Jennacide said:
Snip Part Here
TheLogicalGamer said:
As usual, Fox is ignoring the fact that this country was built around a single concept: Tolerance. I mean originally it was tolerance of other Christian denominations, but still! Our entire constitution, which the lovely people at Fox love to "defend", was designed to ensure that the government was obliged to leave people alone as long as what they were doing didn't harm someone else!
Let's be honest with ourselves, the US was not built on tolerance, it was built on the illusion of tolerance. The puritans came to this country because they were being oppressed, and instantly went to oppressing the native Americans. And then the blacks. And then the Mexicans. The same country where it was
illegal for a white person to marry anyone that wasn't white until 1967. That's right, 102 years after the end of slavery, blacks were finally allowed to marry whites.
The US has never been about tolerance, as much as that pains me. So I will fight for LGBT rights, but the pessimist in me doesn't expect real change until after I'm long dead.
I take a slightly different view of US History. I see it less as just a long series of hypocrisy against our supposed principles, and more as a long series of attempts to actually follow those principles despite conflicting beliefs.
Yes, the United States does tend towards hypocrisy when it comes to our central principle. Yes, our history is one long string of oppressing races, religions, women in general, and non-heterosexuality. But you missed one thing, we still TRY to do better once we realize that we have been wrong.
You are right. We have never been a Tolerant Nation, but we have never stopped TRYING to become one. Even if the changes have been slow, even if we haven't ever quite lived up to our potential, we still haven't stopped TRYING to become a nation of Tolerance.
For example, Black People. Most of their ancestors were slaves, back when we were still a slave holding society. That was wrong, I can't even pretend that wasn't wrong. I can't make excuses for the actions of my ancestors, and their logic was of the Insane Troll variety.
But more recent ancestors saw that they, and my earlier ancestors, were wrong. Slavery was ended. Then we started legally and culturally dehumanizing and discriminating against Blacks, and made them into second-class citizens. That was wrong, just as much as slavery was. But it wasn't entirely a legal thing, it was also cultural.
But later ancestors saw that they weren't in the right, and the laws that discriminated against Blacks were repealed, and new laws punishing discriminating based on race were put on the books. Many people started defending blacks against those who still discriminated against them, and eventually the cultural elements were extinguished as well.
It took centuries, yes, but in the end we did become tolerant of blacks, and in most of the country we have become downright accepting of them. There are still some pockets of racism, of discrimination, but they are few and far between. Give things another generation or two, and racism will just be a word in textbooks.
Lets take a more recent example, that still isn't quite finished, LGBT Sexuality. Used to be that it was a crime, that you would be put in the nuthouse, prison, or even stoned to death if you were outed as a lesbian, gay, or bisexual.
So how is that problem being dealt with? Same way the cultural opression of blacks was dealt with. Activism to change existing laws, and make Gay Marriage legal. As for the cultural opression of the LGBT community, well look at my general reactions. I'm straight, and I still rise to their defense because I believe in the concept of Tolerance (and science as well). Other people do the same thing I do, and slowly we are making it less viable to go after people who are gay.
So to sum this up, you are right. We are not a Tolerant nation, and we never have been, but that doesn't mean we can't BECOME one. I'm an Idealist still, I see the progress we have made, and the way we have left to go. I can't see a single group that we are still intolerant of that we aren't making an effort to BECOME tolerant of.. except maybe Mexicans but that is a whole other can of worms that I don't want to open. You may be right, that real change won't come in your lifetime. But this isn't exactly a losing battle from where I stand, and its a battle worth fighting.
