Democracies and Mutual Respect

Okie,

I respect that response-- a very thoughtful, well-stated post. I concur completely.

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okie wrote:

Amigo wrote:
Mutual respect is in direct conflict with social dawinism. I think that is at the root of of the war against ourselves. If the idea of mutual respect (which I believe to be the same as unalienable rights) can be discredited as utopian dreaming we can digress to "might makes right" opening the door for the strong to unjustly subjugate the weak.

I think you are using the term, "respect" in a couple of different contexts here. Respect, or admiration, needs to be earned, so that I would not respect the KKK, because they don't deserve respect for their views on race. Now, if someone is prejudiced in thought, but does not break the law, their privacy still needs to be respected, but that does not mean we respect their views in that regard. If they are honest in their business dealings, we can respect that aspect of their character.

I am not sure about how you refer to "unalienable rights," but I think of such rights as those that are endowed to us by the creator, and hopefully affirmed by our laws and constitution.

There are two ways to look at this if we are dealing with the transitive verb as LittleK used it rather than as the noun.

1 a : to consider worthy of high regard : ESTEEM

b : to refrain from interfering with

2 : to have reference to : CONCERN

Admittedly I do not hold in high regard those who speak and do evil. So yes, there are people I do not respect as in "a". I do not think civilized people stand silent and just tolerate acts that are clearly hurting others.

I do, however, in the matter of attitude and beliefs that are not imposed on others, it is necessary for civilized people to pay attention to 1-b above.

For that reason, then no, we we not have to respect, i.e. hold in esteem, radical racist groups. But yes, we can respect the right of the KKK to meet peacefully and discuss their racist garbage so long as they do not act it out in a way that harms others. We can respect that everybody does not view religion or politics or social ettiquette or right and wrong in the same way.

It is only when we do not allow others their idiocy, bigotry, prejudices, point of view, etc. without punishing them for it that we show true disrespect. Understanding that everybody will not think, feel, respond, react as we do is the first step. We don't have to allow the idiots to act unlawfully and we don't have to elect them to public office. But neither do we show respect when we think it is our duty to force them to conform to our value system.

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I disagree (respectfully of course) with some of what you are saying.

In a Democracy, you don't have to "refrain from interfering with" someone who you find dangerous, repulsive or immoral. As a moral person, sometimes you must interfere.

Back to the slavery example-- The people who ran the underground railroad are some of my heroes. These people interfered with slave owners way of life, legally speaking they were stealing their property.

Respecting someones basic human rights (i.e. the rights of slave holders to free speech and due process etc.) is different than "not interfering".

A current group I find repugnant is the Minute Men. Their anti-immigrant attitudes have been around for hundred's of years and were endured by my Irish and German ancestors before the current attack on Mexican immigrants, so I don't expect to be able to force them into my value system.

However, as a moral person, it is my duty to "interfere". I will do this by criticizing them, exposing racism in there movement and confronting them when they harrass others. My confrontations of them are for others and for society as a whole more than for them. I consider them lost souls.

KKK or Minutemen, I don't have anything that can be called "respect" for them, outside a belief that they have the rights guaranteed to everyone by the Constitution. This does not include the right to be protected from a just scorn and a disgust for the harm they do to others.

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ebrown_p wrote:

A current group I find repugnant is the Minute Men. Their anti-immigrant attitudes have been around for hundred's of years and were endured by my Irish and German ancestors before the current attack on Mexican immigrants, so I don't expect to be able to force them into my value system.

Whoaa! To set the record straight, Minute Men are not anti-immigrant. They are anti-illegal immigrant. A very important distinction. The act of illegal immigration is in and of itself lacking of any respect for the laws of the land. I would venture to say that virtually all Minute Men, or at least a strong majority, are in favor of a sound legal immigration program from most countries, including Mexico. I support the Minuteman program, and I also support a liberal immigration policy from Mexico, which would require the immigrants meet certain criteria. A reasonably clean criminal record would be one of the most important things. Many people of Mexican heritage oppose illegal immigration from Mexico. This is not about race. It is about rampant disregard for the law and major disruption of the economy and government services in the areas of strongest impact. It is about knowing who is coming into the country and having the ability to filter out the undesirable criminal and drug elements, and possible terrorist suspects. All law abiding citizens should certainly be in favor of enforcing immigration laws for what I would think should be pretty obvious reasons.

