Author Topic: Diversity's Oppressions  (Read 35769 times)

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sirs

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Diversity's Oppressions
« on: October 31, 2006, 02:09:19 AM »
Why Iraq has proven to be so hard to pacify.

BY THOMAS SOWELL
Monday, October 30, 2006


Iraq is not the first war with ugly surprises and bloody setbacks. Even World War II, idealized in retrospect as it never was at the time--the war of "the greatest generation"--had a long series of disasters for Americans before victory was finally achieved.

The war began for Americans with the disaster at Pearl Harbor, followed by the tragic horror of the Bataan death march, the debacle at the Kasserine Pass and, even on the eve of victory, being caught completely by surprise by a devastating German counterattack that almost succeeded at the Battle of the Bulge.

Other wars--our own and other nations'--have likewise been full of nasty surprises and mistakes that led to bloodbaths. Nevertheless, the Iraq war has some special lessons for our time, lessons that both the left and the right need to acknowledge, whether or not they will.

What is it that has made Iraq so hard to pacify, even after a swift and decisive military victory? In one word: diversity.
That word has become a sacred mantra, endlessly repeated for years on end, without a speck of evidence being asked for or given to verify the wonderful benefits it is assumed to produce.

Worse yet, Iraq is only the latest in a long series of catastrophes growing out of diversity. These include "ethnic cleansing" in the Balkans, genocide in Rwanda and the Sudan, the million lives destroyed in intercommunal violence when India became independent in 1947 and the even larger number of Armenians slaughtered by Turks during World War I.

Despite much gushing about how we should "celebrate diversity," America's great achievement has not been in having diversity but in taming its dangers that have run amok in many other countries. Americans have by no means escaped diversity's oppressions and violence, but we have reined them in.

Another concept whose bitter falsity has been painfully revealed in Iraq is "nation-building." People are not building blocks, however much some may flatter themselves that they can arrange their fellow human beings' lives the way you can arrange pieces on a chess board.

The biggest and most fatuous example of nation-building occurred right after World War I, when the allied victors dismembered the Habsburg Empire and the Ottoman Empire. Woodrow Wilson assigned a young Walter Lippman to sit down with maps and population statistics and start drawing lines that would define new nations.

Iraq is one of those new nations. Like other artificial creations in the Balkans, Africa and elsewhere, it has never had the cohesion of nations that evolved over the centuries out of the experiences of peoples who worked out their own modi vivendi in one way or another.

Tito's dictatorship held Yugoslavia together, as other dictatorships held together other peoples forced into becoming a nation by the decisions of outsiders who drew their boundaries on maps and in some cases--Nigeria, for example--even gave them their national name.

Even before 9/11, there were some neoconservatives who talked about our achieving "national greatness" by creating democratic nations in various parts of the world.

How much influence their ideas have had on the actual course of events is probably something that will not be known in our generation. But we can at least hope that the Iraq tragedy will chasten the hubris behind notions of "nation-building" and chasten also the pious dogmatism of those who hype "diversity" at every turn, in utter disregard of its actual consequences at home or abroad. Free societies have prerequisites, and history has not given all peoples those prerequisites, which took centuries to evolve in the West.

However we got into Iraq, we cannot undo history--even recent history--by simply pulling out and leaving events to take their course in that strife-torn country. Whether or not we "stay the course," terrorists are certainly going to stay the course in Iraq and around the world.

Political spin may say that Iraq has nothing to do with the war on terror, but the terrorists themselves quite obviously believe otherwise, as they converge on that country with lethal and suicidal resolve.

Whether we want to or not, we cannot unilaterally end the war with international terrorists. Giving the terrorists an epoch-making victory in Iraq would only shift the location where we must face them or succumb to them.

Abandoning Iraqi allies to their fate would ensure that other nations would think twice before becoming or remaining our allies. With a nuclear Iran looming on the horizon, we are going to need all the allies we can get.


http://opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009170

"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

Xavier_Onassis

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Re: Diversity's Oppressions
« Reply #1 on: October 31, 2006, 08:55:57 AM »
Abandoning Iraqi allies to their fate would ensure that other nations would think twice before becoming or remaining our allies. With a nuclear Iran looming on the horizon, we are going to need all the allies we can get.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is exactly the sort of rot we got from the ratwing about why we should not leave Vietnam.

Bullsh*t then, bullsh*t now.

The rest of the world knows that lying assholes Juniorbush and Cheney LIED us into Iraq. They think we are dolts for following their incompetent, bungling direction this far.

Iran is at most, Israel's problem. Not mine.

Opinionjournal = ratwing bullshit
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

sirs

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Re: Diversity's Oppressions
« Reply #2 on: October 31, 2006, 10:21:24 AM »
The rest of the world knows that lying assholes Juniorbush and Cheney LIED us into Iraq. They think we are dolts for following their incompetent, bungling direction this far.

Too bad the FACTS conclude otherwise.  Then you'd really have a good rant going
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

_JS

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Re: Diversity's Oppressions
« Reply #3 on: October 31, 2006, 12:33:30 PM »
Idiocy.

We're blaming diversity for our problems in Iraq? Have you not noticed the Hispanic names and the African Americans amongst the lists of those who have died serving this country in that war?

You should really be ashamed for having posted this shit Sirs. It is an affront to the men and women who are dying in Iraq as well as our Kurdish and Iraqi allies.

