Multiculturism And Society

[questor]

when considering the advantages of multi culturalism it might be insightful to weigh the advantages of having a particular culture in our society against the problems incurred by having the disadvantages of that culture present. for instance, we must weigh the advantage of a group harvesting our crops cheaply against the murderous gangs which

are now causing such mayhem around the Washington DC area. the need for welfare, child care, special educational facilities, demands for bilingual street names, legal documents, government workers, etc., and the non payment of taxes. is this a good deal for our society?

in addition, we have a sub-culture that is anti-education, has a large drug culture, prefers welfare to workfare, speaks an unintelligble dialect of english, provides us with half our prison inmates, most of our out of wedlock children, and sets a very poor example in personal dress, music and deportment. can all this be blamed on something that ended

over 145 years ago? also, can something like this be discussed on a rational level?

i guess some people accept whatever happens in society as OK. i would say that

cultures being introduced now dilute and confuse the orderliness of our society and

are the base problems for lawlessness, loss of morality, failing families and a failing educational system.

[Fishteacher73]

i would say that cultures being introduced now dilute and confuse the orderliness of our society and are the base problems for lawlessness, loss of morality, failing families and a failing educational system.

 

 

Ahh...The white mans burden...Good thing that the mediterainian cultures intoduced such concepts to the Europeans when they conqured them...

[questor]

why is terrorist activity a ''white mans burden''? what color were the victims of 9/11?

what color are the innocent Iraqis? what color were the innocents of Indonesia? what does a comment like that mean? what about black on black crime in our own black communities?

can this be sloughed off as the ''white man's burden'' ?

[Fishteacher73]

Well if all those uppity colored folks would just act like those decent law abiding white people none of this would have happened, right?

Most of the core of Al Qaeda was trained by the US durring the Afghani/Soviet War in the 80's. Once the the soviets backed out, so did the US. So yes, a great deal of terrorism is the fault of the white men in charge (Saddam was bolstered by the US to fight Iran.... oopss...those good ole white folks spreadin' their brand of freedom some more...)

[nemo]

...we must weigh the advantage of a group harvesting our crops cheaply against the murderous gangs which are now causing such mayhem around the Washington DC area. the need for welfare, child care, special educational facilities, demands for bilingual street names, legal documents, government workers, etc., and the non payment of taxes. is this a good deal for our society?

Hmm... lots of questions... I'm guessing these were meant to be rhetorical, but I'll answer anyway. I'm not in favor of murderous gangs. I'm not in favor of welfare that does not impose a time limit for benefits. I do have experience with the child-care problem - my wife and I were both in the military at the time, and child care cost more than one of our complete paychecks. By special education facilities, I'm assuming you mean schools for people whose primary language is not english. Point taken - if you intend to live in a country, the country should not have to change its language to suit your needs. Bilingual street names, legal documents and government workers would also fall into that category, I suppose.

 

in addition, we have a sub-culture that is anti-education, has a large drug culture, prefers welfare to workfare, speaks an unintelligble dialect of english, provides us with half our prison inmates, most of our out of wedlock children

This sub-culture you speak of, the primary requirement for admission is the correct amount of pigment, correct? As far as I know, most people would prefer to get paid for not working, as opposed to the alternative - regardless of their race. Define unitelligable - this would be a dialect of english that you were not brought up in or see every day, correct? Would this include regional slang and and remarkably strong accents? I have read the statistics on children born out of wedlock; I'm waiting to see when my daughter decides she wants a glock for Christmas as a result of my marital status when she was born.

...and sets a very poor example in personal dress, music and deportment.

You forgot: they have bad teeth, they can't dance and I hear they see dead people. Really. The examples set by any number of people with regard to personal dress, music and deportment could be considered questionable at best. Imposing your morality and personal values on what you consider to be a sub-culture of society is the personification of the communism you find so reprehensible.

 

can all this be blamed on something that ended over 145 years ago?

Are you suggesting that the problems you've listed are a result of the Civil War? Please explain - I think you've lost me on this comment.

 

also, can something like this be discussed on a rational level?

Despite my propensity toward juvenile behavior, I believe it can. Generally, I try use what I consider to be entertaining satire to illustrate a point instead of exclamation points and capital letters; however, that (or any other opposing view, if substantiated) should not be considered irrational - it is simply an opposing view.

 

i guess some people accept whatever happens in society as OK. i would say that cultures being introduced now dilute and confuse the orderliness of our society and

are the base problems for lawlessness, loss of morality, failing families and a failing educational system.

I would suggest that those problems already exist in our society today, and that cultures being introduced now are not responsible for problems they did not create.

 

Something I've always considered curious is that when people talk about a particular problem in society, race is always brought up. The fact that the diversity of race in our prison system is not symmetric to the overall population of society is observable, but I believe that economics play a bigger factor than race. The majority of people in prison are poor; this may be because they cannot afford adequate legal representation, among other things. Regardless, the welfare issues, along with child care and special education span the spectrum of race, closely following economic patterns. A phrase that has been repeated to the point of delerium is "The rich get richer, the poor get poorer" - yet it appears to be true.

 

This USA Today Story appears to address the issue at hand. Mexico is by far the largest source of immigrants (legal and otherwise) to the United States. Why? Economics. The people coming to the United States from Mexico are primarily coming to make a better life for themselves and their families. It would appear that the problems you've identified are home-grown issues.

 

Perhaps instead of targeting the groups of people with characteristics you don't like, we could focus on solutions. Mandatory time limits on public assistance? Refusal of all government offices to do business in any laguage other than English? Mandatory deportation of illegal immigrants upon discovery?

