Do you have a family? Do you see other families as inferior to your own?
If it makes you feel warm and cuddly to think 5 billion people who identify to some extent with their respective ethnicity or culture are idiots for it and scientificaly wrong that is fine. But interestingly here we have a post about one Malcolm X aspects of which`s thinking were apparently not without libertarian leanings jet the only real position he was speaking from was his strong identification with his ethnic people and his deep affection for it.
After he visited Mecca his views on race and ethnicity radically changed. He saw Muslims of every single race praying and practicing the religion of Islam as one people. He realized that ideas were more important than racial or ethnic identity. And you would be very wrong to say that this was his “only real position.”
LOL. Did Confucious say that? Are you quoting a fortune cookie? Funny stuff.
I`m left speechless. Bush was a revolutionary?
Identity are all the characteristics you identify with. It is a matter of personal preference which are assigned what importance.
That is really what is at the gist of it isn`t it? The feeling of superiority.
I knew about Mecca, I saw the clip. From an african-american centric brand of Islam he shifted to traditional universalist Islam. But that is really what I was talking about. He came a long way. The only constant was the affection for his people. That was “where he was coming from”. His fundamental underlying sentiment.
I don’t think so. The point remains anyway. Your patriots are bunch of butchers who kill their ‘enemies’ because of ethnic reasons.
Relevance ?
How do you manage to know what 5 billion people feel and think ? You think that people are naturally born nationalists and racists ? At any rate, regardless of the origin of those traits, they are no virtues. And it doesn’t make me feel good to think that people are nationalists – actually it makes me feel very uncomfortable.
Libertarianism is built on individualism, not on ‘voluntary’ racism and nationalism or any other collectivistic ideology.
If that really was the case, that is, if mr. X’s libertarian leanings were the result of his racism (or ‘deep affection’…), then his libertarian leanings were bogus, or at any rate partially flawed.
You obviously have no argument against it. All you have are insults because that is all the way you responded to my statement. At least Confucius, whether you agree with his philosophy or not, argued in the realm of ideas.
Bush inherited the legacy of the revolutionaries and even used their words to justify their actions.
You chose to identify with them. It is that choice that separates you from others - even others of your ethnicity. If circumstances forced me to either choose an allegiance with Dr. Thomas Sowell or David Duke I would choose the allegiance with Dr. Sowell - even though the melanin content of my skin is more similar to that of David Duke. This is a choice on my part.
Feelings have nothing to do with it on my part (I cannot speak for you). This is about ideas.
Who he identified with as “his people” also changed. If I were Muslim (which I am not) he would have viewed me as one of “his people” post-Mecca.
I think you with every word reveal your own lack of tolerance and lack of understanding.
Yeah? So what? My calling them “patriots” is not a qualititave designation. By calling them patriots I am not claiming they are good or virtous. A patriot is a value neutral word which explains ones motivations, it is not a stamp of quality. Or are you too much of a collectivist to realise that?
Distinguishing your own from not your own, does not imply superiority or inferiority.
BTW, do you love your family? Doesn`t that make you a “collectivist”?
Wonderful! So just identifying with something means you are a nationalist and a racist? Why not add a serial killer while you are at it?
You confuse doctrine with sentiment. Libertarianism is built on induvidualism as a doctrine. The only doctrine that can serve for a basis of a just law. It however says nothing about personal preferences of outcomes which are a consequence not of doctrine, but of sentiment.
If your Great-Uncle Fred is s serial killer and you still think he is a swell guy DESPITE that than yes, you would be. If you value your relationship with your Great-Uncle Fred the serial killer above the lives of his innocent victims than yes. If you tolerate physical or emotional abuse you know is occurring in your family, yes. If, however, you love decent human beings in your family who have been there for you through thick and thin no, that does not necessarily make you a collectivist.
I have never met the guy and it would be impossible for me to meet him now. I don’t know. What I do know is that, post-Mecca, anyone who was Muslim was part of “his people”.
Fine, let’s assume that “patriot” is a value-free word – my argument is not affected though.
We have roughly two groups of people who ‘love’ members of their own group…and don’t love members of the other group. And so it seems that they will gladly kill persons belonging to the group they don’t love…which makes sense…in a twisted way.
Again, relevance ? The thing is, I’m talking about nation and race. What’s the point of bringing family relations into the picture ?
Do you think that a ‘nation’ is some sort of extended family ? I’m not very enthusiastic about the merits of families anyway. As Ryan Gray pointed out, if I were to love a family member despite his/her being not a lovable person, then I surely would qualify as collectivistic…or at least misguided.
Well, if one identifies with race and/or nation, it seems that by definition one is a racist/nationalist ?
Besides, it’s not that clear what this ‘identifying’ really means. Usually people born in, say, territory X or Y, are coerced and brainwashed into believing that they are not individuals but parts of some mystical collective entity such as a ‘nation’. Bullshit. I highly doubt that absent indoctrination and coercion such thing as nationalism would exist.
You mean like soldiers fighting for ‘their’ countries ? Or the Hutsis and Hutus we were discussing ?
Well, there’s nothing individualistic about political ideas based on the concept of nation/race/ethnic group/whatever ?
If one choses to have or adopt children one has a responsibility to raise them in the best, most loving way one possibly can (at least as long as they are minors). Doing this greatly reduces the likelihood they will grow up to be rude, unlovable brats. If, despite one’s best efforts, they turn out rude, or worse: evil, you have no moral obligation to continue to interact with them if they are no longer minors.
Bogus. You confuse universal and external obligation of law for personal and internal obligation of goodness. A man who stopped loving his children, because they did not turn out the way he had imagined they would, broke no laws but is clearly not virtous. You have every moral obligation to love your children no matter what. You just don`t have an obligation of law to do so. But you seem to think just legislature equals morality.
I said nothing about the law being involved here. I would still love my children if they turned out to be very different from me. This is not the same as loving them if they turn out to be mass murderers or rapists. Are you suggesting one should love a mass murderer or rapist?
Whether or not a “war” can be described as anything other than the actions of states, perhaps a cursory look at the FBI crime statistics would be helpful when assessing the racial fears, relationships and violence in this country.