You see I don't believe someone who is more intelligent than another is a superior person. They are different. To me the child who is failing or the one with straight A's are not a demonstration of superiority/inferiority. They are simply different and will have different needs, abilities and understanding.

I know a child who had a head injury at an early age, was deaf for 3 years as a result, couldn't speak at all properly for those three years (2-5), subsequently diagnosed with ADD and written off by some teachers. The child's parents and teachers did not give up on the child and refused to administer medication for behavior control and tripled their efforts on the child's behalf: visiting doctors to work on recovering hearing, speech therapists and building a hand in hand relationship with each of the child's teachers. The child is now no different than any other third grader, has not had to be kept behind or one would ever think had been deaf.

I use this as an example to illustrate not only that there are often physiological reasons for slowness or disparate intellectual abilities - but also that each person has the potential to significantly correct any defficiencies and overcome them.

Iraqis have a high illiteracy rate, even higher among women as recorded by the UN.* There are a whole bunch of reasons for this and it does not mean that they are inferior. They are not victims either and should not be afforded victim status. At the same time we must understand that illiteracy in such high numbers and violent behavior often go hand in hand in such cultures. Being unable to absorb the countless emotional growths we experience by reading Twain's War Prayer or learning from the writings of Spinoza or Marcus Aurelius leave them unlikely to match the literate's perspective. The literate person (whom uses such literacy wisely) has countless ages of wisdom and mental maturity added unto themselves. Taking life becomes repugnant, horrifying. The value of life, children, women, love all grow into statuesque mountains within the literate person's consciousness.

The value of freedom, an understanding of the US' role in global development and history, the need to support freedom and individual liberty all grow and bear fruit in the literate's mind.

No, Iraqis are not my inferiors at all. The whole concept of inferiority/superiority is flawed. We are clearly not all equal - we are each different and the byproduct of our own experiences and development and have different needs and abilities. Pointing out disparities should not be used as a club to diminish individuals, groups or nations. We should realize that certain behavior, violence and crime generally coexist with certain levels of human development or turn a blind eye to such understandings. We should also do our best to assist everyone in continuing their personal or societal development.

I apologize for not having made my position clearer sooner - this post probably best explains my position of any on the entire thread.

SDAI-Tech1

*The UN has definite positive features if I have given the impression that it is all bad, that is unfortunate. UNESCO is one of their best and brightest programs. It, too, is often politicalized but not nearly so much so as the Security Council. Their collection of data is a service that would cost a nation a bundle to acquire on their own and the UN imparts a sense of global unity that keeps the smaller elements from conflicts.