 

In a capitalist society, there will always be an upper and a lower class. There will always be members of each class that bear distain toward the other class. One class of people will be seen as 'not good enough' while the other will be seen as 'keeping the man down'. The most obvious solution to this would be to avoid a capitalist society. Not a popular option.

 

My personal thoughts on a few of these issues:

• flat percentage income tax across the board
  
• illegal immigrants are, by definition, breaking the law. this is not behavior that should be rewarded or tolerated any more than shoplifting
  
• English is the official language in the United States; however, a representative government that does not accomidate a large percentage of the population is not exactly a representative government
  
• criminals go to jail because they are criminals, not because they have a specific skin color
  
• I take personal responsibility and morality seriously - once any segment of society has the ability to impose their morality (or lack thereof) without popular concensus the purpose of democracy is subverted
  
• depending upon your perspective, everyone is in a minority
  

 

There are exceptions of course, but for the most part, when people don't like something they directly identify the subject of their distain. I work with a person who doesn't like Republicans - it is amazing how many aspects of social decline they are apparently responsible for. One of our friends particularly distains a make of automobile and will go out of her way to identify the problems that particular manufacturer might have. You've listed quite a few symptoms, but the problem you keep coming back to is the matter of ethnic groups you don't happen to belong to. Without further explanation, this appears to be racism; something I consider to be illogical and oppose in every form I've seen yet.

[questor]

Nemo, you write a nice post. perhaps you don't view the current US society as being in need of help. maybe you don't see the same problems i see. perhaps we live in different parts of the country ( i'm in wash. dc. ) and you don't have a murder a week in your city. perhaps it would be best for you to offer your view of today's social problems, if you perceive any, and offer serious, workable solutions. by the way, i do not judge by skin color, but by the culture.

[Buffy]

perhaps you don't view the current US society as being in need of help. maybe you don't see the same problems i see. perhaps we live in different parts of the country ( i'm in wash. dc. ) and you don't have a murder a week in your city. perhaps it would be best for you to offer your view of today's social problems, if you perceive any, and offer serious, workable solutions. by the way, i do not judge by skin color, but by the culture.

Untill recently, I lived in Oaktown (Oakland to you honkies), and its just as tough as DC. We got your drive bys and your gangs and your drugs. Its not pretty. Oddly enough, its getting better. A lot of it has to do with people from those "cultures" who are taking control of their neighborhoods *because* the city government and the police are *helping* them. Jerry Brown (raving loony former governor that we all love) has done a *really* good job here. Its going to take time, but downtown is nicer than it was when I was a kid, there's redevelopment going on in both west and east oakland. Neighbors are retaking local parks for their kids. Murders are declining. Its getting better. And its *all* because of a general attitude between government and citizens realizing "we are all in this together and we have to work together to fix things." This will never happen in DC until the city gets to have control over its own destiny instead of this hostile "governance" that the federal government exercises over local initiatives that seems to be mostly directed at showing the folks back in Iowa how tough they are on crime in DC. DC politics is just plain weird and it really does not look anything like anywhere else. I'd also point to what's happened to New York City over the past 20 years: its an incredible improvement.

 

It takes time, and it take cooperation.

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[nemo]

I'm in DC too. I see the same people.

 

This thread is about what you perceive to be problems with multiculturalism. You wanted to know if there were benefits from having Muslims and other minorities in our society. From what you've identified as detrimental aspects of multiculturalism, I don't think I'd fall into what you consider to be a non-beneficial subculture, but I don't agree with your reasoning.

 

Murder is bad. Understood. How is the problem of gang violence best addressed? Perhaps by imposing mandatory curfews and punishment of repeated unexcused abscenses from school? Perhaps by bulldozing everything north of the MCI Center?

 

Homelessness is huge problem in DC - I've spoken to many homeless over burgers and fries, and most of them simply are not aware of any way to elevate their socioeconomic status beyond finding a better spot to hit up the tourists for spare change.

 

Perhaps one of the root causes of many of the problems you've identified is education. People with less education tend to make less, and fall neatly into the largest segment of the population currently residing in our prison system. Addressing this situation would require large numbers of qualified teachers moving into less than desireable neighborhoods and school districts to remediate the problem over decades of work. Teachers don't make enough money to justify the risk of working in neighborhoods like that if they can avoid them. The dominoes keep falling...

 

I don't have the answers to all of the questions, just a different perspective.

[questor]

Buffy, glad to hear your neighborhood is improving. mine is not. we may set a new record for murders this year, and now the latino gangs are contributing to the mayhem. enjoyed talking to you, golf tomorrow, thoughts on Friday. now i lay me down...

[nemo]

remarkably long golf game...

[questor]

golf, then beer, then sleep. clears the mind.

[Qfwfq]

Sorry questor, I wasn't online for a while.

you said:

''There isn't just some simple solution. People need to learn to live together. Criminality that comes with immigration is due to causes more complex than just the immigration itself, it isn't a reason to be against immigration.''

what does this mean to you? if immigration is ok, how do you stop the bad guys coming in with the good? how do you stop diseased people coming in with the healthy? how do you stop the terrorists?

I really can't catch the force of your nexus. Maybe you need to use a weaker one.

 

Oh well, I guess the only way to stop the bad guys coming in with the good, the diseased people coming in with the healthy and the terrorists is to live inside a wall. I'll just have to overcome my claustrophobia and get used to it. :evil: