Re: ASCII Art Fart for Thu, 2004 Nov 25

Michael M. wrote:
> On Thu, 02 Dec 2004 15:21:35 +1100, ABCGi wrote:
> 
>>Sharky wrote:
>>
>>>As off'd in a previous post, you really have to delve a bit deeper to
>>>understand the problems attributed to "guns".  The right to arm oneself
>>>against unjust aggression has been one of the cornerstones of
>>>Democratic Governments from the time of first world prominence of its
>>>politic. Blaming the deaths of people on the (otherwise inanimate
>>>object) "gun" is kinda silly, IMHO.
>>
>>Indeed it is the culture behind the proliferation of guns that has led
>>to the situation. M.Moore offers up two possible cultural causes in
>>Bowling for Columbine that are sufficiently different in the US to other
>>countries that have lots of guns (eg Canada): the culture of fear, the
>>violent example set by the government where the justification remains in
>>the hands of the one delivering the violence.
> 
> As enjoyable as "Bowling for Columbine" was (especially putting asswipe
> blowhard Charlton Heston on the spot), I thought Moore's scene just over
> the border from Detroit, when he kept stopping people on the street and
> asking about how safe they felt, backfired on him and his pet theories
> about violence in North America.  What was amusing was that the black
> folks he stopped all lived in over the border in the U.S.  IIRC, Canada is
> something like 88% White.  It certainly looks that way when you travel
> there, very white.  (One might say, um, bland.)  One thing I never
> appreciated about the United States until I started traveling elsewhere is
> just how extraordinarily diverse the U.S. is in comparison to just about
> anywhere else -- at least, anywhere else I've been.
> 
> Whether or not one values diversity (personally, I do), it goes
> hand-in-hand with conflict, and often with violence.  Homogeneous
> societies don't have to deal with the pressures diversity brings, nor do
> they get the benefits.  I keep seeing peoples who can't get along with

Good point.

> their neighbors when there are only two conflicting groups (in Rwanda, in
> Bosnia, in northern Ireland, in Palestine, in the Sudan, etc., etc.),
> resulting in wanton slaughter and destruction.  The U.S., which AFAIK is
> unique in its cultural, religious and ethnic diversity, seems to me to be
> doing rather well by comparison -- "rather well" both in terms of
> continuing to encourage and support diversity more vigorously than any
> nation on Earth (and recognizing that the strength and resiliency of the
> U.S. experiment derives from its diversity) and in terms of managing the
> inevitable conflict that arises.

I would go along with that. One thing I noticed on my visit to the 
States, though, was how a large percentage of the cities and places were 
  quite homogeneous and lacked variety - as opposed to Europe, but this 
is also a function of a much longer history.

> There are lots of grand sentiments the U.S. has, at various times in its
> history, failed to live up to, and some it still does.  But one it has

True.

> by-and-large done well by is "Give us your tired, your poor, / Your
> huddled masses...".  Those words, btw, were penned by Emma Lazarus, a
> descendant of some of the first Jewish immigrants to New York.  They came
> here because the Portuguese expelled them from Brazil -- apparently, even
> Brazil was not far enough away from the mother country for the Portuguese
> to abide the Jews.  But then, most Europeans have a long history of not
> abiding anyone they can't enslave or exploit or plunder.  By comparison,
> the U.S. has been generally more enlightened and still is. (Look, for
> example, at how Germany treats its Turkish immigrants.)

Europe and Australia are currently cracking down on refugees. Australia 
detained (ie jailed) a group of refugees for up to 3 years and at the 
end of this "processing" 95% of them were determined to be 'real' refugees.

> There's really very little comparison to a relatively monolithic society
> like Canada's, as Michael Moore (perhaps inadvertently) demonstrated in
> his film.

That sounds reasonable, cultural diversity should be added to the list 
of possibilities to be explored. I wonder what other countries would 
qualify as diverse but have low per capita violence/gun deaths in 
comparison?

-- 
ABCGi - Atomic                             ______________________
<===>   Bacterial  Genetic                |---------------------||
         Chemical   Infantrymen <=========== http://abcgi.fly.to =-+-=>
                                           |---------------------|'

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