I'm a 70 year old gay man living in PA.I am a ret.RN 45year. I have never distrusted my country. I reaped all the benefits that America had to offer. Unfortunately, the thought of being denied further Social Security support sits heavy in my gut everyday. I'm also on HIV meds. I am among millions with a lot at stake and I listen to this new regime in Washington
throw around their hatred for handouts and socialism yet,in the same breathe they're singing hymns and praising God over a godless leader. I listen to these podcasts with much enthusiasm because even though I'm in a tough spot , I still desire to hear how we got here . Both sides of the fence have important things to say and we must listen .I'm grateful for you , a much more learned person, that you're able to help me understand. Honestly, if JD Vance and the rest are the voice of young America , I'm glad I'm on the tail end of my life. It's pretty scary .Thank you again
My response to Frank Schaeffer's "Who stands for the west?"
Wow! What judgment you have! You support Israel, but do you support genocide? Should not students who think and examine be able to express their anger at our support of a country that murders families in their beds? You accuse these teachers of being Marxist and hating America. Where do you get off? Perhaps they love America? Perhaps they really care about the values and choices we are making? Students should protest what they feel is wrong. We did it in the 60s. My parents called it riots until Kent State. That is the beauty of our government, our Western, Democratic government. We have the right to protest what we feel is wrong, to stand up to leadership that lies, to stand up to governmental misuse of power. Here, you blame the teachers and the students and call them un-American, yet do you know them? Do you KNOW that they are Marxist, or do you simply assume that they are because you read it somewhere?
One of the things I taught my children was logic. Logic helps us recognize fallacies, false statements. They would be something like this: "All the blue-eyed girls in this room are German, therefore, all blue-eyed girls are German." It's a generalization. Your fallacy is to state that all the professors at Columbia are Marxist directing these protests and therefore the students are un-American. There is so much wrong with that. The first assumption, that the professors are Marxist. Proof? Where is your proof? When you judge the finger points right back at you. The students, you say, who are un-American are proof of the professors' Marxism. The students are not proof of their teacher's Marxism simply because they are angry that children are starving in Gaza, that innocent Palestinian Christians and innocent Muslims are dying for the actions of Hamas. What do you think of the resumption of bombing on Gaza during a cease-fire at 2 AM approved by D Trump? Is that not something to protest? Israel is not acting like a democracy, the one you say you supported. You chastise the teachers and students for being un-American, but protesting is a decidedly American activity.
Also, as you discuss our roots, you neglect that democracy came to us first from Greece and predates the Roman Empire; you note it as if democracy were purely a westery European product.
I completely agree, "Only fools forget their history." Absolutely, and we need more opportunities to learn our history. We need better methods of teaching it rather than making it boring dates and facts. We need our children to learn to examine causes and results. There are consequences to actions, and even our Christian teaching neglects teaching our kids this.
As an adoptive parent, I learned to teach my children struggling with attachment disorder that when they did something wrong they needed to do restitution. They needed to learn that there were costs for doing harm, and that acknowledging the harm done, making restitution is essential. We don't teach this in Evangelical Christianity. We teach cheep forgiveness. I did something wrong, I apologize and then you forgive me. If you don't forgive, something is wrong with you. Teaching people consequential thinking, that their actions have a cost, that when a wrong is done, it must be righted, that is important. Kids are idealistic. They see the wrongs, and they want to see them righted. They don't want to see a government saying, "Fine, go ahead, bomb away because we support Israel."
So much of our society has been harmed because we do not recognize consequences unless it is to blame someone else for their consequences (IE: HIV in the 80s and Gay persons-we ignored HIV as a consequence of sin to our detriment). We don't own our stuff. We don't acknowledge when we are wrong, and the results are people like Trump, Vance, Hegseth, and their ilk. They have been espousing Russian propaganda, and the government did nothing about stopping the propaganda when they could. Like a parent with a lying child, the government, GOP, and traditionalists ignore the problems and hope the administration will just grow out of it. Instead, the lies just take over all our lives and lead us down a destructive path. We are reaping what we as a nation have sown, we are reaping what we as Christians have fostered, nurtured, and grown. We need to own our actions and address them and find ways to redress the problems we have fostered.
