Take it from another typical white person, stereotypes or not, I can certainly understand Barack's grandmother's fear.
Barack Obama apparently deftly delivered another bullet to his foot with his recent comments about his "white grandmother." He called her a "typical white person" and the news commentators on radio and TV are lovin' it! The tone of their comments boils down to this: "How dare he, a black man running for president, use racial stereotypes when racial stereotypes have done so much to hurt civil rights?"…
Article comments
76 - Silver Surfer
Yes Dan, she was correct, although I'm not sure most people regard the US literally as a laughing stock. The problem is, this stuff is just attacking the problem piecemeal. Right, you can't say the N-word, but it's OK for people to call you a cracker-ass, etc.
Legally, you can be a white supremacist and publish a comic about race hatred showing a skinhead shooting black kids dead (although Tom Metzker was sued for $12m over inciting hate that led to a killing in Portland, and lost) but you can't make window-cleaning jokes about female corporate executives hitting the glass ceiling.
You can get fined for smoking in a public place, but 500 yards up the street you can buy bullets that can will go through a bullet-prooft vest.
It just doesn't make sense.
That's the stuff that leaves people scratching their heads. I bet London to a brick the founding fathers never intended it to be that way, same as they'd probably have preferred not to have 300 million legal firearms (and God knows how many illegal ones) floating around the country when their original intent was to arm a relatively small population with muzzle-loading weapons to fight the British.
In Australia, when the government decided to ban certain types of firearm, most of the population couldn't give a fuck about what gun lobby thought. Who cares if they feel slighted and offended and think their freedoms are under threat? Fuck their rights, what about ours? We were sick of all the mass shootings, and since the automatic gun ban, we haven't had any of those. I just think that unless you're shooting kangaroos out on the farm, why do you need an automatic weapon? Most of my countrymen felt the same way.
A lot of us think America has its priorities arse-about. If that's what your friend means by laughing stock, then yes - but I see it all a bit more seriously.
I see a place that's forgotten what it really is and what it set out to be. It's also forgotten how great it could be if it pursued courses of action different to those it has pursued in the decades since WWII.
Still, I like Americans a lot (not all of them though, but then I don't like all my own countrymen) and think it is great place. Like my school reports said though, the verdict for the US is: could do better.
Back to free speech and political correctness, I say - and if the guy whose name is mud cares to look through my baiting of him he'll see what I'm getting at - is that all the while the US won't legislate on a lot of this stuff to stop it at the roots, it will have school boards and corprations sacking people or stubbing out their careers for being politically incorrect or making silly jokes, yet the courts will go on allowing extremists to suggest that killing non-whites is fine because the 1st amendment gives them the right to free speech.
There's a lot of tippy-toeing around, but not much of substance.
And to many of us in the rest of the English-speaking world, it's what makes the US a land of very bizarre contradictions.
Libertarian ideals are great up to a point, but when it comes to issues like organisations pushing for the lowering of the age of male consent to 12 and people supporting that not because they think paedophilia is OK but because they think it should be protected free speech, then I kind of wonder where the place is heading.
Often, to the kind of outsiders like me who have no desire to live in the US because they think their own countries are better, it often looks like America's direction is to hell in a handbasket.
77 - Silver Surfer
Sorry, typo: I think Tom Metzker should be Tom Metzger, although they do sound similar.
78 - Clavos
Stan,
G'day, mate. Sure sorry to hear about the window on your wife's car, but glad it wasn't more than that. When you rang off so abruptly, I really got worried, and my overactive imagination kicked in at full RPMs.
Here's a good revenge: take lawn fertilizer over one night when the neighbors are out, and dribbling it out of your hand, write some sort of appropriate epithet on his lawn with it, in very large letters.
In a day or two, the whole neighborhood will be able to read it, and it'll last for a few weeks, no matter how much he cuts the lawn.
It will drive him nuts...
79 - Silver Surfer
Or I could force-feed the bastard a heaped tablespoon of Vegemite ... but mate, seriously, it's really bad to have dramas with the neighbours like that.
