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#9796 10/31/06 02:24 AM
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Dehammer:

" this wall is to keep mexico from stealling our money"

As a science minded person I find the above statement unworthy of rational discourse. It is supported only by belief and a large amount of prejudice. ?Because I have experience of such things therefore it must be so? is hardly the basis for good theory or evidence.

The following link gives background to Mexican immigration to the USA and paints a mildly different tale. Mexican labour is credited with establishing the prosperity of the USA.

http://www.pbs.org/kpbs/theborder/history/timeline/17.html

There is also mention made of Mexico once having territorial control over ?the present day states of Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and California.?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Mexican-Americans

http://www.farmworkers.org/immigrat.html

And the following link underscores the human rights issues attached to the Mexican migration at the border:

http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/border.html#Anchor-Scapegoating-44591

Xenophobia is not a credible discourse in a scientific forum.


Darkness is but the sum total of Creation inclusive of the Light.
.
#9797 10/31/06 04:02 AM
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RicS wrote (I'm getting political again, sorry):

"Of course the Palestinian question might be a little simpler if any other Arab nation would accept any of them as refuges. They'd rather that they live in squallor and be a thorn in the side of Israel."

Surely you can understand the Palestinian attitude. I'm sure you would kick up a fuss if you were turfed out of your home simply because someone with a different religion claimed it.

Mike wrote:

"Multi-national, multi-cultural, and multi-religious? There are only two countries in the world that purport to hold these fine attributes.
The United States of America, and the United Kingdom, but both are skating thin on the multi-cultural aspect."

You are really opening yourself up to a bitter argument hare, Mike.

#9798 10/31/06 05:23 AM
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In the Middle East there are no good guys. All are victims and both are victimizers.

The US, UK, France, Germany, Japan are allies today after a devastating war in which far worse things happened than have happened in the entire history of the Middle East. Yet only 20 or so years after the war ended you'd have hardly known it took place.

Given each parties inability to see their own acts for what they are ... as far as I am concerned they all deserve each other.


DA Morgan
#9799 10/31/06 07:03 AM
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Fueled by fundamentalism.

#9800 10/31/06 05:41 PM
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Absolutely fueled by fundamentalism.

I can't remember who said it recently but the quote "When they love their children more than they hate each other" sums it up in my opinion.

I no longer care who started it.
And I no longer care who was right or wrong first.
Or who has suffered the most.
They all deserve each other.


DA Morgan
#9801 10/31/06 07:26 PM
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Quote:
Originally posted by Te Urukehu:
Dehammer:

" this wall is to keep mexico from stealling our money"

As a science minded person I find the above statement unworthy of rational discourse. It is supported only by belief and a large amount of prejudice. ?Because I have experience of such things therefore it must be so? is hardly the basis for good theory or evidence.

The following link gives background to Mexican immigration to the USA and paints a mildly different tale. Mexican labour is credited with establishing the prosperity of the USA.

http://www.pbs.org/kpbs/theborder/history/timeline/17.html

There is also mention made of Mexico once having territorial control over ?the present day states of Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and California.?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Mexican-Americans

http://www.farmworkers.org/immigrat.html

And the following link underscores the human rights issues attached to the Mexican migration at the border:

http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/border.html#Anchor-Scapegoating-44591

Xenophobia is not a credible discourse in a scientific forum.
first off, your talking ancient history compared to the issue at hand.

every citizen of those states know that the area they lived in was once controlled by mexico. does that mean that we should be paying them for the privilage of living here?

there was a time when there was not enough americans to do the work we needed. that time has long since passed. does that mean we own people that did not have any connection to those who came, and settled here afterwords, a living at the expense of the decendants of those who helped build this country?

the quote was directed at someone who said that no american wants those jobs. as someone who would gladly have done those jobs at one point, that statement was highly laughable. I dont need theory to support the knowledge that people that come here willing to take half the minimum living wage are takeing away money from those who expect to be able to put food in their families mouth. those illegal immergrants are sending the money to mexico where the cost of putting food and shelter for the family is a small fraction of what it is for those who live in this country. should we starve our children and let them die of easily cured diseases so that we can take the same illegal wages as these people are doing?

your statement shows that you have not the slightest understanding of the situation, yet you are there lecturing me on how bad i am expecting to have a chance to live in my own country, without someone else taking all the jobs and money out of this country because 200 years ago the predecessor of that goverment had control over this area.


the more man learns, the more he realises, he really does not know anything.
#9802 10/31/06 07:27 PM
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Quote:
Originally posted by DA Morgan:
Absolutely fueled by fundamentalism.

