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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   31951 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023

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The comforts of the West having been provided to me because some of my ancestors took the hard road. Look at the Constitution wise men wisely put in the word "Posterity".

I think you should read what the founders thought about titles of nobility. They explicitly say it's bad to consider yourself any more special or claim any special privileges due to what your ancestors did.

Ignoring "all men are created equal" because of this one single word "posterity" that may not even mean literal descent is bizarre. I'm always confused by people who identify so much with being Western or American and still hold such anti-individualistic and anti-meritocratic values.

I expressed a very meritocratic opinion about Syrian refugees.

Holding them to a different standard than yourself due to things completely different people did is neither individualistic nor meritocratic.

Its not a different standard. It is the standard I hold everybody to in the case that that thing happens. That you find my position unbelievable is more of a reflection of yourself.

That's not the way you were defending the point in the original post I replied to. If you are truly holding your personal self (regardless of what your ancestors may or may not have done) to this standard, then I don't have a disagreement along lines of meritocracy.

(For the sake of disclosure, I do however disagree that that someone deciding not to fight in a pointless war is reason to judge them poorly, but that's a different discussion.)

It is hardly a pointless war. It is a war to stabilize the country, or to liberate it from an inhumane dictator. Depending on your point of view.

And if you were John Paul Jones I would not have quibbled with the comment. You don't get to take some sort of vicarious credit for the actions of your ancestors, and that their actions helped deliver the prosperity you live in that hardly gives you the right to pontificate on the bravery or otherwise of Syrian refugees.

You don't get to take some sort of vicarious credit for the actions of your ancestors

They would probably disagree.

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