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America's greatest sin [W:264]

What is America's greatest sin?

  • The war for independence

    Votes: 1 1.2%

  • Slavery

    Votes: 27 31.4%

  • Indians / native Americans

    Votes: 31 36.0%

  • Hiroshima, Nagasaki bombing

    Votes: 3 3.5%

  • The war in Vietnam

    Votes: 1 1.2%

  • The FED

    Votes: 6 7.0%

  • The Cold war

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • The Civil war

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Other

    Votes: 14 16.3%

  • I can't tell

    Votes: 3 3.5%
  • Total voters
    86
That's a tough question. If we mean greatest sin ever, I'd say slavery.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
During the formation of our nation, leading to its current borders, it was not a question of "native" rights so much as preventing OTHER foreigh powers from gaining control of the territories that we now hold and enjoy. The same conquering of indigenous peoples occured worldwide for centuries, yeilding the modern, and now fairly stable, global boundaries. If not the U.S. then Spain, England, Portugal or France would have "claimed" these territories. The native tribes of north America were doomed either way as they could not hold off the superior power of ANY of these "conquering" national forces, just as we saw in all other continents.
Click to expand...

Controlling territory is different than displacement of native peoples and in some cases genocide. They are 2 radically different things. One is geo political the other is the ethical treatment of other human beings.
 
Tigger said:
Why doesn't it surprise me that you devalue ideals such as Nationalism, Exceptionalism, and Greed?
Click to expand...
Sorry, there are too many clichés in that response to compute. Of course I'd oppose nationalism, it's an irrational and divisive ideology that lacks any intellectual credibility. Exceptionalism is merely idiocy elaborated. And greed? I thought you were all in favour of traditional values and morals based upon Judaeo-Christian values. I think you'll find greed being fairly well excoriated in the books of both religions you seem to favour. As neither a Christian nor a Jew I view it more as a symptom of mass psychopathology.

Believe it or not, there is more to life than sunshine and lollipops.
Click to expand...
That's 3 clichés in just 13 words. Is this a record?

Not everyone gets a trophy in the real world. You have to break a couple eggs to make an omelette. Your ideal of peace and happiness is totally unrealistic on any signifiant level.
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Three sentences, three clichés, three non-sequiturs and not a single logical thought. That definitely is a record.
 
Andalublue said:
Of course I'd oppose nationalism, it's an irrational and divisive ideology that lacks any intellectual credibility. Exceptionalism is merely idiocy elaborated. And greed? I thought you were all in favour of traditional values and morals based upon Judaeo-Christian values. I think you'll find greed being fairly well excoriated in the books of both religions you seem to favour. As neither a Christian nor a Jew I view it more as a symptom of mass psychopathology.
Click to expand...

Nationalism is simply the extension of the Us vs Them philosophy necessary to promote the cohesiveness and singularity necessary in a proper society. Exceptionalism is the continuous press for Perfection, which can almost never be achieved but which should always be the goal.

I believe in Universal Morality which is a greater force than any religion and corrupted by all religions. I am not a follower of ANY particular organized religion.
 
Tigger said:
Nationalism is simply the extension of the Us vs Them philosophy necessary to promote the cohesiveness and singularity necessary in a proper society.
Click to expand...
Agree with the bit in bold, vehemently reject the bit in italics.
Exceptionalism is the continuous press for Perfection, which can almost never be achieved but which should always be the goal.
Click to expand...
No, it isn't. It is the political reification of prejudice and discrimination.

I believe in Universal Morality which is a greater force than any religion and corrupted by all religions.
Click to expand...
I don't think you do, because I get no sense that you believe that what's right for you must also be right for everyone else, which is one of, if not the most fundamental, basis of universal moral objectivism. Your comments on women belie your claim to believe in universal morality.
 
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Andalublue said:
Agree with the bit in bold, vehemently reject the bit in italics.
Click to expand...

Then what other means should be used to create a singular, proper societal and cultural norm in a nation?

Andalublue said:
No, it isn't. It is the political reification of prejudice and discrimination.
Click to expand...

You say potato, I say po-ta-toe, let's call the whole thing off.

Andalublue said:
I don't think you do, because I get no sense that you believe that what's right for you must also be right for everyone else, which is one of, if not the most fundamental, basis of universal moral objectivism. Your comments on women belie your claim to believe in universal morality.
Click to expand...

Universal as in, the overall standard applies to all individuals, whether they choose to accept it or not. It has nothing to do with indivual people it's a collective ideal.
 
This thread is ridiculous!

"America's greatest sin" -- what a joke!

None of those items on that list are a "sin". How naive can a person be?!

Every one of those things is just an example of people being people, human nature exemplified, in true Darwinian dog-eat-dog survival of the fittest fashion -- nothing sinful about that whatsoever! It's simply the way we are.

Now I know there are some wimpy-ass folks who like to imagine that our new lobes make us into some kind of god-like beings, where we have "dominion" over our basic animalistic survival instincts and that it's supposedly some kind of "good" thing to bend over and turn the other cheeks to let those who are a threat to us in some way and whom we could otherwise utilize to our survival's benefit instead ream us a new one, as if that's the "civilized" thing to do.

But isn't it pretty darn obvious how ridiculous that sounds?!

We are where we are today because we saw the threat and took the opportunity to dispose of it the best way available to us, turning it into an advantage for us in true Darwinian American fashion.

I mean, just look at our socioeconomic system. It's the finest example of a hugely competitive win-lose dynamic on the planet, the best exemplified epitome of raw human nature today's highly developed intelligent mechanics of our brainy sophistication has to offer.

And just because a few stick-in-the-mud PIGS aren't able to play the game well doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the game like these so-called "99-Percenters" keep whining about -- I mean, hell, next thing you know they'll be wanting to give the gold medal to the guy who comes in last in an Olympic event! Absolutely absurd!

Competition to the survialist extreme is what America is all about, and if a few losers end up taking it in the short-hairs, man that's simply the way God intended it, and if you don't know that then you are simply behind in your Old Testament reading, where God helped the Israelites as they slew this enemy and that enemy "and God saw that it was good".

I mean Jeez!

This is all so nonsensical! So, what, was the sub-prime securities situation that fostered the September 2008 corporate credit crunch and massive spike in unemployment a sin too? Were those speculators "evil" people who sinned against their fellow Americans? Hell no! They simply turned what they knew was going to be a losing proposition into a huge win for themselves, nothing more. Sinful? Absolutely not! And just because they did it all in secret, hiding it well until the end, does that make them "bad"? Absolutely not -- that just made them really smart and super-fit! Hell, Darwin himself would be proud of what they did as exemplary fittest behavior, turning an apparent losing situation into a win-lose proposition; a win for them and a loss for the other guy.

I mean, it's so utterly ridiculous to call any of this a sin when it's simply human nature evidenced for eons that next some will be calling investors and corporate execs sinful just because they implicitly conspired to outsource scores of millions of American jobs to foreign wage-slaves, when the rules of our very economic system itself demand that they do so or lose money! What would you want them to do, purposely lose the corporate competition so that everyone, even losers, get to keep on playing? Why heck, if they did that, they'd go out of business, and then all of their employees would be looking for work! They played the game perfectly, just as all those did in the OP "sin" list, just the way the game is defined. And that's a "sin"??? Ridiculous!

Yes, to call that and any on the OP list a "sin" is absolutely absurd, just as absurd as it would be to change the rules of chess so that nobody loses -- who would want to play that game??? That would suck the motivation right out of it!

And to all those who complain about nukes, if America had never used ours, no one would have known they existed, and then in secret someone could have developed a ton and started using them to control the world! Now everyone knows about them and everyone has or is getting them, thereby keeping a MAD peace in the world to keep us all surviving, the fittest way humanity knows how .. so none of this belly-aching about nukes or bio-weapons and the like, as that simply makes no sense whatsoever.

Yes, all the whiners, all the "apologists" for human nature, all the losers in the age-old exhaulted games of human dog-eat-dog natural selective survival .. if they have such a damn problem with the normal course of human events, then obviously they would prefer not to be a part of humanity, and considering how over-populated with losers we are right now since the last normal-course-of-human-events recession, rather than keep on lifting them up and helping them to keep on living and breeding like rabbits, it's better that we just cut 'em loose and let 'em die .. and thereby decrease the surplus population.

That'd be a whole lot better than to sacrifice our country and our people to being a part of the losers' global economy where we all descend to the level of the poorest, all being equally bad off, functioning collectively in dependency, until, for lack of anything else fun to do that we can afford, we breed ourselves into self-inflicted extinction.

America's "sins"???

My ass!
 
Tigger said:
I have to ask a question to all of you who are including the treatment of the Native Americans in your list....

