Posted on 04/05/2023 10:05:00 AM PDT by marcusmaximus
But, I though Russia was a totalitarian nation with no religious freedom. Oops! I guess you just disproved another lie your ilk has been peddling.
Tell your Putin to cancel the Holy Lake mosque.==
“Your message is very important for us. Just hold your line and someone will get back to you.”))))
Yeah, and the Jewish autonomous oblast might have as many as 1500 Jews these days…==
So what? The number of Jewish people in the world about 20 mlns. But only 7 mlns lives in Israel. Does it mean that Israel is not important and can be abandoned?
SO same is for Jewish autonomy of Russia.
From your mouth to God’s ear.
I’m surprised Putin would allow this. I’ve read articles in the past about some denominations being legally banned, at the request of the Orthodox church.
“Russia has a cultural identity, unlike Western nations that have deliberately separated the state from religious and even their national cultural heritage.”
The US has less a cultural identity and more an ideological identity. Many nations and cultures have flocked to the US and for us to function as a nation the various groups have had to make English their major language, and combined the Judeo-Christian view along with the Western enlightment views to form a cohesive national identity. Part of the Civil War problem was a conflict between an English language, mostly Protestant, mostly agrarian, British Isles culture (the South), and a highly mixed population especially in the cities composed of many national groups and languages, trying to live by the cultural premises of the founding fathers and their idealistic national proclamations (the North).
THese 2 strains of cultural identity still experience conflict today, our urban multicultural coastal areas and the area of agriculture and smaller cities known as “fly-over country.” In addition, one problem felt with the large number of Latinos crossing our southern borders is created by the fact most of these people come from an already well developed cultural and linguistic tradition. It is easy for them to cluster in self-contained Spanish speaking communities without a strong motivation to integrate into the predominant English language based culture.
One country that has had to cope with the issue of many different languages and cultural traditions is India. For centuries England held these groups together with the English langage and railroads. In 1947 when the English government left, major conflict between the Muslim and Hindu populations erupted resulting in mass migration of Muslims north and formation of the 2 part country Pakistan and Bangladesh. While many Muslims still live in India, I suspect they are probably the less militant observers of Islam, and problems still erupt from time to time.
Regarding the Moscow mosque, you may recall that Muslims wanted to build a mosque next to the World Trade Center site after 9/11, as a memorial. It was not built.
I agree with everything except one point you make at the end: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park51
It was built. They simply “rebranded” it, let some time pass (as things became forgotten), and then built it after all.
Regards the Latino immigration, I would add that they are a complex issue because they have both very traditional family and religious values, yet come from very politically socialist minded societies (All of Latin America is socialist). All that aside, the Latino is basically a Euro culture (Spaniard, French, Portuguese and UK) with a ***little*** native flavor. Especially among their elites and highly educated, you’re basically dealing with someone that is almost indistinguishable from a Spaniard, albeit that is not something they would like to be told. They are Catholic, speak Spanish, love soccer, the whole 9 yards. Their value system is very compatible with the US, i.e. there are no issues which would cause an ideological strife, as is the case with Islam. Islam is inherently incompatible with anything other than itself.
What follows is not in disagreement with your points which I agree with. Rather see it as just another argument that exists in parallel to yours.
As to the US. We were unique. The entire US Constitution was written with the intent of limiting powers of the federal government and empowering the individual. There was and I would argue still is nothing like that. The US is rapidly becoming a Euro style social democracy, created by a run-away government bureaucracy which is circumventing every basic right explicitly stated within the US Constitution (All ten of the first Amendments have been usurped). Even though America is a Euro based culture, most our ancestors came from there, we speak English, are Christian or have those values (mostly), you will not find this idea of limited government, empowerment of the individual and these things being unalienable rights in Europe. These are all countries where the people have been and are subjects of the state. In fact, in Germany you will even hear things like the state having a monopoly on the use of force (Gewaltmonopol des Staates - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence). What really set us apart from the Euro’s was this individualism, the idea of freedom and liberty, that government is limited in powers. That is sadly dying today, but historically that was unique about us and it was a common theme, an idea which most Americans could agree on.
