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The Fourth of July

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Re: The Fourth of July

#101

Post by vore »

stormdennis wrote: post #96
EdwardDiego wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When writing this, did you consider that most African Americans are descended from people who didn't get to bring a suitcase? That they were still fighting to be treated as equal citizens a century and a half after no longer being considered property? And that the fact that they're over-represented in basketball doesn't mean that inequality is solved?

Note that you said descendants. They were not slaves, nor were their parents nor their grandparents. What remove does it take to get over it and stop acting like everyone owes you? Immigrants have come to America with nothing and having suffered unimaginable trauma (such as having had their entire family incinerated) and prospered.

Just because there exist immigrants who have fled their home country to find a better life in US doesn't invalidate the plight of other groups in the US right now: just look at the police brutality protests.

If your bare minimum is "at least your family didn't get incinerated so get over it", that's extremely heartless and cruel: the US can and should do better than such a low baseline.

Re: The Fourth of July

#102

Post by vulcan01 »

epistasis wrote: post #41
cactus2093 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about the statue of Ulysses S Grant in San Francisco? Same level of absurdity as Lincoln. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/20/san-francisc...

Grant also sent Custer to South Dakota to wage war and steal land. Once gold had been discovered it was a foregone conclusion that white settlers would therefore get the land, no matter what treaties had been signed. Which lead to a white supremacist eventually carving four presidents visages into Mount Rushmore, in violation of treaties made between the Lakota and the US, and today's arrest of Lakota who were protes…

All the things you said about Grant are correct. But it can be argued that the good things he did outweighed the bad. In that case, is it ok to tear down a statue?

Re: The Fourth of July

#103

Post by sneak »

tingletech wrote: post #5

Up until March, my office was less than a block from the Paramount theater in downtown Oakland. Once a month there would be a huge naturalization ceremony there as I was walking in to the office. That always did make me feel proud to be "an American", seeing all the newly naturalized people and their families crowding the area.

The rituals and pride surrounding citizenship, an entirely arbitrary and fictional distinction, never made sense to me. All it is is a way to justify denying things to some people that are granted to others: usually things that are, or should be, human rights, like free movement and due process.

Remember: citizenship is as real as Oz or Wonderland.

Re: The Fourth of July

#104

Post by WalterBright »

weiming wrote: post #42
myrandomcomment wrote: post #2

As a father, a husband, a former soldier and an American, this brings a tear to my eye. “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” - Lincoln As an American I feel we are bound not by our failures of past moral…

What me and my family talked about today is that, as immigrants, we are so sad how much the "native born" people of the US hate their own country. They seem to never waste an opportunity to remind others of their disdain and it is more and more visible these days e.g. in big news media or on Twitter. Makes me sad and I hope this can change.

My mother was an immigrant. While she always loved her country of origin, she grew to love America more.

Re: The Fourth of July

#105

Post by ciarannolan »

hintymad wrote: post #74
myrandomcomment wrote: post #2

As a father, a husband, a former soldier and an American, this brings a tear to my eye. “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” - Lincoln As an American I feel we are bound not by our failures of past moral…

The main stream media and the elites are supporting the cancel culture. In fact, they fuel it -- both WaPo and NYT published articles about why 7/4 should be canceled. That's okay, as a country needs different voice and people have different political spectrum by nature. What's disappointing, though, is that the conservatives do not have a big enough platform to publish well-argued counter points, even though "conser…

Please consider that you are in an extreme social media and/or real life filter bubble. "The elites" aren't some secret Soros/Clinton/HerEmails force out to destroy America.

I've found that taking a long-ish break (2-3 weeks) from reading the news and social media can be extremely eye opening.

