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Subject: French pacifism: the paragon of bourgeois
Sambation    8/21/2007 8:50:19 AM
“Turn-the-other-cheek pacifism,” George Orwell observed in 1941, “only flourishes among the more prosperous classes, or among workers who have in some way escaped from their own class. The real working class . . . are never really pacifist, because their life teaches them something different. To abjure violence it is necessary to have no experience of it.” It's no coincidence that Orwell made this remark in 1941, months after the French capitulated to the Germans. There's a very simply-put but complex question about France: does it, today, have any values? My answer is equally simple and complex: no, it has only a lifestyle. Or, to be more fair, the country values only its lifestyle. It raises up its triune value system, the now-cliched "liberte, egalite, fraternite." Perhaps that once meant something, perhaps not. Today it's a banner -- or ceiling, is a better word, that the French use to ascertain the upper limit of action before it damages the status quo. The 35 hour work week, some of the largest vacation time allotments in the world, and excessive welfare provisions all have no better expression than the unwillingness of the French to fight for something. A fight is a shakeup of the status quo; it spills coffee and bumps the artist's hand while he's at the easel. Of course, the French go to work, some to the army. But very few French will deny the claim that the French quality of life is the best in the world. Leaders on the French left trump this claim as proof of the success of the French model, and proclaim that they will never give up the model, and the lifestyle that it produces, no matter what the cost. But it's that last phrase that curdles. What is the cost? There's no need to rehash France's huge domestic problems, including, but not limited to, what is amounting to a population invasion by a group that has little desire to give up religious values that drown out the comparatively feeble calls for liberte, egalite, etc. The French want to say there is no problem, or the problem is only a social one -- a sociological one, one that is solved by resource and integration. Well, there are two lessons to learn from the British. The first is that no matter how wealthy, how fluent in the language, and how gainfully employed your fifth columners might be, they, at times, are still eager to blow themselves up in buses, because they see each other, and not their countrymen who sing about "fraternite," as their true brothers. Perhaps not all of them, but enough. The second lesson is Orwell's. A pleasant society, a society that values its lifestyle and how its citizens interact with one another and not WHY they interact with one another (a moral purpose in a nation), has no need for violence. It abjures it. It looks around at and sees a supremely healthy, if flawed, society. One that integrates others because, it reasons, it has what everyone wants-- it's beautiful quality of life. Perhaps the French of the spring of 1940 saw things the same way: "the Nazis aren't so bad." What was the litmus test that led France into Vichy? Very simple: Will agreeing with the Nazis change our lifestyle more or less than disagreeing with them? France chose clearly in 1940. Today the question is the same, but more acute. The majority of French society has chosen: agree, integrate, appease, and relate. Make excuses and find hidden causes for outrageous acts of violence committed (around the world) by a certain religious group. "It cannot be the fault of the group, since we know better than to fault groups, therefore it must be the fault of the country; our fault, not their fault." Sarkozy's plans to bring France into the modern global economy are much more than just social plans. They are, to borrow a term, transcendental. If he is successful, he will change the nature of France by it. But in the end it is not Sarkozy but the people of France that must choose, that must ask themselves if there aren't real principles hiding behind the preferences of their nation.
 
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verdunjp    To Sambation   8/31/2007 10:21:19 PM
I disagree  with you. Since 1789, lefties in France are strong but France still alive and maintain her power. So there is no correlation between the existence of  lefties in France and the french power. Also, don't forget that since the beginning of leftie ideas and leftie people in France (1789) France has been probably the country the most involved in wars. So again, there is no real correlation between lefties and pacifism in France. You also talk about the french culture in a way that france is alone in his corner. I think you are again wrong here. According to me, there is no major difference today between western cultures. All face the same problems (immigration, integration, values vs capitalism). So you could have done your speach for any western country. Think about it. Regards. 
 
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Sambation       9/1/2007 6:46:43 PM
Please see below for responses to your wonderfully ridiculous comments (for which I thank you in advance).
Ok Sambation

Since your second post is less agressive I answer:
France, unfortunately, leads the continent in some ways. It is responsible for European, and therefore global Leftist, "group think."

 [email protected] correctness is spreaded more by British with their surrendering to minorities or leftist German with their cullprit of WW2 and green activists.


France is still in bed with some of the world's worst dictators. It is still helping Arab states produce nuclear programs.
It is false.Do not confuse civilian and military.

 


It is still paying Libya off to free Bulgarian (???!!!) hostages charged with false crimes. It is still twisting the Israel-Arab 'conflict' to suit its needs; to pay for new Parisian roads and trees
.Paying? By what? Instead Sarko said we will not go further with Lybian if they don't free the Bulgarians who were not french nationals BTW.


