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In Iran, Blogging May Be Punishable By Death
An anonymous reader writes "In Iran, crimes such as apostasy (leaving a religion, in this case Islam) and armed robbery are already punishable by death, but a new bill in Iran aims to add to the list 'establishing weblogs and sites promoting corruption, prostitution and apostasy,' effectively giving the government a free hand in silencing bloggers. The internet is widely used in Iran, despite its previous attempts at censorship. Will this change as the censorship grows more rampant?"
When every single Iranian I meet traveling abroad, without exception, apologizes for the actions of their government and expresses their shame for the theocrats in change, I wonder how long things can stay the way they are there. Doesn't Iran have an unusually high proportion of young people, and doesn't that often bode revolution?
Separation of church and state anyone?
Yeah, it's almost as if the First Amendment doesn't apply to Iran...
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
This can't end well... well, for HIM anyways. I imagine it will end very well for the people of Iran.
http://www.ahmadinejad.ir/
It is time people start learning and using Freenet more.
Everywhere you look, politicos are pushing freedom-restricting legislation for the intertubes.
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
Yeah, killing thousands of people and destroying their country will help establish a peaceful democracy!
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
I'd like to point out the irony of this post being submitted by Anonymous reader
Oh good, they should do that here too with people who put up SPLOGS. Just kidding of course, I know this is a serious matter. Next time people bitch about Western democracies one should just point to Iran's politics...
Jessica
In Iran, crimes such as apostasy (leaving a religion, in this case Islam)...
Because you know, there are so many non-islamic states that murder their population for leaving the state religion.
More appropriate terms for describing this would be "survival instinct" or "darwinism". It's certainly not "irony".
Well then, looks like my life is complete. I can die happy now.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Glad you're not in Iran for your sake...
Freedom through death.
"Do unto others as you have them do unto you." - some beardy guy
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Seperation of Church and State is a Secular ideology. Iran is supposedly an "islamic" state ruled by "islam" and so cannot separate religion from state laws. There's a beautiful book for you non-muslims if you want to understand the issue of man-made laws vs shariah (divine laws) from an islamic perspective: http://islamicbookstore.com/b7932.html
I notice you had to qualify your statement with "in the Middle East".
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Death is too good for them.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
The inducing and inciting apostacy act, or IIAA, will set a new precedent in Iranian law of contributory liability.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Separation of church and state anyone?
Non-separation of church and state is not necessarily bad but most (if not all) "states" which do not have the separation are also dictatorships therefore giving non-separation movements a bad connotation. Despite what many want and think, the U.S. was never intended to institute a true separation of church and state, at least that's not what the U.S. Constitution says we should be doing. If a state punishes its citizens for not conforming to state religion then, yes, it is bad and should be dealt with. That isn't freedom, especially freedom of religion, and it isn't separation either. Making laws to ban all public display of religion is also not freedom of religion which is what proponents of separation in the U.S. are fighting for. But there is nothing wrong with a state *having* a religion which is what our (U.S. that is) Constitution was trying to accomplish.
Those who chastise the U.S. for not keeping a separation of church and state do not know what true separation is. We now have yet another example with this story about Iran who wants to kill those who do not conform to the state religion. If those who chastise the U.S. would live in Iran for a year they would realize that what the U.S. has is not the same and was never intended to be a state-sponsored religion (the Founding Fathers knew they didn't want that because they were escaping that) but yet a country *with* a common religion (with some minority religions too, which is fine). That is true freedom of religion. People are always quick to chastise the U.S. government and hail other, foreign governments as better, but yet I don't see anyone such as celebrities, who are famous for criticizing the U.S), moving to Iran or Venezuela. I mention Venezuela because some celebrities in the last year or so were giving props to Hugo Chavez for his dictatorship.
Mod me flamebait or troll or whatever makes you feel better just because you may disagree.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
Blame US for the state Iran is in now...The nation was a rising democracy back in the 1950s.
The irony...
Sent from my desktop computer
It would work out of we bombed them all at once and didn't put any troops in.
After that, we'd wait for the dust to settle. If none of them are left then we go in and take the sweet, sweet oil while we thumb our noses at OPEC and turn the rubble into the world's largest Hedonism resort. Or, the ruins of the middle east could consolidate into some kind of Islamic mega-state, of which we will again bomb into oblivion when WWIII begins. That'll solve the ol' existentialist crisis.