When we first moved to the new place last year (it's about 10 minutes' drive from where we used to live), I thought: "Beauty ... great house, near the railway and the freeway, five minutes' walk to a big shopping mall, great neighbours etc"
Everything was right except them. It just deteriorated from the start when they kept nagging me about the fucking tree.
It's on my property, it's been there for 20 years, and they built their place four years ago really close to the fence line.
Now they are claiming that even though the tree is on my side of the fence, they have discovered that the fence was built in the wrong place and therefore the tree is actually on their land and they've asked the council if they can chop it down.
This is Australia mind you, where temperatures routinely get up to 40C in summer and nicely placed palm trees reduce the temperature around the house by up to 10 degrees. Even with aircon here, you can't always escape the heat so you need 'em.
They are Poms, though. They just don't like it, I suppose if it was an oak tree they'd be happy, although they'd complain about falling acorns.
The guy has also abused me three or four times for saying hello and passing the time of day to his wife, but when I've asked him to come over and say it up close, he runs away. So we think he resorts to prowling around at night or early in the morning to get his revenge.
Mate, I'm fair-dinkum over it. The fertiliser solution is sounding good about now.
I might write: "I'm a tree hugger".
80 - Dan Miller
Silver Surfer,
You state,
"Often, to the kind of outsiders like me who have no desire to live in the US because they think their own countries are better, it often looks like America's direction is to hell in a handbasket."
Sadly, I have little choice but to agree. I love and am very sad for my country, where I haven't lived since 1996. I do my best to keep in touch via the internet, and can't help but see a continuing downward spiral no matter how much I wish it were otherwise. I haven't quite given up, but at 66 I am heading in that direction.
It is not just the present electoral debacle, though that is a vivid symptom of the problems. There are many causes, but we tend to focus on symptoms rather than on root causes. A physician who consistently did that would wind up with lots of dead patients.
As to one of your major comments, guns, I have never owned or felt the need to have one. We lived and traveled on our sailboat for about six years through much of the Caribbean before settling in Panama, and some of our fellow cruisers had guns. In most cases, they would have been better off without them, even when facing "pirates," and several wound up being killed or wounded by their own weapons.
Be that as it may, the U.S. Constitution affirms the right to bear arms just as it affirms the rights to freedom of speech and religion. Sure, the language is subject to interpretation just as is the written word everywhere. For better or worse, the Bible is now interpreted quite differently than it was a couple of centuries ago. I see the right to bear arms as important, not because I think people should have them but because I don't like to see Constitutional rights trashed. They have been trashed more than enough already. The Constitution can be amended, and perhaps should be. It is not an easy task, but it has been accomplished when deemed absolutely necessary.
Things, I believe, are different in England, which has marvelous common law and tradition, but no written constitution. Common law can be overridden by statutory law, and tradition changes as circumstances demand. Think how different things would be if England had a constitution written about three hundred years ago and if the process of amending it were similar to that incorporated in the U.S. Constitution. I asked you to think about it, but really it is unthinkable. I don't know whether England is better off, or whether the U.S. would be better off with no written constitution. My belief is that we are better off with one.
There are many limitations on the right to bear arms, and my suspicion is that most of the weapons used to commit crimes are owned, and certainly used, illegally. Unfortunately, many people in the U.S. believe that they need guns for their own safety. There are reasons for that belief, but those reasons are much more rarely addressed than a perceived need further to limit the right to bear arms legally.
Back to political correctness for just a moment. Where we now live, in a rather remote, rural area up on the mountains with not many Gringos, the specter of political correctness is unknown. Although I have never heard the "N word" used, Black people are frequently nicknamed "Chombo" stout people "Gordo" and skinny people "Flaco." There is no evil intent, and no offense is perceived. Perhaps when there is more "civilization," these attitudes will change. I hope not.
I do appreciate your insightful comments.
