In an ideal world, we wouldn’t need to have such a thing as endless waves of immigrants and/ or refugees. Why? Socio-economic, political, and religious structures would be such that people wouldn’t be forced to move. Mass weather wouldn’t decimate the entire coastline causing mass evacuations. Terrorist attacks wouldn’t cause people to feel unsafe. People wouldn’t feel the need to relocate to a land of opportunity because they’re living in extreme poverty, bot having basic necessities met. Americans would be willing to work in the farm fields (actually we should anyways so we don’t get the idea that food magicly appears in the grocery store, and maybe even have a mandatory field trip through a slaughterhouse so we know the whole cost of meat is).
Having said that, we don’t and as far as i know, we will *never* have a perfect world. We need to figure out how to live in harmony. We need to learn how to find educational, employment, and social opportunities for growth, change, improvement those who move into any country. And these things are not easy.
But at the exact same time, in this day and age, we need to figure out how to exclude those who have ulterior motives for moving wherever – those who would wish to destroy everything we struggled so hard to build.
The balance, the ability to choose rightly and appropriately not just once, but on a daily basis is what’s going to help keep us human.
It’s kind of amazing to me that we have to make an effort to exercise our humanity. It seems the natural inclinations within, at least within the western environments, have to be consciously considered and I think that is because material consumption is encouraged with a higher degree of frequency…and it is somehow tied to our self esteem…than respect offered to those who provide rather than consume.
Somehow, those who provide, are rarely honoured, versus those who gather points (aka dollars/material wealth). There is something to be said for the point system. It does provide the incentive that results in a higher standard of living, but it also chips away at our humanity.
Blessed be the persecuted, for only they have the capacity to understand the plight of humanity at its foundational root.
I’ve seen this video before and it moves me not as a Muslim illustrating his humanity, but as a person and that, to me, is our failings as a race. To recognise that people are persons and not this image associated with a perception as a whole.
A whole bunch of individual and relatively unique components that have the capacity to be much greater than the sum of our parts, but are nowhere near our potential and it bothers me that we seem to be ebbing away from, rather than towards what we actually can be. And why? Probably because our leadership understands the need to keep the masses divided to ensure effective management.
Keep displaying your humanity Gina. It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.
He is not playing religious or cultural or ego games.
So the nobler aspects of the humanities can rise to the surface.
This isn’t about advancing or diminishing any person nation or culture.
It’s about all of us being the best that we can be in the situations we are in.
And this means identifying and managing the things that distract from this.
Refugees and immigrants are human beings. Human beings from another culture. Both Canada and the United States have grown strong from welcoming in people from other cultures, who then respond in gratitude by integrating into this culture: supporting what exists rather than trying to rewrite something else over top of it. Or actively working against it.
There is an impressive list of disparate cultures that we have welcomed in and that have integrated successfully. So our system works.
But we are at loggerheads with a small group of specific cultures. Their own cultures in their native lands have become untenable and are melting down; and it has has sent waves of them fleeing over here: where they show a marked resistance to setting aside the very processes that led to the meltdowns in their native lands. There is culture clash, of a magnitude we’ve not seen before. And it’s feeding a kind of toxin in the welcoming culture to a degree that has rarely been seen.
And trying to convince ourselves that this is going to be an integration exercise just like all the others is not going to make it so. Patterns that have worked in the past are obviously not going to work this time.
There is good and evil in every culture. But we are encountering a disproportionate number of desperately evil acts from a very few cultural and religious groups.
We’ve made many concessions in welcoming them in. Now it’s their turn to show they are serious about integrating: and not just being “who they were over there”, “over here”. Because “who they were over there”, allowed a seed of evil to flourish that destroyed their lands and Nations.
If it’s just a very few of their fellows ruining for all of them, that is theirs to deal with.
Because if they leave it up to us to deal with it they’re probably not going to like the solution.
Being “fluffy-nice” and accommodating, is not working in this case. And it’s not for a lack of people trying. This is no longer an issue for the welcomers.
At the exact same time, Don’t we also need to be careful not to discriminate against/ treat differently / bar from entry those who would wish us no harm? And if we *do* bar them, how does that align with “for i was a stranger” and how they should be treated?
@Jear77
Ideologies (and perhaps even the worship thereof), have everyone overlooking a critical piece of logic. That of quarantine.
If there is a rare but almost always terminal illness shows up in notable quantity and is traced back with startling regularity to visitors from one specific region . . . there is just cause to quarantine the thousands to protect the many millions, from the few . . . until it is contained (and perhaps even cured?).
It’s nice to stand on the notion and an ideology of welcoming everyone in. But there are also reasonable precautions to be taken if an often-fatal “affliction” comes so often at the hands of a specific identifiable “carrier”.
Yes, the notion of quarantining the many to protect the millions from the few is troubling. But a culture that welcomes everyone in is something worth protecting.
And if the groups who have proven the most common “carriers” of this “condition” feel slighted on so many shores . . . perhaps this will be the encouragement to take a closer look at themselves and see why their culture is the “carrier” in a disproportionate number of cases.