I can't remember who said it recently but the quote "When they love their children more than they hate each other" sums it up in my opinion.

I no longer care who started it.
And I no longer care who was right or wrong first.
Or who has suffered the most.
They all deserve each other.
considering its been going on for several centuries, i dont see a solution happening any time soon.


the more man learns, the more he realises, he really does not know anything.
#9803 10/31/06 09:06 PM
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Millenia ... not centuries. They've been at it, in one form or another, for more than 10,000 years.


DA Morgan
#9804 11/01/06 09:18 AM
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Dehammer quote:

"your statement shows that you have not the slightest understanding of the situation, yet you are there lecturing me on how bad i am expecting to have a chance to live in my own country, without someone else taking all the jobs and money out of this country because 200 years ago the predecessor of that goverment had control over this area."

Are there any people of American Indian ancestry in the forum? I look forward to any comments they might care to make.

#9805 11/01/06 03:57 PM
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Quote:
Originally posted by terrytnewzealand:
Dehammer quote:


Are there any people of American Indian ancestry in the forum? I look forward to any comments they might care to make.
I don't thing this is going to be fair terry, virtualy every country's political present is built on the ruins of pre-existing cultures that, in most cases, didn't welcome them.

#9806 11/01/06 05:25 PM
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Quote:
Originally posted by DA Morgan:
Millenia ... not centuries. They've been at it, in one form or another, for more than 10,000 years.
i only know that its been a proven fact that they have been at it since the 1700's. you could easily be right. the things is much of their arguements are over the teaching of alah. what did they are argue about before that i dont know.


the more man learns, the more he realises, he really does not know anything.
#9807 11/01/06 05:31 PM
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TNZ wrote:
"Are there any people of American Indian ancestry in the forum? I look forward to any comments they might care to make."

I would too but that might be all to predictable.

The reality of human existance is that everyone alive today is the beneficiary of some horrible act of genocide, torture, and theft in some form or another. And everyone alive today is also the descendant of someone victimized by genocide, torture, and theft.

Get over it!

At some point someone has to draw the line and say enough is enough. We can not go back and rectify the past wrongs. We must go forward and provide each and every citizen equal opportunity, based on their ability, to achieve.

What happened to the Native Americans was a crime. But what they did before that crime was similarly criminal. Those we call "Native Americans" were not the first inhabitants of this continent.

As long as Mexico guards its southern border with armed Federales to prevent Guatemalan's from coming North they are in no moral position to lecture the US about closing off its border. There is more than enough hypocrisy to go around.


DA Morgan
#9808 11/02/06 02:16 AM
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Dehammer quote:

"What did they are argue about before that i dont know."

Marduk, Seth, El. There's never any shortage of things to argue about, especially when your god is on your side!

DA you said:

"We can not go back and rectify the past wrongs. We must go forward and provide each and every citizen equal opportunity, based on their ability, to achieve."

Very true. But if we see the same wrongs being committed today should we just sit back and say "let evolution do as evolution does"?

#9809 11/02/06 06:11 AM
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Quote:
Originally posted by DA Morgan:
The reality of human existance is that everyone alive today is the beneficiary of some horrible act of genocide, torture, and theft in some form or another. And everyone alive today is also the descendant of someone victimized by genocide, torture, and theft.

Get over it!

At some point someone has to draw the line and say enough is enough. We can not go back and rectify the past wrongs. We must go forward and provide each and every citizen equal opportunity, based on their ability, to achieve.
when i read this i had to laugh, not at you (i totally agree with what you said), but at the memory of a black guy i once knew. he was a very bad secruity guard, but claimed he could not be fired because, "my grandfather was a slave, and the white man owes me an easy living". It was all i could do to not laugh at him, because my ancestors came to america as endentured servants.

when you start claiming people owe you something because of ancient wrongs done to your ancestors, its a little hard to figure out where to draw the line.


the more man learns, the more he realises, he really does not know anything.
#9810 11/02/06 09:42 PM
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Dehammer:

I do know what I speak of and I recognise racism when it is displayed. Native Americans much like other first nations people worldwide have no wish to engage in conversation outside of indigenous circles because it is an exercise in futility.


