Oh, Canada.....

[GNEP]

tolerate the intolerant?

[az]

I personally don't have a problem with evicting troublesome immigrants. If you come to my country, web discussion forum or into my house, you play by the rules or you get kicked. I do have a problem with the notion that because someone is an immigrant, he is automatically troublesome. If that were the attitude here, nobody would have joined and Ant could sit alone in his forum all day, because he wouldn't have accepted anyone of us, including Sasq.

[schmosef]

I personally don't have a problem with evicting troublesome immigrants. If you come to my country, web discussion forum or into my house, you play by the rules or you get kicked. I do have a problem with the notion that because someone is an immigrant, he is automatically troublesome. If that were the attitude here, nobody would have joined and Ant could sit alone in his forum all day, because he wouldn't have accepted anyone of us, including Sasq.

I don't know if anyone has every argued that immigrants are "defacto troublesome". I would certainly agree with you that they would be wrong, being an immigrant to Canada myself.

[az]

tolerate the intolerant?

No. Intolerant are the only people who don't deserve any tolerance. (This of course includes people like KvH, but also includes those immigrants who care nothing for the country they emigrated to and ignore its rules. That's a form of intolerance, too. And it includes many other people, of course, but those are not the subject of this discussion, so I gave only these two examples.)

[schmosef]

tolerate the intolerant?

I don't understand the question.

[GNEP]

I don't understand the question.

Sorry - I assumed that you would extrapolate from my 3 words the enternal liberal dilemma. (liberal here meant in the sense that I, from the UK, mean it, rather than the sense that some from other places might infer it in their local dialect).

Meaning: if one of your guiding principals is to be tolerant of others, and to encourage this behaviour in others around you by way of demonstration (obviously you'd never force it on anyone), then should you tolerate those who are intolerant towards others?

Edit: and to add to AZ: "intolerant people are the only ones that don't deserve tolerance" is rather wonderful circular logic That is as long as you are classed as intolerant if you are intolerant of one subset of the rest of the world, rather than it all.

I assume I make sense somewhere along the line. Apologies if not.

[Jessterw]

Interesting point you raise there schmo and honestly, if anyone flamed you for it then they're just being ignorant.

The problem I see is this: cultures were not intended to mix with others. There have been positive results from the interplay of various cultures throughout history; however, there have been just as many (if not more) negative outcomes from it. Note, this is not a commentary on multiculturalism being a bad thing, it is a statement to the fact that what defines a culture is partly the strength of its differences from that of others. In the same way that religions were not intended to intermingle or to be accepting of other religions, the culture of a people and/or region revolves around beliefs and practices (traditions) that are not complementary to the same from cultures near or far. In fact they may be polar opposites that can not be made to mesh.

That said, I truly believe that while an understanding and certain amount of pride should be taken in one's heritage and culture, the only way for people to truly coexist is for there to be a breakdown of these cultures when they are so tightly intermingled with that of others. I am far from saying that people should, these cases, adopt a single set of bland beliefs and practices. I am, however, saying that there has to be a greater understanding of our own and other's beliefs and practices, as well as a common understanding of the ways that we can make them coexist. There has to be some level of conformity or else it can not and will not work. In this regard, multiculturalism as you've stated is a pipe dream (which is all too evident in our world).

The differences between Murc and America (or the world at large) are in the very nature of what is being compared. America, by our very Constitution, does not allow for what KvH wishes. Not that is doesn't happen anyways, as is evident by our history as a nation. Murc on the other hand has no such declarations and it is in our conforming to a standard of *cough* civility that allows us to participate in it. I don't believe KvH has been uncivil in any measurement of significance, though I do see that his views, at times, take away from conversations that have other purposes or intents than what he determines he wants to interject. He isn't the only one who does so. What makes Murc so great is that, yes, we have disparate backgrounds and varying views, but we can set those aside when discussing things where we do agree or have a similar interest in. It used to be our love/hate relationship with all things Matrox, now it is a broad scope of technology, automotives, gaming, politics, and even - dare I say - jiggly avatars.

Back to the question at hand. I'd like to offer up the suggestion that maybe, just maybe, KvH is no more non-conforming than the rest of us. Indeed, he may just be a little more public in his display of contempt for those ideals to which he does not conform. As well as, as I mentioned before, his seeming ability to bring his non-conformance into conversations where it really isn't appropriate or warranted. Mention Wal-mart in a thread, for example, and he's sure to leap into a tirade against said company, even if the discussion is on the availability of Tickle-Me-Elmo in the toy department. The rest of us, with a few other exceptions, seem content to speak out on occasion without presenting too large a target. Sure, we may be outspoken on a specific topic, but we don't often branch out from that one topic in our full-coverage ranting.

The answer though is that in a true multicultural society, KvH would be allowed to coexist as long as his beliefs reflected that of a culture in said society, otherwise I dare say he would be ostracized. At least that's how I see it based on the nature of society as a whole.

