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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: c.hinton who wrote (237097)	7/19/2007 3:11:37 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I checked the dictionary and the answer is no. < Are you a self proclaimed xenophobe? > dictionary.reference.com There is an emphasis in the definition of "unduly". Of course I am not unduly fearful of them. I am duly fearful of them. Note that they are sworn to exterminate me or force me to compliance with their edicts. It would be positively stupid to not take them at their word. Especially when they have hacked heaps of heads, shot plenty, bombed plenty and generally created carnage. Xenophobia is like other phobias = an undue fear of something. Phobics know they are scared of something which can't harm them, but their fear reaction happens anyway. They try to get cured of the problem, which they know is a problem. People who are not fearful of dangerous things are likely to get big trouble. Fear is a very useful function, developed over petatrillions of lifetimes to protect the being from getting into trouble. A xenophobe would have a general fear of foreigners. My fear is only of the dangerous ones. Wandering around Japan is not in the slightest scary [other than due to the foreigners who ARE scary - especially the Islamic type]. Same in Belgium - it feels safe. People don't seem hostile at all [other than in the Islamic parts where it seems quite dodgy]. Living in Brixton 30 years ago [we were about the only white faces] was okay too [then, I don't know what it's like now], maybe even more peaceable than regular parts of London. China and India seem very peaceable too. In fact the only place where I have felt fear in foreign lands was in Los Angeles after the Rodney King riots and I was trying to catch a bus to LAX from downtown. The very hostile looking blokes hanging around the Greyhound terminal deterred me and I walked back inside and caught a taxi-bus rather than regular street buses. Even crossing from Greece to Turkey in 1974 amongst tanks hiding under haystacks and war imminent was more interesting than frightening. They didn't seem to be targeting us. There have no doubt been other places I have felt fear in foreign lands, but I can't place them right now. Foreigners aren't scary. Just the dangerous ones are scary. The most sullen place I have ever seen was a town inland from the Yugoslavian coast in 1974. Now I know why they were sullen. They were probably an unhappy mix of Serbs and Moslems or something, with Germans having murdered their way around just 30 years before and regular carnage being part of the scene. South Africa was a sullen place too! [long ago and I gather it's no fun now either] Japanese are wise to be fearful of foreigners too. They have a great place, which will go like London if they let swarms of foreigners in [low value foreigners]. London is not the sweet and gentle place it was, with kindly English forming genteel queues, with good manners and politeness the order of the day. Japan still has their civil ways. Long may they keep them. Mqurice