Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> >   You claim that a person's history consists of his ancestors' history
> > besides his own life. I disagree. Why should it have any effect on your
> > actions what your ancestors did or didn't do? Why should your own
> > ancestors' actions have more effect on yours than the actions of someone
> > else's ancestors?

> Because the mistakes made by those who came before me (whether related by 
> blood or not) are mistakes I personally would care not to repeat.  

  Which is precisely what I said: It doesn't matter who *your* ancestors
were. "Your ancestors also did this or that" is completely irrelevant.

  If I'm to learn from past mistakes of humanity, why should I make any
distinction between whether those people were my ancestors or not? That's
absolutely and completely irrelevant.

  The original point in this thread was that you shouldn't treat immigrants
with disrespect *because your ancestors were immigrants too*.
  No, that's not the reason why you shouldn't treat immigrants (or anyone
else) with disrespect. That's just an irrelevant argument which doesn't
make any sense.

> I can't just come in and say "right, everything we did before is null and 
> void, I don't care who promised you what, we're starting over from 
> scratch".  If we did that on a national/global scale every generation, 
> we'd never get anywhere, and we CERTAINLY wouldn't make any progress.

  I didn't even understand that.

> >   And in this thread in particular: Why should the social status (in
> >   this
> > case being an immigrant) of your distant ancestors have any effect on
> > your own social status or your opinions? You are not your ancestors. You
> > are not what they were. You are you, and what you are depends only on
> > what you have done.

> No, that's simply not true.  That the families that came into the US (for 
> me about 4 or 5 generations ago) were permitted to enter this country, 
> even though they didn't speak English (well, some of them did - they came 
> from England) and were welcomed (generally) without people saying "Hey, 
> <derrogatory term>, why don't you learn some goddamned English?  YOU'RE 
> IN AMERICA NOW, SPEAK ENGLISH YOU FRIGGIN IDIOT!" does inform my opinions 
> on matters like this.  As well it should.  Doesn't mean I'll always agree 
> with them, but that past informs my decisions and opinions in the current 
> world situation.

  Sorry, I still don't understand. Informs?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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