..simply because I've had a boyfriend, I don't think this is particularily surprising. It is a supressive theocracy. Like other theocracies it has no qualms with torturing and even killing innocent people in order to silence criticism. This is common in dictatorships religious or not. The fundamental problem is the dictatorial rule and the regime's complete lack of limits in terms of what lengths it will go to in order to protect its own survival. Soviet was the same. Zimbabwe is the same. The only difference is what excuse these regimes use to justify their crimes. In soviet it was political ideology. In Iran it is religion. In Zimbabwe it is skin colour. What they have in common is that they kill and torture people in order to make the public afraid of organising opposition, their official reasons (religion,economics,race,culture) for doing so have little to do with their actual objectives. It's all about supressing dissidents, all other reasons is smoke and mirrors trying to obscure the true nature of the regime.
More proof we need to go in there and help them to be more like us. Then they will be happy and free, just like we did in Iraq when we helped them back in 2002.
So what would happen if, say, a Christian were to convert to Islam - would the death penalty apply there?
Yeah, that'll work. The mullahs want kill their own people for posting things to the internet (and for women dressing in Western clothes...) and some naive TWIT thinks we can TALK to them. Dumbass.
It very well may not work, however, are you prepared to pay $15/gallon for gasoline (assuming you are in the U.S.) if Iran is attacked by the U.S. military? Iran has stated they will respond with military action and one of their actions is to block oil exports through the Straits of Hormuz. If that occurs you know damn well commodity traders and actual purchasers of crude oil will pay $200-$250/bbl which will cause obvious increases in gasoline prices. We must talk to them first and if that fails then do we go in militarily to solve any problems. The problem with that though is it will have a ripple effect, one of which is the price of oil. There is no winner in the battle with Iran. Everyone loses. Iran may be destroyed but they know we survive on oil and they are the 4th largest exporter so economically we could be destroyed too. If the U.S. goes down economically (moreso than we already are recently) then world markets follow suit because of the economic interdependencies of world gov'ts.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
That's what the Iranian wants you think happened.
I hate Bush and I hate the Iraq war and as un-PC as this sounds (and it will surely enrage slashdot users here)- I hope Israel bombs them into the stone age.
It's okay to be un-PC. It's good for the soul. :) Enraging slashdot users just encourages improper modding but sometimes it is required. I'm not much of a supporter of Bush anymore and the war needs some direction but I do agree Iran needs bombed but I'm torn with that decision to actually do so because it will be a Bad Thing(tm). See my post here I just submitted for my take on the "bombing" idea.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
LighershadeofBlack spurted with ignorance aplenty:
Yeah, killing thousands of people and destroying their country will help establish a peaceful democracy!
My response.
Jane, you ignorant slut. It worked in WWII and we killed millions between the Soviets and the other Allies.
Japan was gutted, Germany was totally trashed.
The only way to win a war is to totally destroy the enemy. All out war works if your not a coward and afraid
to wield the dogs of war to full effect.
Is that the answer here? I can't say but I suspect, in the end, it will be.
Iran will force us to nuke that entire region into non existance because THAT IS WHAT THEY WANT.
ALl you need for proof is to listen to the leadership of that country that BELIEVES in the 'end times' and
are doing all they can to bring about a global war.
Once they get the nuke, they will use it. Period.
Unlike the weak minded folk of the West these days, they will not hesitate to kill all that are not of their faith.
It is a shame more of us can't wake up to that fact and grow the balls of our forefathers and
do what has to be done.
No, what we will do is wait until they hit us again with a nuke or three and then act. by then, it may be
too late.
I'll prefer to die than live under a Muslim lead world. I'll die killing as many of them as I can before
I bow to their idea of how I should live my life.
I'd rather reason with them but there comes a point you have to fight for what you believe is right.
Again, go back and read history. If your not willing to wipe out the opposition >>> YOUR SIDE LOOSES.
Idiots
Something between the lines jumps out and bites your arm off. Soltan Gris / London
Originally, I was going for dark political satire.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
I'd have no objection to Iran applying Shariah law. My objection is that they go far over and above Shariah, subverting Shariah and instead practicing "Bid'ah law."
If you haven't been down-modded lately, you aren't trying.
