No Moral Standing Yet

“Incidentally, similar thoughts have crossed my mind whenever I contemplate returning to India.” — However you don’t mind paying taxes to a govt that is killing thousands of innocent civilians in Iraq; does such a thought make you wanna leave this country and go somewhere else?

Whoa! I never condoned action by the U.S. government. But to answer your question – yes. Should I use the frying pan & fire analogy? Maybe there is a cooling colander somewhere.

Free speech and community diversity are incompatible. In America people who cross the liberal orthodoxy end up losing their jobs. Larry sumner and James watson are martyrs to freedom of speech. They had to pay for offending the high priests of leftism ruling the academic world. Besides most NRI’s place a higher value on respect for religion than respect for liberty. It is faintly ridiculous to judge India by values most dear to westerners.

Vikas’s reason on not going to India is hilarious … Patrix – you don’t want to return to India because you don’t want to … please stop acting as a custodian of morality

LOL @ “custodian of morality.” Go ahead, debauch yourself; I couldn’t care less.

I’d left a lengthy comment on Vikas’s site that he seems to have censored, with links to 6 recent stories about civil liberties in the US. Short answer — if you think civil liberties are safe in the US you are seriously deluded. They have been under attack for years and the Bush administration has done its best to strip away as many legal rights as it can. And the ONLY presidential candidates talking about this are Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich; Paul can only win by a miracle and Kucinich has no hope whatever. I personally think India today is a much better, safer, freer place to live in. Not to mention, things work in India (seriously) — you call the plumber, he comes; he doesn’t give you an appointment for the middle of next week.

Rahul, I thought we were talking about India.

PS. And I don’t think Vikas has ‘censored’ your comment. A comment with 6 links must have been spanked by his spam filter. I suggest you email him and ask him to check that.

So you want to return to India only when everything is in order? Sounds smart, but *we* won’t want you here at that time.

(Not that even now, we’d like to have folks who keep making wide sweeping statements to justify their convenient choices.)

Patrix — I thought we were talking about returning to India from the USA, because India is a “moral pygmy” compared to the Land Of The Free.

As for emailing Vikas — no thanks, other people’s misconceived spam filters are not my problem.

Patrix – it is better that people like you and Vikas stay in the US. You guys just need a reason not to return to India and thats the bottomline … Rahul and Sri have hit the nail on the head. Keep fooling yourself … good luck

LOL! I wasn’t aware India had any gate keepers to keep out ‘unwanted NRIs’. Interesting to note that none have addressed the ‘individual rights’ issues that Vikas has pointed out. All you’ve said is, the U.S. is doing it too which is hardly the mature argument one would make in such a case.

LOL – Man, has this debate gone out of spiral or what. Why do these discussions always end up with “We dont need you NRIs!” statement. While Vikas’s reasons are absolutely laughable and err I would even say immature, I dont think his viewpoint also reflects Patrix’s just because he linked the post!

Both US and India have a long way to go to attain “civil liberty” nirvana. Its just what you think affects you most that matters most.

If you have to return, 1 reason is enough. To not, you can keep digging any number of reasons

Peace!

@Patrix: Oops, I saw his post again, and you left me question:

“Supremus, and what would that one reason be?”

Answer: family. I may change a lot many places and houses, but that’s where my home is.

Supremus, I agree. And that is the most important reason I would considering moving back as well. My brother moved back couple of years back and talking with him and others, I feel that the decision to move back or stay here are mostly emotional and rationalized by other reasons. Of course, assuming the economic reasons are near-comparable.

As for emailing Vikas — no thanks, other people’s misconceived spam filters are not my problem.

Rahul: You make me laugh. I suggest that you test your own spam filter for any misconceptions by posting half a dozen links on your own blog comments.

Getting back to India is a personal choice. My reason behind my decision to stay out currently, is that I have gotten used to the slight increase in my own personal space to make my own decisions since I have been out. I am reluctant to relinquish all that and go back and find out that everyone and their pet dog has an opinion on how to live MY life.

It’s personal. Someone who decides to go back is not a saint and someone who wants to stay outside is not necessarily satan’s minion.

But its laughable that every such discussion ends with a resident Indian mouthing off with the words – “We don’t want you NRIs in India”. At that point, I am wondering if someone asked their opinion, which brings me back to my original point that I hate being told how to live MY life by everyone and their pet dog in India.
And Rahul, if you don’t know how to test your comment section, I’d gladly test it for you by pasting 6 links straight from the wikipedia entry on Spam filters. I think that would be a good test.

Patrix – funny that you also are at the receiving end of the comments just because you linked to my post and added an introductory comment to it.

For other folks who took time to read and comment on my post – I am glad that you had something to say and here’s my response.

Let me first respond to the most common criticism – that the US is morally corrupt as well. Well, the first problem with that argument is that this is probably one of the worst US administrations when it comes to responsible behavior around the world. But I strongly believe that this is an aberration. US has a long tradition of civil liberties for its citizens and an independent streak amongst its citizens and the tide is already turning. In all the other western democracies, including the United Kingdom, state and the police have far more power to curtail personal freedoms of its citizens.

If you currently live in the US, you already know how dismayed its citizens are over the current state of things.

It is a different situation altogether in India. Our constitution was not created on the bedrock of individual freedom. There are a lot of good things about India’s constitution but enshrinement of individual choice and freedom, like it is in the US constitution, is not one of them. So in the Indian society, this curtailment of freedom of speech is not an aberration but a tradition. And it is getting worse because too many political groups get their power from pandering to specific sections of the society. That’s the crux of my post and the basis of my worry.

Rahul – I never censor any comment unless it is downright abusive. As Anantha said, it was caught in my automatic spam filter because of the number of links and I’ve approved it.

In spite of all the growth, one that India defenitely lacks is a decent blog or aggregator that “brings you the rich variety of opinions posted daily in the Indian blogosphere”.

Sad that the exisiting ones continue to link to immature and persoanl rantings…

As the ‘free market fundamentalists’ would say, it is a free market out there.