What else is a conquering force supposed to do with a still potentially hostile foreign force that may attempt to counter-attack? They will not embrace the new culture and assimilate. They are not happy about the idea of moving to another location. What else were we supposed to do with them.

P.S. - Answers to this question should be based in REALITY, not the happy sunshine, gumdrops, and rainbows, bull**** philosophy that everyone can "just get along".
Click to expand...

To be honest, I think the whole idea of taking their land and conquering them wasn't necessarily a good idea. But assuming that's impossible to avoid, I still think we could have treated them better.

It goes against the founding ideas of our country, which are that we have rights that are endowed by our Creator. Did Native Americans have a different creator? Did any race have a different creator? Were they endowed with different rights?

Basically, it was part of the old, racist, colonialist mindset. "The darker peoples of the Earth need the enlightened leadership of white guys."
 
Ontologuy said:
This thread is ridiculous!

"America's greatest sin" -- what a joke!

None of those items on that list are a "sin". How naive can a person be?!

[...]

[...]

[...]

[...]

[...]

[...]

[...]

[...]

[...]
Click to expand...
Then I take it we can put you down for "other"? :lol:
 
So you must agree that the "sin" is giving into all this victimology, self-loathing and worshipping at the altar of "WE MUST REPENT! AND THEREFORE WE MUST SPEND OURSELVES INTO OBLIVION" crapola....
 
Ontologuy said:
This thread is ridiculous!

"America's greatest sin" -- what a joke!

None of those items on that list are a "sin". How naive can a person be?!

Every one of those things is just an example of people being people, human nature exemplified, in true Darwinian dog-eat-dog survival of the fittest fashion -- nothing sinful about that whatsoever! It's simply the way we are.

Now I know there are some wimpy-ass folks who like to imagine that our new lobes make us into some kind of god-like beings, where we have "dominion" over our basic animalistic survival instincts and that it's supposedly some kind of "good" thing to bend over and turn the other cheeks to let those who are a threat to us in some way and whom we could otherwise utilize to our survival's benefit instead ream us a new one, as if that's the "civilized" thing to do.

But isn't it pretty darn obvious how ridiculous that sounds?!

We are where we are today because we saw the threat and took the opportunity to dispose of it the best way available to us, turning it into an advantage for us in true Darwinian American fashion.

I mean, just look at our socioeconomic system. It's the finest example of a hugely competitive win-lose dynamic on the planet, the best exemplified epitome of raw human nature today's highly developed intelligent mechanics of our brainy sophistication has to offer.

And just because a few stick-in-the-mud PIGS aren't able to play the game well doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the game like these so-called "99-Percenters" keep whining about -- I mean, hell, next thing you know they'll be wanting to give the gold medal to the guy who comes in last in an Olympic event! Absolutely absurd!

Competition to the survialist extreme is what America is all about, and if a few losers end up taking it in the short-hairs, man that's simply the way God intended it, and if you don't know that then you are simply behind in your Old Testament reading, where God helped the Israelites as they slew this enemy and that enemy "and God saw that it was good".

I mean Jeez!

This is all so nonsensical! So, what, was the sub-prime securities situation that fostered the September 2008 corporate credit crunch and massive spike in unemployment a sin too? Were those speculators "evil" people who sinned against their fellow Americans? Hell no! They simply turned what they knew was going to be a losing proposition into a huge win for themselves, nothing more. Sinful? Absolutely not! And just because they did it all in secret, hiding it well until the end, does that make them "bad"? Absolutely not -- that just made them really smart and super-fit! Hell, Darwin himself would be proud of what they did as exemplary fittest behavior, turning an apparent losing situation into a win-lose proposition; a win for them and a loss for the other guy.

I mean, it's so utterly ridiculous to call any of this a sin when it's simply human nature evidenced for eons that next some will be calling investors and corporate execs sinful just because they implicitly conspired to outsource scores of millions of American jobs to foreign wage-slaves, when the rules of our very economic system itself demand that they do so or lose money! What would you want them to do, purposely lose the corporate competition so that everyone, even losers, get to keep on playing? Why heck, if they did that, they'd go out of business, and then all of their employees would be looking for work! They played the game perfectly, just as all those did in the OP "sin" list, just the way the game is defined. And that's a "sin"??? Ridiculous!

Yes, to call that and any on the OP list a "sin" is absolutely absurd, just as absurd as it would be to change the rules of chess so that nobody loses -- who would want to play that game??? That would suck the motivation right out of it!

