by Sixstrings » Tue 03 Jun 2014, 00:53:05
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrestonSturges', 'F')unny this is exactly what antisemites of the 1930s used to say about the Jews. The quote below is from the antisemitic newsletters of Henry Ford
Preston, you can't take a word out of what I wrote -- "liberal" -- and just replace it with another word, "jew" -- and then say they are the same thing and insinuate I'm an anti-semite.
Wtf.
I'm an agnostic / atheist. Who is FAIR. And believes in this country, and what's best about it, and what has always been special about it.
You don't seem to cherish your American history or our founders -- brilliant age of reason thinkers. Jefferson. Franklin. Read de toqueville -- the French were the height of high culture at the time, and they saw America was something special.
You don't seem to see how special this place is, that BOTH protestants AND Catholics escaped to here, from England and Europe, with a common bond that everyone just wants to be left alone and be free.
You don't like Puritans, but what about the Quakers? What about the Unitarians? I'm an agnostic, but if I were go to go to church I really dig those Unitarian Universalists.
Jewish people found freedom here, too, for the most part.
The South went wrong with slavery, it was an entrenched system that should have never started up -- but did you know, one of the CSA's cabinet secs was Jewish?
That could not have happened in Europe. For all our faults, we have specialized in doing over here what can't be done in Europe, or anywhere else. We were first on womens' equality, and led the world on that. We elected a black man president -- try that in Canada or Britain or France or Australia. It can't happen in those places, but it's possible in America.
Back on point -- Preston, I don't like it AT ALL when religion pushes too far into our government, as they have tried to do all through the 80s and 90s, and they'd still like to.
But when the pendulum swings the other way, that's also wrong and unamerican -- we are all about *religious freedom* in this country, from the beginning. This is what makes us different from France -- the French tell muslim girls they can't wear head coverings to school. Wtf is that about, you know? It's outright religious oppression.
We Americans don't care, be free, persue happiness and practice your religion and respect your neighbor's right to be different too, and wear what you want as long as you've got some clothes on.
EDIT: to summarize my rants -- American values are: (a) freedom for all religions, no religion oppressing another, and freedom to be non-religious, and a gov that separates church and state, does not favor or endorse a particular religion but neither does it suppress it.
(b) *Freedom of speech*, our most crucial and fundamental right. This is what *political correctness* infringes on.
(c) equality of opportunity , level playing field, just what the dec of ind says:
all men are created equal.BUT.. affirmative action was good to correct an imbalance, but you can't let quotas go off into socialist crazy land. Same for political correctness and suppressing conservatives' free speech. Free speech trumps equality, free speech trumps all. People must be free to speak and think and assemble, whether a Putin likes it or not, whether the gay lobby likes it or not, etc. etc.
Any group infringing on other groups and oppressing them is unamerican. That can be liberal constituencies too, the pendulum can go off kilter in either direction.
You respect your neighbor's freedom, and that's what protects your freedom, and nobody is oppressed, and that was the frontier freedom ideal that we were founded on -- level playing field, folks being free to be different and respecting each others' right to be different. ***And that includes religious people too, diversity includes them too.*** Aren't you guys getting this? Oppression is wrong whether it's racial or because someone is a Christian, or a muslim, or a woman -- or, if all those protected groups are ganging up on white males. It's a universal principle.