Many historians, Laqueur and Dalrymple are two good examples, think that France and the continent are lost. They may be very correct. At least regarding the next few hundred years.
Some said the same for America dominated by Chineses and Mexicans.




Europe cannot confront itself, and France especially. Instead, it plays tea party with its little dictator friends who hide in Paris from the angry native mobs they spent decades abusing (where did Mugabe escape arrest to? where did Khomeini spend his exile? Arafat? etc.etc.)
BTW Khomeini stayed in France because the Shah (a friend of France) asked us.Giscard D'Estaing even questioned the Shah to ask him if we should kill Khomeini or throw him out.The Shah considered wrongly that Khomeini was not dangerous in France.

And if a dictator comply with French interests BTW , I have no problem.

Personnaly I don't care with governance of third world countries: I prefer by far a dictator who buy us products than a democracy which would not..If he wants weapons than France is here.

I prefer a Castro friendly with France than a Batista friendly with USA.

My moral values are simple: human are not really equals and to be born with french education in France is a gift of providence.

I have travelled enough outside including USA (where I spend a cumulated year in my life -or UK, or Germany, or Italy, or Mexico, or Morrocco, or Switzerland...) to prefer by far until now to be french.

Our way of life is second to none.And we are a rational country.And I value logic and knowledge.

If God would exist (low probability), it would be a gift of God to be french so a kind of predestination, if it not exist, I still enjoy to be french (after all I could have been a worm or anything else.. but does it prevent myself to crush a worm under my feets?) and I would defend this civilisation, its marvelous land and its freedom, its cultural heritage and progress, its state, this for myself or my beloved and by respect with our ancestors who build it.

Rest of the world.? They can manage themselves..

Now if the minority groups we have (wrongly) accepted on our territory try to change this model and do not integrate (we give them time), I can predict a dark future for them.There is a point French will prefer to be a pariah state than to accept anything.

 

 

 


Wow, FS. I am so honored that you decided to respond. We are all honored. Though it does make sense that you prefer the less aggressive post as the one to engage with.

I'll just go through this point by point:

-In fact, France is assisting Arab states with nuclear programs. Those states are Libya, UAE and, of all places, Algeria. They might not have started building reactors, but they are certainly laying the diplomatic groundwork.

-You can snipe at Britain and Germany all you want; that is a continental squabble that I am not interested in. The fact is that Britain defended Europe from the Nazis, and the Germans were the Nazis. France was just a white flag-waver. Nothing less, nothing more.

-I have never read a serious historian claiming, as you say they did, that America would be taken over and destroyed by its own Mexican and Chinese residents. I take it that you have never actually read this claim from a serious historian either, which is why you fail to cite a single one.

 
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verdunjp    To Sambation   9/2/2007 6:36:03 PM
   What wrong to do businees with Lybia. According to Prime minister Blair, that country has reintegrated the world community. With UEA: it is allied with G-B and USA. With Algeria: the governement in place struggle against integrism. !!! And by the way, do you really think that GB has never maintained link whith delequent country (South Africa for example)?
 
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Ezekiel       9/3/2007 4:47:38 AM
 French Strategy more then illustrates the point that sambation makes, and that is the French have no values in which to gird their strength and unite its populations other then 'the good life'. The fact that FS point blank remarks that France does and should do business with thugs and dictators that in his words would provide them monetary gains rather then a fledgling democracy that wouldn't speaks volumes of the ruthless detante that guides French foreign policy....It's not held together by overarching values only by the the supreme  interest of 'what have you done for me lately'
"With friends like these, who needs enemies!"
 
FS thank you for your honesty.... Like sambation said, if only your leaders would do the same, instead of hiding behing  facile epithets and disengenuous behaviors. When trully it can be remarked by reading your retort that France keeps the company of dictators and enjoins in any relationship that will prop up that"lifestyle" you so proudly extoll no matter the cost, no matter the detriment.
 
It is a wretched thing when style overcomes substance, when virtue is exchanged for aggrandizement...yes, every country is guided by its own self interest, but in everything there is balance between self interest and keeping your soul intact. There are lines that you don't cross which France has. A souless France best explains the situation it finds itself in: that is a lack of regenerating populations, an unchecked immigration policy, and a rise in Islamism that seriously threatens  the composition of France itself, which by the way includes that precious "lifestyle".
 
It's time for France to turn things around, reorient itself. If  not I am pessimistic for its future as well as for  Europe as a whole. Statistics don't lie, and overwhelming statistics cannot be ignored, nor the images that were broadcast around the world last summer of a rioting population that took   2 weeks to subdue, and the participants   were primarilly of African/middle easern descent.
 