Frankly, this talking-head blame you are doing doesn't help. You still haven't really dealt with your own culpability as a Christian leader. You want easy forgiveness, and then you want to blame the results and consequences on the "libs" and "extremists" rather than look at taking responsibility for being part of the cause and finding actions that will provide restitution and redress. How about telling those conservatives that FOX is lying to them, that Donald Trump is lying to them, that Russia has been manipulating them? How about finding ways to disseminate truth instead of blame? Where can you, actually, start to make a difference? Blame is something we learned early on with my kids in homeschool that is completely useless. We absolve ourselves of our own guilt and fail to own our actions by making others take responsibility for our choices. D Trump is an excellent example, and his blame politics, threats, and manipulations are certain to lead to our destruction.
What is needed in Christianity today is less finger-pointing and much more repentance, and we must start with our arrogance. Until then, we are doomed to repeat this cycle of arrogance.
Israel has a right and a duty to protect its citizens from Islamic terrorists who sit on its border. When I look at an Israeli I see a culture that resembles my own.
I’m not Jewish, but I will always defend the Jewish people. Especially NOW.
Do you understand that Jews globally make up 0.2% of the world’s population? They are the most vulnerable population. Islam and MAGA have much in common, none of it good or decent. The Rule of Law of course must apply to all, or it applies to none.
Yes, and that means to the innocent people in Gaza as well. I do not wish bad for Israel, but I will acknowledge that what they do now is not in any way Godly. What Hamas did was horrid and evil, and backlash was inevitable, but does it justify what Israel is doing now? The Jewish people are people who deserve a life of freedom and safety, as do the Gazans. Where we make the error in our thinking is placing them above other people as if they deserve more, as if their terrorist actions are fine. We seem to ignore the Palestinian Christians who have lived in that space since the beginnings of Christianity. If we look at only Hamas and generalize that all the people there are evil because of Hamas, then we discount our Christian brothers and sisters who are suffering, fleeing for their lives, and trying to survive. You seem to want to support Israel at all costs, yet the brutality and magnitude of this destruction is horrific. It isn't just aimed at Hamas or terrorists; otherwise, why bomb a family in their home having a funeral? Why stop food and water from reaching these desperate people? Why not allow medical supplies? Why specifically target journalists? Should Israel have the right to defend itself? Yes. Does that right extend to genocide? No. I do not support genocide.
I don’t live in Gaza thank God. I seem to recall a brutal and senseless attack on Israelis on 10/7/2023. Young people at a music festival! It was gory, almost incomprehensible violence. I do not like or respect any culture that celebrates this. I’ve studied it at length and that is my opinion. I feel sorry for their women, children, LGBTQ.
As I got to the end of this diatribe, I realized something. Thank you for arguing with me, helping me clarify what I'm thinking and simply engaging. I appreciate you and your time.
Please, acknowledge the evil that was done by Hamas, but do not lump all Palestinians in the same group, which committed such a great evil. Palestinian Christians in Gaza do not celebrate evil done to Israel, yet your comment lumps them all in with Gazan "culture". There are MAGAns who would celebrate evil done to LDGBTQ+ and have perpetrated it, yet they do not represent our culture. To some in the world, those MAGAns represent us all, as we elected Trump. I would not want to reap the consequences for their actions from a stranger who decides that I must be evil because of my place of birth.
Palestinian Christians were some of the first Gentile believers. They live in the Gaza strip, and their culture is not Hamas, not Islamic. To grieve the evil done to the Palestinians is not wrong. Justice has to be justice for all; law must apply to all. What Israel is doing has been determined in the world courts to be human rights abuses. And, by the way, we as a nation are now on a watchlist for human rights abuses done to immigrants.
We are fortunate to live where we are, so far, safe from such threats of destruction and violence. However, this discussion about Hamas or Israel isn't the real point. The point of my response to Frank, and in essence to you, is that he lumped all these protestors into the un-American category, just as some lump caring for those harmed in Gaza into the "hate Jews" category. Neither is true. I care very much for Israel, and it sickens me to see what they are doing.
Someone once said that "hate is not the opposite of love. Indifference is the opposite of love." I think it was John Ortburg. The reason was that if I hate, I still care. Protestors are angry because they care. People who are indifferent don't protest, and don't raise their voices to call out injustice, because they have no love. People protest because they are American. I argue with you not because I am for the evil that happened at the hands of Hamas, but because I care about how we as a nation do things, how we as Christians act out there in the world, and ultimately, the consequences that our actions or inactions bring about. Our unswerving support of Israel has enabled injustice and that bothers me deeply.