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#9811 11/02/06 11:35 PM
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TNZ asks:
"Very true. But if we see the same wrongs being committed today should we just sit back and say "let evolution do as evolution does"?"

Of course not. I specifically address what we should to today when I wrote: "We must go forward and provide each and every citizen equal opportunity, based on their ability, to achieve."

Adding insult to insult is not a recipe for change.


DA Morgan
#9812 11/03/06 06:59 AM
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Quote:
Originally posted by Te Urukehu:
Dehammer:

I do know what I speak of and I recognise racism when it is displayed. Native Americans much like other first nations people worldwide have no wish to engage in conversation outside of indigenous circles because it is an exercise in futility.
so your definition of racism is where someone doesnt want people from another country coming over and taking jobs and money from the people that live there, including the decendants of the same race.

I have no problem with american born hispanic, mexican decendants or what every having jobs in america. I have no problem with black people having the same jobs i hold. I have had black bosses, hispanic bosses, female bosses, chineese decendant bosses and bosses of other races. I have not problem with them being of what ever race or sex. I have no problem with gays, bi's or straights. I have no problem with anyone having american jobs as long as they are americans. that includes natrualized americans. what i have a problem with is people that come in illegal, pay no taxes, and steal the work from americans, some of them the same race, to send the money to another country to support that country's people.

when these people get sick they expect the american people to pay for their medicene and doctors visits, yet they dont pay the taxes that pay for those visits and meds.

I dont even have a problem with people being here and holding jobs if they have a green card (an instrurment of the american goverment that basically says that person has the right to be here)

If they want to come here, work for the same wages we do, hold the same jobs as we do, get the same medicene and doctors as we do, they can pay the taxes we do. otherwise they can stay in their country and pay their own taxes and use their own doctors and such.

that is not racism.

if i had a racism problem with mexicans, i would have the same problem with mexican americans, or mexican decendant americans, or hispanics. (some people perfer one name over another, so putting them all in one group is racism). I dont.

I have lived with native americans before, and to tell you the truth, it was months before i knew it. one of my best friends is a native american. I have no problem with native americans. they are just the same as anyone else. some have a problem with what my ancestorys did or did not do to or with their ancestors. most dont. most have the same attitude that DA mentioned earlier.


the more man learns, the more he realises, he really does not know anything.
#9813 11/03/06 04:41 PM
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G'day Te,

Actually I found what you said somewhat offensive. What gives "first peoples" any greater rights than any other citizen of a nation.

Let me see. My father had an inheritence right in Ireland that was over a substantial amount of land. He could not take up that right because the government created laws that discriminated against inheritence to foreigners. I have no idea if these laws still stand but they were set up for the "purity" of Ireland so that, because of the huge, exodus from Ireland, they did not end up with inherited land going to a large degree to foreign ownerships and therefore foreign landlords. To me this is the same as theft. But would abuse an Irish person over this. Huh!

So my father's inheritence, because of his birthright, was removed because of an accident that ensured that he grew up away from the land of his ancestors.

The Internet is an interesting place. You cannot "see" a person on it so a person can be any sex, age, creed, religioun, colour (as long as they can type in English!). So you would have no idea of my ethnicity. I'm a part aboriginal (a first peoples in your view). Now the tribe that I descend from probably first stepped foot in Australia around 40,000 years ago. That is many centuries before any person of Polynesian descent stepped foot in New Zealand, or any of the Pacific Islands. It is about three times the period that the first settles occupied North America and since the plains Indians or Native Amecicans occupied the plains around 500 years ago for the most part, driving out weaker earlier occupants, it is about 80 times further back than they can claim affinity with the land.

Now I was born on the fringes of a city. I received no special rights at all. My father was injured at work so we were poor. I went to a prestigious school because I was smart but had no hope of attending University except that I was smart and the Navy accepted me and even sent me to University. It was when I was in my late 20s that I discovered that my immediate family was the closest thing there was to a tribe now completely extinct. But the land that the tribe called their own has one of the richest mineral deposits, including oil, in Australia under it.

I was advised to claim "land rights" and was told that the benefits could be immense. I have no more right to that land than the graziers that have held leases over it for sometimes several generations, or even the poor fellow that purchased a chunk of it about a year before anyone discovered that it was claimable under the Land Rights legislation.

