What are the chances of these posters returning?

[Torie]

What is JewCon's new screen name? Is his spelling, grammar and general writing ability better under his new screen name?  Ya, I know, I tend to  intolerant of a literacy level that falls short of my little standards. 

[Torie]

I like StatesRights. He tried so hard not to be an Arab. I admire such self-loathing in a man.

That statement does not make much sense. Does being or Arab ancestry imply such imperative as to a certain politics, as to which if you don't subscribe, you are self loathing?  Are you as hard on yourself, as you are on others?  Just curious.

[Torie]

I like StatesRights. He tried so hard not to be an Arab. I admire such self-loathing in a man.

That statement does not make much sense. Does being or Arab ancestry imply such imperative as to a certain politics, as to which if you don't subscribe, you are self loathing?  Are you as hard on yourself, as you are on others?  Just curious.

It makes sense when the Arab in question intentionally adopts a certain persona to distract from the concrete facts of his descent.

I am still confused as to why his descent is any more relevant as  to what he posts than a warm cup of spit. It sounds almost like a "blood libel" (I use that term since you seem to be implying that Arabs are children of the damned as a genetic matter).

[Torie]

I totally reject that point of view Einzige, and it is odd that your as a individualist and libertarian (of a rather odd sort but whatever), would subscribe to it. Sure we are influenced by our ancestry typically, and our tribe, and religion, etc., but we should be free to reject such influences, or refuse such influences, or decide that the culture of our environment has more salience than our ancestral culture on some matters, or perhaps be the issue of parents who have totally assimilated away from them, themselves, without being traduced for that. It just seems so totally anti-freedom to me. Heck as a WASP, I was raised to be suspicious of Catholics, and the Catholic religion, as something sinister. I as an adult rejected all of that, both intellectually, and more importantly, emotionally.

Being an individual, and making choices in life as an individual, and marching to your own drummer, is a core value to me, and one which I think I live by pretty well. I am surprised it is not for you, unless you are making some point so subtle and abstruse (which in your case is always a possibility), that I am just missing it.

[Torie]

A chap with Arab ancestry, as no "natural right' to adopt the culture of his local environment, that is different, in this case to use your term, a "Southern hick," assuming for the sake of argument that that characterization is true?  Sometimes I think you just allow whatever you have been reading lately that you find arresting, to become some universal imperative, that explains the planet, or constitutes some grand unified theory as to how "social morphology" works.

Your additional text seems to suggest, that if one is raised with extremist views, that will tend to cause one, to always be an extremist, even though that extremism might be something entirely different, with more comports with the local environment. That makes a bit more sense. We have seen left wing extremists become right wing ones, and the reverse. But that is not always true of course. I think of JS on this site as to that.

I know you are an intelligent guy, and it will be interesting to know what you think of what you think of your beliefs at the present time, a decade hence. You might find that matters are a bit more problematic than you think now.

[Torie]

Well with your latest post, E, I think we have reached closure on this, and can cease high-jacking this thread. Thanks for the discussion. It was interesting, to say the least. Best.