[cherdano]

I do think jokes alluding to wrong stereotypes can be pretty funny, as long as the context makes it clear you are aware it's a wrong stereotype. Barmar's post made it clear he wasn't.

[barmar]

cherdano, on 2013-July-11, 07:02, said:

I do think jokes alluding to wrong stereotypes can be pretty funny, as long as the context makes it clear you are aware it's a wrong stereotype. Barmar's post made it clear he wasn't.

I'm sorry you got that impression. I know full well that Germany today is nothing like Nazi Germany.

Someone mentioned the "statute of limitations". Feel free to poke fun at America for slavery and slaughtering Native Americans -- we did them, and we'll probably never live it down. Although Europeans were also a party to the slave trade, I believe.

[blackshoe]

From Wikipedia: "The Atlantic slave traders, ordered by trade volume, were: the Portuguese, the British, the French, the Spanish, the Dutch, and the Americans. They had established outposts on the African coast where they purchased slaves from local African tribal leaders. Current estimates are that about 12 million were shipped across the Atlantic, although the actual number purchased by the traders is considerably higher."

Not a high point in our history, but... should we let "African tribal leaders" off the hook for their part in it?

I see also that only about 6.5% of the slave trade to the Americas ended up in "British North America" - which became the United States. The largest chunk of it (38.5%) seems to have gone to Brazil ("Portuguese America").

[mike777]

Of course there has been a slave trade since the dawn of history including the massive slave trade today in 2013.

---


Of course there is fascism in all its many forms in 2013.

Fascism /ˈfæʃɪzəm/ is a form of radical authoritarian nationalism[1][2] that came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe. Fascists seek to unify their nation through a totalitarian state that promotes the mass mobilization of the national community,[3][4] relying on a vanguard party to initiate a revolution to organize the nation on fascist principles.[5] Hostile to liberal democracy, socialism, and communism, fascist movements share certain common features, including the veneration of the state, a devotion to a strong leader, and an emphasis on ultranationalism and militarism. Fascism views political violence, war, and imperialism as a means to achieve national rejuvenation[3][6][7][8] and asserts that stronger nations have the right to obtain land and resources by displacing weaker nations.[9]

Fascist ideology consistently invokes the primacy of the state
http://search.yahoo....ism%20wikipedia

[Winstonm]

(emphasis added)

mike777, on 2013-July-11, 22:57, said:

Of course there has been a slave trade since the dawn of history including the massive slave trade today in 2013.

---


Of course there is fascism in all its many forms in 2013.

Fascism /ˈfæʃɪzəm/ is a form of radical authoritarian nationalism[1][2] that came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe. Fascists seek to unify their nation through a totalitarian state that promotes the mass mobilization of the national community,[3][4] relying on a vanguard party to initiate a revolution to organize the nation on fascist principles.[5] Hostile to liberal democracy, socialism, and communism, fascist movements share certain common features, including the veneration of the state, a devotion to a strong leader, and an emphasis on ultranationalism and militarism. Fascism views political violence, war, and imperialism as a means to achieve national rejuvenation[3][6][7][8] and asserts that stronger nations have the right to obtain land and resources by displacing weaker nations.[9]

Fascist ideology consistently invokes the primacy of the state
http://search.yahoo....ism%20wikipedia

Fascism=Ronald Reagan?

[jonottawa]

barmar, on 2013-July-11, 19:41, said:

Someone mentioned the "statute of limitations". Feel free to poke fun at America for slavery and slaughtering Native Americans -- we did them, and we'll probably never live it down. Although Europeans were also a party to the slave trade, I believe.

History will have PLENTY to condemn modern-day America about. I don't have to go back 200 years for good material.

But as to your specific example, I would never consider condemning a country with a history of slavery. It was a commonly accepted practice, condoned by 'holy books', that had been around for thousands of years. About the only useful comparison imo is 'Were you among the first or among the last to abolish it?' In modern-day America you still have people toiling at full-time jobs who live below the poverty line. Maybe not technically slavery, but surely the next best thing to it. In other countries you have children toiling 10 to 14 hour days in wretched poverty. Essentially indistinguishable from slavery.

I feel somewhat similarly about Native Americans. Was Alexander the Great a war criminal? Or Genghis Khan? Or the various Roman Caesars? Should we mock Greeks or Mongolians or Italians because of them? Would it be funny if we did? I try not to judge cultures from prior historical eras by today's standards. I'd much rather judge cultures from today's era by today's standards.

Also, I gave the caveat 'unless the country still romanticizes or condones what happened'. I think that a great number of people do romanticize the founding of America, and in response to them it is indeed fair to bring up slavery and the genocide of Native Americans as a gentle reminder that maybe it wasn't so terrific after all.

Anyway, that's my take. I like Germans (not every single last one of them, of course, but enough of them that it wouldn't occur to me to smear them all.) I'm sorry to hear that you don't.

