Whites now a minority in London

[Rothbardian Girl]

- When there was an issue with a polygamist compound in the news, and they took away all the children to cries and wails from libertarians, a recent Chinese immigrant told me "the government should send in the military and destroy them!". Is that American culture?

I am sure you would get the same sort of reaction if you had asked many born-and-bred Americans the same question. Within this group of American citizens, I am quite confident that a certain subset of them (for example, my grandparents, as a particularly tragic example) would not talk to a Chinese immigrant under any circumstances, so the predisposition towards authoritarianism has to come from something other than interactions with immigrants alone. In other words, immigration is not the root of the problem by any means.

<<here's where I go a little off-topic; sorry!>>

I honestly think this predisposition stems from economic growth more than anything else; as people's incomes rise, they are more inclined to be charitable, yet they see others starving and twist what they think the Constitution says (The "We the People" and "necessary and proper clauses are some lines you see cited over and over again) into a document enabling all sorts of government largesse. If we go with your theory, the Constitution was set in place with the ideals of securing justice and brotherhood after emerging from a conflict with a government that had no interest in providing those things to its subjects.

Well, my theory is that in those days, our knowledge of economics was not as 'broad' (can't think of a better term) as it is now [from what I can tell, people in the 18th century thought a lot of economic issues were largely uncontrollable, so the tendency was to say 'live and let live'] and over the years, of course, economics has become more focused on mathematics and has led to the impression that central planning solves a lot of issues.

My history flowchart is this: Governments and [crony] capitalists begin colluding, but the effects aren't as readily apparent because many industries aren't yet fully developed > 1) The principles behind the invisible hand theory become accepted as actually-occurring characteristics of the economy due to a continuing lack of economic data, or any way to quantify observations economists did make 2) Smith and his contemporaries didn't have any way of knowing how different economies would become after they had passed on > Government intervention in industries becomes more apparent as time goes on and technological development increases, coincides with the further development of mathematics and the sciences > People begin applying mathematics to gauge whether the government can compensate for the ill effects of poverty brought on by its earlier interventions > OMG GOVERNMENT CAN AND SHOULD DO ANYTHING TO SAVE PEOPLE!!

Very little of what I just mentioned has to do with immigrants - it has to do with often native-born authorities of countries who are looking to justify their plunder by any means possible, including throwing their victims some scraps. What exactly these scraps entail is determined on a mathematical and scientific basis. These authorities take control of every avenue available to them to justify these scraps while obscuring the real sources of poverty.

So, progress is an undeniably good thing, but it also curses us at the same time - and the problem of humanity lies in knowing where things need to be re-simplified and left alone. Economics attempts to describe human behavior, and sometimes strict mathematical models give us the wrong impressions.

 

[erowe1]

- When there was an issue with a polygamist compound in the news, and they took away all the children to cries and wails from libertarians, a recent Chinese immigrant told me "the government should send in the military and destroy them!". Is that American culture?

Yes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missouri_Executive_Order_44

 

[UpperDecker]

I think I am going to let Brian take it from here, as he is articulating everything I want to say in a much better way than my currently school fried brain can at the moment haha.

 

[BAllen]

This is a very interesting point, one that you see a lot of in California. Here in the Bay Area, we have multiple Chinatowns and in Southern California there is Koreatown. You can also see the problem when in Southern California you see places where Hispanics are "cleansing" their neighborhoods of black folks. My whole thinking on this topic is that if you are displacing people who are culturally Western with these other cultures, wouldn't it make sense that we stand to lose the culture of this country?

And this occurs despite all the race based programs, quotas, forced integration and 'fair housing' policies. People want to be with their own race.

 

[amy31416]

And this occurs despite all the race based programs, quotas, forced integration and 'fair housing' policies. People want to be with their own race.

Even brain-dead status quo liberals must realize that when it comes down to it, the majority of minorities (!?!) do tend to stick to others of their own race. I've seen this with black people, Arabs, Asians, etc. Even though we had a very integrated and friendly HS--black people sat with other black people in the cafeteria (the only place where they're given the choice.) The Muslims/Arabs that I went to college with were very friendly in class with me and other people, but they always congregated with other Arabs/Muslims. Indians stuck with other Indians.

Personally, I would have hung out with them (well, some anyways), but they generally weren't interested.

One of my best friends was Indian (the Hindu sort), and he was very upfront that any woman he dated who wasn't Indian would very likely not be meeting his parents. That's his choice, even if it is possibly superficial. If I'm to remain philosophically consistent, I should afford that same attitude towards a white person who isn't likely to marry a black/brown/yellow/red person, even if he/she dates them.

