[extropy-chat] The Trouble With Democracy

Technotranscendence neptune at superlink.net
Sat Dec 6 16:15:22 UTC 2003


On Saturday, December 06, 2003 12:41 AM Olga Bourlin
fauxever at sprynet.com wrote:
> Wrong.  *You* started comparing the oppressed
> in Germany with the oppressed in America, but
> (again) that was *not* my point.  The United
> States was fighting *against* Germany.
> Germany (here's the crucial difference) didn't
> pretend to be the "land of the free."  U.S./
> democracy:  apples. Germany/fascism:  oranges.

While this is correct, one should also remember that the Nazi period was
only 12 years.  Before the Nazis, Jews were a considerable large
minority in Germany, Austria, and many other Central and Eastern
European countries.  (Of course, many Jews did migrate to the West and
to Israel, but, IIRC, a large percentage were killed by the Nazis and
their henchmen -- among other groups they tried to wipe out, such as
White Russians, and Poles.)

> Of course, there was that incident with the ship
> St Louis, where the U.S. wouldn't allow Jews
> fleeing the Nazis to disembark on our shores,
> but, again ... another interesting aside to the
> whole sorry saga:
> http://www.ushmm.org/stlouis/story/voyage/

A shameful episode.

> But seriously, you are being naive, simplistic
> and intellectually dishonest if you are implying
> (using your example) that "sitting [at] the back
> of the bus" was about as bad as things got
> for "blacks" in America.  You know better
> than that.  You don't score points for your
> case by soft peddling cruelly real issues like
> the history of racism in America.

As long as you're alive, you can live to fight or be free another day.
However, many Blacks were lynched.  However, this was nothing like the
mass killings of Jews and other groups by the Nazis and their allies.

> Whether your family is part Jewish (or not) should
> have no bearing on your empathy for people who
> are treated unfairly.   Or - am I the one who's
> confused? - because I just can't help but think:
> *Why* should that matter?

It should NOT matter in the moral or cognitive sense, but it does matter
emotionally.  Humans naturally band together into groups and show more
empathy for those they can identify with.  I'm not saying this is right
or wrong, but it is what happens.

Cheers!

Dan
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/MyWorks.html

"You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling
reason why we observe daylight savings time." -- Dave Barry




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