The protestors care about how we as a nation and their school conducts themselves. Students saw the evil happening to the Palestinian people and didn't want their schools using their funds to support those actions. That is not un-American. Protesting says that they care. What I don't like about what Frank said was that he decided they were Marxist and un-American, and he practiced the partisanship he claimed to be protesting. He judged them without knowing them as he often does when he uses the term "Libs."
Evil is evil, no matter who does it. The problem in our society is that evil is excused because money seems to trump justice these days. Evil is happening now to students who chose to protest because they cared. The current administration is using those protests to expel the students and damage their families, incarcerating any of them who were "legal" immigrants. There is a Time Magazine article (https://time.com/7272060/international-students-targeted-trump-ice-detention-deport-campus-palestinian-activism/) that tells about each of them, so far. Their crime is disagreeing with their school on funding regarding Israel and Palestine and taking the time to protest, or writing an article, or being married to a former "Al Jazeera" reporter. As our government uses Palestine as an excuse to deport or incarcerate people or violate their rights, it erodes the rule of law, and it could result in our government deciding that people like you and I, who disagree with the them, should be incarcerated. Martin Niemöller's poem applies here.
Frank is a very public figure, and people listen to him. I'm essentially a nobody. He has the opportunity to catch the attention of some of those conservatives, and maybe even help them to hear truth. Instead, he wastes his opportunity on this kind of message. That's why I respond.
I agree with much that you said. I grew up in a conservative Mennonite community and was introduced to Enlightenment ideals in a public high school, even more so in college and then in graduate school at Columbia University. I highly value my college and university education which introduced me to Enlightenment ideas and art. And am terrified by the Evangelical influence on our government that wants us to abandon the Enlightenment and many Western advances. I cannot return to a repressive authoritarian judgmental patriarchal society without Enlightenment ideals which by the way reflect more the message of Christ. In fact in my opinion Christ inspired the eventual Enlightenment freedoms and advances. I won’t go back!
Frank Schaeffer seems to relish in dividing the Left up into little, tiny bits to hate. Just like Fox News. It has become a habit with him. What he is observing is a crtcism of Liberalism, (in the sense of the Enlightenment period) that I learned it in public education my entire youth. All the way through public college. We learned to love Western advancements as well as to crtcize it's failures. We on the Left do both constantly but when addressing systemic problems, we address those problems and the hipocracy that inspires them. Like it or not, complaing is much louder and more constant than acceptance. It has to be. I think the real problem here is proximetry. It is so much more frustrating to see your brother in error than your neighbor. Citicism of each other is actually a good idea but, to assign character flaws to differences is simply wrong, Mister Schaeffer.
In a now globalized world wherein everyone and everything is instantaneously inter-connected where does the "west" begin and end?
Perhaps with the 800 or so world-wide military bases! Individually and collectively they create a very powerful death-saturated psycho-physical force field which now rules to here.
It is interesting to note that that very famous painting is a celebration of the spirit-killing left brained paradigm that now patterns and controls every aspect of human culture.
Notice that apart from a tiny picturing of a distant sky and clouds there are no traces of the natural world to be found there.
Its origins and historical development are described in the book by Iain McGilchrist titled The Master & His Emissary - The Left Brain and the Making of the West.
Meanwhile who or what now controls and thus determines the future of the West and the world altogether.
This reference provides an explanation/description of such:
I've often wondered why "the West" is capitalized as if it were a proper noun. The simplest definition I've come up with it is that "the West" is a Germanic warlord, an Italic junior partner, and a Celtic mascot.
I stand for the West Frank. I would still like to know where Rashida Tlaib is right now. Why she is not out there with that damn bullhorn calling for Trump’s head the way she did for Biden and Kamala Harris.
"Civilization" is being at best whimsical and at worst ignorant and/or brain washed when used with "Western"! The west from the beginning and to this day has/is based on colonization/subjugation/violence/war and genocide for profit and power.
Take your pick of historical data. The 1600's when England took a foothold in India for example.When Belgium took over Sudan in 1884, The discovery of the Americas by Spain in 1492. Points of reference for you.
I feel for the British. They are bombarded with massive, uncontrolled immigration from Middle Eastern countries stuck in the 7th century. I am a liberal Democrat. I voted for Kamala Harris. Thanks in part to the pro Hamas riots, we got Trump. Where is Rashida Tlaib? She’s way too comfortable and silent. Not so tough is she?
Thank you . This was very clearly stated .
