Chockstone Forum

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

Chockstone Photography

Australian Landscape Prints

Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User

OT: Human Rights Framework 2-May-2010 At 4:26:21 PM Hendo

Message

On 2/05/2010 Mr Milk wrote:
> A recurring theme in your posts is this idea of ‘relative discrimination’:
> that somehow an analogy of a restaurant hiring staff of a certain race
>justifies a larger, more blanketed cultural repression and racial segregation.
>You confuse racial prejudice with racial differentiation, and you ultimately
>do a very poor job of defending your unreasonable and frightening xenophobia.

I didn’t say that at all I was just giving an example of when it makes sense to differentiate people based on race ie. racism.

On the contrary I was trying to put across the idea that it isn’t black and white and that there are differences; ‘racial prejudice with racial differentiation’, a spectrum of grey. I think maybe we define the term racism differently; you don’t include racial differentiation whereas I do.

>In an even more disturbing rant of yours, you implicitly justify the cultural
>genocide and torturous repression of the Australian aboriginal people by
>arguing it reasonable to expect the Australian continent to have been “conquered”.

I didn’t intentionally imply justification of this. I was just saying something more along the lines of that it is part of life, these things happen.

>Such hurtful racially prejudice sentiments are an unforgivable insult to
>a race for which—due to events beyond the control of you or I—we ought
>to owe solemn regret.

I’m not too keen to pass judgement on history usually especially the older it gets; different times, different places, different attitudes, I can’t know too much about it so the fence is a good place to be. I’m not sure you can condemn the past with modern morals. In the future people will probably be condemning us for our ‘wrongs’ through different standards, that isn’t necessarily fair. However, that doesn’t mean I would repeat things or not learn from things done throughout history, now is a different time and place. And no, this isn’t a justification of what happened either.

>Angered as I may be, in responding to your posts I am encountering much
>difficulty in seriously addressing any of your points; your largely unintelligible
>“rules of the jungle” paragraph being a fine example. Yes, human rights
>do indeed exist in our imagination: they are the result of reasoned moral
>philosophy,

Early last century Germany was one of the most educated countries on earth and had a long history in philosophy. This somehow lead to the Nazi regime which many people now associate with evil. Reason and moral philosophy can lead down very different paths leading to contradictory viewpoints. It isn’t a guaranteed recipe for universal truth and goodness.

>thankfully not conjured up by moronic people such as yourself.
>We can only look at mistakes of the past—cultural repression, genocide,
>slavery—and guide society to an enlightened and socially harmonious existence.

I think complete social harmony is an unattainable dream and different people will have different and contradictory versions of this dream. Looking at places like Palestine I think there is enough hate in some people that their dream of social harmony involves the extermination of another people, something you consider a mistake, but they would not.

As regards slavery, as an interesting side note I think by some definition widespread slavery is still in existence. If you consider slavery as giving people just enough to survive so they can come back to work for you the next day then the rich are still very much engaged in slavery. Globalisation has just allowed it to be done elsewhere.

>That bigots such as yourself…
>You are but a blight on an otherwise fantastic country.

Do I detect a hint of prejudice here? You don’t know me at all :P

>this hurtful soapbox rant.

As I mentioned before I am interested in other people’s idea I’m not trying to soapbox rant.

In general what I am mostly concerned about is maintaining what I view as my way of life and living with people who I consider like me, I don’t see why that is shameful.

On 2/05/2010 ET wrote:
>I have to disagree with you Hendo on this one... I don't see the any of
>the cultures displacing other ones. Cultures/values naturally evolve and
>change with time without any external forces.

Yes, of course things change, otherwise humanity would never have permuted away from caveman mode. But change still needs to be managed, there are plenty of examples, some referred to above, where things have been done in a way I wouldn’t want to live through.