With culture comes complexity, and I am not going to judge someone else unless they are causing harm by being dishonest or violent.

 

[MelissaWV]

It's interesting to see posters talking about Hispanics taking over... and subverting Western culture.

It must be those non-Western Hispanics.

 

[Southron]

The countries in which they lived sucked, and they knew it. They came here for increased freedom and economic opportunity. Much of that still applies.

It worked fine, until anybody could vote. Organized political machines were created that use the mass of immigrants to vote power to corrupt people who have encouraged even more of the same trend.

It is the philosophical question that each democracy / republic faces - what should be the criteria for having a vote in the direction in which a society takes. What are the qualifications for having a voice in public affairs. An age old problem, and various models have been tried, but one conclusion seems valid - when everyone of a certain age gets to vote, the society implodes after a few generations.

Universal suffrage is definitely a root cause of many of our woes.

 

[bolil]

Hispanics are culturally western. Latin America was colonized by Iberian powers. Spain and Portugal are in turn direct descendants of the Greco-Roman world. The wars of independence in Latin America were fought by both native born Americans and sympathetic Europeans. Republicanism and democracy are dominant in the Americas.

What exactly needs to be assimilated? Latin America already knows of Plato. It is Christian. The concept of federation isn't foreign to Latin America. The oldest universities in the Americas are not in the USA or Canada, but in the south. Is it the Spanish language that needs to be gotten rid of? If the question is who is more 'western', then Spanish defeats English. Spanish is closer to Latin than English is. English is a germanic language.

And here I thought spain was atleast as much Saracen as it was ever European... on my shoe.
English is a hybrid language: French, German, Latin being the primary influences.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

Yes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missouri_Executive_Order_44

Already addressed. The seemingly acceptance that violating the law once makes it acceptable in the future needs to change. Even more so when it applies to the government violating the Constitution. Peons, proles and mundanes will be prosecuted with any law, no matter how old, outdated, or generally ignored. And no need to go into specifics of immoral actions on all sides at that particular time.

And as far as some of the examples, yes, our government has proven to violate it's own Constitution on occasion, and it seems like it does it more every day. But that doesn't change the essence.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

It's interesting to see posters talking about Hispanics taking over... and subverting Western culture.

It must be those non-Western Hispanics.

How much does time change attitudes? I can say that my friends who are multi-generational Californios are very right-wing, much more so than myself. On the other hand, my first generation "hispanic" American friends tend towards La Raza, Rachel Maddow attitudes. What is the difference? This would indicate that culture, race, and ethnicity don't matter as much as duration in place. If a person identifies with new immigrants or emigrants, they have a certain outsider perspective. If people have been in place for more than one generation, they feel attached to the current (and near past) situation.

What does this all mean? Who knows? People have attitudes which correspond to what they feel is best for themselves and their perceived group. Nothing is fixed. Greed is good. Self-interest rules all. What would Ayn Rand say?

 

[Anti Federalist]

That's not how it works.

Example: I present a graph showing increase of ice cream and increase of school shootings. As ice-cream sales increase, then school shootings increase.
Though there is there is correlation of it, there is no proof that that is the causation.

Well of course not, that's silly, what does ice cream have to do with shootings?

Nothing.

But certainly firearms, and the lack or abundance thereof does.

You can't have/stop shootings without a gun.

So if I presented a graph showing that, year for year, after, say, concealed carry was "allowed" on campus, that school shootings decreased each year, then there is certainly a link, at the very worst, it shows that more guns do not make for more shootings.

 

[Ender]

I said "was" unique at it's creation. Sure there are a lot of copycats since then with varying degrees of success.

As I said earlier:

The Confederation of the original united States of America was based on the Iroquois Confederation of Peace.

 

[Anti Federalist]

What an asinine comment. The problem is that first world natives don't understand the concept of freedoms. If they did, they wouldn't be afraid of swarthy-skinned foreigners.

You are 100 percent correct.

So maybe we should not open the floodgates until we get our shit together, mmmm kay?

God knows it's hard enough work as it is, trying to get native Boobus Americanus to wake the fuck up, without dealing with millions of immigrants every year to "re-educate" as well.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

As I said earlier:

The Confederation of the original united States of America was based on the Iroquois Confederation of Peace.

Well, I doubt it was that simple. But kudos if they did adopt some "native" American philosophy.

 

[Michelangelo]

Well, I doubt it was that simple. But kudos if they did adopt some "native" American philosophy.