I'm a 70 year old gay man living in PA.I am a ret.RN 45year. I have never distrusted my country. I reaped all the benefits that America had to offer. Unfortunately, the thought of being denied further Social Security support sits heavy in my gut everyday. I'm also on HIV meds. I am among millions with a lot at stake and I listen to this new regime in Washington
throw around their hatred for handouts and socialism yet,in the same breathe they're singing hymns and praising God over a godless leader. I listen to these podcasts with much enthusiasm because even though I'm in a tough spot , I still desire to hear how we got here . Both sides of the fence have important things to say and we must listen .I'm grateful for you , a much more learned person, that you're able to help me understand. Honestly, if JD Vance and the rest are the voice of young America , I'm glad I'm on the tail end of my life. It's pretty scary .Thank you again
My response to Frank Schaeffer's "Who stands for the west?"
Wow! What judgment you have! You support Israel, but do you support genocide? Should not students who think and examine be able to express their anger at our support of a country that murders families in their beds? You accuse these teachers of being Marxist and hating America. Where do you get off? Perhaps they love America? Perhaps they really care about the values and choices we are making? Students should protest what they feel is wrong. We did it in the 60s. My parents called it riots until Kent State. That is the beauty of our government, our Western, Democratic government. We have the right to protest what we feel is wrong, to stand up to leadership that lies, to stand up to governmental misuse of power. Here, you blame the teachers and the students and call them un-American, yet do you know them? Do you KNOW that they are Marxist, or do you simply assume that they are because you read it somewhere?
One of the things I taught my children was logic. Logic helps us recognize fallacies, false statements. They would be something like this: "All the blue-eyed girls in this room are German, therefore, all blue-eyed girls are German." It's a generalization. Your fallacy is to state that all the professors at Columbia are Marxist directing these protests and therefore the students are un-American. There is so much wrong with that. The first assumption, that the professors are Marxist. Proof? Where is your proof? When you judge the finger points right back at you. The students, you say, who are un-American are proof of the professors' Marxism. The students are not proof of their teacher's Marxism simply because they are angry that children are starving in Gaza, that innocent Palestinian Christians and innocent Muslims are dying for the actions of Hamas. What do you think of the resumption of bombing on Gaza during a cease-fire at 2 AM approved by D Trump? Is that not something to protest? Israel is not acting like a democracy, the one you say you supported. You chastise the teachers and students for being un-American, but protesting is a decidedly American activity.
Also, as you discuss our roots, you neglect that democracy came to us first from Greece and predates the Roman Empire; you note it as if democracy were purely a westery European product.
I completely agree, "Only fools forget their history." Absolutely, and we need more opportunities to learn our history. We need better methods of teaching it rather than making it boring dates and facts. We need our children to learn to examine causes and results. There are consequences to actions, and even our Christian teaching neglects teaching our kids this.
As an adoptive parent, I learned to teach my children struggling with attachment disorder that when they did something wrong they needed to do restitution. They needed to learn that there were costs for doing harm, and that acknowledging the harm done, making restitution is essential. We don't teach this in Evangelical Christianity. We teach cheep forgiveness. I did something wrong, I apologize and then you forgive me. If you don't forgive, something is wrong with you. Teaching people consequential thinking, that their actions have a cost, that when a wrong is done, it must be righted, that is important. Kids are idealistic. They see the wrongs, and they want to see them righted. They don't want to see a government saying, "Fine, go ahead, bomb away because we support Israel."
So much of our society has been harmed because we do not recognize consequences unless it is to blame someone else for their consequences (IE: HIV in the 80s and Gay persons-we ignored HIV as a consequence of sin to our detriment). We don't own our stuff. We don't acknowledge when we are wrong, and the results are people like Trump, Vance, Hegseth, and their ilk. They have been espousing Russian propaganda, and the government did nothing about stopping the propaganda when they could. Like a parent with a lying child, the government, GOP, and traditionalists ignore the problems and hope the administration will just grow out of it. Instead, the lies just take over all our lives and lead us down a destructive path. We are reaping what we as a nation have sown, we are reaping what we as Christians have fostered, nurtured, and grown. We need to own our actions and address them and find ways to redress the problems we have fostered.