Edit: Wow, a bit wordy there... maybe a bit too much

[az]

Schmo, look at KvH. Of course he says that there are also some "good" immigrants, exceptions from the norm. But with that, he already shows prejudice and intolerance towards groups. Immigrants don't have the benefit of doubt like other people have for him, but must rather abolish the brandmark of being foreign before being accepted.

Nobody in their right mind would argue that there are no immigrants who cause trouble. I grew up in a part of Berlin with 80% turkish population. Was it nice? No. Did I have trouble with some turks? Of course. But that wasn't multiculturalism, that was a ghetto. This ghettoization of immigrants is at least partly responsible for many of the problems we had with immigrants. How can they assimilate when they're settled only among themselves?

I know some turks that are really nice people. They have a different culture and different beliefs, but that's OK. There is enough in common between our cultures to bridge that gap, and as long as they are compatible with our laws and ethics I don't have a greater problem with them than with, say, austrian catholics. I believe these people enrich my culture by adding theirs. I like the turkish stores, Döner Kebap is the best fast food ever created and life would be really boring if all of the beliefs and thoughts and tastes of the people living here were the same (and two people would really have a lot to do).

I've also known a few (young male) turks that say "Screw Germany! When I'm done graduating here for free, I'll return to my country and be a king there. Women will have to do my every bidding and I'll make lots of money with my good education so I can pay off the bimmer." Most of them are second or third generation immigrants and have a german passport BTW. Their german is better than their turkish and they don't know what it really is like in Turkey because they only ever go there on holidays. Yes, these people are idiots. Yes, I could well do without them in my country. But I also could do without a lot of "native" germans. And you have to understand why these people are like they are if you want to talk about this issue. And keep in mind that they are a minority among their ethnic minority and most of the immigrants behave as well as most of the "natives". So, why are these Angry Young Turks from my example the way they are? They feel inferior because their families are poor by german standards. Their families are also not very well integrated into our society because when they were brought here (by us), they weren't given the opportunity to: They were settled in ghettos, they didn't really have to learn german, etc. Of course they made few german friends when there were so many other turks right next door without the language and culture barrier. Their views didn't change much from the time they came here. So today's young turks (legally germans) are children of poorly educated lower-class people who were disconnected from their homeland, so didn't live through any advances society has made there since the sixties, but also weren't integrated into their new homeland and thus didn't assimilate our views much. Of course their sons feel not at home here and dream how great it would be in Turkey. Most would not really like living there any better than here, because in the big cities Turkey is a very modern country, and who wants to live in a poor rural region? As they grow older and become adults, the temper of many of these Angry Young Turks will cool down, just like any other young man's. They will integrate more into our society than their parents did, not least because there is no language/education barrier anymore.

Please keep in mind that this last long paragraph was about a troublesome minority and that the great majority of immigrants here are good citizens like you and I. And they don't deserve to be judged because of their origins. How would you like to be prejudiced (prejudged?) because of the worst examples your lower class has produced?

Phew, that was long. Did anybody actually read through this?

[az]

Edit: and to add to AZ: "intolerant people are the only ones that don't deserve tolerance" is rather wonderful circular logic That is as long as you are classed as intolerant if you are intolerant of one subset of the rest of the world, rather than it all.

Intolerance can mean bigotry, and it can mean the unwillingness to endure something (yeah, I got that from Merriam-Webster's). So please read my above sentence as: "Bigoted people are the only ones no one should need to endure." (Which is of course not quite true: Nobody should have to endure non-bigoted murderers, rapists, etc., but you get the point)

[agallag]

kvh chooses not to conform. his non conformance is being deemed detrimental to the society at large because it detracts from other members ability to enjoy their participation therein.

There's a big difference between non-confomance and bigotry. None of us are truely conforming, we all bring our own differences to the party. Those of us who don't accept those differences are the problem.

what is an appropriate mechanism for the great multicultural society to deal with kvh?

Since this is more of a dictatorship than a society (not that there's anything wrong with that ), it's really up to Sasq how he's dealt with. I would fully support anything Sasq chooses to do about the situation.

if sasq's promise to ban kvh for not conforming is appropriate then how is kvh's desire to forcibly evict "troublesome immigrants" from american society not appropriate?

KvH's plan is not to evict the troublesome immigrants, it's to evict all of the immigrants. What happened to "innocent until proven guilty"?

let us think on that shall we...

(flame on... oh dear!)

Definitely some good points to think about, but I think it's more clear cut than your analogy would imply.

[schmosef]

ok, let's clarify this point...

KvH, in your opinion, are all immigrants bad? Should all immigrants be deported?

[az]

Schmo, KvH is bigoted, but not stupid (yeah, almost an oxymoron). Of course he will say this is not so, because there are one or two that are OK. The point is, for him they're, as agallag has pointed out, guilty until proven innocent.

[schmosef]

Doesn't he deserve the same presumption of innocence that an immigrant would?

Let him speak his mind. He claims to be one of the only ones with the guts to do so. We'll see what he really thinks.