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verdunjp    TO EZ   9/3/2007 9:37:03 PM
LA riot in 1998: Does it mean that USA has no values? No
Immigrant building attack in Germany: Does it means that Germany has no values? NO
Mafia in italy: Does it mean that Italy has no value? NO
The spreadout of artisal weapons in GB by teenagers does it means that GB has no values: No
GB brutal Hooligans does it means that GB has no values: No
It is the same for the french riot of 2006.
 
Second point, before talking about french culture or values, inform yourself. People out there are well informed about history, politic, literacy, etc more than any other people in the world. They don't have only a lyfe style. 
 
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Ezekiel       9/4/2007 12:32:57 AM

LA riot in 1998: Does it mean that USA has no values? No

Immigrant building attack in Germany: Does it means that Germany has no values? NO

Mafia in italy: Does it mean that Italy has no value? NO

The spreadout of artisal weapons in GB by teenagers does it means that GB has no values: No

GB brutal Hooligans does it means that GB has no values: No

It is the same for the french riot of 2006.

 

Second point, before talking about french culture or values, inform yourself. People out there are well informed about history, politic, literacy, etc more than any other people in the world. They don't have only a lyfe style.
When I brought out the example of the french riots, it wasn't to exemplify that there was no values, but that there is a real problem, and it is not so simple as the French authorities put it being due to an economic issue. Just as the riots in LA showed the world a deep problem with African-american resentment felt in country. But don't over simplify and say one riot there is the same as another riot over there. The motives were different and the lessons gained were different from both examples.

In addressing your 2nd point, I don't think France has a low IQ or is uninformed, actually quite the contrary, but what they sorely lack is cohesive and cogent national values integral to replenishing, perpetuating and succeeding as a nation-state today. Case in point the lack of population growth and the rise of Islamism. In marseille today, french is the second most spoken language!
I hope that this turns around, and i don't think France is the only one Europe dealing with this Issue.
 
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verdunjp    To Sam or Ez   9/5/2007 10:18:11 PM
The secularity of the public institutions is a very important value for French. (established since the revolution but mainly since 1905) No compromise is possible in France on this rule. All the immigrants must conform to it. France is probably in this respect the most strict country in the world. Is this a national value for you? What does your country about it?
 
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nominoe       9/6/2007 6:35:26 AM
France is a country with great values. It does not mean that France is perfect, as France (like EVERY SINGLE COUNTRY) does barely moral things for it's interests.

But France is, along the USA, at the origin of human rights and democracy with the 1789 revolution. Think of it, as they are the most importants values of the modern world.

Another important french value is secularism, as the separation between the church and the state is anchored in every french heart.  And that is the MAIN difference between the french and the americans, and of course between France and Israel.

In France there is no Evil religion, but all religions are suspected to be evil. This is at the origin of french attitude toward Israel because the average french can simply not understand how a demcroacy can be founded on a religion. This is at odds with equality and is considered to be a form of racism here. Of course, you just can't ignore religions, especially since a few years.

France is far from being doomed, even if the posters usually making this statment wish the countrary. Before asking yourself how to deal with the french military being in evil hands (!) ask yourself how to contain Iran, North korea, and Israel nuclear arsenal which is more exposed to threat than any other.
 
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Bluewings12       9/7/2007 10:29:25 AM
As a Frenchman , I can say that FS is a bit of a wanker . I disagree with all he said in this thread .

Cheers .

 
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JIMF       9/7/2007 8:48:25 PM
"My moral values are simple: human are not really equals and to be born with french education in France is a gift of providence. I have travelled enough outside including USA (where I spend a cumulated year in my life -or UK, or Germany, or Italy, or Mexico, or Morrocco, or Switzerland...) to prefer by far until now to be french. Our way of life is second to none.And we are a rational country.And I value logic and knowledge. If God would exist (low probability), it would be a gift of God to be french so a kind of predestination,"

Let me see, "to be born in France is a gift of providence...... If God would exist (low probability), it would be a gift of God to be French." so "providence" (the foreseeing care and guidance of God or nature over the creatures of the earth) exists and dispenses the gift of being born French, while a god (another?) may or may not exist to provide the same gift.  Thank you Mr. Descartes for that rational and logical discourse on the capricious nature of the cosmos.
 
The French don't seem to be stuck in the suicidal multicultural quagmire that threatens the existence of some other societies.  The French love their nation and culture, and will take whatever steps are necessary to ensure their continuance.  Considering the alternative this is a very good thing for Western values and civilization.     
 
 
 
 
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