Dan Miller
81 - Dave Nalle
Morning Clav. Sorry I had to rush off the other night. Some bastard smashed my wife's back windscreen in. It cost me $750 to get it fixed, because I didn't want to lose the no-claim bonus. We think it might be one of the neighbours who is arguing with us over - would you believe - a fucking palm tree that's on the fence line. This is the third incident.
What a perfect illustration. Here in the US this kind of incident is relatively rare, because the angry neighbor knows that there's a good chance you have a gun (or 6 on average) in the house and will shoot him. And at least here in Texas you'd get away with no punishment for doing it.
An armed society IS a civil society.
Dave
82 - Dr Dreadful
Easily settled, isn't it? Just go to the council and look at the plot plans...?
Sounds like you need to keep an eye on the neighbor bloke, and more particularly his wife. If he's that crazy just because you talk to her...
83 - Dr Dreadful
Dan M:
(There's another Dan who comments here regularly, so just to clarify!)
On political correctness: yes, the US does have a reputation for being a bit silly about it. It's not unknown in the UK, although the movement there reached its zenith (or nadir, depending on your point of view!) in the early 80s. The most infamous and ridiculous example was the school board that wanted to outlaw the word 'blackboard' in favor of 'chalkboard'. But it pretty much got eventually swept away by Thatcherism and the concurrent obliteration of the Labour Party in its socialist form. It still exists today, but it's governed more by common sense than by a knee-jerk slavishness to idealism.
On written constitutions vs. tradition: I agree with you that the US is probably better off with one. It's still a young country and needs a lot of supervision to prevent it from getting into trouble!
I'm not being entirely frivolous here. The British constitution and law has evolved over thousands of years, to the point where everyone knows pretty much where they stand in regard to their rights and obligations. America, starting from scratch 200-plus years ago, needed a document that stated unequivocally "This is what our new country stands for, and these are our rights as its citizens". Without that, it would probably have fragmented almost instantaneously.
84 - Silver Surfer
Dan,
I work with a guy nicknamed "Gordo". Yes, because he used to be big. He's not anymore, but we still call him Gordo - to his face, and he loves it too because it IS funny.
Australia might be one of the least politically correct places on the planet.
A mate's father, who is Chinese and came to Australia when he was 18 or so, had a job at a factory and his son says a defining moment in his life was when he began to be invited to the pub on Friday afternoons by the other workers, whose only previous contact with a Chinese person was the odd visit to a local Chinese restaurant (my, how things have changed ... that's another story).
They also gave him a nickname: "Chongo", as in ching-chong.
He was very proud of that, as in Australia if you get a nickname, no matter how politically incorrect, it means people like you. Not having one means they're ambivalent.
When I first met him, I called him Mr, and his surname.
He said: "Enough of the mister, son, just call me Chongo ... every other bastard does".
Can you imagine being able to call a fellow worker in the US a derivative of ching-chong???
85 - Dan Miller
Thanks, Silver Surfer. You made my day. I think the typical nickname here is "Chino," but that's about the same. It's refreshing to know that at least some parts of the world have not gone completely nuts.
Dan Miller
86 - STM
"An armed society IS a civil society"
Lol. Never let a chance go by, eh Dave?
Things have changed a bit in Australia.
In the not too distant past here, if someone was doing that kind of stuff to you, you could have punched them in the snout without too much fear of retribution.
We've always drawn the line at threatening people with guns, though.
I have heard of cases of people complaining to the cops about being decked in such circumstances and the cops suggesting that they might have deserved it and to go away and be thankful they only got a punch in the nose and hadn't been charged with anything.
Even the police used to use the discretionary wallop from time to time, especially with young offenders.
Which is one of the reasons one of their nicknames here is the "wallopers".
Now you'd be charged, hauled before the courts, fined, and possibly sued for damages.
And if you were a cop, you'd almost certainly be sacked or made the subject of an internal affairs inquiry and suspended from duty pending the outcome.