[blackshoe]

Winstonm, on 2013-July-12, 09:18, said:

Fascism=Ronald Reagan?

In your mind, maybe.

[blackshoe]

jonottawa, on 2013-July-12, 10:08, said:

History will have PLENTY to condemn modern-day America about. I don't have to go back 200 years for good material.

[snip] In modern-day America you still have people toiling at full-time jobs who live below the poverty line. Maybe not technically slavery, but surely the next best thing to it. In other countries you have children toiling 10 to 14 hour days in wretched poverty. Essentially indistinguishable from slavery.

[snip]

Agree with your first statement.

Slavery and poverty are not the same thing. Slaves are property. Poor people, at least in a free-market society, have the opportunity to change that status. My grandfather started life as a coal miner - poor, overworked, subject to terrible working conditions. He ended his life a multi-millionaire — and that was after losing $12 million in the stock market crash of 1929. He worked hard, he worked smart, and he didn't rely on the government to give him anything. It's probably harder today to do what he did, because we've become less and less a free-market society over the years, but the possibility to change one's status is still there. In other countries where you have nothing at all like a free market, poverty is worse. Free markets, over time, increase the overall standard of living. Our poor in this country are still a lot better off then the poorest in say India. That may change if India becomes more like this country in its first century, as we become less so.

[barmar]

jonottawa, on 2013-July-12, 10:08, said:

Anyway, that's my take. I like Germans (not every single last one of them, of course, but enough of them that it wouldn't occur to me to smear them all.) I'm sorry to hear that you don't.

I'm not sure if I even know any, so I can't really say that I like or dislike them.

My opinion about Germany the country is similar to other European countries: I don't think about them very much. I don't think I have anything against them.

[Aberlour10]

Germans Loved Obama

Yes, they did. Hundred of thousands came spontaneously and cheered him during his speaches at the first two Germany visits.
What did they see? A new Mesiah ?...Maybe

anyway...

Now We Don't Trust Him

Few tousends listened to his speach at the Brandenburger Tor in Berlin few weeks ago. All of them has been invited, checked, many of them were US citiziens living in Germany. No single Berliner had a chance to go there without official invitation, The whole Berlin was "dead", it looked like a open air prison during this visit.
The german TV tried tricky to show Obamas speach as a mass event, but it failed immediately.
Why did the offcials were so afraid this time? Maybe.... because many, many Germans see Obama now more like dissembling technocrate, with no difference to Nixons or GWB style.

Here is a CHANGE, a big one. The view of him has been fundametal changed during last years.

[blackshoe]

Aberlour10, on 2013-July-26, 18:18, said:

Germans Loved Obama

Now We Don't Trust Him

President Obama has demonstrated he is not worthy of trust. Some of us haven't noticed, or don't care. Some of us were always leery of him.

When Bill Clinton was first elected President, I said to my father "he will be a bad President, we need to get him out of the White House". Dad said "he's only been in office a couple of months, give him a chance". A year or so later, he agreed with me. Vehemently. When Obama was elected, there was no hesitation, no "give him a chance". Dad said right up front, and I agreed with him then and even more so now "we can't trust him". He has a "vision" for America vastly different from that of most of its people, and vastly different from that of this country's founders. The way things are going, history may well remember him as the President who put the final nail in the coffin of "the American dream".

[PassedOut]

blackshoe, on 2013-July-26, 21:33, said:

He has a "vision" for America vastly different from that of most of its people, and vastly different from that of this country's founders.

It seems understandable that Obama differs from the founding fathers on the subject of slavery.

[blackshoe]

PassedOut, on 2013-July-26, 23:03, said:

It seems understandable that Obama differs from the founding fathers on the subject of slavery.

If Jefferson could have found a way to abolish slavery at the founding of this country, I'm sure he would have done so. He had to deal with the politics of the day, so it didn't happen.

[jonottawa]

blackshoe, on 2013-July-26, 21:33, said:

President Obama has demonstrated he is not worthy of trust. Some of us haven't noticed, or don't care. Some of us were always leery of him.

When Bill Clinton was first elected President, I said to my father "he will be a bad President, we need to get him out of the White House". Dad said "he's only been in office a couple of months, give him a chance". A year or so later, he agreed with me. Vehemently. When Obama was elected, there was no hesitation, no "give him a chance". Dad said right up front, and I agreed with him then and even more so now "we can't trust him". He has a "vision" for America vastly different from that of most of its people, and vastly different from that of this country's founders. The way things are going, history may well remember him as the President who put the final nail in the coffin of "the American dream".

I agree, history may well remember Obama as the president who put the final nail in the coffin of 'the American dream'. History will also remember his immediate predecessor as the guy who kidnapped the American dream, tortured it, molested it, shot it in the head, and started working on the coffin when his time expired.

