|
Korean Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
|
 Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 8:59 am Post subject: |
 |
|
| Quote: |
| We discuss white polygamy re: Mormons etc but not that Ontario extends welfare benefits to muslims polygamists (more for more wives). |
Well you know, the reason the BC government dragged its heels for so long on prosecuting the Bountiful harem-masters was that the government was told, in two separate consultations with two different legal experts, that the polygamy laws would not likely survive a Charter challenge. I'm not sure what their third expert opinion said(yes, those guys were desperate for a go-ahead), but they've decided to prosecute in any case, so I guess we'll see in due time just how intolerant of Chirstian polygamy the Canadian establishment really is. |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
|
| Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 9:02 am Post subject: |
|
|
I've moved the following from the previous page...)
| Quote: |
We stop white Christian ministers from trashing the gays, but when a muslim does it we look away (OTOH knows of the examples I'm referencing).
|
Well, I don't think the human-rights commission should be hearing ANY cases based on the idea that hate-speech counts as a form of discrimination. So, in and of itself, the fact that one cleric, Muslim or otherwise, was cleared of those charges is a good thing.
If someone is worried that Muslims being allowed to preach hate is causing social disharmony, then they probably wouldn't like my solution to the problem, which would be to legalize Christian hate speech as well. (Not that I'm a hateful person, just that I don't like those laws.) |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
|
| Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 9:04 am Post subject: |
|
|
| On the other hand wrote: |
If someone is worried that Muslims being allowed to preach hate is causing social disharmony, then they probably wouldn't like my solution to the problem, which would be to legalize Christian hate speech as well. (Not that I'm a hateful person, just that I don't like those laws.) |
Yes, and I agree with that. But it is not the case. Even The Economist noted that the HRC's were essentially leftists and radical muslims ganging up on 1) conservative christians and critics of islam. Stephen Harper gave an interview last week and said he has no intention of changing the system. Multiculturalism is a one way street. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
|
| Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 11:34 am Post subject: |
|
|
Here is the "fire" referenced:
| Quote: |
| A December Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project reports anti-immigrant, and especially anti-Muslim sentiments, to be growing steadily across the continent. Noting that the increase in Muslim prejudice has occurred over a period of decades, the report claims that nearly 52 percent of Spaniards expressed a negative opinion of Muslims - a view echoed by 50 percent of Germans, 46 percent of Poles, and 38 percent of French people. According to an April Georgetown University report, 67 percent of Dutch, and 80 percent of Danes agree with the statement, �the growing interaction between the Muslim world and the West is a menace to freedom.� |
http://thewip.net/contributors/2009/01/the_rise_of_the_right_europes.html
And some sanity from the sane Dissent Magazine:
| Quote: |
| But the trickier solutions will require Europeans to reconsider a central plank of our conventional antiracist approach: multiculturalism. The Ni Putains, Ni Soumises manifesto calls for �no more justifications of our oppression in the name of the right to difference and of respect for those who force us to bow our heads.� Multiculturalism has worked on the assumption that there is one �pure� Islam, represented by elderly mullahs. Now that Islam is splitting into liberal and literalist wings, this approach places European states closer to the reactionaries than to the feminists and liberals. We will have to ensure there are no more state-funded Muslim-only schools and youth clubs, no more privileged status for reactionary clerics. �It must,� Bawer notes, �become impossible for children growing up in Western Europe to be raised to see their religious affiliation as the be-all and end-all of their identity.� |
http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:9AJayUe0l8gJ:www.dissentmagazine.org/article/%3Farticle%3D752+%E2%80%9Cbewildering+Islamic+cacophony,%E2%80%9D&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us
The section I put in bold above would have been useful a decade ago, but it might just be too late now. But Western states have no choice but to try. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
blade
Joined: 30 Jun 2007
|
| Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 2:57 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| bigverne wrote: |
If the British had not transplanted thousands of Scottish and English protestants to Ulster, the ethnic conflict that claimed thousands of lives would never have transpired. |
The British cleared Ulster of it's native Irish population and planted Scotsmen in their place the British did not try to bring about a diverse society were religious beliefs were not just tolerated but actually respected. That is a very recent and very welcome change.
| Quote: |
Creating ethnic, religious and cultural divides, which is what multiculturalism leads to is inherently dangerous. The massive influx of Muslims into Europe over the past 30 years will likely lead to similar problems. |
The whole situation in the North of Ireland was brought about because one group just didn't want share their ball with the other team i.e. anti-multiculturalism. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
bigverne
Joined: 12 May 2004
|
| Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 5:55 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| blade wrote: |
| bigverne wrote: |
If the British had not transplanted thousands of Scottish and English protestants to Ulster, the ethnic conflict that claimed thousands of lives would never have transpired. |
The British cleared Ulster of it's native Irish population and planted Scotsmen in their place the British did not try to bring about a diverse society were religious beliefs were not just tolerated but actually respected. That is a very recent and very welcome change.