And to all those who complain about nukes, if America had never used ours, no one would have known they existed, and then in secret someone could have developed a ton and started using them to control the world! Now everyone knows about them and everyone has or is getting them, thereby keeping a MAD peace in the world to keep us all surviving, the fittest way humanity knows how .. so none of this belly-aching about nukes or bio-weapons and the like, as that simply makes no sense whatsoever.

Yes, all the whiners, all the "apologists" for human nature, all the losers in the age-old exhaulted games of human dog-eat-dog natural selective survival .. if they have such a damn problem with the normal course of human events, then obviously they would prefer not to be a part of humanity, and considering how over-populated with losers we are right now since the last normal-course-of-human-events recession, rather than keep on lifting them up and helping them to keep on living and breeding like rabbits, it's better that we just cut 'em loose and let 'em die .. and thereby decrease the surplus population.

That'd be a whole lot better than to sacrifice our country and our people to being a part of the losers' global economy where we all descend to the level of the poorest, all being equally bad off, functioning collectively in dependency, until, for lack of anything else fun to do that we can afford, we breed ourselves into self-inflicted extinction.

America's "sins"???

My ass!
Click to expand...

A descriptive claim is not the same as a normative claim.
 
kmiller1610 said:
So you must agree that the "sin" is giving into all this victimology, self-loathing and worshipping at the altar of "WE MUST REPENT! AND THEREFORE WE MUST SPEND OURSELVES INTO OBLIVION" crapola....
Click to expand...

Of course. You can't admit failings without out of control deficits, everybody knows that.

Or we could remove our partisan glasses for a second, and admit that not EVERYTHING ever done here is good.
 
Tigger said:
Then what other means should be used to create a singular, proper societal and cultural norm in a nation?
Click to expand...
I think the nation state is obsolete as the fundamental building block of human society. It is more important that we share values across national borders, not within them, thus those borders begin to wither away. There's a high degree of historical inevitability to the decline of all nation states. When that decline occurs, what's left to guide social cohesion?


You say potato, I say po-ta-toe, let's call the whole thing off.
Click to expand...
Your po-ta-toe smells rank.



Universal as in, the overall standard applies to all individuals, whether they choose to accept it or not. It has nothing to do with indivual people it's a collective ideal.
Click to expand...
Well, you've made it very clear that you want widely different standards to apply to women than to men, hence you ain't no universalist.
 
kmiller1610 said:
So you must agree that the "sin" is giving into all this victimology, self-loathing and worshipping at the altar of "WE MUST REPENT! AND THEREFORE WE MUST SPEND OURSELVES INTO OBLIVION" crapola....
Click to expand...

You'll probably remember that all this repentence schtick was popularised by this Jewish dude who lived in Roman Palestine a while ago. Don't blame the liberals, blame the Christians. ;)
 
Andalublue said:
I think the nation state is obsolete as the fundamental building block of human society. It is more important that we share values across national borders, not within them, thus those borders begin to wither away. There's a high degree of historical inevitability to the decline of all nation states. When that decline occurs, what's left to guide social cohesion?
Click to expand...

Then we are so completely and totally on opposite sides of the coin that I don't believe we can even see each other anymore. No sense in continuing this particular discussion then, is there?

Andalublue said:
Well, you've made it very clear that you want widely different standards to apply to women than to men, hence you ain't no universalist.
Click to expand...

I think you're missing the point of what I'm talking about. Universal Morality is a concept that looks at society as a whole. It describes how human beings should think, speak, act, etc.... Obviously it differentiates between women, Men, and children as all have separate and different places in society. What is proper for a woman is likely not for a Man. What is Universal about it is that the family in Oshkosh, WI, USA should have the same standard of Morality as the one in Jordan, the one in Moscow, the one in Saigon, etc....
 
Ontologuy said:
This thread is ridiculous!

"America's greatest sin" -- what a joke!

None of those items on that list are a "sin". How naive can a person be?!

etc etc ect...

My ass!
Click to expand...

Hats off to you sir. However, methinks kmiller is thinking on a different wavelength to you...
 
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Andalublue said:
I think the nation state is obsolete as the fundamental building block of human society. It is more important that we share values across national borders, not within them, thus those borders begin to wither away. There's a high degree of historical inevitability to the decline of all nation states. When that decline occurs, what's left to guide social cohesion?
Click to expand...