IMHO, the cultural balance of power was largely flipped as a result of our own success. The pre-WWII immigrant came to the US for very different reasons than the post WWII immigrant.
Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutheran_Church%E2%80%93Missouri_Synod The origins of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod are from Protestant European nations (Germany, Norway, etc). They came to the US because in Europe the church was essentially being told what to say in their service, how to interpret certain things (which of course benefited those in power), they we being told what groups they had to be adjoined with, etc., so the left Germany can came to the US. These were not people attracted by the wealth, but rather freedom. If you look at the art (art is telling about values) in America’s past, it was all about certain values, to include that concept of freedom / liberty. It was in literature, architecture, paintings, music, early movies... This idea of “freedom” was a reoccurring, universally accepted, and lasting idea.
Post WWII most of the immigration we have had, may it be from Europe, the South, or Asia, are from folks looking for economic opportunity. They want a big house, expensive car, and a pool. These people do not care about the philosophical basis of this nation. Post WWII, for the last 70 years, the US has been flooded with people who do not care about the US Constitution and some idiot bureaucrat coming up with a citizenship test that asks a few questions isn’t going to change that. Exactly those freedoms which made this country prosper as it did, are not embraced by the majority of post WWII immigrants who still hold onto the values of where they came from and talk highly about gun-control back in the UK, Germany or France. They talk with admiration about a socialized heal care system, “free” colleges back where they came from, etc. They are here because in India an MD (not specialized) does not make an average of $160,000 a year. The psychographics have been changing and we reached a tipping point already years ago.
Why does this psychographic shift matter?
***I would argue that the true common denominator of what is “American” and also what made us historically unique is the idea of freedom and liberty which coincides with limited government.***
Yes, we are all different, and I might be Protestant and of German heritage, while you may be Catholic and of English heritage, but we can both agree that we should not tell each other what to do and respect each others property (in the old paradigm).
Today, if you were to take an FBI agent, sworn in to defend the US Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic, and ask him about the Bill of Rights, even if in general terms, he would not be able to tell you what half of the first ten Amendments state. If you look at our art (movies, music, dance, literature, sculpture, architecture and paintings), what are the themes? What is it about? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58792829 or https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/25-foot-tall-sculpture-debuts-new-york-citys-rockefeller-center-180977692/ Pseudo intellectual trash - pop culture themes - nothing but LGBTQIA, racism, racism, racism. Just Google “modern art” and view the images and if you find anything which has a message at all, it’ll be something with shock effect.
We are long past the point where those US unique values of freedom and liberty are still a universal and important idea in this society - they are no longer mentioned unless it’s a politician using it as a cheap punchline to sell a war somewhere, like in the Ukraine today. We today are defined by commercial mass produced junk which really isn’t art at all (will not stand the test of time - like most music and movies today). Everything is made for a global marketplace, but nothing really stands out as a spectacular masterpiece which speaks to people and has a lasting impact (valueless mass entertainment of low quality - ex. most of Netflix).
In this modern globalist, mass produced and commercialized society which is both hedonistic and nihilistic at a macro level, ideas such as freedom (do as you will) and liberty (no arbitrary restraints) are something with which most people do not even connect anymore. Do you think there might be a reason why today, in the US, you can by government decree order all the churches to close their doors, and people go along with this (Covid nonsense)? Close the public beeches, order private businesses to close their doors, mandating a vaccine (that someone shove an experimental drug into their body under threat of losing their job)? Do you think warrantless searches like with the TSA at an airport would have been possible in 1950? How would people have reacted in 1970 had it been revealed that the federal government is conducting mass surveillance and you had provided them proof of this?
The American experience in freedom and liberty is dead. What remains, for the time being, is that you can have a big house, big car and a pool.
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