DevilsAdvocate writes:
I am not disputing this in anyway. What I am disputing is Buzz's justification that slavery was ok because the inflicted party:
a. inflicted slavery on other members of the same cultures (which is true of just about every race/ethnicity/culture on earth at one or more points in there history, but still does not make it justifiable)
b. they were endeared to there masters (yes Buzz actually said this)
c. benefited from slavery (???)
Makes one wonder if Buz or anyone of similar proclivities has the normal amount of empathy present in the average human being.
Buz may need some help in imagining a historic scenario, such as if he was captured by the Turks during the Barbary pirate days. No problem, I'm here to help.
Now Buz would have to admit the Turks had the right to enslave him because:
1) They did it to their 'own' people, particularly war captives, and showing they were not particularly racist against more northerly Europeans, often enslaved them as well.
2) Such enslavement may have endeared Buz to his Ottoman masters, after all they were, along with the Chinese, the most educated and sophisticated cultures on the planet until those evil European enlightenment figures institutionalized such decadent Western practices as democracy and science.
3) The benefits from such slavery would naturally extend to cultural, medical, and mathematical sophistication along with a greater degree of tolerance for other peoples who often found themselves in the same boat so to speak. Who knows, the captured ancestral Buz could mean the current Buz would be singing the praises of Allah at this moment. In fact I believe based upon his posts in support of fundamentalism, he would fit right in and perhaps with some luck and grit even become the Iranian Imam of his dreams.
Then again he could just wind up being a fish in a barrel.
Edited by anglagard, : replaced white with more northerly Europeans for sake of accuracy.
The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas - uncertainty, progress, change - into crimes.
Salman Rushdie
This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us. - the character Rorschach in Watchmen
™ Version 4.2
