7 ms·

You seem surprised that the U.S. supports nations with Western values, particularly against people that want to destroy Western nations.

by 762236 3y ago

Georgelemental 3y ago
> Western values Like killing women sheltering inside churches? https://www.timesofisrael.com/christian-mother-daughter-killed-while-sheltering-in-gaza-church-patriarch-says/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/christian-mother-daughter-kill...
- xk_id 3y ago
  Reducing the entire intellectual history of the european enlightenment to the actions of one IDF soldier. Yeah that makes sense.
  - Georgelemental 3y ago
    I suppose I should have added an /s… my point was, the actions of IDF soldiers are contrary to the "intellectual history of the european enlightenment".
  - goodSteveramos 3y ago
    Did the IDF punish that soldier they same way they would have punished a Palestinian doing the same thing to Jews? If not, then it wasn’t just the action of one soldier it was a policy of the Israeli government.
runarberg 3y ago
Western values is a dog whistle commonly used to mean non-white. Israel shares a lot of values with Apartheid South Africa or (to a lesser extent) pre civil rights USA. It does not offer equal status to all its subjects, it maintains a prolonged occupation, it is highly militaristic (more so then 1950s USA), etc. If you think apartheid South Africa had more western values then modern day South Africa, then I get your point. The point being that the country must have a white ruling class.
- 762236 3y ago
  It seems that you agree that Western values are important, so you couldn't attack that part of the argument, and instead had to twist my speech into something that I never said, so that you could then attack what I never said. You have no credibility.
  - runarberg 3y ago
    Question: Why do you call then western values? What is so western about these values you are referring to? When I google ”western values” I get Wikipedia pages for “History of Western Civilization” and “Western Culture” neither of which should qualify Israel as warranting support from the USA (and if they did, it would be a pretty racist thing to do). My first result which actually includes the term is a dumb article by an explicit Islamophobe[1]. There is a Wikipedia page titled “Western Values (West)”[2]. It is very short and very poorly written, and doesn’t actually explain what this means, just some vague notion of free market capitalism and liberal democracy. So I don’t get much information there either on why USA should support Israel. Now, I know what you mean when you say “Western Values”, but this is HN and we are supposed to assume good faith, so I’m gonna assume you mean liberal democracy and universal human rights (these are actually universal values as specified in the *Universal Declaration of Human Rights signed by all nations; not only Western nations, but lets ignore that). Then the USA really shouldn’t be supporting a state which practices apartheid, keeps a large population under occupation, strips away their democratic rights, commits war crimes, potentially a genocide, etc. In fact if USA supported what you call Western Values, they should help liberate the people of Palestine, just like how they (eventually) helped liberate the people from the subjugation of Apartheid South Africa. IF we were still in the 19th Century your speech would make much more sense. In the 19th century, Europe had a full on colonial enterprise, fueled by racist believes of white supremacy, brutalizing and genociding whole nations for profit and own sense of superiority. This was justified by referring to something similarly vague as Western Values, and does indeed fit Israel’s present day conduct. However, the USA today does not endorse white supremacy, nor colonialism. And should therefor not support nations which engage in this outdated concept of “Western Values”. All that said, when people usually say this term, it is a racist dog whistle. There was a pretty nice mr. Beat video about that recently[3]. 1: https://westminster-institute.org/articles/the-superiority-of-western-values-in-eight-minutes/ https://westminster-institute.org/articles/the-superiority-o... 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_values_(West) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_values_(West) 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DUT4aCkeRA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DUT4aCkeRA

You seem surprised that the U.S. supports nations with Western values, particularly against people that want to destroy Western nations.

by 762236 3y ago

You seem surprised that the U.S. supports nations with Western values, particularly against people that want to destroy Western nations.

Georgelemental 3y ago

> Western values Like killing women sheltering inside churches? https://www.timesofisrael.com/christian-mother-daughter-killed-while-sheltering-in-gaza-church-patriarch-says/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/christian-mother-daughter-kill...

xk_id 3y ago
Reducing the entire intellectual history of the european enlightenment to the actions of one IDF soldier. Yeah that makes sense.
- Georgelemental 3y ago
  I suppose I should have added an /s… my point was, the actions of IDF soldiers are contrary to the "intellectual history of the european enlightenment".
- goodSteveramos 3y ago
  Did the IDF punish that soldier they same way they would have punished a Palestinian doing the same thing to Jews? If not, then it wasn’t just the action of one soldier it was a policy of the Israeli government.

runarberg 3y ago

Western values is a dog whistle commonly used to mean non-white. Israel shares a lot of values with Apartheid South Africa or (to a lesser extent) pre civil rights USA. It does not offer equal status to all its subjects, it maintains a prolonged occupation, it is highly militaristic (more so then 1950s USA), etc. If you think apartheid South Africa had more western values then modern day South Africa, then I get your point. The point being that the country must have a white ruling class.

762236 3y ago
It seems that you agree that Western values are important, so you couldn't attack that part of the argument, and instead had to twist my speech into something that I never said, so that you could then attack what I never said. You have no credibility.
- runarberg 3y ago
  Question: Why do you call then western values? What is so western about these values you are referring to? When I google ”western values” I get Wikipedia pages for “History of Western Civilization” and “Western Culture” neither of which should qualify Israel as warranting support from the USA (and if they did, it would be a pretty racist thing to do). My first result which actually includes the term is a dumb article by an explicit Islamophobe[1]. There is a Wikipedia page titled “Western Values (West)”[2]. It is very short and very poorly written, and doesn’t actually explain what this means, just some vague notion of free market capitalism and liberal democracy. So I don’t get much information there either on why USA should support Israel. Now, I know what you mean when you say “Western Values”, but this is HN and we are supposed to assume good faith, so I’m gonna assume you mean liberal democracy and universal human rights (these are actually universal values as specified in the *Universal Declaration of Human Rights signed by all nations; not only Western nations, but lets ignore that). Then the USA really shouldn’t be supporting a state which practices apartheid, keeps a large population under occupation, strips away their democratic rights, commits war crimes, potentially a genocide, etc. In fact if USA supported what you call Western Values, they should help liberate the people of Palestine, just like how they (eventually) helped liberate the people from the subjugation of Apartheid South Africa. IF we were still in the 19th Century your speech would make much more sense. In the 19th century, Europe had a full on colonial enterprise, fueled by racist believes of white supremacy, brutalizing and genociding whole nations for profit and own sense of superiority. This was justified by referring to something similarly vague as Western Values, and does indeed fit Israel’s present day conduct. However, the USA today does not endorse white supremacy, nor colonialism. And should therefor not support nations which engage in this outdated concept of “Western Values”. All that said, when people usually say this term, it is a racist dog whistle. There was a pretty nice mr. Beat video about that recently[3]. 1: https://westminster-institute.org/articles/the-superiority-of-western-values-in-eight-minutes/ https://westminster-institute.org/articles/the-superiority-o... 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_values_(West) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_values_(West) 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DUT4aCkeRA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DUT4aCkeRA