Discrimination

Hangdawg:Glad you like the avator, I like yours too, reminds me of someone I once knew. The UN does not impose rule, over private affairs. It passes rule over legislation/factions, that impose restrictions with bias, or discrimination. Of course having said that, man can still choose to go against any legislation, and pay the penalty for such. So there is no absolute guarantee with anything. You may believe in freedom as do I, but does the man next to you, or across the road from you, or down the street? So many people have blinker vision, and what if he then imposed his position on your family, or yourself? What if he had 20 mates who wanted to help him do that, and you and your family had no supports? Police? Controlled by legislation. As I said before, legislation is a means of preventing active prejudice. Without such, we may possibly still have rampant slavery, and capitalism. Which is why the same applies with quotas, quotas are a means of introducing some equilibrium. If one does not like the quota's in relation to their business, they can certainly refuse to comply. Of course this then will create consequence, and a possible lengthy legal battle. As I said before there is no guarantee that the basic premise works, or cannot be improved upon. History demonstrates that abuse of minority groups has been a factor across all centuries, legislative process is one mechanism aimed at preventing some of that.Consider this scenario, if there was no anti-discrimination legislation. An American Negro, Christian family, with 5 children. Mother and father both unemployed, and a sick child, have just moved to the city looking for work. He applies for a position, and is knocked back merely because he is Christian, she applies for a position and is knocked back because she is female. Then several rental agencies refuse to rent them a house, because they are American Negro. Of course then there is the trip to the hospital, where a white doctor who is a neo-nazi, treats them with disdain and is barely civil when checking the child, after having made them wait for several hours.Okay this is an absolute extreme. I would like your opinion though whether, legislation is not a good thing in such a case?I apologise if I sound condescending or patronising, it is not my intent, I just like to offer a bigger picture.Shaz

A friend of mine was a Platoon Leader (2d Leiutenant) over in Bosnia. He was leading a patrol one day when he saw Serbs? (Not sure which faction)in a hotel on the other side of the river. They were clearing out other faction members (Croats maybe?) of the hotel, bringing them to the roof, then shooting them in the head. The bodies would then fall into the river.So the LT takes his squad to go across the river to stop the killings, with force if necessary. He is stopped at the bridge by a UN checkpoint. The UN guards wouldn't let him intervene because they (UN or US troops) were not being fired upon.The UN officer outranked the LT.That would seem to me like imposing rule into private affairs no?

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Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" Isaiah 6:8
No webpage found at provided URL: www.1st-vets.us

Tal:Based on the example you gave, which is actually hearsay, then yes one could speculate that rule was imposed. However one would need to take into account what the UN guards mandate was, also whether if contravened anything else, and whether it was a discretionary decision.I know that sounds lame, but that is the way it is, with regards to legislation. Having said that however, of a moral nature, I personally would have been outraged, at the UN Guards for not allowing intervention. I also would have then followed up on investigating the mandate for that decision.Shazedit- spelling mistakeThis message has been edited by Shaz, 03 January 2005 18:38 AM

I'd get him to post here if I knew where he was. I'm sure his account would be much more detailed.I can't imagine what those orders to the guys running the UN post would be. My impression of why the UN is there is to stop exactly what was going on.However, the MFO (MultiNation Force & Observers) mision in the Sinai is, in fact, to observe and report. We are only authorized to use force for defense. So, I guess if a group of Egyptians were killing another group of Egyptians, we couldn't do anything about it.That never happened. But we did have a mass casualty accident outside of CP3C (Check Point 3 Charlie). I was the site medic (and site cook) for CP3D when the call came over that 20 Egyptians had fallen off of a Semi going 40mph (the semi hit some concrete barriers). I went over there and together with guys from 3C we triaged, treated the wounded, gave up most of our medical supplies (ponchos, neck braces, our only spineboard)giving them first aid.We left our secure compound to help out people in need. We had been briefed that if something like that were to occur, we could by all means leave our compounds and help.Back to Bosnia. I would THINK the entire point of why we were there was to stop ethnic cleansing? I'm not sure how that was accomplished in the circumstance I listed above.This message has been edited by Tal, 01-03-2005 03:49 AM

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Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" Isaiah 6:8
No webpage found at provided URL: www.1st-vets.us

Tal writes about, essentially, the "Ain't no way in hell no blue helmet is ever gonna tell an American what to do," attitude.Um, Tal? The head of the effort in Bosnia was an American. You may have heard of him. General Wesley Clark? Ran for president this last time around?The UN never had authority over any American troops in Bosnia.The UN can never tell any country anywhere what to do. They can draft treaties, but the member nations need to sign them in order for the country to become subject to them.F'rinstance, the US has not signed onto the Kyoto Protocol and it has no standing here.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

