This is a good old 'nutty' left post.

You refer to the 'ideals of western civilization' by harking back to acts committed at the earliest over three hundred years ago. You might think in those terms but I thought it was rather obvious that what I meant was the rule of law, freedom of the press, lower levels of corruption in public institutions, security for the citizen/subject......You lived a life influenced by western tenets of a free education and free health care at the point of delivery (though our good old US friends still have some way to go on that)

You know it's a tad irritating when a self hating westerner incorrectly makes statements on western history to infer that the west's actions are somehow different or worse than any other historical effort by...I don't know...The Persians or the Mongols or any other 'group' in human history.

Humans are tribal and regularly go to war.....This isn't an 'ideal of the west' it is a stamp that identifies the species....And most other living species as well in some context or other.

Edited by Stirlingsays (12 Jul 2014 11.48am)

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

Stirling,

In your eagerness to transpose everything into simplistic left/right terms and categorise anything you don't agree with as "nutty" or "self-hating", you didn't even realise my reference to western civilisation was commenting on the post after your one, where the poster berated Zionism as contrary to the ideals of western civilisation.

Your references to things I mention betray your utter lack of knowledge..so what I am talking about was at least 300 years ago, was it? Try telling that to indigenous people in Australia who were having their children taken away from them by the state to be "civilised" until the second half of the 20th century. Try telling my relatives who died in the holocaust in the 20th century. Find out something about the realities of Belgian and German colonisation of Africa in the early 20th century.

The fact other groups in history may have acted in a similar way (though on nothing like the worldwide industrial scale due to advances in technology), does not mean that we should not look carefully and where appropriate critically at our own recent history. The relative prosperity of western civilisation (certainly in Europe) and the resultant liberal democracy arose off the backs of the proceeds of plunder of other parts of the world. And if you think being aware of this must mean one is "self hating" and not appreciative of the benefits of living here, then you are truly a lost cause.

My post referred to 'ideals of western civilization' and yours refers to 'ideals of the west' so it's quite a reasonable assumption to feel you were referring to my post. If you weren't, fair enough....Still.

Your pompous characterizations of me not knowing even basic human history is symptomatic of the folly of believing that people who know the same things feel the same way way about them.

As all groups in our history have basically behaved the same way on war your exclusive attack on western actions in your post continually misses the point that criticizing the 'west' or any group is simply a proxy for criticizing any section of humanity that is subject to those same cultural and historical inputs......This is how humans act. It would be less irritating if your writings reflected that.

Sure there are groups who are affected by historical events as they were by acts before that...Which groups did they supplant?....We could go back all the way to the first bleeding cell....What's the point and what does it prove? Life isn't fair and we try to even things a little but no people are fairly blamed for the actions of generations before them who happened to live on the same piece of dirt....It's ridiculous.

It was you who referred to acts of war carried out hundreds of years ago in reference to 'ideals of the west' and then repeated your 'west' fixation in your follow up post.

Any human civilization is only ever a water or food supply away from war or chaos and this continual focus upon acts of the 'west' betrays the general faulty 'self-hating' mindset of someone who listened far too much to standardized left wing monologs without analyzing them critically and instead adopted them.

I describe your post as 'nutty' left because it is....Please tell me where I will find this tired view outside of sections of the left?

You should stop moaning about characterization....If you don't like it adopt some less cliched viewpoints. and then you might not be identified so easily.

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

Many thanks for your kind words and for giving me the benefit of your completely non-nutty and uncliched point of view, Stirling. I know a brick wall when I meet one. Time to move on.

Ben-Gurion never agreed with killing British soldiers....Begin....Well yes.

Regardless, Israel didn't 'fight' Britain....The majority never agreed with the bombings.

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

I'm not sure about that, Stirling. You seem to be but I'm not. I know people who were there at that time, both British and Israeli, and the British really weren't wanted there at all.