Where in the world did you come up with the notion to mention the KKK and Minutemen in the same sentence as comparable? That is absolutely preposterous.

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Excerpt from "The Power of their ideas";

We can redesign what are, after all, merely brick and mortar buildings into campuses composed not only of many different schools, but of schools for children of different ages and, if we are imaginative enough, other kinds of institutions that would live nicely side-by-side with the young. We could surround our children with true living communities in which old and young pass each other daily and are not violated into age/grade ghettos. (p. 116)

"Mutual respect implies discretion and reserve even in love itself; it means preserving as much liberty as possible to those whose life we share. We must distrust our instinct of intervention, for the desire to make one's own will prevail is often disguised under the mask of solicitude."
-Henri Frederic Amiel

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okie wrote:

Setanta wrote:
I never accept that "moral decay" .....

True, moral standards have always been a problem, but to deny that there are trends from time to time is to ignore the evidence. Where I grew up, there was less crime, less broken marriages, less child abuse, and less dishonesty than there is now in the very same community.

This is, of course, anecdotal evidence, and may well be false. That you did not know that something criminal or merely "morally reprehensible" was occuring is not evidence that it did not occur. How do you know there was less child abuse? How do you define that? How much casual physical violence took place? How often were children beaten? How often was a spouse beaten? I have no reason to believe this is true, and even if true, no reason not to ascribe it all to the lesser pressures of a smaller population.

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Cars and houses used to be left unlocked.

The trend of greater rates of crime in small town and rural settings is in direct, inverse proportion to the increase in effectiveness of policing methods in urban areas.

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Meth labs usually were not located down the street or up the road. Business deals were closed on a handshake. Not now.

No, "speed" was so readily available in the 1950s and 60s that there was little reason for home-grown labs to produce what could be had in large quantity for a few dollars at any truck stop. Alcohol was the drug of choice, and any kid could find a local drunk to buy beer for them for a few bucks premium, whild moonshining was large-scale big business, with all the trappings which now surround the production of methamphetimine or marijuana.

No business deal of any substance was closed with a handshake by anyone who had an eye to their main chance. Lawyers have long been with us, because of the need for their vigilance. Shakespeare puts into Falstaff's mouth the line: "First thing we do, is hang all the lawyers." because people had much the same attitude four hundred years ago as they do now.

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No marriage contracts then.

No, women and children were the property of the man, no matter what kind of vicious sh!t he was, and no one questioned that.

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No drug tests were required for selected jobs.

No, people were not so obsessed with either drugs, or the eradication of drugs, so the issue simply did not arise. Once again, the drug of choice forty and fifty years ago was alcohol, and it simply was bad form to take public notice of the drunk, and the consequences of drunkenness. Which does not mean that it was not present, or that it was not a problem.

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Businesses generally did not require bars over the windows and security alarms. No security guards were required in the shopping malls or in the schools. And politics was less poisonous and bitter. I could cite more evidence if you need it.

I've already pointed out the issues which have arisen from more effective policing methods. There were no security guards in shopping malls because small-town and rural America didn't have any shopping malls. Poliitics were every bit as poisonous and bitter forty and fifty years ago as now, and "Tailgunner Joe" McCarthy and "that little sonofabitch Nixon" (as Truman described him) were evidence of that.

You can cite all of the anecdotal evidence you want, and i'll be prepared to shoot it down. A more self-deluding example of peddling the "good old days" horseshit i have rarely seen. When men could abuse women and children with impunity, when everyone turned away and refused to acknowledge drunkenness and its consequences, when blacks were invisible and the myth of the "great two party system" reigned supreme--yes, it was easy to claim that god was in his heaven and all's right with the world. It was only necessary to be a white male, and to wear blinders.

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ebrown_p wrote:

I disagree (respectfully of course) with some of what you are saying.

In a Democracy, you don't have to "refrain from interfering with" someone who you find dangerous, repulsive or immoral. As a moral person, sometimes you must interfere.

