What is a bigger threat to Western civilization?

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Seeing as I've never read those texts for myself, I'll refrain from formulating an opinion. Although from the snippets that I've been fed, it obviously doesn't look very rosy.

No, disliking a particular civilization is unrelated to one's ideology with regards to statecraft. What you just said makes as much sense as saying that someone who dislikes Ethiopia is an anti-monarchist because, until the abolition of the monarchy in 1974, Ethiopia was the oldest continuous monarchistic political system on Earth; furthermore, you did not even give justifications for your position.

And, I will remind you that, since you talk of wanting to bring peoples down by force or change their ways of life, your beloved Britain did just that to the Desi with the British Raj by controlling the courts of most of the Desi Subcontinent, destroying the economy of the Subcontinent and forcing changing the Desi's way of life. So, if you wish to talk about bringing civilizations down by force, just like the British did with the Mughal Empire, the Mysore Kingdom and the Sikh Empire, forcing a change in people's ways of life, as clearly must have happened on the Desi Subcontinent with the effective collapse of it's economy, then look to Britain for among the best examples in human history.

I am, by the way, strictly against special privileges for anyone's beliefs, be they religious or otherwise, and so do not assume that I want them for what you so eloquently term my "bile."

It is BS all along. I just stated that the biggest threat to western civilization is its own people. That does not imply any dislike of me against western civilization. It is, however, true.

Historically, The biggest threats to all civilizations were from the inside. Our current lovely civilization has topped every other in technology, but in the process we have raised a bunch of idiots. I'd like anyone to try to argue with this fact instead of saying OMG move to NK (Although I appreciate Tequila and Inuyasha for helping my point by showing exactly what sort of people the western civilization has created)

The Romans ended Rome. Civilizations like ours are doomed to implosion.

In the case of radical Islam (and Irish republicanism for that matter) the two often go hand-in-hand and are closely related. Not many people would know your point about Ethiopia being a monarchy - I certainly didn't! - and I would submit that almost everyone confronted with that fact would consider it a bizarre point to bring up (more likely their beef with Ethiopia would be to do with mass immigration from there but I digress).

A dislike of a certain political position often leads to an overall dislike of the person or entity pushing it.

Walt Kelly said it: We have met The Enemy and he is us.

ruveyn

This question is difficult to answer because you are not specific about which elites you refer to. If you are referring to those in charge of the UN and the EU (who are more about control then any concern for human rights) or Barack Hussein Obama, then I will have to choose the first answer. Right wing "elites" like Cheney may prove to be equally harmful if islam influences capitalism and they sacrifice the West for profit. Otherwise why is it that globalist "elites" such as our last president wanted Turkey to join the EU?

Islam and the fringe left and other "elites" are competitors for domination. Even if they appear to oppose each other at times, they do not care about freedom if theirs is not impinged. The leftists will force us to tolerate the intolerable while dismantling law and order, which will make islam flourish. Social, economic, and ecological destruction will perpetuate each other.

Last edited by petitesouris on 05 Dec 2011, 12:09 am, edited 4 times in total.

Probably something more like a collapse in resources. Radical islam and our elites aren't that threatening.

Put it this way: outside the political elite in Britain that idea is seen as about as desirable as a cup of cold sick. Even more so on the continent where national politicians stand on a platform of opposing Turkish entry into the EU. Countries like Austria are especially vociferously against the idea.

Lefties are the biggest threat to the western world.

Well, I'd say at least in the US Lefties and Neoliberals/Neoconservatives. They're book-ends really.

The State is the enemy. The bigger and more powerful it is, the greater is the harm it does to its subjects.

ruveynb

The state is the weapon the elite uses against the populous.

I agree completely, I think we just disagree on what the appropriate scope of minimal governance is.

The way i see it, one of the few legitimate purposes of a national government is to pool the resources of the many to provide universal access to services that we are otherwise too greedy or shortsighted to provide.

Interstate highways with no tolls are one example of appropriate socialism. I just happen to think that universal health care is too.

You rather misguidedly seem to think the UK system is a panacea. It isn't. In fact, the French system (which is more expensive than the UK one) - which is a public healthcare system using private companies and gives much more choice - delivers much better service in many cases and probably doesn't suffer from the never-ending lifestyle hectoring that our one does. The UK system is inflexible, bureaucratic and often autocratic in nature.

I think the trouble with socialized medicine is if it doesn't have a mock-capitalistic structure within. From what I've heard, from some of the doctors and nurses in the UK when interviewed, was to that effect. Understandably a rural hospital won't have all the all-star players that a famous university hospital likely would hence the hospitals would be given the minimum of what they need plus performance bonus for growth. Overall though something is needed in the works to spur best practices and best performance, otherwise - yes - you run into the old Soviet problem.

That's exactly it. There's no competition in the UK NHS so a lot of everything is second-rate at best. Sometimes the service is very good, mostly it's mediocre and sometimes it's appalling. Also, the advice to UK residents regarding the NHS is to never go into hospital if you can possibly avoid it because you could end up dying in there through infections on the wards.