tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2464977109229359349.post4122556173445568967..comments2023-10-21T03:54:12.029-04:00Comments on A Gift Universe: 7 quick takesSheilahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10853868724554947854noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2464977109229359349.post-52209702537015475992019-04-16T20:18:32.344-04:002019-04-16T20:18:32.344-04:00Anon, are you a regular reader, or did this post a...Anon, are you a regular reader, or did this post attract you? If so, I'm curious how you found me.<br /><br />I've heard these talking points before and don't find them convincing. Some of the facts aren't even true (I am pretty sure a lot of the OOOOH SCARY MUSLIM RAPISTS stuff is a bit overblown but I'm not even going to get into it because this comment is already cutting into my writing time).<br /><br />1. Name an ethnically homogeneous country that's been successful for generations? Um, Switzerland ring any bells? The US, Canada, Australia?<br />The next response is usually "well those are all MOSTLY white and Christian" but when those people got together, they didn't consider white and Christian to be important identities. They saw their British/Irish/German/Italian or Catholic/Protestant identities to be extremely different. Why don't they think so anymore? Because being together in a nation has given them a new sort of cohesion. You certainly need some kind of national identity, but national identities shift. Even the "ethnic" British did not originally see themselves as one things. It was the Welsh vs. the Saxons for awhile, and then the Danes and the Normans. <br /><br />2. Recessive traits don't vanish when people mix. They show up generations later as a total surprise. For instance, red hair isn't a majority color in the US, but it appears all the time. I was surprised, marrying my dark husband, to have all blond kids but . . . well, genetics is cool!<br /><br />I don't actually believe in breeding ourselves like cats for attractive traits, but if I did, I'd definitely be aiming for gorgeous dark-skinned people with green eyes, or blond kids with Asian-shaped eyes, or whatever. Those are all beautiful combinations and I love them. But that's aesthetics and I'd never sacrifice individual freedom for my tastes in genetics.<br /><br />3. Between globalization and time, stuff is dying all the time. Traditional garments, weird foods. The best of the best tends to catch on and spread, like for instance the bagel, while less popular stuff gets lost, like silkworm larvae as a food. If you love one of these things, you are entirely free to adopt and promote them. You don't have to be Jewish to eat a bagel.<br /><br />4. I believe in individual rights mostly because I believe in Enlightenment values. I desire certain rights for myself, and therefore I must protect them for everyone. There are also a lot of pragmatic reasons, such as the much better results in pluralistic democracies compared to nations that don't espouse Enlightenment values.<br /><br />But on a deeper level, I also strongly believe that individual rights trump group rights because, AS YOU WOULD KNOW IF YOU WERE A REGULAR READER, I was a member of a cult and I have SEEN what happens when you let individuals be ground up to serve the whole. It gets dystopian.<br /><br />Thanks for the good wishes for my throat and the dog. I recovered almost immediately. Sadly the vet says Gilbert's kidneys are continuing to fail and he has weeks at best. The kids are heartbroken.Sheilahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10853868724554947854noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2464977109229359349.post-24386228372592169592019-04-15T02:30:21.141-04:002019-04-15T02:30:21.141-04:00Sorry to hear about your dog Gilbert - hope he pul...Sorry to hear about your dog Gilbert - hope he pulls through! And the strep infection.<br /><br />On ethno-nationalism, I get your point about individual people having rights, not groups, but... why shouldn't a people have the right to exist as a people? Ok, given your views on Christianity may mean you disregard this, but God created people as ethnicities with different languages etc, right? (after Tower of Babel; Genesis). <br /><br />And it is scientific reality that ethnicities and language groups exist, and social studies seem to clearly show people have higher social cohesion and happiness and trust when living in similar or ethnic groups. Which is how nation states emerged from clans.<br /><br />Now, that does not have to mean a ban on minorities in any nation, nor dividing multi-ethnic people like yourself (and we all are multi-ethnic to a certain extent) and dispatching to disparate nations. But recessive gene global minorities like Europeans or Jews may want to protect their existence by not allowing open borders to swamp them with people who through straight colonisation or by intermarriage breed them out (no more blond or red hair, green eyes etc).<br /><br />Apart from desiring to see any recessive physical characteristics preserved, those physical traits are also markers for cultural traits. Bagels likely won't exist if Jews don't have a homeland (yes, you could counter with NYC, but even there, bagels and other aspects of Judaism are niche).<br /><br />Ok, maybe the bagel argument is a stretch, But in my lifetime, my home town has changed, and Europeans are now a minority, and it is not ok to be openly European culturally. Nobody will beat you up (unless at night on bad streets), but you are expected to be self-flagellating for real and perceived crimes of our ancestors (colonisation, slavery, etc). That is not a healthy way for any people to live, which is why Brits voted for Brexit (largely, to regulate their 'diversity' immigration), and why French Jews are fleeing for Quebec and Israel.<br /><br />I suspect your liberalism promotes the 'individual rights' idea, but even then, your residual Christianity slips through - you say <i>"we should assume that all people, of every ethnicity or religion, have rights"</i> in a republic. Why? Christians assume such rights to respect the inherent human dignity and right to free choice God gave us, but nations (eg China, North Korea, Cuba, Albania, South Africa) operate successfully for lifetimes without such rights. Ask the muslim Uighurs, or Falun Gong, or Christian Chinese. I happen to agree with you on this, but it is not automatic to non-Christians.<br /><br />That is all before you look at the appalling treatment of the only nations on Earth to effectively allow no ethnic rights to locals - the western European states. They are blatantly being colonised, and the impact is traumatic. Their Swedish police chief says it is unsafe for Swedish woman to run alone , while ethnic Austrian girls don hijabs to ward off rape. And it is the migrants doing the bulk of this persecution, mostly muslim. And Jews are disproportionate victims.<br /><br />Take ethnic and religious states away, and the mega-majority ethnicities (India, China) or religion (Islam, 23% or world) can flood any state and colonise and brutalise. That is why the Burmese reacted so brutally to ethnic Bengali muslim Rohingya slowly taking over their western Rakhine state (their Rohingya massacre is of course, wrong).<br /><br />So hopefully, you can rethink your opposition to ethnic nationalism. It needs to be clarified (I don't fully know how it would or could work for minorities), but name a successful (over lifetimes) state with disparate religions or ethnicities...<br /><br />Anyway, hope you & yr dog get better soon.<br /><br />Anon.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com