KNOCK KNOCK MO'SUCKRA!!
It's Obama!!! You din't dun build that!

It is interesting that you will sometimes find that the advocate for a particular idea isn't from the location where that idea is most often known for.  As I said before, I consider the idea of natural rights to be one that doesn't effectively address ethical issues.  Most of the problems we face in ethics isn't from people not claiming sufficient rights for themselves, but rather, doing harm to others.  Only way to address this doing harm is for the person doing harm to stop doing the harm.  Sure, the person being harmed could try to fight back, but that isn't always guaranteed. 

I'm sorry, but you still haven't explained how being 300 million over dunbar's number is different from being 5 million over dunbar's number. And given that it's about individual social organisation, I can't really see how it would be any different. It's like the difference between someone making $1 billion in their lifetime and $10 billion in their lifetime - yes, there's a magnitude of difference in the numbers, but unless you find yourself struggling on $10 million a year, it's not really going to make much of an actual difference in terms of quality of life.

You seem to confuse multiculturalism with "race". I'm sorry, but descent, ancestry, and skin colour is irrelevant to culture. I also find it hilarious that you distinguish "hispanic" for America, but not Australia. You know what "hispanic" really means, in terms of people? "Of spanish descent". Remind me, which continent is Spain found in? So if you're going to use descent and skin colour as your argument, then I guess hispanics are included with the rest of the "whites". You also seem to be under the misguided belief that being of European descent means having white skin.

Meanwhile, the *actual* definition of "multiculturalism" has to do with immigration and the way in which assimilation is handled. And in that regard, America and Australia have strong similarities. The biggest difference, in the end, is that in Australia, skin colour isn't considered relevant. People might judge others for cultures, or for country of origin, but not skin colour (not counting the racists - but I'm not talking about racists).

The fact that Americans got so excited about the "first black president" is another demonstration of that. You all celebrated as though it proves that America isn't racist... but if you weren't racist, it wouldn't matter that he was "black".

Ok... I disagree with about everything you said but...

Descent, ancestry and skin color are irrelevent to culture?

Seriously?

Descent, ancestry and skin color is irerelvent to culture... that's what your going with.

Here is a serious question.... have you ever been to college, and if so... was sociology a required course?

I could come up with a few dozen reasons here but i'll keep it short.

Starting with Descent and Ancestory... is your arguement that shared beliefs and stories from ones home nation are not shared thought the ages....

or is it that they are, but somehow they magically don't influence culture of those groups.

As for race

So... expierencing racism has NOTHING to do with ones culture or how they view society.  Oh yeah, your discounting racists, despite them being a huge part of Australian society.   So the fact that they're all racist to people and that effects their culture is apparently irrelevent?

Nevermind the cultural effects of White Priveledge, which effects just about everybody's culutre on the basis of their skin color... and yes it exists in Austrlia... and if you think you aren't effected by it, or aren't guilty of it... chances are... you are.

Well actually, saying race has no effects on culture itself is a form of White Priviledge.

I mean... really I don't even know where to begin.  I feel like i'm argueing against someone who thinks the moon landings were fake.

Please talk to a sociologist.

1. "the fact that most "anarchists" are in reality just thinly veiled communists" - Oh, I love how Americans always seek to do two things: 1. Demonise communism. 2. Conflate completely unrelated political beliefs in order to attempt argument by mockery. Anarchism is dramatically different from communism - in fact, in many ways, they're polar opposites. I'm betting you also think that the Nazis were socialists.

What I believe about what I'd like the truth to be is irrelevant. I'm a scientist, I don't operate in terms of how I'd like things to be, I operate in the actual, real world. And yes, sadly, if society decided to strip people of rights, then those people lose those rights. Which is why it's a good idea to have checks and balances put in place to prevent that from happening. Rights are conferred upon people by society. And a society that fails to provide certain rights is a bad one, because not only is such a society doing an injustice to those who lack those rights, but it's doing an injustice to itself.

And the reason why the UN is toothless is the US, UK, China, France, and Russia can veto anything they want regarding the Security Council. Unsurprisingly, that means that the UN isn't respected by others, and thus corruption tends to be rampant. But I find it curious that you're so happy to dismiss the human rights set down by the UN way back at the start of it all.

2. Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Ireland. That's five. There are 50 countries in Europe. But hey, five of the countries are in crisis, so it's a European crisis. Hey, there are at least five countries in Africa that have dictatorships - therefore, when talking about dictatorships in Africa, we just talk about Africa being dictatorships, right? We don't bother to distinguish between the dictators and the rest.

I also find it really curious that you felt that you needed to mention Germany's birth rate. I mean, what? How the hell is that relevant? As for non-American pharmaceutical companies in America, the point is that they're able to come up with drugs, etc, without operating within America. Meanwhile, you seem to confuse me criticising Americans' tendency to only really care about America as me thinking that every American is stupid. Note that I actually had to look up the word "seppo" to figure out what it meant - I've never heard anyone use it like that before (my first instinct was that it was some Italian slang, from Guiseppo). Meanwhile, you like to make claims about how non-American companies are making profits off the backs of the US... yet you don't seem to provide any evidence to back up your claim.

So I decided to look up a bit for myself. I looked at the second-biggest pharmaceutical company, the Swiss one, Novartis. They break down net sales by region, in terms of USD. They make more money in Europe than in the US. Indeed, the US constitutes roughly 32-33% of their sales. In Q4 2011, they sold US$14.78 billion worth of goods, and the cost to make them was US$5.12 billion. Then R&D cost US$2.52 billion, and Marketing and Sales cost US$4 billion.

In 2011 (full year), they sold US$58.57 billion worth of goods, with cost to make them being US$18.98 billion. Their net income was US$9.25 billion. So I really don't think your claim stands up to actual scrutiny.

3. People believe it exists in America, certainly. And behaviour supports the idea that racism is rampant over there, from all sides. If it were tribalism, you'd see some particular category of "blacks" fighting with another particular category of "blacks" because they're of different "tribes", and you'd see the same amongst "whites". Instead, what you see is so-called "positive discrimination" (which is still discrimination), you see organisations and political blocs devoted to certain skin colours ("black caucus", anyone? NAACP?), you see Obama hailed as "the first black president" and you have politicians "appealing to the black vote" or "appealing to the hispanic vote" or "appealing to the white vote". Here in Australia, they don't do any of that sort of stuff. We celebrated the first indigenous member of parliament, but that wasn't skin colour, but a sign of proper representation of a section of the community that holds itself apart culturally (there are lands still owned by native tribes, for instance).

Meanwhile, you keep insisting on the false dichotomy between huge top-down government and extremely local government, even as I specifically spoke about the importance of balancing government among the scales. And as I pointed out, America's far too LOCAL, not too top-down.

As for Estonia, sure, it's running a budget surplus. That's not hard to do, when you don't spend money on things. In the meantime, Estonia was hit by the GFC and went into recession. Indeed, in 2009, Estonia's economy dropped by a massive 14%. That is not indicative of a stable economy. It also has 11.7% unemployment, nearly 20% of its population is below the poverty line, and its GDP per capita is just US$19,000. For comparison, Australia never went into recession at all, it has 5.2% unemployment, about 13% of our population is below the poverty line, and our GDP is US$69,000 per capita. Oh, and we have the same debt level relative to GDP as Estonia, too. Australia has a better ranking in terms of ease of doing business, has a better credit rating, gives economic aid rather than receiving it (Estonia recieves economic foreign aid), and has lower inflation (1.9% vs 4% for Estonia).

To be blunt, I'm not seeing exactly why you would want to use Estonia as a bastion of great government. Oh, and there's this, too. And Estonia has a 21% flat income tax... which means it takes more in tax relative to income than the American average, which is somewhere around 17%. Indeed, the effective income tax rate for the top 1% was just 20.6% (20.9% for the top 5%). America complains about high taxes, while paying exceptionally low taxes, lower than a so-called Libertarian country (according to you, at least - I'm taking your word for it).

Somalia.

OK, I'm going to stop you here, because apparently you don't understand the difference between correlation and relevance.