Re: The Fourth of July

#106

Post by AnthonyMouse »

tathougies wrote: post #69
bJGVygG7MQVF8c wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. Colin Kaepernick, on Twitter: > "Black ppl have been dehumanized, brutalized, criminalized + terrorized by America for centuries, & are expected to join your commemoration of “independence”, while you enslaved our ancestors. We reject your celebration of white supremacy & look forward to liberation for all. " Point of clarification: by "our ancestors" he's referring exclusively to his African-descended ancest…

But the United States didn't enslave his ancestors. England did, and the US inherited it, but made several provisions to end the practice quickly (Congress passed a law as soon as it was able to end the slave trade, and then fought a war that cost many American lives to end it for good). For all of American history, most people did not own slaves. And before someone says 'well they benefited from it'... well we benef…

> England did, and the US inherited it

I think this is bollocks. In 1775 the slave owners were British subjects. By 1800 they were US citizens, but they were the same people. They didn't change, their citizenship changed.

The better argument is, they're all dead now. All of the slave owners and all of the slaves are dead. Their children are dead. Their children's children are dead. It has been seven generations.

More than that, the large majority of the current day US population are descended from immigrants who came to the US after the abolition of slavery, and even the large majority of those present during the civil war didn't own slaves. Are we to blame a family who immigrated from Poland during WWII?

The dead are responsible for what the dead have done. We are responsible for what we do.

Re: The Fourth of July

#107

Post by rayiner »

vore wrote: post #98
zipwitch wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American from birth, and speaking for myself, it's not hating my country. It's frustration and sometimes anger at our failure to do better. I believe that doing better than we are is within our grasp, but we, as a nation, so often seem to turn away from positive change in favor of a comfortable and easy (for many Americans) status quo that is ultimately inadequate and often blindly hypocritical.

Even from just examining the present, it's hard to find much to like about how the US is handling a pandemic.

We have fewer Covid deaths per capita than four of the five biggest countries in the EU. Do you think people in France or Spain are “ashamed” of their country’s handling of the outbreak?

Re: The Fourth of July

#108

Post by stormdennis »

vore wrote: post #101
stormdennis wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that you said descendants. They were not slaves, nor were their parents nor their grandparents. What remove does it take to get over it and stop acting like everyone owes you? Immigrants have come to America with nothing and having suffered unimaginable trauma (such as having had their entire family incinerated) and prospered.

Just because there exist immigrants who have fled their home country to find a better life in US doesn't invalidate the plight of other groups in the US right now: just look at the police brutality protests. If your bare minimum is "at least your family didn't get incinerated so get over it", that's extremely heartless and cruel: the US can and should do better than such a low baseline.

You're distorting what I said. As regards these protests I believe that they will probably only make things worse. Black areas are where the most crime occurs so there is going to be more police activity in those areas. The protests encourage a feeling amount black people that the police are the enemy and that if you're stopped it's always only because you're black. On the police side this means that the typical interaction with a black person will be more difficult on average, leading to a perception on their side that black people are trouble. Put the two together and you have a greater potential for someone to get hurt.

Re: The Fourth of July

#109

Post by WalterBright »

vore wrote: post #98
zipwitch wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American from birth, and speaking for myself, it's not hating my country. It's frustration and sometimes anger at our failure to do better. I believe that doing better than we are is within our grasp, but we, as a nation, so often seem to turn away from positive change in favor of a comfortable and easy (for many Americans) status quo that is ultimately inadequate and often blindly hypocritical.

Even from just examining the present, it's hard to find much to like about how the US is handling a pandemic.

It's generally left up to the states to deal with it as they see fit. I don't see anything particularly wrong with that. Some governors have stepped up, some haven't.

Re: The Fourth of July

#110

Post by hintymad »

vore wrote: post #101
stormdennis wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that you said descendants. They were not slaves, nor were their parents nor their grandparents. What remove does it take to get over it and stop acting like everyone owes you? Immigrants have come to America with nothing and having suffered unimaginable trauma (such as having had their entire family incinerated) and prospered.

Just because there exist immigrants who have fled their home country to find a better life in US doesn't invalidate the plight of other groups in the US right now: just look at the police brutality protests. If your bare minimum is "at least your family didn't get incinerated so get over it", that's extremely heartless and cruel: the US can and should do better than such a low baseline.

Which policies or lack thereof specifically target the black people? We should definite fight to abolish them. Otherwise, wouldn’t it fair to say that the US legal system has flaws that every group may suffer, and therefore it’s really about law and order?
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