Debate on Culture continued from Ren's Place

This is the continuation from an ongoing debate at Renegade Evolution's blog.

Anthony Kennerson: Still having that racist moment, are you??

"Racist moment"? This baseless ad hom is no different than the accusations of being sexist radfems hurl at you for your defense of sex work. You can do better than that.

AK: And you didn't even bother to answer my question: how is our "Western culture" -- you know, the one who slaughtered Native Americans, enslaved Black Africans, stole Hispanic and Native American land, and dropped nuclear weapons on Asians -- any more qualified to judge anyone else on who's "superior"??

As VirtueAndVice admitted Anglo-American culture has "its faults" just as every culture throughout history has had. But if no cultures were superior to one another there would be no asylum seekers or refugees. Immigrants, yes, but not people looking to escape from the places where they were born. The greatest tragedy of at least the more extreme forms of multiculturalism is that it encourages people coming from dangerous, oppressive places to re-create the dysfunctional situations from which they came. When my ancestors came from Ireland and Italy, they brought some of their traditions with them but they did not pretend for a minute that things were better back home, or demand the right to continue traditions that would undermine the foundations of American liberty.

AK: First off, like most conservative critics of "multiculturalism', they are so desperate to take an isolated act of cruelty and make it representative of a whole culture or race or "civilization", and therefore declare their favored "Anglo-American" (read that to mean "White Western Christian civilization") to be not only superior to all but to be imposed on all others

These would be isolated acts of cruelty, except that the people engaging in them are using "culture" as an excuse. And some (not all but too many) western leftists are backing up these excuses. As for "be[ing] imposed on all others" V&V said (and I agree), "That's not to say that we should go out and bomb other countries when they don't see things our way."

AK: But I wonder, VaV...would you have gone into such histronics if the perpetrators had been fundamentalist White American Christians?? After all, it's not as if they haven't done such things themselves. Oh, wait...

Who is defending the preacher in that article? Probably not even most of his fellow Evangelicals. Certainly not any groups that have the numbers of the multi-culti defenders of similar behavior by so called victim groups.

AK: Secondly...I'm not much of a fan of the Nation of Islam for many reasons...but to compare them to the KKK is sheer madness. Not even Louis Farrakhan, for all his alleged anti-Semitic smack and belief in numerology, has ever burned a cross in a White neighborhood, or lynched a White man, or intimidated a single White person out of voting.

Farrakhan is too smart to get his own hands dirty by personally participating in acts of violence. Same with most Klan wizards (when was the last time David Duke was arrested). It doesn't mean that Farrakhan's rhetoric is any less responsible for black-on-white violence than the identical rhetoric in reverse by Klan leaders is for white-on-black violence. Similarly, as far as we know, Mary Daly has never directly committed an act of violence against a man (or a boy). It does not mean that her anti-male views are any less hateful than the Nazi's anti-Semitic views, just that she apparently has not yet had a chance to act on them.

SnowdropExplodes: The term "rape culture" has a real meaning in describing Western European cultures - so the culture isn't all that great towards women (whatever the law tries to do about it).

Rape culture is mostly a feminist invention. To the extent that it exists, it refers to a very small subset of western men. Like V&V, "I was 17 once, and 0% of the guys I knew were talking about planning violent sexual assaults."

Cassandra: VirtueandVice - I don't think you understand what multiculturalism is. It can be what you're describing in the hands of a few fools, but that is not in principle what the idea is all about, nor how it's commonly expressed.

Multiculturalism may be all sweetness and light in principle, but not in practice. All to often it is exactly as V&V described. Those fools aren't so few.

Cassandra: OK, reading VirtueandVice again further down...you're not even making a real argument, you're just a zenophobic racist. Never mind, not worth the time.

I see no evidence of racism or xenophobia on the part of V&V. If anyone is acting like a closed-minded bigot it is you. So maybe V&V's opinions (and mine) are not worth your time. Fine if you want to only associate with people who already agree with you 95% of the time. But these opinions are held by a large number of people throughout the western world - close to a majority, if not an outright majority. Furthermore, they are gaining wider acceptance in some places, particularly those - such as The Netherlands - where the damage from extreme multiculturalism has been most obvious. Given that, if you really believe we are wrong you should at least try to make a convincing argument why.

More about "Hate Crimes" and the Hate Crime Industry

In response to my post about the Snickers ad a friend of mine sent me the following link:
http://home.att.net/~r.s.mccain/wilcox.html (McCain here refers to Robert McCain the author's article not John McCain, so please don't prejudge this based on your opinion of John McCain and his candidacy). This article explains how groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti- Defamation League exaggerate threats from groups like the Ku Klux Klan and Neo-Nazis to scare their supporters into sending them more money. No surprise there.

However, much worse than parting fools with their money is the way these groups spy on others and use guilt-by (often specious) association. For example according to the article "ADL espionage targets included such liberal groups as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, as well as labor unions and environmental groups." And the rumors and lies they spread about militias are beyond the pale. Do militias have racist and anti-Semitic members? I'm sure they have some but that is no reason to tar the militia movement with those labels. Opposing aid to Israel or criticizing "the banking elite" and the mainstream media are not anti-Semitic positions. They can be legitimately opposed(For my part, I do admire the nation of Israel, and while I would like to see no country be dependent on handouts - aka "Foreign Aid" - I believe we should find a way to form a mutually beneficial with it. I do believe in the gold standard, and would like to abolish the Federal Reserve, letting the market determine interest rates, but I see current banking practices as bad policy not a conspiracy). But, whatever one's position on these issues, it should not be too hard to understand holding the positions the militias do without being anti-Semitic. Israel, after all is not entitled to foreign aid, no country is, and militias are consistent in opposing foreign aid for all nations. Associating banks and the media with Jews may have originated with anti-Semites but now is used far more often by apologists for banks and the media trying to shield them from legitimate criticism. I'm sure militia members would acknowledge that even if Jews are disproportionately represented in banking, journalism, and entertainment, there are plenty of other religious and ethnic groups in these industries, and they are not immune from criticism. As for racism or bigotry against any group besides Jews, I know of nothing in the positions taken by militias that shows any evidence of this, whatsoever.

Last, but far from least, these groups continue to spread the lies about militias being involved in the Oklahoma City bombing. The FBI investigation of that affair showed no links between militias and the men convicted of the bombing. But I guess when you're objective is a more powerful authoritarian (or maybe even totalitarian) government, all anti-government groups seem the same.

To Vitaly Kovtun I'd like to say....

Thanks a lot, asshole! Legitimate gun-owners don't have enough trouble with anti-self-defense reporters and editors trying to portray us as trigger-happy nuts. Of course, the thousands of people who use guns to prevent crimes or stop crime waves in progress rarely get this kind of coverage. If they're lucky they may get mentioned in their local press. If they're really lucky they might get mentioned in America's First Freedom's "Armed Citizen" column. America's First Freedom is, of course, mostly preaching to the choir, though it is better than nothing. Not that people protecting themselves or coming to the aid of their neighbors are looking for publicity, but it would be better for the rest of us to get a slightly more balanced picture by giving honest, decent gun owners a fraction of the publicity that turds like Kovtun get.