Sacred cows make the best hamburger.
Dictators usually use the technique of identifying a terrible enemy that only their regime can save country x from.
Not only dictatorships actually, but generally its what dictators do.
The fact is that if Iran stopped saying things like they want Israel to be wiped off the earth, and threatening the west, the problem almost certainly would go away. That's not going to help the regime stay in power though, so they won't want that.
Note that if they really wanted a way to end the tension, Ahmadinejad could have gone another way then declaring that the holocaust was a lie in a worldwide broadcast speech. They want this tension, it serves them well.
They almost certainly realise that the US is extremely wary of invading them, so they know that this technique may serve them for generations to come. The exact same method worked in North Korea. Sure the country's fucked, but the ruling faction are seriously rich, and quite powerful locally.
Unless of course some trigger happy nation or president decides its time to end the argument with a few large nukes. I *really* hope that doesn't happen, because the result may well be bad for the entire worlds population, but sooner or later some jerks going to think its the only way out. Then the question will be who is able to hold said jerk in check.
What worries me is that if the Islamic states continue down this fundamentalist route, they are going to cripple their countries economically as well as scientifically. Given that they were the originators of most of our mathematics and astronomy, that's a tragedy of epic proportions.
As it stands there hasn't been any meaningful scientific research from a middle east nation for decades. Thats bad news for them in so many ways.
Mankind will never advance to the stars if we have two civilisations on the planet. One technologically advanced, and the other technologically illiterate, with each hating the other. That is an untenable situation.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
In america we sometimes have suicide by cops, but I wonder how suicide by blog would work out?
The new bill proposes death penalty for "disturbing the nation's psychological security", a broad, catch-all phrase that also specifically includes "establishing websites and blogs distributing un-islamic and indecent material" (i.e., porn, or anything that can be tagged 'un-islamic').
The bill already has 180 signatures on it (including that of the Speaker of the House), and with the current parliament's setup, is guaranteed to pass. Even the minority so-called 'reformists' are likely to vote for it considering the consequences of not doing so.
Fact: Already, Iran has the second highest rates of capital punishment after China, and by far the highest rate of capital punishment per capita in the world.
Fact: The Islamic regime still executes children (i.e., those under 18). At times, it waits until they are 18 before carrying out the execution, at times (like last month) it even doesn't follow that.
Fact: After years of pressure, the Islamic regime still carries out capital punishment by the mediaeval and inhumane way of stoning the condemned, for certain crimes such as adultery.
Fact: Ethnic minorities (Kurds, Baluchis, Arabs) are heavily discriminated against in Iran. They absolutely have zero representation in the government, even in the local governments of the provinces where they form the majority of the population.
Fact: Iran, despite artificial appearances, is NOT a representative democracy. All candidates for all elections are vetted by a 12-member Council of Guardians, which defeats the purpose of an election. That is how the regime has kept power in its grips for the past 3 decades.
The international community (including the ineffective and outdated Security Council) which claim to have adopted the doctrine of Responsibility to Protect in 2005, need to define the criteria that would trigger a response from the international community. Does this doctrine only apply to cases where hundreds of thousands of people die? (i.e, Darfur? even in that case the international community is only grudgingly and hesitantly acting). Isn't jailing, torturing and killing of hundreds of journalists, labour union leaders, students, ethnic minorities, EVERY YEAR FOR THE PAST 30 YEARS, enough to trigger a response? (I am not in favour of bombing ANY country, as that will not solve any problem, but surely something has to be done, no?)
The Islamic Republic of Iran is a theocratic quasi-communist authoritarian rule of a select few with military and economic might and power, over the a population of 70 million which have been suffering with no respite. We need to put aside our 16th century nation states ideas and stop turning a blind eye to such cases of cruel injustice. It is the duty of each and every single one of us, as citizens of this world, to actively seek to terminate the ruling arrangements in countries such as Iran, Burma, North Korea and Zimbabwe. A a democratic and prosperous Iran is a key to a long-lasting Middle East solution. A well-governed Zimbabwe is an absolute ingredient of the global fight against HIV. We need to realise that we are citizens of the same world, that we all face the same problems, including climate change, proliferation of nuclear arms and fundamentalist terrorism, to name a few. We need to realise that it is our responsibility, as citizens of this world, to act in cases of humiliation (Iran) and starvation (N.Korea) of a nation by its corrupt government.