| Quote: |
Creating ethnic, religious and cultural divides, which is what multiculturalism leads to is inherently dangerous. The massive influx of Muslims into Europe over the past 30 years will likely lead to similar problems. |
The whole situation in the North of Ireland was brought about because one group just didn't want share their ball with the other team i.e. anti-multiculturalism. |
But the fact remains that had there been no plantation of protestant settlers, there would have not been such a sectarian divide and thus no conflict. You are right, it is not an example of multiculturalism, but it is an example of the dangers of large scale population movements leading to an ethnically or religiously divided society. Multiculturalism encourages such folly, and is creating mini-Belfasts all over Europe. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
The Bobster
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
|
| Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 7:11 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| bigverne wrote: |
| But the fact remains that had there been no plantation of protestant settlers, there would have not been such a sectarian divide and thus no conflict. You are right, it is not an example of multiculturalism, but it is an example of the dangers of large scale population movements leading to an ethnically or religiously divided society. Multiculturalism encourages such folly, and is creating mini-Belfasts all over Europe. |
I think you are off-base using Ireland as an example. If I understand the situation correctly, it sound like the opposite of multiculturalism - though again, it doesn't really apply at all, since catholics and protestants actually share the same culture, and many have pointed out before me that the conflict was only nominally about religion, and more specifically about colonialism, the English asserting military and other forms of control over the Irish people.
Multiculturalism, seems to me, is asking people to live together who share a fair amount of differences, and asking them to be tolerant of those differences and count them as part of a larger group in spite of them - that would seem to be quite contrary to what you are describing in Northern Ireland, but if I'm wrong, perhaps you can explain it somehow.
The article in the OP appeared to suggest that Canada would be better off with Quebec off on its own - isn't that analogous to the Irish situation? Are things better off today with a divided Ireland? Would another solution have been feasible in some way?
(In other parts of the world, catholics and protestants manage to live next to each other well enough. Why is Ireland different?) |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
bigverne
Joined: 12 May 2004
|
| Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 7:23 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
| Multiculturalism, seems to me, is asking people to live together who share a fair amount of differences, and asking them to be tolerant of those differences and count them as part of a larger group in spite of them - that would seem to be quite contrary to what you are describing in Northern Ireland, but if I'm wrong, perhaps you can explain it somehow. |
Asking people to be tolerant is of course a noble aim and a hallmark of a civilized society. However, manufacturing ethnic divides by encouraging large scale immigration of people with often opposing cultural values is, in my opinion, foolish.
As I have stated Northern Ireland is not an example of multiculturalism but of a failed colonial project that left a violent political-religious divide. The same scenario can be seen in Sri Lanka. This folly is now being repeated with the large scale migration of Muslims to Western Europe. Tolerating differences is fine, but actually stating multiculturalism as an end goal seems to me to be quite dangerous. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
The Bobster
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
|
| Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 8:32 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| bigverne wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Multiculturalism, seems to me, is asking people to live together who share a fair amount of differences, and asking them to be tolerant of those differences and count them as part of a larger group in spite of them - that would seem to be quite contrary to what you are describing in Northern Ireland, but if I'm wrong, perhaps you can explain it somehow. |
Asking people to be tolerant is of course a noble aim and a hallmark of a civilized society. (...)Tolerating differences is fine, but actually stating multiculturalism as an end goal seems to me to be quite dangerous. |
Forgive for deleting a lot of what you were saying about Ireland and Sri Lanka (I'm still not sure how they apply to multiculturalism in Canada, America and Europe) but I think we need to stress something.
Toleration is not just a good idea, or some ideal to be sought after in the abstract. In the modern world - or post-modern, or what have you - it is absolutely necessary. We need it, because the world is too interconnected and there's too much travel and communication going on the rely on some notion of separating people from each other because they don't like the fact that they are not the same. China cannot build a wall around itself as it did once upon a time, and neither can any of us.
It's not necessary to manufacture ethnic divides, because they are already there, and it's rather irrelevant to talk about movements of large populations because distances matter so much less today than was true at any other time in history. Ask the Saudis who flew the jet planes into the WTC and the Pentagon if it was important to them at all that the US was on the other side of the world. It didn't matter in the least.
Toleration is not just something we want to wish for. It's something we must require. We must require it in our own countries, but we also must require it of those in other parts of the world.
I think if we agree on nothing else, we will likely agree on this: the "PC-Left" has made one very large and monumental blunder in that through multiculturalism and other ideologies, we have sought to require toleration among ourselves but not among the people we seek to be tolerant of. That has to change, and it has to stop.
It has to be a requirement for membership in the modern world - perhaps the first and most important requirement. We have to require it of fundamentalist Christians who want prayer in the schools (but presumably no mention of Allah or Buddha). We need to require it of our friends in Israel who make religion a prerequisite for citizenship, and we obviously need to require it of Wahhabi mullahs who preach jihad and suicidal martyrdom.
I do like what you said about "hallmark of a civilized society" and I think it's time to go further simply assert that our species can no longer accept anything less than civilization. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