Back to the slavery example-- The people who ran the underground railroad are some of my heroes. These people interfered with slave owners way of life, legally speaking they were stealing their property.

Respecting someones basic human rights (i.e. the rights of slave holders to free speech and due process etc.) is different than "not interfering".

A current group I find repugnant is the Minute Men. Their anti-immigrant attitudes have been around for hundred's of years and were endured by my Irish and German ancestors before the current attack on Mexican immigrants, so I don't expect to be able to force them into my value system.

However, as a moral person, it is my duty to "interfere". I will do this by criticizing them, exposing racism in there movement and confronting them when they harrass others. My confrontations of them are for others and for society as a whole more than for them. I consider them lost souls.

KKK or Minutemen, I don't have anything that can be called "respect" for them, outside a belief that they have the rights guaranteed to everyone by the Constitution. This does not include the right to be protected from a just scorn and a disgust for the harm they do to others.

I think you are still not making a distinction between thinking/believing/speaking and doing.

There is a world of difference between holding a prejudicial view that people of another race are usually ignorant, stupid, violent, inferior etc. and in translating that view to one's actions toward people of that race or teaching that concept to a captive audience in a public school. It can be appropriate to deal with the person who is acting out his/her prejudices in a way that hurts others. But we can respect that person's right to have his/her prejudices just the same.

Take racial profiling. Group A believes that it is appropriate to single out a particular group for extra scrutiny when our experience suggests that this group merits extra scrutiny. Group B believes it is wrong to discriminate against anybody despite history, experience, or any other criteria. The two groups can choose to publicly condemn and strike out against each other. Or they can choose to respect that each group is coming from a reasoned perspective and, though they disagree, neither must be evil. We can choose a position of adversity and enmity, or we can choose to enter into a constructive debate in an effort to find a common ground. The first requires disrespect. The second is respect.

Take your example of the Minutemen. Group A, the Minutemen and their admirers, believe they are patriots who are constructively dealing with an untenable illegal alien problem. Group B believes they are racist and anti-immigrant. Is Group A evil because they believe people should come here to live in a lawful, controlled manner? Is Group B evil because they understand the motivation of those who come here illegally? Must they disrespect each other? Can the two groups respect the point of view of the other and enter into a constructive debate to find common ground?

What if the evening news and the newspapers were not filled with the shouts of people disrespecting each other and were rather filled with reports of progress toward finding solutions to issues prompting widely diverse points of view? How much more pleasant could it be and how much violence might be averted if we could just learn to disagree without disrespecting?

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Setanta wrote:

okie wrote:
Setanta wrote:
I never accept that "moral decay" .....

True, moral standards have always been a problem, but to deny that there are trends from time to time is to ignore the evidence. Where I grew up, there was less crime, less broken marriages, less child abuse, and less dishonesty than there is now in the very same community.

This is, of course, anecdotal evidence, and may well be false. .....

We all form attitudes and impressions based on our life experience. Setanta, I have to wonder about your childhood. It must not have been pleasant. I am honestly not trying to be flippant here or funny. I truly have noticed a very rotten attitude or a grudge, if you will, toward society and your experiences in general. I don't mean to get personal, so if you wish not to discuss it, fine, that is your business and we'll leave it at that, and I will apologize for even bringing it up, but I get the distinct feeling here that you do not view life in a very pleasant manner. You just do not seem to fathom how life could have been so wonderful in the 50's. You seem to be saying that it isn't fair now and wasn't any better then.

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Foxfyre,

In my view there are three groups (Maybe I should break this up by issue, but I find that the people I find repugnant on one issue tend to be the same people I find repugnant on another issue.)

My dislike of the Minutemen is the same as my dislike of the KKK.

In my view they are very similar; they have very similar mission statements, nearly identical views on many issues from English-only legislation to gun laws to view that America should be a Christian country. I also know about the groups (including the KKK) who opposed our immigrant ancestors in the past play the same role that the Minutemen do now-- both politically and participating in the "Border Patrol".

But, this is off topic... the only that is important that there is this group that, in my opinion, hold repugnant ideas. I do not wish to associate with them and don't feel the need to have respect for them (other than defending their constitutional rights).

So there are three groups.