87 - Zedd
Dave
You are fibbing about the window thing. It would most certainly happen here. Do you know thing that I have encountered is White folks and trees. WHAT IS THE DEAL? I mean every neighborhood that I have lived in there is always a dispute about trees. Do you know before Stan said what the problem was, I said to my self "I bet it's a tree". Then off course I laughed because it really was. WHAT GIVES with the trees??? Maybe its just a fluke and i have ended up in places where people are tree obsessed but its just odd. EVERYWHERE I MOVE, ITS THE TREES!!!
88 - Dave Nalle
Trees are nice, Zedd. People LIKE to have trees in their yards. But at the same time they don't like their neighbor's tree doing nasty stuff to their property. Case in point, in our old house we had a neighbor who had a giant oak tree and one of the branches fell and crushed the corner of our living room roof in a storm. Not so much damage, but after that we did insist that he trim back some other huge and threatening branches that also overhung our house. Trees can do a hell of a lot of damage.
As for the gun thing, Stan. I didn't say anything about THREATENING the guy with a gun. You don't pull out a gun unless you plan to use it.
Dave
89 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
On written constitutions vs. tradition: I agree with you that the US is probably better off with one. It's still a young country and needs a lot of supervision to prevent it from getting into trouble!
Just a thought for you, DD.
New Zealand's British colonial settlement is about as old as Australia's and is probably a bit younger. The Dominion of New Zealand has no written constitution, just like its mother country. And New Zealand is considerably younger than the United States. I would also note for you that the original British plan for governing New Zealand was to have it develop as a federation with about ten provinces or regions. This plan was scrapped by the colonial government over 100 years ago, and the present centralized form adopted.
If I might refine the points you've been making just a bit, the real issue that made a written constitution necessary was that the United States did not evolve away from Britain as did Canada and New Zealand. The various British provinces in North America that became the United States rebelled and formally declared their reasons for doing so. Originally, the States were bound by a treaty, the Articles of Confederation, which were badly drawn up and failed to meet the needs of the new States. In 1787, delegates from the various States were commissioned by the Continental Congress to consider revisions to this treaty. They deemed the Articles of Confederation a failure and began anew. The failure of this treaty necessitated a written constitution for the United States.
90 - STM
Dan,
Britain actually does have a constitution. It's made up of all the laws that have gone before, and all the things that have been written (like the magna carta and the English Bill of Rights), or form part of the tradition that gave an Englishman natural rights (such things as life, happiness and liberty) but you are right - it can and does change with the time; for the better IMO.
It's worth noting though that when the founding fathers wrote the Bill of Rights, all they were doing was reaffirming and writing down the stuff that already existed under English law, which theyb also acknowledge.
The due process provisions of the US constitution contained in the 5th amendment are near identical in their wording to the statute of Edward III added to the Magna Carta in 1354:
".... no man of what estate or condition that he be, shall be put out of land or tenement, nor taken, nor imprisoned, nor disinherited, nor put to death, without being brought in answer by due process of law."
The Glorious Revolution of the late 1600s that turned Britain into a constitutional mobarchy and true, modern parliamentary democracy, Lockian thought (John Locke), and such documents as the English Bill of Rights and the Magna Carta, the works of Blackstone on English common law and Jefferson's love of old-English law and rights going back to the Saxon era, all influenced the writing of the US constitution.
All those things above are part of Britain's constitution, and nothing was plucked from thin air by the founding fathers, who even gave a nod to those old rights under English law in the 9th amendment.
Even today, US lawyers and judges can still refer back to rulings of English common law applicable in the colonies prior to the revolution.
I guess it's why, as an Australian, I feel no discomfort at all when I'm in the US, or Britain, or New Zealand, or Canada. It's also why I can watch shows like Law and Order and follow the court cases because the criminal legal system is near identical in both form and function. Ditto a British show I have been watching called Judge John Deed.
It also all feels pretty much the same in terms of how I view my personal freedoms, rights and liberties.
Britain is not like the other European powers. It was always about freedom and personal liberty, which is probably why it and its offspring, including the US, have banded together on the occasions needed to fight bullies and tyrants and twisted ideologies that threatened those freedoms.