@griz how long for said quarantine? At present the quarantine would be indefinite. Those who might not initially want to harm us may desire to do so at some future because they were denied, “contaminated” as it were with the ideology that we should be harmed because they were “left out” needlessly! So it’s a catch 22.
@Jear77
Yea, the catch-22 cycle is noted. In a bizarre sort of way, this is sort of like a continuation (the next chapter) in the “Christian” Crusades. Responses for responses, reactions to reactions.
The “absolute” quarantine is no kind of solution. But how long it lasts will depend on factors like virulence, recurrence, resistance to the healing process.
But even in such situations, “healers” have always risked exposure for the sake of a cure.
Where is that line with religion-spawned terrorism?
That is elusive wisdom.
But continuing to do what we’ve been doing, doesn’t seem to be working. Even the healers who go into quarantined areas, go to lengths to protect themselves.
@griz religion got us into this pickle. It can’t get us out of it. And offering these people who are trying to enter our country a relationship with Life would be problematic to say the least, as there’s no definitive test to say whether one is wheat or weed and the fruit may be years in rotting or being shown to be bad.
@Jear77
I agree that religion is the problem, in both cultures. We are locked in a “battle of religions”; but for now the newcomers have a stronger hand because in the West we cannot decide what it is we are looking to for “righteousness and salvation”. Is it a “classic” deity? Is it a philosophy of nationalism? Of ill-defined “rights and freedoms” (while not even pay lip-service to “responsibilities”?
Of feelings and emotions? Of money? Of capitalism/consumerism? Of drugs? Of relationships? Of leisure? Of fear and/or “conspiracy”? Of entertainment? Of power?
Within the “battle of the religions”, the one with clearer focus will eventually “win”.
But the ultimate “winners” will be those who can recognize the folly of religion, in ALL it’s forms: and in doing so, start to escape from it.
(Because it will be a very long process, perhaps lasting many generations. But we need to start — because these “battles of religions” are destroying our future).
Blah, blah, blah. Plenty of good immigrants continuing to come here. Plenty of bad.
Okaying the bad, when that is from Islamist or Communist nations does not make things better. Okaying Islamist nation sentiments as if they are your own and neutral, does bad.
13 responses to “Keeping my humanity”
In an ideal world, we wouldn’t need to have such a thing as endless waves of immigrants and/ or refugees. Why? Socio-economic, political, and religious structures would be such that people wouldn’t be forced to move. Mass weather wouldn’t decimate the entire coastline causing mass evacuations. Terrorist attacks wouldn’t cause people to feel unsafe. People wouldn’t feel the need to relocate to a land of opportunity because they’re living in extreme poverty, bot having basic necessities met. Americans would be willing to work in the farm fields (actually we should anyways so we don’t get the idea that food magicly appears in the grocery store, and maybe even have a mandatory field trip through a slaughterhouse so we know the whole cost of meat is).
Having said that, we don’t and as far as i know, we will *never* have a perfect world. We need to figure out how to live in harmony. We need to learn how to find educational, employment, and social opportunities for growth, change, improvement those who move into any country. And these things are not easy.
But at the exact same time, in this day and age, we need to figure out how to exclude those who have ulterior motives for moving wherever – those who would wish to destroy everything we struggled so hard to build.
The balance, the ability to choose rightly and appropriately not just once, but on a daily basis is what’s going to help keep us human.
It’s kind of amazing to me that we have to make an effort to exercise our humanity. It seems the natural inclinations within, at least within the western environments, have to be consciously considered and I think that is because material consumption is encouraged with a higher degree of frequency…and it is somehow tied to our self esteem…than respect offered to those who provide rather than consume.
Somehow, those who provide, are rarely honoured, versus those who gather points (aka dollars/material wealth). There is something to be said for the point system. It does provide the incentive that results in a higher standard of living, but it also chips away at our humanity.
Blessed be the persecuted, for only they have the capacity to understand the plight of humanity at its foundational root.
I’ve seen this video before and it moves me not as a Muslim illustrating his humanity, but as a person and that, to me, is our failings as a race. To recognise that people are persons and not this image associated with a perception as a whole.
A whole bunch of individual and relatively unique components that have the capacity to be much greater than the sum of our parts, but are nowhere near our potential and it bothers me that we seem to be ebbing away from, rather than towards what we actually can be. And why? Probably because our leadership understands the need to keep the masses divided to ensure effective management.
Keep displaying your humanity Gina. It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.
He is not playing religious or cultural or ego games.
So the nobler aspects of the humanities can rise to the surface.
This isn’t about advancing or diminishing any person nation or culture.
It’s about all of us being the best that we can be in the situations we are in.
And this means identifying and managing the things that distract from this.
Refugees and immigrants are human beings. Human beings from another culture. Both Canada and the United States have grown strong from welcoming in people from other cultures, who then respond in gratitude by integrating into this culture: supporting what exists rather than trying to rewrite something else over top of it. Or actively working against it.
