freediver wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 4:08pm:


You're also under the false impression that there's a timeless form of morality, and it happens to be the one you hold here in 2014. A cursory read of history shows countless moralities.

Quote:


Any shame is your projection. I feel more pride than shame.
Yet, when I am in analytical mode, I feel little.

Quote:


Morality is all perspective.

Lord Herbert wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 2:29pm:

We both know, do we?

I haven't cried 'shame, shame, shame and Britain is to blame'...

I think you're over-reactive in your defence of Britain. But, then again, the end of the British Empire is still within some peoples' lifetime. The Austrians were peeved about the loss of theirs too and were only too happy to join the German Reich in the naïve belief that they were reclaiming their greatness.

Now they couldn't give a turd about the Austro-Hungarian empire, nor whether anyone criticises it. That, to them, has faded into history. I'm betting there's no geriatric Frenchman sitting in a café getting uppity about defending Napoleon's empire either.

The British Empire is still within your living memory, I'm guessing, so find a café and defend away...

freediver wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 4:08pm:


Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 6:33pm:


Very astute observation.

One dimensional moral minimalists such as your dancing partner here, are legion. If you don't keep it really simple, and not be 'difficult' ~ they're apt to start telling you "you're full of it" ... and they "can tell". 

Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 6:33pm:


Nice counter-punch. Go for the 'rear naked choke' (RNC) when you see an opening.

NorthOfNorth wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 7:39pm:


Exactly.

A clear case of 'projection', as Culture Warrior so correctly observed.

I'm hoping to see a little 'ground-and-pound' from Cultural Warrior once he trips up his dancing partner in this thread.

I'm not all gung-ho! about the British Empire as some would like to tar-and-feather me as being. Objecting to a Black Armband version of British history is not the same as being a one-eyed fanatic.

I've worked with nine .... let me repeat that: nine immigrant ethnicities whose countries had been militarily assisting Nazi Germany in wiping out democratic sovereign nations one after the other, and making slaves of those who were fit to work in armament factories and on the farms, and genocidally murdering the rest.

Nine. Working alongside me here in Australia.

I've talked to those who were railroaded to Hitler's factories. I've talked to those who survived Hitler's death camps.

No one mentions a word about these people and the evils their nations assisted with in such recent times.

But mention what the Brits did in shooting a few Abos who were persistently stealing sheep and cattle from settler farmers out in the bushlands where the living was precarious to say the least ~ and EVERYONE starts baying for blood and asking that their Australian descendants should hang their heads in shame, and have a 'Sorry Day'.

The hypocrisy and cherry-picking is pathological.

sherri wrote on Mar 17^th, 2014 at 5:59am:




Oh, please ... you'll have me blushing.

sherri wrote on Mar 17^th, 2014 at 5:59am:


My condolences. I lost my brother and best friend 10 years ago, and it still hurts.

My mother taught English to German kids in Shanghai just before the war was declared, with a huge portrait of Hitler above the blackboard.

Hitler was like a pop-star. He was a celebrity who a lot of people admired for having pulled Germany out of the Depression and creating 'best standard' road systems like the autobahn. Even Churchill told the House of Commons that if Britain had a Hitler things would be greatly improved.

But then Adolf became belligerent and greedy, and it all went south after that.

sherri wrote on Mar 17^th, 2014 at 5:59am:


The closest we have today that resembles Hitler's ideology, is Islam. It contains most of the elements of Hitler's Manifesto ~ including a genocidal hatred of the Jews, and the subjugation of Non-Believers to the status of Dhimmi, and of course, rule by dictatorship.

sherri wrote on Mar 17^th, 2014 at 5:59am:


Exactly.

You'll notice that 'Generational Guilt' is never applied to themselves, whether this be aborigines, or our immigrant finger-waggers. 

sherri wrote on Mar 17^th, 2014 at 5:59am:

It reminds me of watching Nancy Wake's speech... I think it was when she (ridiculously belatedly) was honoured by Australia when she was finally awarded the Order of Australia in 2004. She first made mention of her enduring hatred and disgust for all German people and (if I remember correctly) publically said she thought the only good German was a dead one. (The Germans had tortured and murdered her French husband during the war).

Much of the world’s growth is coming in English-speaking countries. Here, according to the Heritage Foundation, are the freest economies on earth in 2014:

Hong Kong
Singapore
Australia
Switzerland
New Zealand
Canada


Only in our present age would anyone think it impolite to point out what five of the six have in common.

What’s so special about the Anglosphere? Chiefly the common law. While other legal systems are deductive, in the sense that a law is written down in the abstract and then applied to particular cases, the common law builds up case by case, like coral. It concerns itself, not with theoretical principles, but with actual disputes. In consequence — and no one is really sure how this came about — it rises from the people rather than descending from the government, assuming residual rights and personal liberty. If something is not expressly prohibited, we expect to be able to do whatever we bloody well like. That attitude makes for a strong economy and a free society.

One man who knows this in his bones is Tony Abbott. He is the most flattering kind of Anglophile: one who sees us British as we are, ‘with all our crimes broad blown, as flush as May’, and yet likes us anyway. But he has given up using the word ‘Anglosphere’ since, whenever he does so, his opponents affect to see connotations of nostalgia, colonial cringe and even racism. It explains why Bermuda is not Haiti, why Hong Kong is not China, why Singapore is not Indonesia. Regular elections, uncensored newspapers, habeas corpus, sanctity of contract, individual freedom, open markets — these things are not the natural condition of an advanced state. They were evolved overwhelmingly in the language in which you are reading these words. When we call these precepts ‘Western’, we’re being polite: they became Western because of a series of military victories by the English-speaking peoples.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/australia/australia-diary/9153721/diary-656/