I think choice will always be needed and its not wise for your own safety or your freedom to cut that away and build one huge country under one government.
 
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Henrin said:
I think choice will always be needed and its not wise for your own safety or your freedom to cut that away and build one huge country under one government.
Click to expand...

You think I'm arguing for a World government? I'm arguing for communes based on community and workplace and no central government at all. Interesting you mention 'choice' however. What choice are we currently allowed?
 
Tigger said:
Then we are so completely and totally on opposite sides of the coin
Click to expand...
No sh*t! That's a given.

that I don't believe we can even see each other anymore.
Click to expand...
I see you just fine. I'm a bit of a specialist in mediaeval European history. I can easily see where you're drawing your ideas from.
No sense in continuing this particular discussion then, is there?
Click to expand...
Well, that's up to you. I thought we were having an interesting exchange without too much rancour across the ideological chasm. You weren't expecting to convince me of your position though, were you? I certainly wasn't expecting to make you an anarchist anytime soon.

I think you're missing the point of what I'm talking about. Universal Morality is a concept that looks at society as a whole. It describes how human beings should think, speak, act, etc.... Obviously it differentiates between women, Men, and children as all have separate and different places in society. What is proper for a woman is likely not for a Man. What is Universal about it is that the family in Oshkosh, WI, USA should have the same standard of Morality as the one in Jordan, the one in Moscow, the one in Saigon, etc....
Click to expand...
I was certainly missing that. I thought the point of universal morality was that one moral code would apply universally, i.e. to every human being equally such that one accepts as a fundamental truth that what is good and acceptable behaviour for you should similarly be accepted as good and acceptable behaviour for everyone else. I thought you were talking about this.
 
Andalublue said:
I see you just fine. I'm a bit of a specialist in mediaeval European history. I can easily see where you're drawing your ideas from.
Click to expand...

Then you're one of very few.

Andalublue said:
Well, that's up to you. I thought we were having an interesting exchange without too much rancour across the ideological chasm. You weren't expecting to convince me of your position though, were you? I certainly wasn't expecting to make you an anarchist anytime soon.
Click to expand...

I do not ever expect to change anyone's mind on anything. That would be a waste of time. As would trying to change my mind be. So long as we're both aware of those things, we should be fine.

Andalublue said:
I was certainly missing that. I thought the point of universal morality was that one moral code would apply universally, i.e. to every human being equally such that one accepts as a fundamental truth that what is good and acceptable behaviour for you should similarly be accepted as good and acceptable behaviour for everyone else. I thought you were talking about this.
Click to expand...

No, that's not what I was talking about. "Universal Morality" is simply a term I have come up with to explain the idea that there should be one set of morality for the entire planet. No exceptions. No caveats. What I'm talking about is slightly different than the link you attached. Mine is a general system of morals and values that applies on a societal level, whereas what you were thinking about goes all the way down to an individual level.
 
Tigger said:
No, that's not what I was talking about. "Universal Morality" is simply a term I have come up with to explain the idea that there should be one set of morality for the entire planet. No exceptions. No caveats. What I'm talking about is slightly different than the link you attached. Mine is a general system of morals and values that applies on a societal level, whereas what you were thinking about goes all the way down to an individual level.
Click to expand...
Well, the issue there is defining that one moral code for the whole planet. No one's managed it yet and I can't see it happening any time soon. There are societies where women dominate and are the main decision-makers (parts of Siberia, South Seas, C and W Africa) and I think it likely that matriarchal societies are going to naturally conflict with patriarchal, and egalitarian systems. How would you go about creating a hegemony? Conquest?
 
Andalublue said:
Well, the issue there is defining that one moral code for the whole planet. No one's managed it yet and I can't see it happening any time soon. There are societies where women dominate and are the main decision-makers (parts of Siberia, South Seas, C and W Africa) and I think it likely that matriarchal societies are going to naturally conflict with patriarchal, and egalitarian systems. How would you go about creating a hegemony? Conquest?
Click to expand...

In a single word, YES. If that is not possible, you isolate them, limit their ability to survive, and wear them away like that.
 
Tigger said:
In a single word, YES. If that is not possible, you isolate them, limit their ability to survive, and wear them away like that.
Click to expand...

Y'see Tigger, we're not that far apart. Those are exactly the tactics I think should be applied to bringing down capitalism. :thumbs:







(Half joking , btw)
 
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