1) People who I agree with, and generally like.
2) People who I disagree with, but accept their ideas as reasonable and generally like.
3) People who hold views that I find so repugnant that they can not be tolerated.

I respect plenty of people in the first two categories. I have friends who supported the war. I have a friend with whom I argue vehemently about the Israeli-Palentine conflict over a beer and still consider a friend. I even have friends who voted for Bush twice.

These are examples of people with ideas that I disagree with; but I believe that a reasonable person can hold them.

But there are ideas that I find so repulsive and dangerous that I simply can not accept. Someone in the Minutemen or the KKK are not welcome in my house, nor will not be sharing a beer with them.

I may hold my tongue if the social situation (or TOS) demands it, but I have nothing positive to say.

The people who I find repugnant, of course, is based on my subjective judgement. You may disagree and think that the Minutemen, or Nazis or Socialists are reasonable people.

But we all have people with whom we vehemently disagree to the point of disrepect. I may even be on this list of some. I don't think this is avoidable.

Opposing evil means standing up, yelling if necessary, and refusing to accept people who are attacking your values.

This has always been the case in our history.

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ebrown writes

Quote:

Opposing evil means standing up, yelling if necessary, and refusing to accept people who are attacking your values.

This has always been the case in our history.

I (respectfully) disagree. I have lived long enough to remember a time when most people could agree on what standards would apply in their communities, but who did not require that everybody think alike or hold the same values in order to be acceptable.

The teacher who attempts to indoctrinate my child with propaganda instead of educating him/her will receive resistance from me. That teacher respects neither me nor my child.

I have no problem with that same teacher who teaches his/her subject and keeps his personal sociopolitical views to himself/herself. I may not want that person as a friend and I may not appreciate his point of view. But I can respect his/her right to have one when it in no way violates others.

I can respect your contempt for a group like the Minutemen, no matter how skewed or misguided I think it is, so long as you do not act out your contempt against an innocent person. I personally may or may not support one, some, or all points of the Minutemen creed, and a person who respects me will allow my point of view on that. (See:
http://www.minutemanhq.com/hq/mmpledge.php)

I do not see a person holding a different point of view as 'attacking my values'. I see those trying to take away the right to demonstrate my legal and constittutional right to have certain values or preferences in a much different light.

Again, let's be careful to separate attitude from action in this discussion because they are two very different things.

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okie wrote:

We all form attitudes and impressions based on our life experience.

This gets the daily tautology award.

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Setanta, I have to wonder about your childhood. It must not have been pleasant.

You may wonder to your heart's content--you can hardly claim to have had sufficient experience of my posts to have formed a reasonable judgment. At this site, and years ago at AFUZZ, i posted extenstive pieces, or a more "literary" nature, in which i described my childhood. Your opinion of it is and will remain, i assure you, a matter of indifference to me.

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I truly have noticed a very rotten attitude or a grudge, if you will, toward society and your experiences in general.

As i have pointed out, you haven't sufficient knowledge of me or experience of my writing to reasonably render such a judgment. In general, i don't see you outside political threads, which do not nearly constitute the majority of my posts. You simply don't have sufficient evidence to reasonably judge. I submit that as i am critical of things you think are just hunky-dory, you consider that evidence of a sour attitude, because you would rather not canvass the notion that your opinions might be ill-informed.

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You just do not seem to fathom how life could have been so wonderful in the 50's. You seem to be saying that it isn't fair now and wasn't any better then.

You seem to be unable to understand that life was wonderful in the 50s for anyone who was white and well-fed. I thought life was grand in the 50s--and i grew up, and i traveled in a wider world, and i learned. What i learned was sufficient to reveal to me that Eisenhower America was a world narrowly satisfactory to only a certain segment of the population, and that it was hedged in by fear--fear of those who were not white, fear of those who were or were merely suspected of being communists, fear of the atomic bomb, fear of homosexuality, fear of unfettered sexual activity (despite the historical evidence that sex will not wear fetters)--a lot of fears, some acknowledged, some not.

Learning that life was not good for blacks, for women, for homosexuals taught me about Eisenhower America what a lifetime of reading history has also taught about the human condition in general. That is that life is not fair, and that it is not fair because those who hold power--a little or a lot--don't want justice, they want control.