Some ideas about what freedoms are might be slightly different in each of the English-speaking countries (for instance, having paid my taxes, I believe it is my right to have my government provide health services that won't send me bankrupt) but the basics are the same in all.
See, different paths have led to very similar places.
91 - STM
Dave: "As for the gun thing, Stan. I didn't say anything about THREATENING the guy with a gun. You don't pull out a gun unless you plan to use it."
Come on Dave, you don't expect me to accept the notion that even the wildest and wooliest of red-necked Americans (OK, Texans then) think it's OK to shoot some poor bastard because he smashed your car window?? A good smack in the mouth I can cop, but a bullet??
That's still known as murder here (or attempted murder or malicious wounding with intent if they don't die), and I'm sure it is in every state of the US, including Texas.
I do like you mate, but you do talk some bollocks sometimes - especially about those bloody guns :)
92 - Clavos
"Come on Dave, you don't expect me to accept the notion that even the wildest and wooliest of red-necked Americans (OK, Texans then) think it's OK to shoot some poor bastard because he smashed your car window?? A good smack in the mouth I can cop, but a bullet??
That's still known as murder here (or attempted murder or malicious wounding with intent if they don't die), and I'm sure it is in every state of the US, including Texas."
Actually, no, Stan.
I don't know about Texas, but here in Florida I can carry a concealed weapon, be walking down the street, and if you approach me in what I perceive to be a threatening manner, I can LEGALLY blow you away; it can be anywhere, not just at home.
Breaking your car window (if you were present when he did it) would be more than sufficient to cover you.
Fair dinkum, mate...
93 - STM
Ruvy, on New Zealand.
It has no written constitution but it has a bill of rights. Its constitution is unwritten, like Britain's - but it still has one made up of Acts of Parliament, judgments of courts, statutes, common law, treaties, orders in council, etc. For isntance, the Treaty of Waitangi is considered an important element of NZ's constitutuional law.
The Treaty of Waitangi signed in 1840 between the Pakeha (whites) and Maori cemented equal rights between two very different cultures that have flourished - together. Not always without incident but it's as near to perfect as you'll get when you are talking a mingling of vastly different cultures.
A New Zealander (Pakeha or Maori) pretty much had and has the same rights as an Englishman, which is pretty much identical to the rights of an American, a Canadian, or an Australian.
As for federalism: in a country the size of Australia, self-governing colonies were always going to become states largely running their own affairs, with a federal govt looking after defence, some infrastructure, foreign affairs and some funding for things like health and interstate roads. This is a huge and vast country and it needed the American-style system.
New Zealand at the time was a small place in terms of population, and still is really. They did have provinces, but these were replaced by counties. Having a central government in the British-style was probably the right thing for NZ, because it would have cost more than it saved to have the kind of duplication of services in government that often needs to happen under federalism.
Regardless, I would consider NZ one of the world's more robust parliamentary democracies (and you know I see Britain the same way).
94 - STM
I didn't realise that Clav.
I thought you'd get in the sh.t for such a thing. The state would attempt to bring you to trial in many cases, though, would it not, where the law might be grey on some specific issues such as whether you actually needed to use lethal force?
Wouldn't the key issue then often be the perception of the jury and the defence you chose, ie that you felt threatened?
You can only justify it here if you can establish you believed your life or personal safety or that of another to have been at grave risk and that you took the only course of option available, and even then you might face trial (at which point, it's then incumbent upon the Crown to prove you guilty beyond reasonable doubt). If you used an illegal firearm, however, you would probably be struggling in some areas.
A jury however might be unwilling to convict (which is usually what happens, and often directions are given by the judge for that to happen), and if you were convicted on a technicality of manslaughter, for instance, in such circumstances but were seen as fair dinkum, a judge would likely not give a custodial sentence.
But the law is nevertheless quite specific on what force you can use and how and in what circumstances.
It always was, even when we had unrestricted gun laws
95 - Dr Dreadful
here in Florida I can carry a concealed weapon, be walking down the street, and if you approach me in what I perceive to be a threatening manner, I can LEGALLY blow you away; it can be anywhere, not just at home.
