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Blogging in Iran Takes Courage
netbuzz writes "This morning's Boston Globe has a thought-provoking profile of Iranian bloggers who are risking everything, quite literally, to bring a modicum of openness and truth to a society where the former is not tolerated and the latter strictly defined by government/religious authorities."
GreyPoopon
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Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
Ah it's good to see that families are the same the world over. Even in Iran parents don't want to take responsibility for raising their own children.
-Grey
Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
Figures. The first two comments are likening Iran to the US. As if there were any comparison between Iranian blogging, where honest journalism is overtly illegal if it's slanted too hard against the government, and American blogging, where every politician of note is compared to Hitler or Stalin on a daily basis. Get some perspective.
...but is it art?
You forgot a link or two.
-Grey
Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
As far as I can tell, free speech in America is working just like it's supposed to. The Dixie Chicks exercised their right to criticize the president, and fans and others chose to exercise their right to criticize the Dixie Chicks for their statements. The government didn't censor anyone, and no one had their rights trampled.
"Me? Lady, I'm your worst nightmare -- a pumpkin with a gun."
Hmm...
It seems to me that this is an article about Iran, not the US. The US gets plenty of criticism in articles about its policies, but to criticize the US in an article about Iran speaks only about trying to justify worse abuses by comparison. It seems you are the one who is blind. You see any international story about abuse and use it as your soapbox against US policies. But by doing so you ignore the abuses the story was about.
He didn't forget those links. They just aren't relevant.
Nothing in either of those links has anything to do with exercising freedom of speech in the United States or Iran. To claim the United States has a free speech record as bad as Iran based on those links would be like accusing someone of murder based on the fact that they stole a car once (obligatory slashdot car analogy).
Is there a reason you bring it up other than to prop up emotional rhetoric with an irrelevant appeal to emotion?
Darth --
Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre
You, sir, are wrong.
Here, let me pick apart the major points of your short troll:
1: The problem here is that these people, by and large, have not been proven to be terrorists. How would you like it if you were randomly grabbed off the street, called a murder, and thrown in prison? Here in the US, we used to believe that people were innocent until proven guilty. Obviously you don't.
2: Torture is not an effective means of getting reliable intel from people, despite what TV has told you. Torture IS very good at getting people to do what you want them to do. While the second statement may appear to counter the first, it doesn't. Torture attempts to force compliance through pain, threat of death, or extreme discomfort. When successful, the victim will do whatever they think you want, if it means you will quit torturing them. This includes signing false confessions, even admitting to things they know are untrue. If tortured enough (and HERE's a classic example) you can get someone to admit that 1+1=3. If you know enough beforehand to catch false statements and continue torturing the victim until you get a reliable answer, then you basically know the answer beforehand anyway. If you don't, then how do you know when to stop? The first answer may be unreliable, and so may the third, fifth, 86th, whatever. If they DO give you the correct information at some point, how do you know?
Fill in your four or five-letter word of wisdom here _ _ _ _ _.
A counter statement might be "what goes around comes around".
Or, a history lesson: empires rise and empires fall. Be nice to people on the way up, and they might be nice to your children as your country declines in importance.
The unholy trinity. This is the real Axis of Evil.
These three nations are deliberately provoking each other to war. Lets get rid of some pretensions. It's about resources, nothing to do with spreading democracy or a War on Terror. It's all about control of resources, particularly oil.
The Iranians know that America can't afford another conventional ground war, Iraq is already destroying the US economy. Iran is using Israel to provoke the US into overextending itself, there's a load of talk about replacing Israel with an Islamic state which is pure provocation to Israel, who retaliate by announcing that Iran has a nuclear weapon programme able to produce a bomb within 3 years. Both are trying to get the US involved. Which is quite convenient for the US because Iran has huge oil reserves and they're planning to sell them for Euros, not dollars. Doing so will cause the US economy further damage, causing the dollar to slide further.
Iran wants a guerilla ground war to bring the US to it's knees, Israel wants the US to give Iran a kicking for them, with a nuclear response if necessary and the US wants to make sure the oil remains tradable for dollars, so preventing soaring inflation in the US. So, everyone's spoiling for a fight, which is very dangerous, this is how world wars start.
Deleted
The ends justify the means.
No they don't, because the ends, as in the effect, are a consequence of the means, as in the cause.
So if the ends you want are peace and democracy, and your means are violence and torture, then the ends you get are a non-stop insurgency, civil war, and lawlessness that will at best settle into a theocratic state run by the personal militias of religious extremists.
Are you paying attention to the news? What you are seeing is cause and effect. Are these the ends that you desired? No? Well guess what -- that's why the ends don't justify the means, because you don't get to pick what end your means will achieve! Wishing that torturing random people accused of being terrorists will bring peace and harmony doesn't make it so, and if it isn't obvious to you at this point it never will be because you are deliberately avoiding anything resembling a fact.
Well let me clue you in a little: Abu Ghraib had consequences. Very bad, very tragic consequences. While hardly the lone example of your misplaced philosophy, the fact is that those means have seriously damaged our ends, such that they are probably unachievable. The ends, whether you like it or not, stemmed directly from the means, and hence those means cannot be justified.
The enemies of Democracy are
I would be. I'd want them taken somewhere where they are no danger to anyone else or themselves anymore, either to a point when they are genuinely rehabilitated, or in cases where that just isn't possible, locked up forever (there are a fair number of people who aren't reformable; particularly so with those who aren't mentally ill in any way, merely see what they did as the right thing) No one. I'll repeat that slowly for you. N-O O-N-E has the right to end another sentient beings existence unless said being wishes it (consensual euthanasia) and is of a sound mind, or said being is directly and seriously threatening the first parties existence. Nobody should be able to kill anyone else. Not some guy who's found his wife screwing the milkman. Not some women who's been pushed too far by a drunken arsehole and wants him gone. Not a drunken mob intent on blood from some child-raping scumbag. On the surface, all of these are fairly just reasons for being extremely pissed off. But they still don't have the right to kill someone. Governments, by definition, are the people leading the people. If I can't shoot someone because I think they killed a child, why should the government have that right. Answer? They shouldn't. And in modern civilised countries, they don't. It's taken us a number of centuries to get to this point, and some would argue my country, for example (the UK) is still illegally killing people, by puttng armed men in the presence of other armed men and telling them to defend themselves (war is a tricksy one, probably beyond the scope of my post, but I stand by my 'don't kill people' stance..unless someone's invading, why should troops be in the presence of other troops. I'm not sure I understand why Iraq was a clear and extreme danger to my personal safety, or that of my countrymen). My country last executed someone in the 1960's. The twentieth century will hopefully go down in the history books not just for nuclear weaponry, Hitler, Stalin, The Beatles and the internet, but also as the century when the civilised world turned around and said "we've not the right to kill people". Maybe the weird little third-world nations that still cling to mob-rule and legalised murder will be able to say the same about the twenty-first century. I really hope so.
The truth shall always be free: Boris Floricic is Tron.
A cynic might suggest that there is a difference between criticizing a president who is largely a loudmouthed figurehead, and something more substantial such as criticizing the Guardian Council or the very structure of the Iranian government in so far as said Council has the most of the actual power. The Council may be happy with letting Ahmadinejad take some heat, if it makes themselves look more reasonable and their own power is unquestioned.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.