Frankly, this talking-head blame you are doing doesn't help. You still haven't really dealt with your own culpability as a Christian leader. You want easy forgiveness, and then you want to blame the results and consequences on the "libs" and "extremists" rather than look at taking responsibility for being part of the cause and finding actions that will provide restitution and redress. How about telling those conservatives that FOX is lying to them, that Donald Trump is lying to them, that Russia has been manipulating them? How about finding ways to disseminate truth instead of blame? Where can you, actually, start to make a difference? Blame is something we learned early on with my kids in homeschool that is completely useless. We absolve ourselves of our own guilt and fail to own our actions by making others take responsibility for our choices. D Trump is an excellent example, and his blame politics, threats, and manipulations are certain to lead to our destruction.
What is needed in Christianity today is less finger-pointing and much more repentance, and we must start with our arrogance. Until then, we are doomed to repeat this cycle of arrogance.
Israel has a right and a duty to protect its citizens from Islamic terrorists who sit on its border. When I look at an Israeli I see a culture that resembles my own.
I’m not Jewish, but I will always defend the Jewish people. Especially NOW.
Do you understand that Jews globally make up 0.2% of the world’s population? They are the most vulnerable population. Islam and MAGA have much in common, none of it good or decent. The Rule of Law of course must apply to all, or it applies to none.
Yes, and that means to the innocent people in Gaza as well. I do not wish bad for Israel, but I will acknowledge that what they do now is not in any way Godly. What Hamas did was horrid and evil, and backlash was inevitable, but does it justify what Israel is doing now? The Jewish people are people who deserve a life of freedom and safety, as do the Gazans. Where we make the error in our thinking is placing them above other people as if they deserve more, as if their terrorist actions are fine. We seem to ignore the Palestinian Christians who have lived in that space since the beginnings of Christianity. If we look at only Hamas and generalize that all the people there are evil because of Hamas, then we discount our Christian brothers and sisters who are suffering, fleeing for their lives, and trying to survive. You seem to want to support Israel at all costs, yet the brutality and magnitude of this destruction is horrific. It isn't just aimed at Hamas or terrorists; otherwise, why bomb a family in their home having a funeral? Why stop food and water from reaching these desperate people? Why not allow medical supplies? Why specifically target journalists? Should Israel have the right to defend itself? Yes. Does that right extend to genocide? No. I do not support genocide.
I don’t live in Gaza thank God. I seem to recall a brutal and senseless attack on Israelis on 10/7/2023. Young people at a music festival! It was gory, almost incomprehensible violence. I do not like or respect any culture that celebrates this. I’ve studied it at length and that is my opinion. I feel sorry for their women, children, LGBTQ.
As I got to the end of this diatribe, I realized something. Thank you for arguing with me, helping me clarify what I'm thinking and simply engaging. I appreciate you and your time.
Please, acknowledge the evil that was done by Hamas, but do not lump all Palestinians in the same group, which committed such a great evil. Palestinian Christians in Gaza do not celebrate evil done to Israel, yet your comment lumps them all in with Gazan "culture". There are MAGAns who would celebrate evil done to LDGBTQ+ and have perpetrated it, yet they do not represent our culture. To some in the world, those MAGAns represent us all, as we elected Trump. I would not want to reap the consequences for their actions from a stranger who decides that I must be evil because of my place of birth.
Palestinian Christians were some of the first Gentile believers. They live in the Gaza strip, and their culture is not Hamas, not Islamic. To grieve the evil done to the Palestinians is not wrong. Justice has to be justice for all; law must apply to all. What Israel is doing has been determined in the world courts to be human rights abuses. And, by the way, we as a nation are now on a watchlist for human rights abuses done to immigrants.
We are fortunate to live where we are, so far, safe from such threats of destruction and violence. However, this discussion about Hamas or Israel isn't the real point. The point of my response to Frank, and in essence to you, is that he lumped all these protestors into the un-American category, just as some lump caring for those harmed in Gaza into the "hate Jews" category. Neither is true. I care very much for Israel, and it sickens me to see what they are doing.
Someone once said that "hate is not the opposite of love. Indifference is the opposite of love." I think it was John Ortburg. The reason was that if I hate, I still care. Protestors are angry because they care. People who are indifferent don't protest, and don't raise their voices to call out injustice, because they have no love. People protest because they are American. I argue with you not because I am for the evil that happened at the hands of Hamas, but because I care about how we as a nation do things, how we as Christians act out there in the world, and ultimately, the consequences that our actions or inactions bring about. Our unswerving support of Israel has enabled injustice and that bothers me deeply.
The protestors care about how we as a nation and their school conducts themselves. Students saw the evil happening to the Palestinian people and didn't want their schools using their funds to support those actions. That is not un-American. Protesting says that they care. What I don't like about what Frank said was that he decided they were Marxist and un-American, and he practiced the partisanship he claimed to be protesting. He judged them without knowing them as he often does when he uses the term "Libs."