There is an impressive list of disparate cultures that we have welcomed in and that have integrated successfully. So our system works.
But we are at loggerheads with a small group of specific cultures. Their own cultures in their native lands have become untenable and are melting down; and it has has sent waves of them fleeing over here: where they show a marked resistance to setting aside the very processes that led to the meltdowns in their native lands. There is culture clash, of a magnitude we’ve not seen before. And it’s feeding a kind of toxin in the welcoming culture to a degree that has rarely been seen.
And trying to convince ourselves that this is going to be an integration exercise just like all the others is not going to make it so. Patterns that have worked in the past are obviously not going to work this time.
There is good and evil in every culture. But we are encountering a disproportionate number of desperately evil acts from a very few cultural and religious groups.
We’ve made many concessions in welcoming them in. Now it’s their turn to show they are serious about integrating: and not just being “who they were over there”, “over here”. Because “who they were over there”, allowed a seed of evil to flourish that destroyed their lands and Nations.
If it’s just a very few of their fellows ruining for all of them, that is theirs to deal with.
Because if they leave it up to us to deal with it they’re probably not going to like the solution.
Being “fluffy-nice” and accommodating, is not working in this case. And it’s not for a lack of people trying. This is no longer an issue for the welcomers.
It’s on the welcomees.
At the exact same time, Don’t we also need to be careful not to discriminate against/ treat differently / bar from entry those who would wish us no harm? And if we *do* bar them, how does that align with “for i was a stranger” and how they should be treated?
@Jear77
Ideologies (and perhaps even the worship thereof), have everyone overlooking a critical piece of logic. That of quarantine.
If there is a rare but almost always terminal illness shows up in notable quantity and is traced back with startling regularity to visitors from one specific region . . . there is just cause to quarantine the thousands to protect the many millions, from the few . . . until it is contained (and perhaps even cured?).
It’s nice to stand on the notion and an ideology of welcoming everyone in. But there are also reasonable precautions to be taken if an often-fatal “affliction” comes so often at the hands of a specific identifiable “carrier”.
Yes, the notion of quarantining the many to protect the millions from the few is troubling. But a culture that welcomes everyone in is something worth protecting.
And if the groups who have proven the most common “carriers” of this “condition” feel slighted on so many shores . . . perhaps this will be the encouragement to take a closer look at themselves and see why their culture is the “carrier” in a disproportionate number of cases.
@griz how long for said quarantine? At present the quarantine would be indefinite. Those who might not initially want to harm us may desire to do so at some future because they were denied, “contaminated” as it were with the ideology that we should be harmed because they were “left out” needlessly! So it’s a catch 22.
@Jear77
Yea, the catch-22 cycle is noted. In a bizarre sort of way, this is sort of like a continuation (the next chapter) in the “Christian” Crusades. Responses for responses, reactions to reactions.
The “absolute” quarantine is no kind of solution. But how long it lasts will depend on factors like virulence, recurrence, resistance to the healing process.
But even in such situations, “healers” have always risked exposure for the sake of a cure.
Where is that line with religion-spawned terrorism?
That is elusive wisdom.
But continuing to do what we’ve been doing, doesn’t seem to be working. Even the healers who go into quarantined areas, go to lengths to protect themselves.
@griz religion got us into this pickle. It can’t get us out of it. And offering these people who are trying to enter our country a relationship with Life would be problematic to say the least, as there’s no definitive test to say whether one is wheat or weed and the fruit may be years in rotting or being shown to be bad.
@Jear77
I agree that religion is the problem, in both cultures. We are locked in a “battle of religions”; but for now the newcomers have a stronger hand because in the West we cannot decide what it is we are looking to for “righteousness and salvation”. Is it a “classic” deity? Is it a philosophy of nationalism? Of ill-defined “rights and freedoms” (while not even pay lip-service to “responsibilities”?
Of feelings and emotions? Of money? Of capitalism/consumerism? Of drugs? Of relationships? Of leisure? Of fear and/or “conspiracy”? Of entertainment? Of power?
Within the “battle of the religions”, the one with clearer focus will eventually “win”.
But the ultimate “winners” will be those who can recognize the folly of religion, in ALL it’s forms: and in doing so, start to escape from it.
(Because it will be a very long process, perhaps lasting many generations. But we need to start — because these “battles of religions” are destroying our future).
Blah, blah, blah. Plenty of good immigrants continuing to come here. Plenty of bad.
Okaying the bad, when that is from Islamist or Communist nations does not make things better. Okaying Islamist nation sentiments as if they are your own and neutral, does bad.
@Lucifer Rising
Here’s a List of 39 White Terrorists for the Smug Congressman Who Challenged CNN to Name More Than Two
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/02/07/sean_duffy_asked_for_examples_of_white_extremist_terror_here_you_go_sean.html
@Lucifer Rising
Study Says White Extremists Have Killed More Americans in the U.S. Than Jihadists Since 9/11
http://time.com/3934980/right-wing-extremists-white-terrorism-islamist-jihadi-dangerous/