Does the Islamic faith have splintered groups like the so-called Christians?

The world is not flat.

(Didn't you get the memo?)

I know that, if it was flat it wouldn't have hills.

Bingo ! ! !

I was told that the patron Saint of NYC is St. Patrick.

Well, there is still white folks in many countries, since so many people choose to mate with white folks, over people of color. Could that be a form of racism, or bigotry?

My supposed "bigotry" is just based on what I learned in my readings in sociology that the Irish incorporated "drink" into their culture since it then allowed the culture to legitimize a propensity for enjoying a little inebriation.

So, I guess it is false that I was told that November 1 became a Holy Day of Obligation to end the donnybrook that took place on All Saint Hallow's Eve?

It is not that Irish are drunkards. It is just that many northern Europeans do have a propensity for drink, that might be genetically driven, and the Irish did get northern European genes from the Danes. Also, is it pure hallucinating that so many midwestern bookstores have a fairly complete section for Twelve Steps? My observation has been that the bigoted U.S. has pinned the drunkard stereotype on the Irish, when in reality, much of the country drinks like fish. My point being that there are some Irish that like to live up to the stereotype, just like there are some Italian-Americans that might take some perverse pride in the Godfather stereotype. And now I will go to count my pennies!!!

But, if you want to know what stereotype I do ascribe to the Irish is their love of reading (and authorship), since I would guess they collectively remember when there was a price on a person's head for being literate. So, you can accuse me of thinking that many Irish are well read.

You can backtrack now, but I've never known anyone resort to crude racial stereotyping as much as you.

You might mean "back peddling," instead of "back tracking." However, in the U.S. many people subscribe to stereotypes. We are a comparately young nation of diverse cultures that often carry the emotional baggage of generations past. Other than the established WASPs, many families only had a member go to college only in the last generation (and possibly came to the New World as illiterates). Many opinions are based on the popular notions that are filled with stereotypes, both positive and negative.

I do not think of my sterotypes being "crude." They are quite "nuanced," I thought. The "crude" stereotypes" you might be referring to is when in generations past Catholics were referred to by some stereotyping Protestants as "fisheaters" (on Friday). That has been replaced by a more covert stereotype (aka, prejudice) that many Catholics are too liberal on some issues, such as illegal immigration (from Catholic Latin America/Mexico), or being anti-war, or anti-market capitalism. In effect, those issues that the conservative Protestants feel the U.S. built itself on.

You see, Watson, I am just honest and open about my feelings. I guess you would rather have someone smile to your face, and then possibly talk behind your back?

I'll stick to my own idiom thank you very much. I've no doubt you think you're very nuanced, subtle and discreet.

I am suffering from a terminal Jewish suerpiority complex. It gets worse when I communicate to people of average intelligence and nominal education. Only upper class and educated WASPs can ever resuscitate me, if I fall into a coma.

It must be terrible for you, I don't know how you can possibly cope.

No, subscribing to stereotypes is a characteristic of bigots, anywhere. I have no reason to assume that bigotry is more common in the United States than elsewhere.

Only because many (urban) areas of the U.S. have a greater diversity than many countries, and we humans evolved under mostly homogeneous societies. Now, many of us are living under heterogeneous societies that our brains find less than comforting. I believe many of us react with bigotry, covert or overt. Or, perhaps, unconscious if we were raised to control our conscious thoughts.

If we were really not bigots, we would find many different groups socializing in heterogeneous urban cities (worldwide); however, so many people live in a cloistered world of ethnocentrism. The vulgate is "clannish."

You still like listing the terms though, even if you don't actually call anyone that. All in all a far more civilised form of bigotry. You must be very proud of your nuanced prejudice.

While we both speak English, and you speak the original version, we live in very different societies. I do not expect you to really understand the U.S. as a person living here would understand it. My knowledge of the U.K. is based on Keeping Up Appearances, Fawlty Towers and a few other BBC productions. Obviously, I know very little about being a Brit, my not living on your island nation.

By the way, part of our right as a private U.S. citizen is to pursue our happiness by being discriminating. We do not have to like everyone. I suspect that too many liberals equate the right to be discriminating with some sort of bigotry.

I would be "bigoted" against knowing you, if you were here in the U.S., since I am not comfortable with "foreigners," even if they speak English. That is my right as a U.S. citizen to be discriminating in my choices, in my pursuit of happiness. Specifically, since our "set of experiences" are so different, I just choose to associate with few people, since so many people have a "set of experiences" that is very different than mine. Do not forget I am was not raised in a Catholic home where I was taught that we are all God's children, and I should try to like most people. If you do not know it already, many American secular Jews identify with the WASP model of elitism, in my opinion, which alienates many people, but results in many (American secular Jews) being very "picky" with who they gravitate towards. That might be why so many American secular Jews wind up in academia, since, I believe, academia supposedly offers a more intelligent Gentile that values intelligence, rather than if one is from a particular ethnic group.

I would be more amenable to you if you were Asian. They are such a blessing on the U.S. society, in my opinion, for the future. In my opinion, people of European descent often do suffer from a superiority complex (unbeknownst to them) that might not be warranted, especially in the future .

You also dismissed my previous post's premise. If we were not bigots, we would find so many people of diverse backgrounds socializing in urban settings. We do not. Most of us stay in our own little "clannish" subcultures, as adults. As youngsters in schools, there is greater socializing, but the criteria then is socio-economic class. So, even if we overcome our tendency towards ethnic clannishness, we will, in my opinion, remain within our own socio-economic class. God, what if we are of different social classes! The downside of the internet!

You don't need to explain your bigotry, a bigot's a bigot.

About 50% of our TV programmes are American, so I know a lot more about America, than you know about Britain, and judging from those you mention, any little you do know is about 20 years out of date. If I knew as little about your culture as you about mine I'd be accusing you of saying 'Aw shucks,' and calling things 'Swell,' all of the time.


Then again you seem to rejoice in your ignorance.

That's because I am proud to be an American, ignorant, or otherwise. Your opinion to me is mox nixt, as they say in Germany.

I wonder how many of your fellow Americans are proud to have a bigot like you living there.

Your American spelling of the German expression Es macht nichts is appreciated. Näwer meind, as they say in states

A facile and puerile self-justification does not alter that a bigot is bigot is a bigot . . .

I am immediately reminded of an old joke. Something about a traffic accident at (pardon my spelling) the intersection of Sachgasse and Einbahnstrasse, which involved a driver names Mr. Max Nix.