Seriously, Clav, that doesn't make me want to come to Florida any time soon.
Consider this scenario: I'm walking down the street; there's a guy approaching in the opposite direction. When we're about ten feet apart, I trip over my own flip-flop (not an uncommon accident in Florida, I'm sure) and start stumbling towards him, arms flailing in an attempt to stay upright. Thinking he's about to be mugged, the guy whips out a .38 and blows a few holes in me.
What is this - Capone's Chicago?
And he walks away?!?!!?
96 - STM
Yeah, kudos Doc,
I find that aspect of American life and thinking quite bizarre too. As you know, it's the main thing I don't like about America. Sorry guys, but I don't agree that it's a good thing either given the potential for things to go pear-shaped awful quick (and for the potential for such a law to be abused).
97 - Dave Nalle
Stan, there ws a case here in Austin a couple of years ago almost exactly like what we're describing here, where a man shot two people in the entertainment district, essentially in defense of his car and because he felt threatened.
Dave
98 - Dr Dreadful
Entertainment district, eh?
Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if he'd just been to see an action movie.
99 - Mudkips
"Mudkips, if you weren't behaving like such a racist dickhead"
Can I translate? 'You are saying things I disagree with, and you are mentioning facts that expose me as a liar. Therefore, I will call you names and ignore the points you brought up. Also, you are stupider than me, because you have different opinions than me.'
100 - Mudkips
"There are many cities in the US which are far more dangerous than Miami: Detroit, Gary, IN, and Newark come readily to mind."
Detroit
Gary
Newark
[Personal attack deleted]
[Mudkips: Firstly, I've fixed the above, but in future could you please format your references as proper HTML links. I know that you know how to do this because you had such a link in your first comment on this thread.
Secondly, site policy allows you to express unpopular views but NOT to behave like a condescending ass. We will delete any future comments containing disparaging references to other commenters' intelligence.
Thank you.
Assistant Comments Editor]
101 - STM
Shot them right in the entertainment district, he did.
Bet that hurt.
102 - Mudkips
"Bal Harbour is no longer "lily white." Like most Miami neighborhoods, it is now substantially Latino."
Bal Harbour, Florida:
*The racial makeup of the village was 94.46% White (73.4% were Non-Hispanic White,)[4] 1.63% African American, 0.00% Native American, 0.82% Asian, 0.09% Pacific Islander, 1.12% from other races, and 1.88% from two or more races. 23.00% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race.*
[Personal attack deleted]
103 - Mudkips
Still waiting on that 80% white American city with a crime rate similar to Washington DC . . .
Does lowering it to 75% help you any ? ? ? 70% ? ? ?
104 - STM
[Edited]
I didn't write that. Come on mate, you can read, can't ya ... get yer goggles on and check the handles at the top of each post.
No, you are not giving me any facts. You are using bollocks and bullsh.t to support what is an obvious racist agenda. You have no argument of substance to back up your notion, and I did notice too that you mentioned Mein Kampf. Surprise, surprise. Nothing about folks like Tom Metzger though, in support of your free speech??
And anyone who thinks NAMBLA's OK and calls them "good folks" has a couple of kangaroos loose in the top paddock. That's cloud cuckoo stuff.
What's next, supporting the right of the Combined Teabaggers Guild of America to walk around in public with their flies undone and dropping the cabanossi?
[Edited]
105 - Dr Dreadful
"23.00% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race."
Gee, 23%. That's just about one resident in four. Sounds substantially Latino to me.
106 - STM
Now Doc, why are you editing my bloody speech? This is an American site and my 1st amendment rights apply to non-US citizens as a user of this American site and clearly stipulate that you can't edit me for proferring a valid point of view.
Our free-speech laws in Oz are very clear too: I can castigate anyone who is not Australian or not worthy of being Australian and especially if I don't like them or they are Poms, Kiwis or Yanks.
Truth as defence: I believed him to be carrying on like a dickhead, your honour.
