Reply #51: scary white men?

[inthenever]

"Never has this been the rule and you know it. I have met so many immigrants of different cultures who only wish to be welcomed and treated as human, as the equals that they are."

It is often the case that an incoming culture will be intolerant of an existing cultural set. If you allow that in large numbers, you have a problem. For example, the muslim riots in France. Think about it. Take a fundamentalist culture, one that doesn't allow their women to shake hands (Iran), that has strong opinions about how others should comport themselves (e.g., homosexuality, drinking, dating, etc. . .), and insert it into a secular society and watch the fireworks.

"Which culture should we then choose to be representative here?"

It seems you want a tolerant society; that would suggest a secular, humanistic vantagepoint. How about that? It seems consistent with the ideals upon which the USA was founded. The ideology underlying the bill of rights. Thomas Jefferson had it right in many ways.


"I tell you now, like I told my father the other day when he was claiming that the looters in Haiti be shot...you have no idea what you would do in their circumstances. You cannot speak to their desperation unless you, too, share it. So please do not even pretend to know what it is that drives them here."

I'm a psychologist, it's what I do. But, keep in mind, there is a difference in understanding motivations and in sharing the emotional impact of it. We can emphasize with folks if we open our minds and try to understand the world from their view, but we may not be able to sympathize (depending).

"The scariest people on this earth to me are wealthy white republican men, not the brown man, woman or child who just needs to find a way to eat."

The scariest people on this earth to me are irrational zealots, whatever their flavor of pigment. I don't know why you'd pick on white republican men. It doesn't make sense, especially in the context of your "tolerant" viewpoint.