I don't care what you think of me--and i find it laughable that you apparently can't see that life is not fair for many, and perhaps most people. My guess is that you are, and were raised, white and middle class.

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Setanta wrote:

I don't care what you think of me--and i find it laughable that you apparently can't see that life is not fair for many, and perhaps most people. My guess is that you are, and were raised, white and middle class.

White but poor. I wore shirts to school that were made of flour sacks if that gives you a hint.

Setanta, I've always heard that life isn't fair. When did I claim that it was? It never will be, and nobody can ever make it perfectly fair. A few people have tried, and have wreaked havoc on societies throughout the world. The best advice I can give is - look at the cup you drink as half full instead of half empty. Nobody drinks from a full cup. Everybody has failures and snubs in life. Don't always assume it is because of prejudice or something when it happens.

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I think you miss the point Okie.

As a society we have come a long way since the 50's. We have less crime, less racism, more justice and more rights for many many people. We have ended lynching and legal segregation. We have enhanced legal rights for minorities and have nearly eliminated deaths to young women getting abortions.

In many ways we are a much more moral society than we were in the 1950's.

We are just being grateful. Our country isn't perfect, but in many areas we have come a long long way.

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I have no interest in your advice, Okie. Having no respect for your point of view, i do not, as you might imagine (have you any imagination), desire the "benefit" of your "wisdom." And i continue to think you delude yourself about "the good ol' days." And i continue to suspect that the source of your delusion is an unwillingness to recognize unpleasant realities, which do not coincide with what you'd like to believe politically.

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Setanta wrote:

I have no interest in your advice, Okie. Having no respect for your point of view, i do not, as you might imagine (have you any imagination), desire the "benefit" of your "wisdom." And i continue to think you delude yourself about "the good ol' days." And i continue to suspect that the source of your delusion is an unwillingness to recognize unpleasant realities, which do not coincide with what you'd like to believe politically.

Thats fine. No offense. I wish you well. Thanks for your opinion.

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You bet, it's free, here . . .

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ebrown_p wrote:

I think you miss the point Okie.

As a society we have come a long way since the 50's. We have less crime, less racism, more justice and more rights for many many people. We have ended lynching and legal segregation. We have enhanced legal rights for minorities and have nearly eliminated deaths to young women getting abortions.

In many ways we are a much more moral society than we were in the 1950's.

We are just being grateful. Our country isn't perfect, but in many areas we have come a long long way.

We could take each subject of crime, racism, justice and rights, but for now in regard to crime, evidence does not support your claim of less crime:

http://www.jrsainfo.org/programs/Historical.pdf

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Amigo - did you go out and buy the book?

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I want to try to tie the two themes in this thread together with an interesting personal experience I had while I was going through a teacher preparation program

I was interested in multicultural education and was training to be a science teacher.

To this day I feel a bit of cognitive dissonance around the whole evolution thing (and some related issues). Politics and science aside (I am a firm believer in church-state separation and that evolution is the only scientific theory) there is an argument to be made that teachning evolution as fact violates the tenets of multicultural education.

I had the opportunity to spend a Spring vacation in the Navajo reservation in Arizona. Science in general, and even evolution, are intrusions on their culture and there is some resentment with reason. Western culture was forced on them and having children taught things that contradict their already besieged culture is understandably a problem.

I was working on a paper on multiculturalism and got to talk to a Navajo gentleman who was living between worlds, trying to be a part of modern life while keeping his values and family in his culture.

When we spoke about evolution, he responded like this (which still makes me laugh):

"We Navajo believe we came from the ground, so our chests are bare.... you Anglo's (white people) believe you came from monkeys".

I do sympathize with Christian families on issues like evolution and moral values. I also believe it is important for everyone in public education (and perhaps all citizens) to be exposed to issues like the existance of homosexuals with strong families and fossil evidence.

I was never able to come up with a satisfactory answer for how an educator can accomplish these contradictory goals.

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Tricky call, ebrown. I've been thinking about that issue, in general. We want to welcome all to the classroom, incorporate different cultures into curriculum, etc. But, some cultural aspects clash. So, then what? Religion and religious issues may be easier to deal with due to the seperation of Ch and St.

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