There's gotta be something in Nalle's contention here that when they were looking for editors of speech, they found two Poms sticking their hands up :)
Where is Rosey BTW. On hols?
107 - Dr Dreadful
Stan, I'm not censoring you. Mudkips made a personal attack, which per site policy got deleted, so the bits of your comment which were written in response to that had to go as well. Sorry, but it wouldn't have made sense otherwise.
Mr Rose, as far as I know, is currently asleep. He will resume exercising his wrath upon the threads shortly, assuming the switch to British Summer Time hasn't hopelessly thrown him off!
108 - Zedd
Dave,
I love trees like the next guy and not only do I like them, I also appreciate how expensive they are (I live in a relatively new subdivision). I miss my old tree lined street... breathtaking!
But why the emotions?
For some reason, the feuding neighbors always come to me with the dispute. It all sounds ridiculous to me. I just listen and think, "this again?... Weird!". I go to in the house and my kids say "it was about trees again wasn't it". We chuckle.
I suppose that is one of the very few things that howmoweners associations are good for.
109 - troll
Stan, I'm not censoring you. Mudkips made a personal attack, which per site policy got deleted, so the bits of your comment which were written in response to that had to go as well. Sorry, but it wouldn't have made sense otherwise.
...I am told that there is a word that when spoken just so will make the universe - in a vane attempt to make sense of it all - erase itself
110 - Clavos
mudkips:
2007 list of safest and most dangerous cities in America.
The list is published annually by Congressional Quarterly Press, and is compiled from FBI crime statistics.
Note that Detroit, Gary, and Newark are all on the list of 25 most dangerous cities, while Miami is not; even Orlando, the city made famous by Uncle Walt, is more dangerous than Miami.
111 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
I would consider NZ one of the world's more robust parliamentary democracies (and you know I see Britain the same way).
Those democratic rights in the UK seem to extend to British subjects and Jew-hating Wahhabis. Apparently Israelis need not apply.
From the article cited:
A deep and institutional prejudice.
The British government's ban on Moshe Feiglin from entering the UK is symptomatic of a deep and institutional prejudice against Israel. Feiglin is best known for running second to Benjamin Netanyahu in the last Likud leadership primary.
-----------
Feiglin had not even applied for a visa, nor had he any plans to enter the UK. Secondly, in that it came to light in the week that Hizbullah
Compared to such rabid preachers of the jihad, Moshe Feiglin comes across more like Mother Theresa.
spokesman Ibrahim Mousawi - already banned in the US and Ireland - was allowed free entry to lecture students in British universities.
---------------------
It's therefore remarkable that the Home Office took the opposite view and considered this man such a danger to public order that they didn't even risk him turning up at their consulate in Tel Aviv. Instead, they located his modest address on a Samarian hilltop and mailed him that personal and pre-emptive ban.
Robust democracy indeed.....
112 - STM
Ah, Ruvy, up to our old tricks again ....
Mate, the very fact they are letting representatives in from "the other side" shows that Britain is indeed a robust democracy.
Nothing works better in a democracy than having two sides presented for every story, no matter how unpopular that point of view.
As for Red Ken Livingstone, all I can say is this: the sign of a robust democracy is a place where people like Red Ken can have their radical views heard and be elected to public office, alongside estblishment conservatives whose ancestors would most likely have been royalists in the English Civil War and whose views have probably not changed that much since that time.
Wherever you have diamterically opposed viewpoints all getting a voice, democracy IS robust Ruve.
Part of the problem in the mid-east right now is that the "other side" feels like it has no voice in the West, particularly in America.
Perhaps they see having a voice in Britain as the next best thing, and it's good that the Poms could accomodate them no matter our personal views on what they represent.
Many Britons will likely be gobsmacked by the whole thing, but it's democracy at work.
However, isn't the whole point of this moot, as Moshe Feiglin apparently never applied for a visa in the first place??