We need to remind the Republicans, that military operations are not the only solution, and we need to remind the Democrats, that isolationism is a self-defeating answer.
--
Maybe it's just because I'm getting old and cranky, but I'd say for about 90% of the blogs I happen upon these days, I wish the death penalty were the punishment for blogging in the rest of the world, too.
I got more rhymes than Jamaica got Mangoes.
Our meddling is the reason for their current situation. I would encourage you to read up on the events that brought about the Iranian revolution for starters.
That country is something WE ALREADY FUCKED UP. Perhaps it's our responsibility to fix it.
So true. I wish we could get rid of this idea of "bringing Freedom" to countries that don't have the cultural prerequisites of freedom already growing within them. We might not have won the American Revolutionary War without the help of the French, but we started it on our own. Now if there is sufficient desire by the people of Iran (or any country) for democratic freedom, then they will fight for it. When that fighting starts it would behoove us to aid those fighting for freedom, but forcing freedom upon a nation is such an obvious oxymoron that I am appalled at the way such actions are paraded around like good deeds. If anything, the outside intervention cuts short any building cultural movement towards a democratic state. The Cold War is over, could we please not start another one.
We are all just people.
"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God; that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship; that the legislative powers of the government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore man to all of his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties. "
Thomas Jefferson
The Founding Fathers very explicitely set up a secular state, a state with complete religious freedoms and a state free of any potential government religious coercion. That means that a Jew, atheist or Hindu has equal rights before the law and has a right not to have any particular religion pushed on him by the government. Attempting to redefine what the Founding Fathers meant is a pretty weak tactic, particularly when their views on religious freedom and on the noxious mix than religion and politics make is so well known.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
That was at times contradictory and at others, incoherent i think.
Your challenge is to "move to iran" if we complain? Why? Because we should shut the fuck up and take what we can get and be happy? No.
I also question your various claims about the intent of the constitution with regards to separation of church and state. There are some choice quotes from the time period from various figures involved in the forming of the U.S government who hint and in fact come out and say that there was an intent to keep church and state separate, and that it is reflected if not outright stated in the first amendment.
Poster - when talking about Iran:
I for one am sick and tired of Xian twats going on and on about the "end times." Tell you what - we'll ship you ALL to one spot, and you can kill each other to the glory of your individual gods.
What we REALLY need is a cure for religion.
OK, I know that the subject line is trolling but look at it this way, it almost seems at times if some actions of the world and even own our politics are just the opposite of whatever Bush declares just to be "opposite of Bush".
Regimes like this exist for the same reason that Iraq existed for so long. Western nations don't necessarily have the stomach to put an end to them. We have lapsed back into the thirties where people were more concerned with their well being and as long as the rest of the world left them alone they couldn't care what happened to these "other" people. See it costs nothing to ignore other people "over there". Works the same for Europe as well as the United States.
Life is grand with our cellphones, computers, lattes, and satellite TV. Why should they care? Oh, because festering wounds like this breed organizations who see nothing wrong with targeting civilians. Countries like this focus the ire of their people outward so they continue the oppression internally. All the while declaring it is to crack down on people looking to harm them.
No uprising? Gee, go figure. We can't even get enough people to peacefully kick out the Democrats and Republicans from office here and yet if you read blogs, message boards, and sites like this you would think the world is ending. The difference there in Iran and similar countries is that the government has already shown its willingness to kill its own people.
Here is a better question that needs to be asked of world leaders, why in the hell is China hosting the Olympics? Constant threats to Taiwan, which they will probably overrun in a few years, trampling rights in Tibet, and needless to say that little incident a lifetime ago in a certain square.
Simple answer. Its far easier to turn away. Its far easier to look inside our own borders and pretend the world of bad people really doesn't exist. Yes, there be monsters and covering your head under the sheets only works for so long. Then again occasionally that pesky world gets enough gumption to do something drastic like flying planes into buildings. It will happen again because while we don't have the stomach for wars these people do.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Israel doesn't have to bomb Bush supporters back into the stone age - they never left it ...
When the military agrees, the idea that we should not try diplomacy seems odd.
"This is a very unstable part of the world, and I don't need it to be more unstable," said the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen.
