Seriously, This Is As Bad As The Nazis.

[Viking]

I think this general trend is very interesting. In the old days, say a 100 years ago, Western cultural superiority led to racism against lesser countries. Over time we started to disapprove of all that and "cultural imperialism" became a dirty phrase.

But now it has come back in a new form where feminists and LGBT equality campaigners are in the vanguard of efforts to make some countries more civilised 

Some things never change

The White Man's Burden


TAKE up the White Man's burden -
Send forth the best ye breed -
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness
On fluttered folk and wild -
Your new-caught sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.
Take up the White Man's burden -
In patience to abide
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain,
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden -
The savage wars of peace -
Fill full the mouth of famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch Sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden -
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper -
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go make them with your living,
And mark them with your dead !

Take up the White Man's burden -
And reap his old reward,
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard -
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah slowly !) towards the light:-
"Why brought ye us from bondage,
"Our loved Egyptian night ?"

Take up the White Man's burden -
Ye dare not stoop to less -
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloak your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent sullen peoples
Shall weigh your Gods and you.

Take up the White Man's burden -
Have done with childish days -
The lightly proffered laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years,
Cold-edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgement of your peers.

[mongers]

That's a poorly conceived boycott mongers.  The Gulf states would not know they were being boycotted.  If you somehow managed to get the whole world on board, it would impact non-Gulf producers as well.  Even more so, since the cheapest oil to pump is in the Gulf.

Besides, what kind of principled message are you sending by cutting consumption of a morally tainted product by 5%?

Well obviously they'd have to do more, like mount pickets outside embassies, petrol refineries dealing with the 'tainted' product etc 

Oils fine, just some of it comes from politically dubious sources, the 5% figure was just plucked out of the air as my guess at what proportion of gas comes from Saudi. 

[Jacob]

I think this general trend is very interesting. In the old days, say a 100 years ago, Western cultural superiority led to racism against lesser countries. Over time we started to disapprove of all that and "cultural imperialism" became a dirty phrase.

But now it has come back in a new form where feminists and LGBT equality campaigners are in the vanguard of efforts to make some countries more civilised 

It's pretty consistent if you look at it from the point of view that universal human rights are, indeed, universal; and that cultural self-determination is a good (or a right), to the extent that it does not otherwise abridge individual human rights.

Of course, it gets a bit messy when people start using that language for various political, personal, and rhetorical end; life's like that.

I mean, if you want to you can probably crowbar universal human rights into a "white mans burden" narrative, but I'd consider it a little suspect and you'd have to file off some important bits and bobs along the way.

[Jacob]

Oils fine, just some of it comes from politically dubious sources, the 5% figure was just plucked out of the air as my guess at what proportion of gas comes from Saudi.

That's a bit like refusing to accept 5% of the money you're due, on the principle that somewhere down the line it comes from an ideologically unsound entity.

[Ed Anger]

Alex Ovechkin might win something if there is a boycott. Finally.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I don't see an obvious way for us to determine a set of human rights that are universal. We have our own opinions about what these rights should be of course, but our opinions are essentially parochial.

[mongers]

Oils fine, just some of it comes from politically dubious sources, the 5% figure was just plucked out of the air as my guess at what proportion of gas comes from Saudi.

That's a bit like refusing to accept 5% of the money you're due, on the principle that somewhere down the line it comes from an ideologically unsound entity.

Jacob, I wouldn't say that as with oil its fairly simple to guess were your petrol has come from in terms of proportions.  Here in Europe a large chunk of what fills your car tank will come from the Gulf/Saudi, with much of the rest being made up of the light oils from the North Sea fields. 

Of course with natural gas it's much easier, perhaps a third of it will come from Putinland; want to protest his regimes bad record, why don't us Europeans turn the down our thermostats by 3-4C ?

[Malthus]

I don't see an obvious way for us to determine a set of human rights that are universal. We have our own opinions about what these rights should be of course, but our opinions are essentially parochial.

I don't agree.

There can be legitimate disagreement about the exact content of just laws, but the basics are simply a working-out of the ethic of reciprocity, which is found in essentially all human cultures.

[Jacob]

Jacob, I wouldn't say that as with oil its fairly simple to guess were your petrol has come from in terms of proportions.  Here in Europe a large chunk of what fills your car tank will come from the Gulf/Saudi, with much of the rest being made up of the light oils from the North Sea fields. 

Of course with natural gas it's much easier, perhaps a third of it will come from Putinland; want to protest his regimes bad record, why don't us Europeans turn the down our thermostats by 3-4C ?

Sure you can guess that, and you can do that, but it doesn't really address my point.

If you turn down your natural gas consumption by 33% you're not cutting out the stuff you're getting from Russia. You're using 33% less of your total consumption from whatever sources while still getting 1/3rd of your natural gas from Putin's crew.

Thus the number you're proposing is non-sensical.

[Sheilbh]

I don't see an obvious way for us to determine a set of human rights that are universal. We have our own opinions about what these rights should be of course, but our opinions are essentially parochial.

I agree.

This is only get more controversial. Sochi, but then the World Cups in Russia and Qatar...

[Jacob]

I don't see an obvious way for us to determine a set of human rights that are universal. We have our own opinions about what these rights should be of course, but our opinions are essentially parochial.

This isn't a bad place to start: http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

It's a political document, obviously, but with a fairly broad based provenance.

You could go a bit simpler - no one should be persecuted for who they are and for expressing their identity, as long as such self-expression does not hurt others or abridge their rights.

[alfred russel]

An olympic boycott isn't going to happen. But making a fuss can still have an impact: the Olympic Committee will be reluctant to give the games to such countries in the future.

[garbon]

I don't see an obvious way for us to determine a set of human rights that are universal. We have our own opinions about what these rights should be of course, but our opinions are essentially parochial.

I agree.

This is only get more controversial. Sochi, but then the World Cups in Russia and Qatar...

Qatar has already been getting mentions in articles about this, that I've seen.

[mongers]

Jacob, I wouldn't say that as with oil its fairly simple to guess were your petrol has come from in terms of proportions.  Here in Europe a large chunk of what fills your car tank will come from the Gulf/Saudi, with much of the rest being made up of the light oils from the North Sea fields. 

Of course with natural gas it's much easier, perhaps a third of it will come from Putinland; want to protest his regimes bad record, why don't us Europeans turn the down our thermostats by 3-4C ?

Sure you can guess that, and you can do that, but it doesn't really address my point.

If you turn down your natural gas consumption by 33% you're not cutting out the stuff you're getting from Russia. You're using 33% less of your total consumption from whatever sources while still getting 1/3rd of your natural gas from Putin's crew.

Thus the number you're proposing is non-sensical.

Not strictly true as if you reduce total natural gas usage, then I suspect as Putin's Russia gets more unreliable over time, western companies might have a preference for signing long term contracts with non-Russian sources.

Which is another reason why I'm not against shale gas, as it might both reduce costs and our dependency on unsavoury regimes like Russia, Saudi et al. 

[Richard Hakluyt]

I don't see an obvious way for us to determine a set of human rights that are universal. We have our own opinions about what these rights should be of course, but our opinions are essentially parochial.

This isn't a bad place to start: http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

It's a political document, obviously, but with a fairly broad based provenance.

You could go a bit simpler - no one should be persecuted for who they are and for expressing their identity, as long as such self-expression does not hurt others or abridge their rights.

It is a worthy document that I agree with, at least in general. The problem is that most people would seem to disagree with it if we take a global view, so why are we right and they are wrong?