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Centurion_VarDin
Lieutenant
Joined: 02 Apr 2005, 01:00
Posts: 373
Location: Ch'Rihann, Romulus system
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Never dispatch your entire armada into a single battle, never decloak the entire fleet before assaulting and never have all your ships attack and move simultaneously.
-Global Military Directive
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Jarok
Ensign
Joined: 30 Jan 2005, 01:00
Posts: 165
Location: Lincoln, NE
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"The truth is, Colonel; You cannot judge a race. Any man who judges by the group is a pee-wit. You take men one at a time."
-Sgt. Kilrain, to Colonel Chamberlain in 'The Killer Angels' as adapted in the movie 'Gettysburg', on racism.
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I have a tough time reading all of this thread from a bunch of Star Trek fans! Let's see a little shameless idealism here! 8O If you are all right, then I'm just as racist as the next person, and sexist and religiously intolerant. But I'll be damned if I let that dictate how I behave to others. Whatever happened to 'Live and let live'?!
The natural inclination to fear what we don't understand has indeed served us well during our evolution. The antidote? Knowledge. Education. Openness. Sure, it all sounds warm and fuzzy, but aren't we less afraid of most things we understand better. Okay, spiders is a bad example. let's use sharks. You'd think that everyone who enters the ocean can expect to be fish food, after what the media and entertainment have done to inflate the dangers. My advice: get into the water, thus staying away from coconut trees. More people are killed per year by falling coconuts than by sharks! The more we learn about them, the better we understand situations that are actually dangerous and discriminate from situations/conditions that aren't. Cannot the same be done in studying other civilizations?
If multiculturalism can't work, then what do you suggest? Do you have a better idea? (that doesn't involve walled and fortified compounds for anyone of a different culture....this isn't 2024, yet [or 1941 in the U.S. for that matter]).
People need to:
1) understand their culture
2) understand the beliefs of others
3) not freak out when they see other beliefs demonstrated. It is okay too see a non-Christmas holiday display, or to see a Nativity scene on a street corner. I promise, it really doesn't threaten you.
4) stop insisting that everyone do what you do.
5) know where you are going/living, and respect local customs and laws. Respect where you are travelling, not just where you come from.
-and finally-
6) If it doesn't threaten you or someone close to you, it probably isn't your problem, nor is it your right to interfere.
Of course this won't happen. It really shouldn't be that hard, but there are always people who take things too far. We, however, have to be better than that, and teach our children better than that. Maybe we can't really do better in our lifetimes, but at least give the next generation a chance to make it better by not saddling them with our racial baggage.
Two final thoughts: First, genetically, there can be more genetic variance between two white people who are neighbors in a small town than there is between one of the white people and a black person in Ethiopia. The external traits of "race" are so genetically superficial that I doubt I will ever by the 'genetically racist' argument.
Second, I quote good ol' Star Trek:
"Fear is the true enemy. The only enemy".
-William T. Riker to the Tkon portal guardian.
("The Last Outpost" - TNG)
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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Jean-Luc Picard, quoting judge Aaron Satie
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