QuickSilver.
It appears we are overall in agreement.
My comparing Japanese to Christian honesty was purely meant to counter the implications made by FoG that only Christians were honest. When you brought up the Japanese past at this point, I just felt it was way out of context and not at all relevant to the thread in question. Alas, you noted my reaction, (or over reaction as it may have been).
Shall we call this settled?
Greetings, goboy. Your point is well taken. Considering the amount of discrimination and prejudice that exists in other nations, we here in the US have it pretty good.
It’s nice to have been able to come to a mutual agreement and clear up misunderstanding. Settled and done. 
I hate these debates. You see all these great quotes: ‘every country has dones things they are not proud off’ ‘there is discrimination everywhere’ ‘but we are really all the same; we are all human beings, so can’t we all just get along?’. And everyone decides they can agree to sort of agree, and we all pat ourselves on the back and kid ourselves into thinking that we have helped advance human understanding.
See, the best quote was from the person who noted the difference between the individual and the mob. You know how even if you have an account with an ISP which has the fastest possible Internet connection, your connection time may still suck because you have a 14.4k modem–your connection time ultimately slows to the lowest common denominator.
Same with mobs - despite the individual brilliance of the human race, the more people you bring together, the more you end up with what looks like Friday nights (or early Saturday mornings) at Gas Panic…
So what was my point? Oh, right - these debates are meaningless because they are individual perceptions of ‘the mass’ - the mass to which we are also members. Like leaves of a tree trying to disect the worth of the trunk…
Or something like that…
Welcome webmaster!
What an incredibly insightful post. You are to be congradulated for your brilliance and clarity of thought.
That settles it for me folks… no more discussions… close down the board… everybody go home.