Defending the Truth

Of course you didn't. Partly because most Americans have spent very little time outside these United States so they don't get other Nations and because we are the most powerful country don't spend alot of time learning about other places. I am sure that most Americans don't understand the Westminster system of Govt for instance, although much of the English speaking world uses this system of government.

In context the Bible recommends genocide, slavery, mysogyny, blood atonement and many other things that we 'discovered' are wrong through our secular world and then re-read the Bible to suit our current social consciousness. WHich is why all thes e things existed until the secular world went hey No its wrong and then we re-read the Bible and changed the prior meaning to give 'authority' to our new reading.

I am sure Native Americans thought something like the current mantra why don't they stay in their own country and make it better. Why do they come here and ruin our society by speaking English and so forth.

We also like to say its not like Native Americans were nice to each other before we came. As if this is any excuse to what we did to them. But it does point to the concept we 'civilized' them..they already had a civilization built on many years of experience, sure they fought each other, but Europeans have been fighting each other since the start of kept records. And fought each other after coming to this country.

We destroyed their culture and still continue to do so, what we did by virtue of trying to assimilate them is what we recognize as genocide and yet we still try to undermine their culture to this day.

Most Western (and now even Eastern) European countries (or countries like the US derived from Western European culture) have exactly the same freedoms as we do. They just thought the freedoms were so obivous they didn't need to right them down I guess. The reasons behind the constitution had as much to do with French and English thinkers of their time as it did as anything else. And as much of the rest of the world is decidedly more secular then we are they don't need to have these things to be inspired by God or given by God. To retroactively say its inspired by God is to say that until Moses came down from the Mount it was OK to murder, steal, commit adultry and everyone did it until Moses told them they were wrong. When in fact its more probable that these things had become socially unacceptable and that society discovered (just as we did later with slavery) that they were wrong and gave God credit for it

I agree that a stint outside this country will do people a lot of good. My time in the Philippines and Japan did wonders for my view of race relations in this country.

Because the country is still over run by religious zealots and because to say it was inspired by God rather then man gives them an authority that just saying humans created these concepts because we hold relgious views about secular. Its the same reason why something that we would hold wrong for any other purpose. For example male circumcision allowed in this country because its for religious reason but if someone said they they were mutilating a little boy just because thye'd get in trouble


BTW it was the Privy Council not House of Lords that USE to have legal power in Australia and NZ, Australia and NZ would look to the House of Lords for legal decisions but it was the Privy COuncil that was the highest COurt until the Australia Act cut legal ties and made the High Court its highest legal authority and severed the ability to even look at English law as anything more then guide which they also do with US law....it ..NZ have done the same thing ..and places like the Cook Islands gace Australia legal authority over it..that is Aussie judges go there to hear cases...

Seirously a little more then a couple of weeks is needed in places other then Cancun or the Canadian Rockies...

Look outside the box we live in.

Not saying we shouldn't visit our own country and see some of the amazing sights it has to offer but we need to know more about the rest of the wrold then we do. For instance people can quote the Declaration of Independence but I bet you many people have no idea who is the current PM of the UK or could tall you on a map where the middle east actually is..in fact recent studies show this to be true..this is not to say we shouldn't know everything about ourselves that we can and what made us who we are but we don't live in an isolated bubble and so we can be informed about our own future direction, in an ever growing interdependent world we should know basics about other places.

I put it down to world series mentality, how can it be the world series if we are the only country in it?? (OK occasionally we count a few Canadian teams but North America is hardly the world)

Its also a hark back to the concept we want to be alone. Isolationism which in some ways served us well in days gone by it is still a concept not to far from us, hence we reject what anyone else may say and change the name of French Fries to Freedom Fries, now all the people agree with France.

As for Australians and Kiwis I know many people put their travel down to the tyranny of distance but it comes form a sense of adventure that we have lost IMO. Canadians have the same type of attitude. They aren't the worlds super power so they don't have anything to prove so they see the world. Also they have vacations which actually allow them to have a vacation. They also tend to be by and large less materialistic, they are willing to forgo things in order to travel.

I think this ignorance gives the ability to manipulate people but I am not sure it started as being deliberate. In the end people still believe despite evidence to the contrary that the Govt is there to serve them. . This is of course the same in other places but other places are much more cynical about Govt because their Govt/Society was given by God in some way I assume.

Some of the things people believe I find it hard that anyone who graduated Junior High let alone went to College could ever believe. Simply Americans don't like change and the combination of God gave us these rights with the fact we are the worlds only super power makes us, in general, fairly ignorant about other places and pompous about ourselves. When in fact you appreciate here more when you go to and or at least read about other places.