He added pointedly, "we haven't had much of a dialogue with the Iranians for a long time,"
link
The question is whether or not this is a casual relationship. Given that the elements in the USA which seem to be the ones advocating chipping down this barrier even just a little bit pretty much want to do that to other civil rights, I think there probably is. Religion, ultimately, wants to base its existence on "things are this way because we said so", which is ultimately incompatible with human-centric, rational governance.
No argument, of course, about USA versus Iran. We're talking level 2 versus level 100000. The Iranian theocracy are nothing but a bunch of murdering thugs.
More proof we need to go in there and help them to be more like us. Then they will be happy and free, just like we did in Iraq when we helped them back in 2002.
This was a triumph
I'm making a note here
HUGE SUCCESS
It's hard to overstate my satisfaction
Neoconservatism
we do what we must because we can
for the good of all of us except for the ones who are dead
but there's no sense crying over every mistake
you just keep on trying until you run out of oil
and the polics gets done and you make a neat Middle East
for the people who are still alive
I'm not even angry
I'm being so sincere right now
even though you broke my heart and voted me out of office
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Oh, I'm sure we'll be bringing Democracy to them soon.
It's not about fate, it's about character.
there be no shelter here, the frontline is everywhere!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Ideally I have no objections to a sovereign country being run by whatever system they like, with one important caveat; the freedom of anyone to leave if they so desire. A necessary component of that freedom would of course be the ability to gain accurate information about the rest of the world. The only governments that must force it's people to stay are governments that know they are inherently inferior to the governance in other countries. Iran knows that it's power structure is based on a shitty way to live, it knows that it is culturally inferior. That is why it makes such reactionary laws. Of course the Iranian people are beginning to notice how much better life is in the western world, which is why they are making such criminally dangers blogs.
We are all just people.
Separation of church and state anyone?
Yeah, it's almost as if the First Amendment doesn't apply to Iran...
Just like it applies less and less in the US.
You're kinda wrong about what the Founding Fathers intended. Both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, if read in the context of the times and the meanings of philosophical/theological terminology then, were radically anti-Church and deliberately non-Christian. Jefferson called most of the New Testament dross, including describing the Book of Revelation as "the ravings of a maniac". Read Alan Dershowitz's "Blasphemy" for a very detailed and interesting account of this.
A closed mouth gathers no foot.
C'mon man, I wanted to say that too...
In Iran, Blogging May Be Punishable By Death
Wrong. Bloggers who set up blogs to promote apostasy, promiscuity or "corruption" may be opened up to the joys of the death penalty in future, not anyone who's "blogging."
The headline as factual as saying, "In the USA, Touching Another Person May Be Punishable By Death." There are lots of other situations in which you can touch people than in the act of killing them.
Don't give the RIAA ideas...
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
It worked with Germany and Japan, didn't it?
The United States and Great Britain have only themselves to blame for the current troubles with Iran. If they had left the democraticly elected govenment inplace instead of overthrowing it in the 1950s and puting a 'tin pot dictator' in charge we would not have this problem today.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Now IDIOTS, come on and say this has nothing to do with ISLAM.
Yeah, tell the Christians in the past that got killed for heresy that only Muslims kill people for their religion. What's the difference the Islam and modern Christianity? The forces secularization from the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, that's what. So, yes, this has not so much to do with Islam as it does secularization.
Many or all of these things are already punishable by death in Iran if you do them without the internet. Go over there and start distributing literature trying to convert people from Islam to another religion, and you've got a potential date with the executioner.
Hence, it is not blogging that they are making punishable by death. They are simply closing a loophole that may have let yo escape punishment by using blogs instead of, say, print or radio.
If we are going to be upset, we should be upset at apostasy being a capital crime at all, not that they have noticed that blogs can be used for apostasy and are closing that loophole.
Separation of Church and State is by definition secular, since the definition of secular State is one that is not entangled with religion. But if you are implying that it is contrary to or not based on religion, I disagree. The concept in the U.S. developed when the country was almost entirely Christian. James Madison credited Martin Luther's two kingdoms concept, but that was a development of the general two swords approach that was traditional in Western Christianity.
Certainly the modern U.S. version has much more separation than the original medieval one. But the justification is at least as much religious as secular. I'll be speaking from the Reformed perspective. Reformed Christianity is particularly concerned about the impact of sin on human lives, and finding ways to structure society to best protect against it.