Obama is a terrible president (if he were a Republican, he would be a 'pretty bad' president, but I hold Democrats to higher standards) not because he's a socialist, which he's not, but because he governed so much like Dubya in his first term and now he's a lame duck 6 months into his 2nd.

[PassedOut]

blackshoe, on 2013-July-27, 00:10, said:

PassedOut, on 2013-July-26, 23:03, said:

blackshoe, on 2013-July-26, 21:33, said:

He has a "vision" for America vastly different from that of most of its people, and vastly different from that of this country's founders.

It seems understandable that Obama differs from the founding fathers on the subject of slavery.

If Jefferson could have found a way to abolish slavery at the founding of this country, I'm sure he would have done so. He had to deal with the politics of the day, so it didn't happen.

Jefferson was not the only US founding father who owned slaves, and his youthful liberal rhetoric on the matter faded. His life-long actions contradicted his early statements. The Smithsonian has some interesting articles about this, including The Dark Side of Thomas Jefferson by Henry Wiencek.

Quote

Many people of his own time, taking Jefferson at his word and seeing him as the embodiment of the country’s highest ideals, appealed to him. When he evaded and rationalized, his admirers were frustrated and mystified; it felt like praying to a stone. The Virginia abolitionist Moncure Conway, noting Jefferson’s enduring reputation as a would-be emancipator, remarked scornfully, “Never did a man achieve more fame for what he did not do.”

And that fame lives on, as you've shown. Of course some historians take issue with the author of the Smithsonian article: What Did Thomas Jefferson Really Think About Slavery?

Quote

Wiencek quotes selectively from Jefferson’s letters to make it appear that from the time of that calculation Jefferson had gone over to the side of slavery’s defenders. He says that Jefferson told his planter buddies one thing and slavery’s opponents another, but go back to the sources and you find that Jefferson kept telling his pals that he believed slavery was wrong and it would one day disappear.

But not by Jefferson's doing: Henry Wiencek Responds to His Critics.

Quote

Here is another statement by Jefferson (not mentioned by Gordon-Reed): He wrote in 1794 that an acquaintance who had suffered financial reverses "should have been invested in negroes," and if that friend's family had any cash left, "every farthing of it [should be] laid out in land and negroes, which besides a present support bring a silent profit of from 5. to 10. per cent in this country by the increase in their value."

As great as the US founding fathers were, it serves no useful purpose to blind ourselves to their faults.

Who wants to return to the founding fathers' vision of a nation where only white men can vote, and where there is direct voting for neither senators nor presidents? Not I.

I certainly don't view Obama as a great president, but he's a lot better than his predecessor. If Obama really '...has a "vision" for America vastly different from that of most of its people,' why was he elected twice? How does his 'vision' differ, exactly? It is safe to say, though, that Obama would not have been elected if only white men had been voting.

[barmar]

PassedOut, on 2013-July-27, 08:52, said:

If Obama really '...has a "vision" for America vastly different from that of most of its people,' why was he elected twice?

Lesser of evils?

[PassedOut]

barmar, on 2013-July-29, 10:56, said:

Lesser of evils?

So his opponents had visions even more vastly different from that of most people in the US? If so, how were any of the presidential candidates nominated to run?

In Obama's books, speeches, and actions, I just don't see that he has a vision vastly different from most voters. His implementation has often fallen short, of course, such as with closing the Guantanamo prison and with implementing the stimulus needed to boost the economy, but -- as Blackshoe pointed out earlier -- sometimes politics can prevent the implementation of a vision. The way I see it, both Obama and his opponents did express visions that appealed to large constituencies, but Obama's vision came closer to that of most voters.

I'm interested in learning exactly how Obama's vision is vastly different from most voters, but perhaps those who believe so lack the courage of conviction necessary to offer specifics.

[ArtK78]

If anything the Republican Party as a whole has a vision of America that is drastically different from that of most voters, as demonstrated in November. But it continues to hold sway in the House, so Obama's attempts to implement his policy objectives will continue to be obstructed.

It is amazing that the health care law was passed. I am still mystified that there is continuing opposition to the health care law.

[dwar0123]

Blackshoe is under the mistaken impression that his beliefs are equivalent to the beliefs of the majority of the voting public, despite the explicit evidence demonstrated in November.

I like to think I at least had the decency to believe that the majority were wrong and we got what we deserved when they re-elected Bush to a second term. I don't mistake losing an election with winning an election.

Not entirely sure how anyone does.

[hrothgar]

dwar0123, on 2013-July-29, 11:50, said:

Blackshoe is under the mistaken impression that his beliefs are equivalent to the beliefs of the majority of the voting public, despite the explicit evidence demonstrated in November.

Alternatively, Blackshoes doesn't consider the majority of the voting public to be true Americans...