[jaguar]

Alithana - that is the point of cultural relativism but the way I see it, it's closer to nihilism. If you cannot say that any culture is better or worse than any other, there can, by definition, be no progress. You cannot say that female genital mutilation is bad, that child labour is bad, that stoning gays to death is bad because it's another culture you do not belong to. Thus my saying it's intellectual poison. I don't see 'progress' as a linear thing but I do believe there is better and worse which leads me to by next point:

The answer, from what I can see ties in to questions of the role of the nation state and culture in the 21st century - is some kind of explicit declaration of values, a kind of bill of rights of some sort, a baseline.

This way I think you deal with Aliantha's problem you may say as you wish, but if you cross this line, I'm going to give you both barrels, this is where we stand and we will not move or, in practice This country stands for human rights, equality in race, gender, sexual orientation etc, free speech and a few more, if you disagree with these things, you're welcome to kindly fuck off.

Of course that doesn't sit too comfortably with free speech. Problem, dat.

Over the last few days a debate has erupted here about the incredible number of Eastern European immigrants that have come via EU freedom of movement, never know, might spark something larger.