Separating religion from governmental power protects both the Church and the State from corruption. In Christian understanding the need for governments is because of human sin. While real Christianity is based on love and proper intent, because of sin we can't rely on these motivations entirely in ordering our society. In order to safeguard human life, we need to set up structures to protect each other. In setting up governmental structures, we need to be aware that members of government are themselves sinful humans, and thus set up the structures in ways that minimize temptations and potential for abuse, and which provide for the maximum degree of accountability for power.
Separation is a key element of this. In areas that do not do have separation, you can see religious leaders who become more politicians than true religious leaders, and politicians who become hypocrites, and do things that are ill-considered in order to curry favor with powerful religious elements. Separation of Church and State is ultimately a protection for the Church. It is also essential for the Church to be able to call the State to account. Basic principles of auditing say that the auditor has to be independent; he can't be overly involved in the authority being audited. For the Church to play its proper prophetic role, holding the State accountable, it has to be reasonably independent of the State.
There are examples of the problems that occur from lack of independence in both Christian and Muslim-majority countries.
The other major concern is religious freedom. Both Christianity and Islam hold that there is no compulsion in religion. Both have also honored this more in the breach than the practice, some to the extent of finding creative interpretations to deny the principle entirely. But setting up structures to protect religious freedom is something that has justification in both of our religions. HIstory is pretty clear that when you give religious leaders too much power, they soon abandon their principles of freedom, finding it too tempting to use force to keep people from making what they see as religious mistakes. You can see this change happen in the lives of famous people such as Augustine and Luther. To avoid controversy I will not cite Muslim examples, but they are certainly there. The safest thing is not to let religious leaders get political power.
Regime change is almost impossible these days because of one very devestating weapon.
The Machine Gun
It would be nice to have these people rise up against the government, but unless you have another country step in to smuggle the rebellion arms than they will simply be slaughtered.
The Chinese have mastered this and the landmark case of Tianamen square makes their point made.
clicked the wrong mod option. posting to nullify it(dont want to be matamodded bad)
CORPORATION, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.
Sure, one can argue a lot about the aftermath of the Iraq war, but at least you can' deny that the US got rid of Iraqi state terrorism and that human rights are much better there now.
A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
Our administration has already stated Iran will NOT be allowed to blocade the Straits of Hormuz even if they are provoked by say an attack from the Israiles. I suspect it could get very bloody. Iran would have to be beaten back hard and fast. I suspect it would be a "total war" nothing like what we did in Iraq. We would bomb them back to the stonage, and as pump prices rise the people will support it.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Sometimes the most responsible thing to do is accept that something is broken and your attempts to fix it will just make it worse. America can't "fix" the dictatorship in Iran, just like it couldn't "fix" the dictatorship in Iraq. People hate living under a dictatorship, but they hate living under foreign occupation even more.
What is necessary is that religion have no power over the state. Denmark has an official church, many European countries do, but the church has no power to enforce its doctrine through the state so the countries are relatively free at least as far as religion is concerned.
The founders, IIRC, were religiously all over the map. Jefferson was a deist, of course.
"they are going to cripple their countries economically" yeah, cause that part of the world currently has strong economies with high employment. "As it stands there hasn't been any meaningful scientific research from a middle east nation for decades." i thought they cured aids... http://righttruth.typepad.com/right_truth/2007/02/iran_cures_aids.html ...come on man!
always mosh clockwise
The blogging software blogs you.
Next time people bitch about Western democracies one should just point to Iran's politics...
Perhaps you didn't know it but those "Wester democracies" are the ones who created the problems in Iran now. The CIA aided and supported the overthrow of a democratically elected government in Iran in 1953. This installed the Shah as the ruler of Iran. Without such a ruler there would not have been the Iranian revolution in 1979 against a corrupt tyrant.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
...blogging punishable by death? What's next? Twitter? Mhhh...and this is a bad thing because?
No, they are the reason they are in their current situation. They have a ridiculous, violent religion they serve, and they chose to radically overthrow their own government to put that ridiculous religion into power. And, suprise suprise, it turned out not to be a good idea and their government enslaved them the same way all the other middle eastern Islamic states were already doing. Because of their actions, they remain enslaved by their government to this day.