Evil is evil, no matter who does it. The problem in our society is that evil is excused because money seems to trump justice these days. Evil is happening now to students who chose to protest because they cared. The current administration is using those protests to expel the students and damage their families, incarcerating any of them who were "legal" immigrants. There is a Time Magazine article (https://time.com/7272060/international-students-targeted-trump-ice-detention-deport-campus-palestinian-activism/) that tells about each of them, so far. Their crime is disagreeing with their school on funding regarding Israel and Palestine and taking the time to protest, or writing an article, or being married to a former "Al Jazeera" reporter. As our government uses Palestine as an excuse to deport or incarcerate people or violate their rights, it erodes the rule of law, and it could result in our government deciding that people like you and I, who disagree with the them, should be incarcerated. Martin Niemöller's poem applies here.
Frank is a very public figure, and people listen to him. I'm essentially a nobody. He has the opportunity to catch the attention of some of those conservatives, and maybe even help them to hear truth. Instead, he wastes his opportunity on this kind of message. That's why I respond.
You're so right on, again. I can only add my support, have and do.
I agree with much that you said. I grew up in a conservative Mennonite community and was introduced to Enlightenment ideals in a public high school, even more so in college and then in graduate school at Columbia University. I highly value my college and university education which introduced me to Enlightenment ideas and art. And am terrified by the Evangelical influence on our government that wants us to abandon the Enlightenment and many Western advances. I cannot return to a repressive authoritarian judgmental patriarchal society without Enlightenment ideals which by the way reflect more the message of Christ. In fact in my opinion Christ inspired the eventual Enlightenment freedoms and advances. I won’t go back!
Frank Schaeffer seems to relish in dividing the Left up into little, tiny bits to hate. Just like Fox News. It has become a habit with him. What he is observing is a crtcism of Liberalism, (in the sense of the Enlightenment period) that I learned it in public education my entire youth. All the way through public college. We learned to love Western advancements as well as to crtcize it's failures. We on the Left do both constantly but when addressing systemic problems, we address those problems and the hipocracy that inspires them. Like it or not, complaing is much louder and more constant than acceptance. It has to be. I think the real problem here is proximetry. It is so much more frustrating to see your brother in error than your neighbor. Citicism of each other is actually a good idea but, to assign character flaws to differences is simply wrong, Mister Schaeffer.
In a now globalized world wherein everyone and everything is instantaneously inter-connected where does the "west" begin and end?
Perhaps with the 800 or so world-wide military bases! Individually and collectively they create a very powerful death-saturated psycho-physical force field which now rules to here.
It is interesting to note that that very famous painting is a celebration of the spirit-killing left brained paradigm that now patterns and controls every aspect of human culture.
Notice that apart from a tiny picturing of a distant sky and clouds there are no traces of the natural world to be found there.
Its origins and historical development are described in the book by Iain McGilchrist titled The Master & His Emissary - The Left Brain and the Making of the West.
Meanwhile who or what now controls and thus determines the future of the West and the world altogether.
This reference provides an explanation/description of such:
http://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/2024/09/02/opus-deis-influence-on-project-2025
I've often wondered why "the West" is capitalized as if it were a proper noun. The simplest definition I've come up with it is that "the West" is a Germanic warlord, an Italic junior partner, and a Celtic mascot.
I stand for the West Frank. I would still like to know where Rashida Tlaib is right now. Why she is not out there with that damn bullhorn calling for Trump’s head the way she did for Biden and Kamala Harris.
"Civilization" is being at best whimsical and at worst ignorant and/or brain washed when used with "Western"! The west from the beginning and to this day has/is based on colonization/subjugation/violence/war and genocide for profit and power.
When was "the beginning"?
Take your pick of historical data. The 1600's when England took a foothold in India for example.When Belgium took over Sudan in 1884, The discovery of the Americas by Spain in 1492. Points of reference for you.
Generally when people say "from the beginning," they mean from when it started. Is that what you mean? If so, when was the beginning?
I feel for the British. They are bombarded with massive, uncontrolled immigration from Middle Eastern countries stuck in the 7th century. I am a liberal Democrat. I voted for Kamala Harris. Thanks in part to the pro Hamas riots, we got Trump. Where is Rashida Tlaib? She’s way too comfortable and silent. Not so tough is she?