jingo

Thursday, January 22, 2009
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JINGOISM
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“If I love my country I am justified in hating those of my countrymen who do not share my views.”
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“If I speak in the name of patriotism it means my heart is in the right place, which also means no one can challenge my views, unless of course they are willing to make themselves vulnerable to charges of anti-Armenianism, pro-Ottomanism, and treason, which, as everyone knows, happens to be a crime punishable by death, and rightly so.”
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“Since our failings are human failings shared by all of mankind, we should stop bitching about them.” It follows, exposing incompetence, intolerance, corruption, greed, and divisiveness, among other failings, is classified as bitching, which common sense tells us, is unmistakable evidence of anti-Armenianism.
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According to an old Jewish saying, “Some people are such nobodies that when they go out of a room it feels like someone came in.” Something similar could be said of the jingoist arguments mentioned above. No matter how often they are contradicted and rejected they are voiced again and again as if they were gospel truths.
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Armenians are a strange breed indeed: they can take centuries of subservience and brutal oppression but they can't stand straight talk. They believe in freedom but not in free speech. Figure that one out if you can.
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Friday, January 23, 2009
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DZOUR NESDINK, SHIDAK KHOSSINK
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Those who oppose free speech operate on two assumptions: (one) free or uncontrolled or unsupervised speech will inevitably lead to verbal abuse; and (two) they are themselves infallible when it comes to drawing the line that separates freedom from abuse. History tells us these two assumptions have been more open to abuse than free speech, and more crimes have been committed in the name of censorship than in the name of free speech.
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In the same way that war is diplomacy by other means, genocide is censorship by other means.
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Freedom without free speech is a fascist illusion.
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No matter how hard I try I cannot agree with a belief system or ideology that legitimizes the violation of someone's fundamental human rights.
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It is my ambition to speak of reality. Let others speechify, sermonize, and propagandize about their pet abstraction. A nation that does not have its feet firmly planted in reality is a nation that may survive (in the same way that animals in a zoo survive) but cannot live. Survival is life to the same degree that slavery is freedom.
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Flaubert said: “Everything must be learned, from reading to dying.” And for an Armenian, engaging in dialogue with a fellow Armenian.
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I preach but I don't always practice what I preach. When the other day I read that a member of this group wanted to have his name removed because he was “too busy,” my first uncensored thought was, “Busy doing what? -- beside pulling his dick.” Immediately I decided to keep this nasty thought to myself, and if I write it down now for everyone to see it's because I want to underline the discrepancy between theory and practice. I offer it not as a justification but as an explanation.
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To be a good Armenian is not the same as being a good human being, and I'd much rather deal with a good human being than an Armenian who considers himself la crème de la crème.
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And here is a rule without a single exception: An Armenian who considers himself la crème de la crème doesn't even qualify as la crème de la scum.
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Saturday, January 24, 2009
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DEMOCRACY
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Power does not mean imposing your will on others. Power means responsibility, accountability, and service. Politicians are not our lords and masters or highnesses and excellencies, but our servants. They do not represent God on earth but the will of the people, and the people is not an abstraction but you and me. The more power they have, the greater their burden of responsibility and accountability. I say these things because I had an Armenian education and I was not taught any of it. You might say, I enjoy sharing my discoveries. If there are those who are not aware of these things it may be because it took mankind millions of years to formulate them, and after having formulating them it took many more centuries of strife to realize them. That doesn't mean all power structures today are democratic. Far from it. As a matter of fact, undemocratic regimes today outnumber democracies, and even more to the point, the temptation of tyranny and fascism is a constant in all democracies.
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How long before we reject the Ottoman and the Soviet from within us and are born again as human beings?
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If I speak in the name of common sense and decency, am I then an enemy of the people who should be insulted and silenced? If you disagree with me it must be because you have a better explanation. If you do, why don't you let me know what it is and I will be more than happy to make it mine.
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Remember, a good Armenian is first and foremost a good human being and he would be recognized as such not only by those who agree with him but also by those who disagree.
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