Real nice blame game though.
I smell something burning, hope it's just my brains.
They're only dropping peppermints and daisy-chains
   So stuff my nose with garlic
   Coat my eyes with butter
   Fill my ears with silver
   Stick my legs in plaster
   Tell me lies about Vietnam.

sirs

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Re: Diversity's Oppressions
« Reply #4 on: October 31, 2006, 12:48:05 PM »
Idiocy.

We're blaming diversity for our problems in Iraq? Have you not noticed the Hispanic names and the African Americans amongst the lists of those who have died serving this country in that war?

You should really be ashamed for having posted this shit Sirs. It is an affront to the men and women who are dying in Iraq as well as our Kurdish and Iraqi allies.



And you should be ashamed for making this purely about diversity, and that the author is claiming that's the ONLY issue at work   
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

_JS

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Re: Diversity's Oppressions
« Reply #5 on: October 31, 2006, 01:20:08 PM »
Quote
What is it that has made Iraq so hard to pacify, even after a swift and decisive military victory? In one word: diversity.

It is clear that it is supposed to be the most significant factor in the author's opinion.

You like calling a "duck a duck."

This is racist swill. It isn't even very well veiled racist swill. Is this really what you and other "conservatives" believe?
I smell something burning, hope it's just my brains.
They're only dropping peppermints and daisy-chains
   So stuff my nose with garlic
   Coat my eyes with butter
   Fill my ears with silver
   Stick my legs in plaster
   Tell me lies about Vietnam.

sirs

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Re: Diversity's Oppressions
« Reply #6 on: October 31, 2006, 01:29:35 PM »
Quote
What is it that has made Iraq so hard to pacify, even after a swift and decisive military victory? In one word: diversity.
It is clear that it is supposed to be the most significant factor in the author's opinion.  This is racist swill. It isn't even very well veiled racist swill. Is this really what you and other "conservatives" believe?

What isn't as "clear" as you're trying to imply is that African Americans are supposedly to blame for the Iraqi war.  That Asian Americans are to blame for the iraqi war.  That Mexican Americans are to blame.  THAT's what you really should be ashamed of, for so distorting and misrepresenting what Sowell was commentating on.  Frelling amazing (and sadly consistent) when one discusses diversity in any kind of negative light, they're automatically stamped racist.  Kinda ugly tact you're taking this morning, js.  I can see it from the likes of Tee & Brass, but I wouldn't have expected it out of you
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

Amianthus

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Re: Diversity's Oppressions
« Reply #7 on: October 31, 2006, 01:30:51 PM »
This is racist swill. It isn't even very well veiled racist swill.

What part is racist?
Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. (Benjamin Franklin)

_JS

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Re: Diversity's Oppressions
« Reply #8 on: October 31, 2006, 01:37:12 PM »
Sirs, is this what conservatives believe? Answer me that.

Ami:
Quote
America's great achievement has not been in having diversity but in taming its dangers that have run amok in many other countries. Americans have by no means escaped diversity's oppressions and violence, but we have reined them in.


I smell something burning, hope it's just my brains.
They're only dropping peppermints and daisy-chains
   So stuff my nose with garlic
   Coat my eyes with butter
   Fill my ears with silver
   Stick my legs in plaster
   Tell me lies about Vietnam.

sirs

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Re: Diversity's Oppressions
« Reply #9 on: October 31, 2006, 01:41:50 PM »
Sirs, is this what conservatives believe? Answer me that.
Ami:
Quote
America's great achievement has not been in having diversity but in taming its dangers that have run amok in many other countries. Americans have by no means escaped diversity's oppressions and violence, but we have reined them in.

Personally, to a point.  As what "conservatives" believe as "America's great achievement", doubtful, though I can't speak for all conservatives.  I doubt Thomas Sowell or Ami can either
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

_JS

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Re: Diversity's Oppressions
« Reply #10 on: October 31, 2006, 01:43:13 PM »
So what do you find problematic in Sowell's synopsis?
I smell something burning, hope it's just my brains.
They're only dropping peppermints and daisy-chains
   So stuff my nose with garlic
   Coat my eyes with butter
   Fill my ears with silver
   Stick my legs in plaster
   Tell me lies about Vietnam.

kimba1

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Re: Diversity's Oppressions
« Reply #11 on: October 31, 2006, 01:47:25 PM »
not quite
the very source of america greatness is diversity
thee only reason this country grew as fast as it ever did is because it really is a melting pot.
every single civilization had a base of cultural exchange.
only in the recent past did we slow down the flow of immigration and surprisingly hardly any new innovation has developed.
inventor used to be a job title,not anymore.
notice very little difference in tech now to a decade ago.
everything is faster ,but nothing new has come up

Plane

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Re: Diversity's Oppressions
« Reply #12 on: October 31, 2006, 01:54:38 PM »
The nature of the fighting in Iraq has been changeing .


Right now most Iriqui deaths are being caused by other Iriquis , mostly for reason of religious diffrence , but there are heritage diffrences too.

Amianthus

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Re: Diversity's Oppressions
« Reply #13 on: October 31, 2006, 01:55:00 PM »
Ami:
Quote
America's great achievement has not been in having diversity but in taming its dangers that have run amok in many other countries. Americans have by no means escaped diversity's oppressions and violence, but we have reined them in.

Still not seeing what's racist about that quote. It says that America's rate of change is slower than other countries, so we have lessened the effects. What's racist about that?
Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. (Benjamin Franklin)

sirs

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Re: Diversity's Oppressions
« Reply #14 on: October 31, 2006, 02:04:17 PM »
So what do you find problematic in Sowell's synopsis?

Very Little.  Least of all, it supposedly being some racist proclaimation that all minorities are the cause of the Iraqi war
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle