Should people feel shame for the deeds of their ancestors?

[KLB]

Through they're long dead, yeah, they should've felt guilty owning slaves; that goes for anybody who owned slaves.

Does that extend to anyone that had relatives that sold slaves?

 

[Kutnupe14]

Does that extend to anyone that had relatives that sold slaves?

Guilty, as if they need to atone for something they had no hand in? No. Just recognizing that you some rich douchers in your (speaking generally) family should be embarrassment enough.

 

[rhino]

Why should it? BoR said:

I can be proud of my country and those who created it without taking credit for their actions.
I can be saddened by the actions of some who preceded me without accepting blame for their misdeeds.
I am not due a plug nickle for the good deeds that created this country, and
I owe not one red cent for the fact that some men, long dead, owned slaves, even if they mistreated them.
​

The kind of pride he is speaking of is a sense of admiration for the good work of others. He is admitting no self involvement. The opposite feeling he gets for their misdeeds he reports as sadness. Sadness is an appropriate feeling for that, and sadness is not shame. Shame is not a necessary emotion when one recognizes the wrongdoing in other people. Shame is appropriate when one is guilty or responsible for some wrongdoing in oneself or others. It is misplaced when one has no responsibility at all.

This whole discussion is about the kind of shame that people wield as a weapon of conformance. The understanding of responsibility making the difference is a defense against people who use shame as a weapon. I've found that not much pisses "shamers" off more than refusing to feel ashamed for something I didn't do. It makes them powerless to shame me out of my personal liberty. That was made very clear to me when I refused to be ashamed for being a gun owner after Sandy Hook.

It deserved repeating.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

I think I remember a post you made on that some time ago. Something to the effect that they drove like they didn't care because they literally didn't, because fate is not in their hands.

Yeah. They aren't big on safety regs. If God knows everything, he knew if you were going to have a car wreck today before you were born, before cars were invented, before he made mankind. There is nothing you can do to change that, or you'd make God wrong, which is impossible. Thus, there's no reason to be safe because whatever is supposed to happen will happen regardless of what you do.

Sounds like Italy.

The gestures are different, and no swarms of mopeds...but yeah, real close.

First, thanks to you, i read the Wikipedia article on Qatar, mostly because th a t was the one country I knew about the least. I see, according to the article, they practice Sharia law there and that Christian missionaries are not working in the open. That would make me wary because I do practice my faith actively and while not a missionary, I would, if asked, talk about my Christian faith.

Second, being Orthodox I know, second hand from those that had relatives under Ottoman rule, that Sharia law can be used to justify discrimination against Christians. For example, in Syria where Christian merchants had, in the past, to build their storefronts below street level so they had to look up to Muslim shoppers.

I don't consider myself anti-Muslim, as a Christian I strive to love all, but I would have reservations about encountering the one guy that would have a radical view in those countries, more so than in Chicago.

The above is mostly background commentary, I guess.

In your experience as law enforcement and working in country over there and hearing things, and I know this will be anecdotal, did the average Muslim provide tips to law enforcement in attempts to stop attacks? Did the average Muslim population provide leads/tips to help solve terrorist type attacks post event?

My uninformed mind has questioned in the past, "If the average Muslim Imam is against these things, why don't they speak out against them more?" Maybe i simply dont know where to look or havent tried hard enough. What American Muslim organizations have websites that are reflective of the typical American Muslim viewpoints? These questions have a legitimate answers, and I look forward to yours if it is something you have the background to answer. They are all asked simply in an inquisitive manner, not in an attempt to rile anyone up.

Unlike my comment in the 1911 thread.

Well, most Chicagoans aren't going to stab you for your wallet either, but you probably don't carry it around in your hand in case you meet that guy. There are extremists, no doubt. The trade off is there is very little street crime. Qatar was very safe. Especially after the Iraqi elections when the terrorists that would occasionally fire at our base went to Iraq. As far as in Doha itself, in the two years I was there there was one terrorist attack. A Egyptian guy drove into the British Theater, killing an actor doing Shakespeare. Well, the Russians blew a guy up as well. They said he was a double agent so they rigged his car to explode, killing him and his bodyguards. IIRC, some of the whatever-the-KGB-is-called-these-days guys went to jail for that one. Neither had any American involvement as far as I know.

As far as who provided what intel, I was just a guard. That sort of thing wasn't in the circles I moved in. My interaction with the FBI and military counter-intelligence was generally being briefed on a particular threat to watch for or just passing idle ****-chat. Logically, we can figure that most human intelligence coming from Muslim countries is coming from Muslims, though, and we have alliances with several governments there that have to include intelligence sharing at some level. I know the translators for the documents coming out of Iraq were mostly Muslims from various nations working on contract. There were about 70% female, 30% male, and worked in three shifts. I sometimes worked inside the facility they translated in, but more often worked outside. Several of them were frightened of us because we were armed but weren't cops or soldiers, and that wasn't what they were used to. The guard inside only carried a pistol, and there was talk of carrying it concealed, but it didn't change while I was there. Outside guards had the normal rifle/pistol combo. DynCorp wanted shotguns, but for some reason they were a PITA to import. It struck me as funny you could import fully auto rifles, and the locals hunted some sort of big lizard with the AK, but shotguns were tough to procure.

Syria is a poo hole from what I know. I wanted to go to Damascus, but my friend in Jordan told me that was really, really, really stupid of me. I trusted him and didn't go. That was before it blew up like it has now. You could take a taxi from Amman to Damascus, they were old Dodge station wagons that had been converted to diesel engines. They would leave when 4 seats were paid for. You could buy four yourself and ride alone if you wanted.

As far as blogs and the like, I have no idea. Well, I know one guy: BLOG(ISTAN) | Arsalan Iftikhar | The Muslim Guy.com from the radio, but that's it. Keep in mind there is no "average Muslim" in reality, just as there's no "average American." I don't feel the need to constantly say what I think about everything "as a muslim" any more than I do "as an American" or "as a white guy". Most people just want to live their lives and go on about their day. My friend Fawad was generally talking about his children, wife, and his desire to leave the Qatari military to open a cell phone accessory store. He didn't feel the need to talk about terrorism or the like any more than you feel the need to talk about what criminals in your community are doing, and why you think that's bad.

Qatar does not have religious freedom in the way we do. It's still a monarchy, although its slowly changing, so they lack a lot of religious and political freedoms we take for granted. The flip side is they have more economic freedom than most of us. They are wealthy, they have a huge safety net, and the gov't uses natural gas revenue to fund almost everything and subsidize many things for the economy. Gasoline is a set price (about 27 cents a gallon when I was there), auto insurance was a set price, utilities for residences were paid for, etc. Things as a whole cost about 1/3 of what they cost here, with a few exceptions. American blue jeans and head lettuce were really expensive, for example.

 

[NoAdmiration]

I understand finding inspiration form the achievements of others. I don't think these achievements necessarily need to come from relatives, though I wouldn't exclude them either.

I just don't see any virtue or vice to be gained from the deeds or misdeeds of our ancestors either by relation or heritage.
We are what we make ourselves and should only gain notoriety or infamy based on our actions alone.

 

[1DOWN4UP]

I guess since slavery has been going on since the beginning of man,I guess that there is a lot of dead people who should feel bad.

 

[KLB]

The gestures are different, and no swarms of mopeds...but yeah, real close.

Oh fun then. Basically, the only rule of the road is to get where you are going. Signs, lines, lights are all just for show.

The moped riders were flat out crazy. They must also believe in fate they way they road around on things.

 

[HoughMade]

I guess since slavery has been going on since the beginning of man,I guess that there is a lot of dead people who should feel bad.

Murder had an early start too.

 

[LP1]

Feeling shame about the actions of people over whom you had no influence makes no sense. Not learning from their actions makes no sense either.

 

[KLB]

Guilty, as if they need to atone for something they had no hand in? No. Just recognizing that you some rich douchers in your (speaking generally) family should be embarrassment enough.

I wonder what percentage of the world would qualify for that.

 

[BugI02]

I understand finding inspiration form the achievements of others. I don't think these achievements necessarily need to come from relatives, though I wouldn't exclude them either.

I just don't see any virtue or vice to be gained from the deeds or misdeeds of our ancestors either by relation or heritage.
We are what we make ourselves and should only gain notoriety or infamy based on our actions alone.

Those who do cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it

 

[BugI02]

I guess since slavery has been going on since the beginning of man,I guess that there is a lot of dead people who should feel bad.

Some of them probably do have a ....shall we say..... burning sensation

 

[BugI02]

Feeling shame about the actions of people over whom you had no influence makes no sense. Not learning from their actions makes no sense either.

 

[Kutnupe14]

I wonder what percentage of the world would qualify for that.

Probably not a whole lot (noting that I mentioned "rich")

 

[KLB]

Probably not a whole lot (noting that I mentioned "rich")

I doubt the majority of those through history that sold slaves were rich.

Do you believe that all of those in Africa that captured and sold other Africans were rich?

 

[Kutnupe14]

I doubt the majority of those through history that sold slaves were rich.

Do you believe that all of those in Africa that captured and sold other Africans were rich?

Who said anything about "sold"? I said owned. But that's neither here nor there. If you like, I double down, and say that any person that had a hand in the buying, selling, or ownership of another human being, is deserving of scorn, Dutch, American, Spanish, or African.

 

[KLB]

Does that extend to anyone that had relatives that sold slaves?

Guilty, as if they need to atone for something they had no hand in? No. Just recognizing that you some rich douchers in your (speaking generally) family should be embarrassment enough.

Who said anything about "sold"? I said owned.

I did. You replied to that.

 

[jamil]

The gestures are different, and no swarms of mopeds...but yeah, real close.

I used to work with an Iranian and we got to talking about cultural differences. Of course we got around to discussing gestures. After trading examples of the different versions of the same thing, I asked, "okay, what does this mean over there?" as I performed the "the arm" gesture. He said, "that one's universal."

Nothing better to bridge the divide of cultural differences than cross-translating all the curse words and rude gestures.

 

[IndyDave1776]

After having too much time to think about some of these things, would a man who is half black and half white be ashamed for victimizing himself and/or owe himself reparations?

 

[jamil]

After having too much time to think about some of these things, would a man who is half black and half white be ashamed for victimizing himself and/or owe himself reparations?

No. You'd need to pick a side.