Should the UN be disbanded?

[RussSchultz]

Name one good thing that UK did for India....

Cricket?

 

[Tahir2]

Railway network?

 

[DemoCoder]

Again Im talking about individual incomes and not household incomes . The loss of individual income has not been debunked. Its in fact pretty dishonest to talk househould incomes when we know 70% of households in the early 70's were single income whereas now they are 80% dual incomes. I suppose its also an urban legend about individual credit card debt that went from 2600$ individual debt load in 1991 to 8500$ in 2000? And I keep hearing about factories functioning only at at 60-70% capacity...

The has been no loss in individual income. The only way to gage loss of individual income is to compare income between two time periods by adjusting for inflation rate. However, it is well known that the CPI overestimates inflation by about 1%. When you plug in the real rate of inflation, you find that individual incomes have not declined, or remained relatively the same.

Of course families have two workers now. #1, women have joined the workforce in droves after feminism succeeded. You expected all those women to stay home? #2 as I said, consumption has gone up massively. Faster than the dual income, and faster than productivity allows. I explained this in my last post, but you seem to ignore the fact.

Is the rise in credit card debt because people don't have any money to buy the things they used to buy, or is it because credit has become way more ubiquitous than in the 70s, that everyone now accepts credit, that it is actually easier to buy stuff than with cash, that interest rates are at a historic low, and that the bewildering array of new products and massive advertising is causing Americans everywhere to spend way more than they used to?

Is the increase is debt due to 0% APR everywhere, credit cards offered at your gas station, best buy, and clothing stores, or because individuals don't have as much money as they had in the 70s?

Finally, the European view of shortening the work week won't work here. If wages go up here, people will continue to work 40hrs a week, instead of working less to maintain the same income. On my current salary, I could work 3 months a year, but I don't.

 

[Snyder]

Name one good thing that UK did for India....

Cricket?

"The aqueduct?"

(Sorry, couldn't resist...)

Seriously, my opinion on that matter:
Although the colonization did have disastrous consequences which many colonies are still suffering of (and will be for quite some time), the colonized countries did get some "good things" of the mother state, one example being technology of all sorts.
I intentionally put the "good things" under quotation marks, because these (forced) influences are often for the worse...


Snyder

 

[DemoCoder]

The descendants of colonialism are better off than they would be if colonialism had never happened. I would like to illustrate this point through a personal example. While I was a young boy, growing up in India, I noticed that my grandfather, who had lived under British colonialism, was instinctively and habitually antiwhite. He wasn't just against the English; he was generally against white people. I realized that I did not share his antiwhite animus. That puzzled me: Why did he and I feel so differently?

Only years later, after a great deal of reflection and a fair amount of study, did the answer finally hit me. The reason for our difference of perception was that colonialism had been pretty bad for him, but pretty good for me. Another way to put it was that colonialism had injured those who lived under it, but paradoxically it proved beneficial to their descendants. Much as it chagrins me to admit it -- and much as it will outrage many third-world intellectuals for me to say it -- my life would have been much worse had the British never ruled India.

How is that possible? Virtually everything that I am, what I do, and my deepest beliefs, all are the product of a worldview that was brought to India by colonialism. I am a writer, and I write in English. My ability to do this, and to reach a broad market, is entirely thanks to the British. My understanding of technology, which allows me, like so many Indians, to function successfully in the modern world, was largely the product of a Western education that came to India as a result of the British. So also my beliefs in freedom of expression, in self-government, in equality of rights under the law, and in the universal principle of human dignity -- they are all the products of Western civilization.

I am not suggesting that it was the intention of the colonialists to give all those wonderful gifts to the Indians. Colonialism was not based on philanthropy; it was a form of conquest and rule. The British came to India to govern, and they were not primarily interested in the development of the natives, whom they viewed as picturesque savages. It is impossible to measure, or overlook, the pain and humiliation that the British inflicted during their long period of occupation. Understandably, the Indians chafed under that yoke. Toward the end of the British reign in India, Mahatma Gandhi was asked, "What do you think of Western civilization?" He replied, "I think it would be a good idea."

Despite their suspect motives and bad behavior, however, the British needed a certain amount of infrastructure to effectively govern India. So they built roads, shipping docks, railway tracks, irrigation systems, and government buildings. Then they realized that they needed courts of law to adjudicate disputes that went beyond local systems of dispensing justice. And so the British legal system was introduced, with all its procedural novelties, like "innocent until proven guilty." The British also had to educate the Indians, in order to communicate with them and to train them to be civil servants in the empire. Thus Indian children were exposed to Shakespeare, Dickens, Hobbes, and Locke. In that way the Indians began to encounter words and ideas that were unmentioned in their ancestral culture: "liberty," "sovereignty," "rights," and so on.

That brings me to the greatest benefit that the British provided to the Indians: They taught them the language of freedom. Once again, it was not the objective of the colonial rulers to encourage rebellion. But by exposing Indians to the ideas of the West, they did. The Indian leaders were the product of Western civilization. Gandhi studied in England and South Africa; Nehru was a product of Harrow and Cambridge. That exposure was not entirely to the good; Nehru, for example, who became India's first prime minister after independence, was highly influenced by Fabian socialism through the teachings of Harold Laski. The result was that India had a mismanaged socialist economy for a generation. But my broader point is that the champions of Indian independence acquired the principles, the language, and even the strategies of liberation from the civilization of their oppressors. This was true not just of India but also of other Asian and African countries that broke free of the European yoke.

My conclusion is that against their intentions, the colonialists brought things to India that have immeasurably enriched the lives of the descendants of colonialism. It is doubtful that non-Western countries would have acquired those good things by themselves. It was the British who, applying a universal notion of human rights, in the early 19th century abolished the ancient Indian institution of suttee -- the custom of tossing widows on their husbands' funeral pyres. There is no reason to believe that the Indians, who had practiced suttee for centuries, would have reached such a conclusion on their own. Imagine an African or Indian king encountering the works of Locke or Madison and saying, "You know, I think those fellows have a good point. I should relinquish my power and let my people decide whether they want me or someone else to rule." Somehow, I don't see that as likely.

Colonialism was the transmission belt that brought to Asia, Africa, and South America the blessings of Western civilization. Many of those cultures continue to have serious problems of tyranny, tribal and religious conflict, poverty, and underdevelopment, but that is not due to an excess of Western influence; rather, it is due to the fact that those countries are insufficiently Westernized. Sub-Saharan Africa, which is probably in the worst position, has been described by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan as "a cocktail of disasters." That is not because colonialism in Africa lasted so long, but because it lasted a mere half-century. It was too short a time to permit Western institutions to take firm root. Consequently, after their independence, most African nations have retreated into a kind of tribal barbarism that can be remedied only with more Western influence, not less. Africa needs more Western capital, more technology, more rule of law, and more individual freedom.

The academy needs to shed its irrational prejudice against colonialism. By providing a more balanced perspective, scholars can help to show the foolishness of policies like reparations as well as justifications of terrorism that are based on anticolonial myths. None of this is to say that colonialism by itself was a good thing, only that bad institutions sometimes produce good results. Colonialism, I freely acknowledge, was a harsh regime for those who lived under it. My grandfather would have a hard time giving even one cheer for colonialism. As for me, I cannot manage three, but I am quite willing to grant two. So here they are: two cheers for colonialism! Maybe you will now see why I am not going to be sending an invoice for reparations to Tony Blair.

Dinesh D'Souza is a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and the author, most recently, of What's So Great About America, to be published this month by Regnery.

Read more http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i35/35b00701.htm

 

[pax]

Inflation rate is usually adjusted year end or not long after the original predictions or current numbers come out... Statscan had a good set of numbers on the last 30 years for canada but you cant find squat anymore on their site. Linda McQuaig had a good look at them and mentions it in her book "The cult of Impotence" before they were pulled and NEVER returned to the web site. They tell a scary story...

If the numbers had been corrected and put back it would have been interesting to see but to not put anythign back and to not see any third party study on inflation by any think tank to answer this long used accusation Id wonder if you had a link to that debunking...

