You can destroy a culture without destroying its people.
Speaking as a fellow liberal and Democrat, I am saddened to see that you fall into that sad category of liberal who cannot simply condemn a barbaric act by another country, but have to turn it into a chance to berate the U.S. You are giving ammunition to the conservatives who charge that liberals are a bunch of holier-than-thou types who turn every outrage perpetrated in another country into a chance to condemn the U.S.
A little straight-up moral outrage against evil outside the U.S. without making a domestic issue out of it would do you a lot of good.
I’m with you on the Islamic fuckheads, except that I understand they have a lot of popular support especially in tke rural areas of Iran. Just like the Nazis didn’t turn Germany into what it became all they themselves – a lot of ordinary Germans wholeheartedly supported them, or perhaps halfheartedly supported them.
I suspect that the severity of the judge’s reaction may have something to do about the tensions between the young, urban Iranian and the old mullahs in Iran. I personally would be all for killing all the old mullahs, just don’t know if it would solve the problem.
Well, it’s a place to start.
It would be a very good place to start. Now what was that old quote about the guy not speaking up for others, and when they came for him there was no one left to speak up? Many of you good folks don’t believe in God. Neither here nor there. In this case though, it would be nice to know for sure that The Big Guy had some “special attention” planned for this shitbag judge and all his mullah buddies.
Since the condemnation in this thread of what happened is surely a result of your brilliant insight, Rush, I suppose I should thank you. Your political acumen has doubtless opened the eyes of dozens of posters here.
Maybe sometimes that’s a good thing. We destroyed the Nazi culture after World War II, and we’re better off for it. Destroying the culture of religious extremism could be worthwhile.
Oh, piffle.
This event has been used by several posters to launch the stereotypical “evil culture” of Islam schtick despite the evidence that this was a horrific act by one out-of-control local official. Claims have been treated as fact that the girl was being tried for having been raped and that she was sentenced to death for having sex and the arguments based on those claims have continued despite the fact that evidence has been presented that the one claim is purely false conjecture and the other is probably incorrect.
I fully condemn the actions of the judge. However, I also note that, according to the stories, themselves, the judge acted in violation of the law of Iran (trial with no defense attorney and fraudulent claim of the girl’s age). I see no reason why we should set this extra-legal travesty of justice up as an example of Iranian or Islamic law to condemn that culture unless we are also willing to point out cases where malice or incompetence leading to the execution or imprisonment of the innocent should condemn our entire society and culture.
The actions of the judge are unconscionable.
There is not yet evidence that the actions of the judge represent the will of the people of Iran, (or even of the mullahs, given the purjured evidence that the judge appears to have submitted to them–and I have condemned the mullahs on previous occasions, although I did not confuse them with Islam any more than I have confused Pat Roberston or Ian Paisely with Christianity or Meir Kohane with Judaism).
If the next week brings out a story demonstrating that the Muslim world is in complete agreement with the actions of the judge, I will condemn that society. (If the evidence presented turns out to have been twisted to get the “appropriate” reactions, I am going to withhold that condemnation.)
(It should also be noted that there are, at the moment, only two stories (repeated in several places) about this incident in English on the internet. Each has its source in an opposition group to the government of Iran. The less nuanced story is being gleefully repeated on several “Christian” sites. We have, as yet, nothing resembling a third-party verification that the event actually happened or that it happened in the way that it has been presented to us.)
(BTW, I am neither a liberal nor a Democrat.)
In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up. -Martin Niemoeller
Yeah. That too.
Nonsense. Nobody here is condemning cultural tolerance per se. What we are condemning is the tendency to excuse such atrocities in the name of cultural tolerance
Cultural tolerance is fine, but not to the point of excusing such abominable acts.
And since hnobody here is is condeming the need for cultural tolerance per se, it seems to me that you’re the one who’s spreading bovine excrement, and acting like an orifice.
That’s my point. Why exterminate the people when you can alter their culture?
Less work?
I promise not to ever again. I had worked myself into a little lather last night and was wrongly generalising.
Why alter their culture? If they want it altered they will do so themselves.
I bet the girl wanted her culture changed.
Sometimes, they don’t want their culture altered. The confederate states certainly didn’t, and so the union had to alter it for them.
I bet she wanted the judge changed too.
A nitpick that’s not relevant to this thread, but this board is supposed to be about fighting ignorance [if the following needs replies we should open a new thread]:
The original quote by Martin Niemöller had
- Communists
- Social Democrats
- trade unionists
- possibly (sources differ) Jews
- or 5) himself
which reflected the pattern up to the time when Niemöller was imprisoned in 1937. There are a lot of other versions out there that have been changed to reflect people’s agendas (such as those Christians who prefer to imagine Nazism persecuted Christianity as such rather than the minority of Christians who opposed the regime). No offense intended, danceswithcats, you read the text at one of those sources.
Originally posted by tomndebb
No. I bèt you’re not. [and I bet Debb is a figment of your imagination. Or maybe your dog. …Oh no. That can’t be it. Dogs are unclean, right?
You and calm kiwi: Go wash your mouth, keyboard and brain with soap.
What kind of idiocy are you blabbing now? The web is full of articles about women being executed by sharia laws.
calm kiwi, I’m sure you must feel nicely superiour and super PC in your death-penalty free country.
Guess what? I’m against DP as well, [and we have no DP either] but I can see a difference at at least trying to get the guilty person convicted and the atrocity of killing a woman because a judge got talked back to and felt he had to keep up his ‘honor’ [I’m so *sick* of this word]
And you want the innocents to fight and overthrow their own government, huh. How naïve.
some more:
http://www.secularislam.org/women/honor.htm
Cases of rape is also described where women are punished even when they are the victims of rape, not only by strangers, but also by their own fathers and brothers. In the case documented in this film, the family believed that Kefaya, their daughter, the victim, who was raped by her own brother, deserved to die, because of the intense humiliation they experienced as a result of neighbors’ gossip
http://www.steinigung.org/artikel/sharia_adultery_rape.htm
In the West, too, until a couple of years ago, a rape victim had difficulties to assert herself in court. As in: She must have provoked it with her behaviour. Here, too, there are contentious issues concerning the burden of proof and the rule of presumed innocence to the disadvantage of the victim. However, this does not lead to the death penalty for the women. And even, if one believes that s/he has the right to judge over the morality of someone else, the type of punishment, i.e. death by stoning, remains absolutely unacceptable. Regardless of the fact that it should be the rapist who should be punished in the first place, and not vice versa.
http://www.angelfire.com/stars/dorina/dpasiamiddleeast.html
http://www2.amnesty.se/uaonnet.nsf/0/F9A11ED2230D093AC1256EE5002DFBC6?opendocument