Because I can claim membership of a long dead tribe by blood, does that mean that I had a right to the land? Or that I should be treated differently to any other Australian? It still annoys me that if I tick a box on my social security form for my disability pension that, by declaring my aboriginality, I receive a significantly higher benefit and some medical costs that are not covered otherwise, covered, because of this check box. Am I stupid for not ticking the box? I personally don't think so.

The "futility" to which you refer, is generally the doing of the first peoples. Aboriginals that live in remoter areas of Australia do not send their children to school so they end up unfit for any form of employment. Until recently nothing was done because of the "cultural" rights of the parents. They finally decided this was a stupid idea and now they are tying the adult's benefits to the attendance of children at school and, surprise, surprise, children are going to school.

In Australia, there has been an issue that is being reported upon but isn't getting a huge amount of publicity because of the fears of being accussed of racism. Aboriginal groups (often in cities) have ended up with adult males that prey on the very young children, molesting them freely. Until recently, prosecutions have been unheard of because, the claim was it was a "cultural thing". Since I've lived in remote communities with Aboriginals I at least understand enough of the culture to know this has nothing to do with the culture and in a fully tribal system the men would be speared and possible have their genitals mutilated for such activities.

So please tell me why you think "first peoples" cannot speak with anyone except their own cultural people because it is such an excersise in futility. This bit I really do not understand.

This is in a science forum and should never have been here. The thread has developed into an argument about whether the fences are racist and then devolved into whether comments are racist. If you ask me, this thread should have been moved to "Not Quite Science" or deleted entirely. But the comments have been made, have been read, and so I'm going to comment. Because this is something that really annoys me.

As far as I am concerned, all members of a country have the same rights. I don't care whether they are in the country on a tourist visa, a green card, illegally, born there, or are "first peoples". Those that are in the country illegally have rights of respect only to the extent that any human owes to another, not rights to services or freedom for deportation.

To provide special provisions for "first peoples" just because they were there first is not only idiotic, imho, but counter productive and injurious to the "first peoples" so that instead of being able to "pursue happiness" and live a normal life, they become part of a victimhood mentality and believe they are owed something that others in the same country are not. Previous slaughters, genocides, forceable loss fo lands, are meaningless to the generation removed from those to which it was done to. A German born after 1945 has no need to apologise to a Jew that survived a concentration camp and certainly not to a Jew that wasn't even born then. Strangely Jews seem to understand this, as do most Germans.

Refusing to acknowledge horrors in recent histories such as Japan does with its education system that blames the blockade of oil by the US for the Second World War, rather than the appalling attack on the Chinese and very clear racist and superiority based intentions to create a "sphere of influence" in the Asian region, isn't a good thing at all. And compensation probably should be paid to those that are still alive that were "comfort" women in Korea, China, Indonesia etc. Actually it should have been done decades ago.

You only have to look at the Balkans to see just how bad a situation can become when blame for atrocities that no one is now alive to have participated, continues to be made against peoples of a certain type.

In Australia we have demand for apologies for a "stolen generation", where aboriginal children were forceably removed from their parents. The fact that this was most often because of serious risk to the child seems to have been forgotten. The crime appears to be that the children where educated and treated in a similar fashion to any other ward of the state during that period.

My wife was forceably removed from her mother at birth. This was done because in the early 60s a young mother was considered unfit to raise a child and tactics up to and including smothering the mother with a pillow until unconcious so that the child could be removed, as well as forced signatures, threats of being jailed, etc. Is my wife considered to be a "stolen" generation? No, actually, because she is of Russian/Polish extraction. Indeed, the only acknowledgement of this ghastly system, is that it was the "paternalist" society at the time and in the absence of any ability to provide for a child, it might have been cruel to the mother, but probably was fair to the child.

How come one standard can be applied because the child was white, and another, black, especially since the black cases generally involved far more extreme circumstances such as severe alcoholism of the mother?

So just what rights do you think "first peoples" should have? And why is it racist to simply state that all peoples in one nation should be treated the same? Because I believe you called dehammer racist for saying exactly that.


Regards


Richard


Sane=fits in. Unreasonable=world needs to fit to him. All Progress requires unreasonableness
#9814 11/03/06 05:02 PM
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No one alive today, other than perhaps Neil Armstrong on the moon, was the first person anywhere.

Time for everyone to get over it and move on.


DA Morgan
#9815 11/03/06 07:07 PM
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Yeah, and Neil and Buzz had the good sense to get off as quickly as possible before someone came along and slaughtered them smile

All your Moonbase are belong to us.

Blacknad.

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