I cant see us returning to 70% of households with single income earners tho... It would create an instant depression...

Id also like to know what would happen to the economy if cc debt had risen only to the rate of wage inflation in the 90's... We are obviously buying a lot more than we did 30 years ago or even 10-20 but what would happen to the economy if that cosumption were to be removed in anyway?

A lot of leftists think Im a right winger in disguise because of my pro comsumption stance. Many hold the environmental issues higher than economic (and in some cases they are right to be worried) but I only see the environment as moslty a managerial issue and not a consumption one.

Transfer to shorter work week would ony be one measure id see to correct the problem. It would have to be voluntary. I think a lot of people on shifts would take it if for ex you get half a days pay for not working that fifth day. I think I would for family related issues and quality of life.

 

[Deepak]

The descendants of colonialism are better off than they would be if colonialism had never happened. I would like to illustrate this point through a personal example. While I was a young boy, growing up in India, I noticed that my grandfather, who had lived under British colonialism, was instinctively and habitually antiwhite. He wasn't just against the English; he was generally against white people. I realized that I did not share his antiwhite animus. That puzzled me: Why did he and I feel so differently?

Only years later, after a great deal of reflection and a fair amount of study, did the answer finally hit me. The reason for our difference of perception was that colonialism had been pretty bad for him, but pretty good for me. Another way to put it was that colonialism had injured those who lived under it, but paradoxically it proved beneficial to their descendants. Much as it chagrins me to admit it -- and much as it will outrage many third-world intellectuals for me to say it -- my life would have been much worse had the British never ruled India.

How is that possible? Virtually everything that I am, what I do, and my deepest beliefs, all are the product of a worldview that was brought to India by colonialism. I am a writer, and I write in English. My ability to do this, and to reach a broad market, is entirely thanks to the British. My understanding of technology, which allows me, like so many Indians, to function successfully in the modern world, was largely the product of a Western education that came to India as a result of the British. So also my beliefs in freedom of expression, in self-government, in equality of rights under the law, and in the universal principle of human dignity -- they are all the products of Western civilization.

I am not suggesting that it was the intention of the colonialists to give all those wonderful gifts to the Indians. Colonialism was not based on philanthropy; it was a form of conquest and rule. The British came to India to govern, and they were not primarily interested in the development of the natives, whom they viewed as picturesque savages. It is impossible to measure, or overlook, the pain and humiliation that the British inflicted during their long period of occupation. Understandably, the Indians chafed under that yoke. Toward the end of the British reign in India, Mahatma Gandhi was asked, "What do you think of Western civilization?" He replied, "I think it would be a good idea."

Despite their suspect motives and bad behavior, however, the British needed a certain amount of infrastructure to effectively govern India. So they built roads, shipping docks, railway tracks, irrigation systems, and government buildings. Then they realized that they needed courts of law to adjudicate disputes that went beyond local systems of dispensing justice. And so the British legal system was introduced, with all its procedural novelties, like "innocent until proven guilty." The British also had to educate the Indians, in order to communicate with them and to train them to be civil servants in the empire. Thus Indian children were exposed to Shakespeare, Dickens, Hobbes, and Locke. In that way the Indians began to encounter words and ideas that were unmentioned in their ancestral culture: "liberty," "sovereignty," "rights," and so on.

That brings me to the greatest benefit that the British provided to the Indians: They taught them the language of freedom. Once again, it was not the objective of the colonial rulers to encourage rebellion. But by exposing Indians to the ideas of the West, they did. The Indian leaders were the product of Western civilization. Gandhi studied in England and South Africa; Nehru was a product of Harrow and Cambridge. That exposure was not entirely to the good; Nehru, for example, who became India's first prime minister after independence, was highly influenced by Fabian socialism through the teachings of Harold Laski. The result was that India had a mismanaged socialist economy for a generation. But my broader point is that the champions of Indian independence acquired the principles, the language, and even the strategies of liberation from the civilization of their oppressors. This was true not just of India but also of other Asian and African countries that broke free of the European yoke.