On top of inspiration from the Iroquis you can see a lot of the USA's institutional framework elsewhere. The legal system is largely adopted from the UK's common law system. The Dutch Republic was well known by the founders and influenced them.

The USA is great. It's not unique though. Nor was it by any means the first to adopt Republicanism, democracy, strong property rights, a market economy, limited government, or secular order.

God knows it's hard enough work as it is, trying to get native Boobus Americanus to wake the fuck up, without dealing with millions of immigrants every year to "re-educate" as well.

Why do you assume immigrants can't know the principles of a free society? Is freedom something Americans invented from scratch? The ideas are much older than any one people.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

On top of inspiration from the Iroquis you can see a lot of the USA's institutional framework elsewhere. The legal system is largely adopted from the UK's common law system.

It was a combination of the best that they could bring together at the time. Where's that thread about Led Zeppelin?

 

[Boss]

That "whites now a minority" is misleading. Whites are the most densely populated racial group in London at 45%. Whites are only a minority if the categories are strictly "White" or "Non-White," which seems to be an antiquated perspective (putting it charitably).

 

[pcosmar]

Nothing new under the sun,



A great movie,, well worth watching.

 

[Ender]

Well, I doubt it was that simple. But kudos if they did adopt some "native" American philosophy.

The Bill of Rights is essentially from the Iroquois Confederation of Peace.

Some basic premises of the Iroquois nations included:
Freedom of Religion
Property Rights
A "Congress" of 2 Houses
An Executive Branch that could be overruled by the Congress.
Consent by the governed

Women's Rights was also a part of the Iroquois Confederation and long preceded anything from the US government.

The Boston Tea Party was not just a bunch of white guys pretending to be Indians but a group of men who were calling for the same rights as the Iroquois.
http://www.boston-tea-party.org/mohawks.html

Thomas Jefferson has documented his appraisal of the attributes of the Native American concepts of morality and governance. In his writings Jefferson states:

Their only controls are their manners, and that moral sense of right and wrong, which, like the sense of tasting and feeling in every man, makes a part of his nature. An offense against these is punished by contempt, by exclusion from society, or, where the case is serious, as that of murder, by the individuals whom it concerns. Imperfect as this species of coercion may seem, crimes are very rare among them; insomuch that were it made a question, whether no law, as among the savage American, or too much law, as among the civilized Europeans, submits man to the greatest evil, one who has seen both conditions of existence would pronounce it to be the last; and that the sheep are happier of themselves, than under care of the wolves. It will be said, the great societies cannot exist without government. The savages, therefore, break them into small ones.

From: http://www.ipoaa.com/iroquois_constitution_united_states.htm

A crucial step forward towards colonial American unification necessary for the eventual independence movement took place in Albany, New York in 1754. The Albany Plan was a landmark on the rough road that was to lead through the first Continental Congress and the Articles of Confederation and then to the Constitution of 1787.18 On the eve of the Albany Congress, Franklin had a great deal of exposure to the imagery and political ideas of the Iroquois from first hand experience and from his study of Cadwallader Colden's History of the Five Nations.19 Franklin met with both Colonial and Iroquois delegates to create a plan of unity that was in part derived from some of the tenets of the Great Law of the Iroquois.20 During the discussions at Albany Franklin addressed the assemblage in words that freely acknowledged the Iroquois Confederacy as a model to build upon:

It would be a strange thing...if Six Nations of ignorant savages should be capable of forming such a union and be able to execute it in such a manner that it has subsisted ages and appears indissoluble, and yet that a like union should be impractical for ten or a dozen English colonies, to whom it is more necessary and must be more advantageous, and who cannot be supposed to want an equal understanding of their interest.21

When Franklin proposed his plan of union before the Congress it had a 'Grand Council," a "Speaker," and called for a "general government... under which... each colony may retain its present constitution" all nomenclature and concept derived from the Confederacy.22 Franklin's writings indicate that as he became more deeply involved with the Iroquois and other Indian peoples, he picked up ideas from them concerning not only federalism, but concepts of natural rights, the nature of society and man's place in it, the role of property in society, and other intellectual constructs that would eventually be called into service by Franklin as he and the other American revolutionaries shaped an 23 official ideology for the soon to be founded United States of America.23

Many modern historians like to pooh-pooh the Indian connection but it is quite obvious when one really looks into history.

 

[KingNothing]

You are 100 percent correct.

So maybe we should not open the floodgates until we get our shit together, mmmm kay?

God knows it's hard enough work as it is, trying to get native Boobus Americanus to wake the fuck up, without dealing with millions of immigrants every year to "re-educate" as well.

Wow. Every time I unblock you, I regret it.