Most of the things you posted are false or at least passible of being discussed further but I'll attain to this since it's a topic I've extensively estuded in the previous months. Should you study a bit of evolutionary psychology, you can easily see many of the trinckets we take as granted to come from intelligence or rationality are actually the workings of a very animalistic brain. Our very first notions of law didn't came from something silly as people finally deciding to stop killing themselves like Hobbes or Golding believed. These first laws were based on notions of cooperation, empathy and self-defense that were deeply encoded within our brains during the course of evolution.

Even canonical law, which influenced the evolution of judiciary systems towards rational ideals of human rights etc. can't be exempt of our animal inheritance - it evolved from it, though it's more complex than your average atheist claiming God is the alpha male who protects the pack. Think for instance our concept of heaven. Please! Did anyone ever notice how it has always been depicted as a place with trees, surrounded by green grass, and under clear skies? Just like a nice day on central park? This isn't an ideal construced by the ideals of a few!  See, any place wet enough for green grass all year round will become a closed forest. Our parks, and our concept of heaven, mimmick a savanna landscape after the rains. 

The thing the likes of Harold Berman and most leftists fail to understand when they throw the word construct around like some sort of joker on the deck is that we are animals just like other living creatures. We are not superior and we are not alone on sentience, language and a lot of other things. No point on throwing around an idealistic concept that is as hollow as an inflatable ball. It's as stupid as going to a horse race and saying "you know, no need to differ them based on race or individual characteristics, these horses would run the same if they had the same upbringing".

No... I do.

Though you know... a correlation defeats your point.  If different cultures are correlated by race...then in fact.... Australia is nowehre near as culturally diverse as the USA, just on the basis of said correlation.

However, your ignoring the fact that skin color has specific expectations... including unconsious ones by pretty much ALL of society.  Race effects your culture and every facet of someones being.   Should it?   No.   Does it...    Yes.

You'd be hardpressed to find somebody anywhere who says race hasn't effected there daily life and culture.   (Well unless there white, but that's the whole white Priveldge thing again.  Something worth reading about to try and cut back on your unconsious racism.  You meaning everybodies.)

You apparently just don't understand sociology.

Cause that's an entire field of study.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociology_of_race_and_ethnic_relations

I would just rather not go into Soc 101, then have to move into Soc of Race and Ethnic Relations.

I would suggest if you live near a college.  Talk to a sociologist.  Or hell, borwse a sociology blog or webpage for a while.

Don't take this the wrong way... but it keeps seeming like you try to talk authrotativly on things you haven't really studied, instead taking only your own belief system as the basis of truth, without any actual research about how research and study has been involved in the field you are talking about.

As an atheist... that should be a pattern you should find distrubing... as you seem to keep taking these points based purely "on faith."

1. "the fact that most "anarchists" are in reality just thinly veiled communists" - Oh, I love how Americans always seek to do two things: 1. Demonise communism. 2. Conflate completely unrelated political beliefs in order to attempt argument by mockery. Anarchism is dramatically different from communism - in fact, in many ways, they're polar opposites.

And I love how you can't understand words. Most people who call themselves anarchists are just communists, in my experience. They confuse being against the system in place with being against the existence of any government, and they seem to think that calling themselves anarchists gives them a reason to lob bricks through windows. That isn't a demonization of communism (which hardly needs demonizing, given its history), and I'm not conflating two different political beliefs but rather pointing out that a lot of self-styled anarchists are confused about their own political beliefs. Noam Chomsky, for instance, who is really just a government-loving leftist at his core since he doesn't think you should be able to own more property than he'd permit and doesn't trust people to enter into voluntary agreements with one another like proper fucking adults.

And yes, sadly, if society decided to strip people of rights, then those people lose those rights.

No, in that case their rights are being violated. It's a distinction with a difference. You have a right not to be murdered anywhere in the world, whether or not the governing body that claims the rule over the geographic area in which you reside says so. According to you, if some thug knifes you down in Sydney, he is violating your rights whereas if a man is stabbed to death in Iran for being a homosexual, his rights aren't being violated. He just didn't have any rights.