My conclusion is that against their intentions, the colonialists brought things to India that have immeasurably enriched the lives of the descendants of colonialism. It is doubtful that non-Western countries would have acquired those good things by themselves. It was the British who, applying a universal notion of human rights, in the early 19th century abolished the ancient Indian institution of suttee -- the custom of tossing widows on their husbands' funeral pyres. There is no reason to believe that the Indians, who had practiced suttee for centuries, would have reached such a conclusion on their own. Imagine an African or Indian king encountering the works of Locke or Madison and saying, "You know, I think those fellows have a good point. I should relinquish my power and let my people decide whether they want me or someone else to rule." Somehow, I don't see that as likely.

Colonialism was the transmission belt that brought to Asia, Africa, and South America the blessings of Western civilization. Many of those cultures continue to have serious problems of tyranny, tribal and religious conflict, poverty, and underdevelopment, but that is not due to an excess of Western influence; rather, it is due to the fact that those countries are insufficiently Westernized. Sub-Saharan Africa, which is probably in the worst position, has been described by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan as "a cocktail of disasters." That is not because colonialism in Africa lasted so long, but because it lasted a mere half-century. It was too short a time to permit Western institutions to take firm root. Consequently, after their independence, most African nations have retreated into a kind of tribal barbarism that can be remedied only with more Western influence, not less. Africa needs more Western capital, more technology, more rule of law, and more individual freedom.

The academy needs to shed its irrational prejudice against colonialism. By providing a more balanced perspective, scholars can help to show the foolishness of policies like reparations as well as justifications of terrorism that are based on anticolonial myths. None of this is to say that colonialism by itself was a good thing, only that bad institutions sometimes produce good results. Colonialism, I freely acknowledge, was a harsh regime for those who lived under it. My grandfather would have a hard time giving even one cheer for colonialism. As for me, I cannot manage three, but I am quite willing to grant two. So here they are: two cheers for colonialism! Maybe you will now see why I am not going to be sending an invoice for reparations to Tony Blair.

Dinesh D'Souza is a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and the author, most recently, of What's So Great About America, to be published this month by Regnery.

Read more http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i35/35b00701.htm

This article is BS....It seems that the author doesnt seem to remember the humiliation/savagery/genoside (remember Jaliawala Bagh massacre in Punjab ) Indians suffered under UK occupation.....if you count how many were butchered by them Hitler would look like a saint.., Author remembers only selective things...he should be ashamed for that article,

All I want to know how many Indians benefitted from British occupation...

British did no GOOD thing for India....if they created railway network, it was for THEMSELVES...to strengthen their Empire....

 

[DemoCoder]

Did you even read the article? He didn't say the British built anything for the benefit of the Indians. But they benefited anyway.

 

[RussSchultz]

British did no GOOD thing for India....if they created railway network, it was for THEMSELVES...to strengthen their Empire....

One could argue that nobody does anything for anybody else without selfish motivations. (Even if its only the desire to "feel good" about doing something good.)

 

[Sxotty]

I don't think you could ever convince someone that a colonial power did something good for them, because it is popular now to be angry and blame everything on someone else.

The british occupation ended long ago so I see little point in debating it anyway.

 

[Tahir2]

I think humans are capable of selfless acts... animals too.

 

[nutball]

I think humans are capable of selfless acts... animals too.

You should have a chat with Richard Dawkins! Problem is selflessness is generally judged on a superficial level. A deeper inspection often reveals selfish motives.

 

[Sxotty]

According to most anthropologists who say selflisness doesn't exist, people do selfless acts so they can pass on their genes. But I guess being a priest (if they don't have sex that is) ruins their little theory.

I think people who say there is no such thing as selflessness just want to make themselves feel better about their contributions to society .

 

[nutball]

Ummm... I don't think the Catholic church is a good example to bring in!

Anyway, as an non-religious individual I regard priests as belonging to a political institution. They have a message which they want to spread, and that is their motive for their actions. If they weren't selling something, I might agree that their actions are selfless. But IMO they are selling something. In their case it's not directly genetic, but it's the same motives fundamentally.