The idea of public education was to educate the public in fundamental skills that will help improve their chances at living a better life and being productive in the democracy (that is make good choices in elections).For this there is a need for understanding how to read and write, our national history, mathematics, and science. Science is based in materialism, even if it is not an advocate for materialist moral philosophy. Some uneducated people don't seem to get that.While I see your point that outside of the above topics communities should be able to choose their own topics to cover, and that no one should be teaching what is morality, I am not for a free for all topical education system.At that point why don't we simply end public education systems and return to exactly what you are implying, a great diverse bunch of ignorant people teaching ignorance in one community (because that's what they like) and educated people teaching education to another, and moralistic people sometimes teaching education other times ignorance but always moral specifics including to minorities that don't agree?I mean that is what we replaced, and there was a reason for it. People do have the ability to affect how these things are taught. If you mean delete facts and replace them with singular moral views, then you are correct that that cannot happen, but they can have teachers remove moral messages.I think sex-ed should be taught moral free, but then added that in addition to physical safety issues there are moral issues which are important for individuals and cultures and that students need to take this into consideration as well. Then encourage them to find out about their family's views and expectations. This is an interesting point, but you seem to have it a bit backward. What we are not discussing is such a PC school system that the walls are grey, we are discussing such increased tolerance that the multicolored walls are offensive to you. You are arguing that each community should determine the singular paint for the school based on local minority... which does not prepare people to work in the much larger world.While I love diversity and I even understand some isolated community sealing themselves away, I don't think it is wise to use the public education system to aid in this. Encountering diverse view points and learning to accept them is a necessary skill especially as we become more globalized.Do I take it that you are firmly against Bush's education policy?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I'll have to research and see if US troops directly fell under UN commanders, but the UN did have juristiction over parts that the US did not, as noted by my example.Ok, the UN did not have any US troops under its command. But the bridge issue was a territorial thing. That was not the US's sector to worry about, and by God the US troops aren't gonna cross our bridge.This message has been edited by Tal, 01-03-2005 04:33 AMThis message has been edited by Tal, 01-03-2005 04:41 AM

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Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" Isaiah 6:8
No webpage found at provided URL: www.1st-vets.us

Rrhain:Thanks for jumping on to clear that up, I must say I was a bit confused and surprised, but have no immediate information on hand to clarify the point Tal was making. Is it not correct that they can then pose recommendations to the National body, and then if non compliant impose sanctions?ShazI actually found what I needed. For anyone that is interested, this is the 'United Nations Charter' & Information on 'The office of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights':

quote:

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Charter - http://www.hrweb.org/legal/unchartr.html

Office UN, High Com. Human Rights -http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu6/2/OHCHR.pdf

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This message has been edited by Shaz, 03 January 2005 20:00 AM

Tal responds to me:

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but the UN did have juristiction over parts that the US did not, as noted by my example.

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Bosnia wasn't exactly a country at that point, now was it?Just what do you think they had jurisdiction over? I'm hardly saying the UN has never made a mistake. However, might it not be possible that you have misunderstood just what happened?

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Territorial issue. I edited my post up there but too late. One of the Majors sitting next to me explained that it wasn't that the UN troops outranked or were in charge of the US troops, but that hotel on that side of the river was the UN's baby to worry about. That's why they didn't let the US patrol across the street.He also said the city of Sherbenitza was under Danish control and something similar happened. Melosavich and his cronies had trucks drive in to the supposedly safe haven, load up about 3,000 people, drive them out to the woods, then shoot them.The dutch just watched an emptry truck come, a full truck leave, an empty truck come....you get the idea.

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Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" Isaiah 6:8
No webpage found at provided URL: www.1st-vets.us

Shaz responds to me:

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Is it not correct that they can then pose recommendations to the National body, and then if non compliant impose sanctions?

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Yes, but only if the countries involved agree to do it. It isn't like the "UN" makes the decision as if the UN were some full-fledged, autonomous body where you could get a passport or something. It is the member nations gathering at the UN who make that decision and they agree as member nations to abide by the decisions made. And how is that different from a country imposing sanctions on any other country? The US is pretty much the last country in the world that won't do business with Cuba.The UN as an organization has very few teeth. There's a current project under the auspices of the UN to wipe out polio from the world the way they wiped out smallpox. It involves a huge coordination with individual countries. It isn't like the UN can just demand entry to any sovereign nation in order to give them vaccinations. There was a recent problem in Congo, if I recall correctly, regarding a question of contamination of vaccine, but it's expected to be fully realized by 2006.The UN is one of those "consent of the governed" institutions. And the US is amazingly prickly about giving its consent.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Ahem... Uhmmmmmm... The Danish are not Dutch and vice versa. It was Dutch troops that which were guilty of this, though there is a little more to the story as well. I can't say I would have sat and watched, but they were outgunned and the UN refused to give them support as they called in what was happening.So for the record the Dutch come from the Netherlands which is also called Holland and is in the benelux region. The Danish are just Danish and come from Denmark... though they are Scandinavian.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Yes Rrhian, your right.I have just read the charter again. Only those signed to the treaty have the vote, exception being those countries, whatever the current situation applies to at the time, and those who havent paid their fees. Typical committee meeting really.

My bad holmes! I dunno where danish came from.

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Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" Isaiah 6:8
No webpage found at provided URL: www.1st-vets.us

I just said they came from Denmark! Heheheh...Just make sure you don't say maybe you were hungry, what we call danishes aren't danish. Damn this is one sloppy semantic world.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)