But I find it curious that you're so happy to dismiss the human rights set down by the UN way back at the start of it all.

Because those assholes don't determine what rights people do and don't have, and everything they say is meaningless.

Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Ireland. That's five. There are 50 countries in Europe. But hey, five of the countries are in crisis, so it's a European crisis. Hey, there are at least five countries in Africa that have dictatorships - therefore, when talking about dictatorships in Africa, we just talk about Africa being dictatorships, right? We don't bother to distinguish between the dictators and the rest.

Most of the European Union belongs to the Eurozone, and if the crisis continues to build (and it will), it's going to affect the entirety of Europe (and the rest of the world, as well). "European debt crisis" is a reasonable shorthand for that, you're just being silly here.

I also find it really curious that you felt that you needed to mention Germany's birth rate.

Because children are the future, and if you have no children you have no future. Germany is forever being portrayed as the economic colossus that can hold the Eurozone together, but with its deathbed demographics, that isn't going to happen.

As for non-American pharmaceutical companies in America, the point is that they're able to come up with drugs, etc, without operating within America.

Of course they are. Who said otherwise? But America dominates the field. Cherry picking one particular company doesn't change the fact that the US doesn't have price controls, other countries do, and companies take advantage of that fact. If that changed and they weren't making as much money, then it stands to reason that they would be investing less in R&D.

People believe it exists in America, certainly.

They also believe it exists in Not America, apparently. Otherwise you wouldn't have to talk about how no Australians are racist, except for all the racists.

If it were tribalism, you'd see some particular category of "blacks" fighting with another particular category of "blacks" because they're of different "tribes"

What? Really? If it is tribalism (loyalty to a particular group) rather than racism (a belief in the inherent inferiority or superiority of a race) then it must be intraracial as well as interracial? Are you sure you're a scientist?

Arguably you do see micro examples of this with, for example, blacks who espouse the wrong set of political beliefs being singled out as being somehow inauthentically black.

Meanwhile, you keep insisting on the false dichotomy between huge top-down government and extremely local government, even as I specifically spoke about the importance of balancing government among the scales. And as I pointed out, America's far too LOCAL, not too top-down.

Oh, no! I continued to disagree with you after you made an unconvincing assertion!

As for Estonia, sure, it's running a budget surplus. That's not hard to do, when you don't spend money on things. In the meantime, Estonia was hit by the GFC and went into recession. Indeed, in 2009, Estonia's economy dropped by a massive 14%. That is not indicative of a stable economy. It also has 11.7% unemployment, nearly 20% of its population is below the poverty line, and its GDP per capita is just US$19,000. For comparison, Australia never went into recession at all, it has 5.2% unemployment, about 13% of our population is below the poverty line, and our GDP is US$69,000 per capita. Oh, and we have the same debt level relative to GDP as Estonia, too. Australia has a better ranking in terms of ease of doing business, has a better credit rating, gives economic aid rather than receiving it (Estonia recieves economic foreign aid), and has lower inflation (1.9% vs 4% for Estonia).

'Stralia Über Alles!

No, seriously. Oz is great. I'm sure glad you don't run things there. And if the population there ever swells to 15 times its current size and becomes much more diverse, you guys might just prove me wrong yet. As it stands, you could still be a large state.

To be blunt, I'm not seeing exactly why you would want to use Estonia as a bastion of great government. Oh, and there's this, too. And Estonia has a 21% flat income tax... which means it takes more in tax relative to income than the American average, which is somewhere around 17%.

Well, it has the fastest growing economy in the EU, so compared to its bedfellows it's doing pretty swell. I don't really know how libertarian it is or not, just that it was considered the most libertarian nation by people who create indices to measure such things the last time I checked. But as the progressive American tax system skews how many people actually have skin in the game, I certainly like the idea of a flat tax. (No income tax at all and the government raising money entirely through excise taxes and usage fees would be better still.)

Individual and group genetics would have more of a case in horse-racing, since they are selectively bred for varying purposes. But yes, ultimately race/religion/ethnicity are constructs. Powerful, pervasive constructs, but constructs nonetheles