 

[Tahir2]

Protecting your child from a burning house and dying in the act is selfless to me. Protecting someone elses child from a burning house is again, selflessness.

Maybe you think you are only protecting the genes .... but man the term gene's nowadays seems to define the very nature of everything that is humanity and I think that is wrong. There is more to humans than a few billion A's T's G's and C's...

Other than that there are selfless acts that other people would consider selfish. I mean Mother Teresa and many of her ilk were selfless no? Many unsung hero's in situations that can make humans shine happen all the time. To say they are all selfish when 'analysed' only tells me the analyst is probably a moron who probably would not be able to put their life in jeopardy if they ever saw a kid drowning in a freezing river and decided to do the least possibly (call 911, 999, 112) or decide to jump in and try their darndest to save a life.

There are probably much lesser selfish and selfless acts too happening all around.... who cares what the 'analyst' says... its the moment that counts and sometimes actions speak louder than any words (written by these stupid analyst who tell us we are all just genes and protecting Alpha's and its all preprogrammed and we got no bloody freewill and we dont do any selfless acts - we just promote our own ego's make ourselves feel good and hope to get some recognition for our deeds... I say 'bleuch' and fart in their general direction an act of selflessness on my part ).

Me mad now.... argghhh.... grrrrrrrr

 

[nutball]

Protecting your child from a burning house and dying in the act is selfless to me.

Well there's genetic self-interest there.

Protecting someone elses child from a burning house is again, selflessness.

...and social self-interest there.

Maybe you think you are only protecting the genes .... but man the term gene's nowadays seems to define the very nature of everything that is humanity and I think that is wrong. There is more to humans than a few billion A's T's G's and C's...

That is a matter for debate!

Other than that there are selfless acts that other people would consider selfish. I mean Mother Teresa and many of her ilk were selfless no?

Well I just expressed my opinion on the motives of the agents of religion. In my personal opinion, there are angles you can take on the acts of Mother Teresa which would not paint her as selfless.

Many unsung hero's in situations that can make humans shine happen all the time. To say they are all selfish when 'analysed' only tells me the analyst is probably a moron who probably would not be able to put their life in jeopardy if they ever saw a kid drowning in a freezing river and decided to do the least possibly (call 911, 999, 112) or decide to jump in and try their darndest to save a life.

Answer this: why do human beings gather together to form social groups?

There are probably much lesser selfish and selfless acts too happening all around.... who cares what the 'analyst' says... its the moment that counts and sometimes actions speak louder than any words (written by these stupid analyst who tell us we are all just genes and protecting Alpha's and its all preprogrammed and we got no bloody freewill and we dont do any selfless acts - we just promote our own ego's make ourselves feel good and hope to get some recognition for our deeds... I say 'bleuch' and fart in their general direction an act of selflessness on my part ).

Me mad now.... argghhh.... grrrrrrrr

Well, as I said above, my personal view is that selflessness/selfishness of acts are often judged on a superficial level.

 

[Tahir2]

I just realised that there is no such thing as nothingness so how can there be selflessness....

I feel enlightened.

 

[nutball]

I just realised that there is no such thing as nothingness so how can there be selflessness....

I feel enlightened.

I'll take that as an agreement to disagree.

 

[Tahir2]

It's deeper than that but I can't find the words.

Like I said it is easy to say genetic interest.. easy to say social interest but the world has a strong hold on us and dying is hard.

To me I feel there is more than just simple rules and simple explanations never tell the whole story. It is hard to die. I think. I don't know is the best way to answer you - if you are looking for any kind of response then that is it 'I don't know.'

 

[Legion]

UN membership should be means tested. No dictatorships allowed. Must not only ratify human rights conventions, but must adhere to them within the laws of their own country.

No more thugocracies getting to vote in the UN. Why give someone the right to vote in the general assembly or UNSC if they don't give their own people the right to vote?

But that wouldn't be fair to Stalin and his lifetime membership!

What you are essentially saying is these totalitarian states render the UNic impotent and morally inaffective....sounds kind of like useless to me .