chilling with longer and fuller lives over here, recognize ya’ll”.
Aren’t you just proving my point, Moreno, that the US has no real culture to export?
I’m not talking about economic policies, which aren’t ‘culture.’ I’m talking about Manifest Destiny and how it still influences American thought. Manifest destiny has become a part of our ‘culture,’ has it not? Shoot, didn’t George W. use manifest destiny to ‘fight terrorism’ and ‘establish democracy’ in the world?
What, other than our arrogant youth as a nation (which is an excuse) with all the idealism of youth, gives us the ‘right’ to impose our thoughts on far older cultures? Is that our culture? I don’t see how it can be, given our current, diverse population.