But if anyone wants to know why the Home Office came to that decision, check this from Haaretz:
"The UK letter (to Feiglin) did not allege Feiglin had ever engaged in armed activities, but listed several quotes from articles he wrote, including one in which he calls for a holy war, now against Arabs, and another referring to the Prophet Muhammad as strong, cruel and deceitful."
Gee, that'd be just about guaranteed to stir up even more racial tension in the UK, don't ya think?
I can see their point. I'd ban him as well, and I'd ban anyone from "the other side" who espoused anything in the same vein, because what we need right now if this is ever going to stop is people talking peace and reconciliation, not more killing.
Feiglin's views are well known enough. He's had his turn.
And from a story in the New Yorker: "Why should non-Jews have a say in the policy of a Jewish state? For two thousand years, Jews dreamed of a Jewish state, not a democratic state."
Don't talk to me about democracy when this man is clearly not interested in it.
113 - Bennett
"...I am told that there is a word that when spoken just so will make the universe - in a vane attempt to make sense of it all - erase itself"
troll, you always floor me.
thanks!
STM, I like your mind, and I admire it too.
114 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
I can see their point. I'd ban him as well, and I'd ban anyone from "the other side" who espoused anything in the same vein, because what we need right now if this is ever going to stop is people talking peace and reconciliation, not more killing.
So, Let's see if I understand you, Stan
Your definition of "robust democracy" is a place where Arabs get to call for the death of Jews and Jews are banned from responding.
Interesting.
Well, at least we're clear, now.... That explains a lot of British colonial policy here 75 years ago as well.
115 - STM
Now come on Ruve, we all know the Poms have been charging radical islamist clerics in the UK under the anti-terror act for inciting people to violent crime.
Maybe they're just trying to even up the ante with Moshe Feiglin. He certainly fits the bill of having anti-British values. Honestly mate, trying to silence people whose main claim to fame is that they incite others to kill people, well ... call me old-fashioned, but I actually think it's good to ban 'em. Or, considering that all that info is available now on the web, not to be seen to support them by handing out visas willy-nilly to any lunatic who wants one.
And don't blame me for your anger over 75 years of British colonial policy.
I, for one, happen to like that policy. If they hadn't had it, I wouldn't be down in this corner of the South Pacific right now living the kind of life others can only dream about.
Forget you for a moment - I've got a LOT to be grateful for in relation to that.
And thanks Bennett ... love ya 2 ;)
116 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
And don't blame me for your anger over 75 years of British colonial policy.
Contempt is very different from anger, Stan. I'm not angry at the Brits so much as I hold them in contempt. Anger is hot and can cool. Contempt is cold - and remains cold. There is a distinction.
The policy you're so proud of has led to many many thousands if not millions of deaths world wide.
'Nuff said.
117 - STM
Ruve: "The policy you're so proud of has led to many many thousands if not millions of deaths world wide".
I don't agree with that notion.
Here's my view: if it weren't for the British Empire (and the United States), most of us would be speaking either French, Spanish, German, Italian or Japanese right now.
That's if we'd been allowed to live.
You'll never convince me that a democratic country built around freedom and that's been one of the few on the planet with enough balls to stand up to French imperialism, Spanish imperialism, Bonapartism, Prussian militarism, Fascism, Nazism, barbaric Japanese militarism, and to a lesser extent Stalinism, nasty brands of Asian and Euro communism, terrorism and islamic fundamentalism, and who began moves to abolish slavery way back in the 1770s, can be that bad.
My view: if it wasn't for Britain and its empire and its ideals the world would right now resemble one giant graveyard. Doubtful there's be an Israel, either.
Britons (and Americans) should stop apologising for or feeling guilty about their imperial past (yes, America has dabbled in imperialism too).
Collectively, the English-speaking nations have brought a lot more good to the world than bad.
118 - el gringo
French imperialism, Spanish imperialism, Bonapartism, Prussian militarism, Fascism, Nazism, barbaric Japanese militarism, and to a lesser extent Stalinism, nasty brands of Asian and Euro communism, terrorism and islamic fundamentalism are way better than evil amerikkkan imperialists! (especially stalinism!)
viva la revolucion!