At some point, people have to take responsibility for their own actions. The US didn't like being ruled by a king, so we overthrew the king and took the risk of instituting democracy. It turned out well, in this case. Other countries are ruled by dictators and people do not choose to rise up and remain enslaved. Or if they do rise up, they don't always install a democracy when they throw out the government (in Iran's case, they picked a theocracy instead). That's their choice, the consequences are theirs, and the blame rests on their shoulders. The US is not responsible for what people in other countries choose to do with their governments.
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
Have you seen the laws you have in the US regarding sex ? http://media.www.ecollegetimes.com/media/storage/paper991/news/2008/07/03/Top10s/Top-Ten.Wtf.Us.Sex.Laws-3388114.shtml Stop judging and get mirrors instead.
OK i guess this will be modded as flamebait, but perhaps it's US's responsibility to just stop messing with other countries altogether, no breaking, no fixing, just leaving them alone.
Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many.
Sure, it might be a worse punishment to lock somebody up for the rest of his life in a small cell, but it's much more expensive
I don't have the data but I read somewhere where it's actually cheaper to keep someone in gaol for life than it to execute them. When someone is sentenced to death they automatically get an appeal and by the tyme the appeal process is done the costs can add up a lot more than imprisoning them for life would cost.
do you think your tax money should be spent to keep some mentally insane murderers alive?
Those insane should get the therapy they need to effectively function in society. Executing them only punishes them for an act they are not responsible for.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
some of them are really into cartoons, some not so much.
Well, if you don't believe me, travel to Iraq and ask a few women if they now have better rights than before. Now, Iraq got female Judges, before the Iraq war, girls weren't even allowed to attend schools.
A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
In Soviet Russia, Death blogs YOU!
this has nothing to do with SALAMI -
(yeah yeah I added an a... f$%k you)
weren't all that upset over living under Saddam. Granted, a lot were, but most were not, and ownership of full auto AKs, and even RPGs, was a normal as owning an ipod are here. Walk into any gunstore there, throw down the cash, and walk out, yet no large scale mass revolts. As your general dictators go, he was well down the list, nothing like that cretin in north korea or the so called zimbabwe leader, he was modernizing his nation, the infrastructure was a lot more intact then than now and public works were common, women had more rights than in most moslem nations today (he just wouldn't put up with radical jihadists at all, that's why a lot of the other moslen leaders didn't like him, he was more secular than most of them), and so on. He just committed the ultimate crime of threatening the petrodollar by insisting on taking only euros for oil, and also was blatantly in support of native Palestinian rights over imported European rights in the occupied zionfascist nation-zone. Those two are the primary reasons the invasion started, plus the oil idiots thought it would be a cakewalk and back to normal stealing the oil in a few days. They didn't count on actual nationalistic resistance there. All the other excuses are pure neocon horsecrap. They used 9-11 and illusory "nigerian yellow cake" and "dangerous aluminum tubes" and "omg he has a radio controlled plane and will be spraying the entire nation with biowarfare agents" and all those other fairy tales as a poor excuse to fake out the mouth breathing drooling beer guzzling football addicted public and their boo ya! mercenary forces. Ya, he had chemical weapons, the vast bulk of which were gotten originally from the US illegally. We weren't supposed to ship them anyplace, we were supposed to be destroying them all, but we did while he was on "our side" during the iran/iraq war, they were official old US army stocks for the most part. They were blown in place in bunkers during desert storm and made a ton of army guys and iraqis sick as can be, although they still deny it to this day even though back then you could find pictures of it and you heard a lot of firsthand accounts of it from returning vets who were there and participated in it. And that is a lot-not all, but a lot- of the "gulf war syndrome", they were just forced to breath chemical weapons residue and then told it was all in their heads.
A must for all those interested in Iran is Persepolis (look mom! no ref tag!), an autobiography of an Iranian woman who fled from Iran in her teens.
In the book the author describes her life as a preteen and teen during the cultural revolution.
It really succeeds at illustrating how life under a totalitarian regime look like.
After reading it you really start to appreciate the fact that you were born into a democratic country.
Until they started it again. And then they stopped it again. And then they blew up a bomb underground. And then they stopped it again. AND THEN....
(blah blah blah ad infinitum)
OK i guess this will be modded as flamebait, but perhaps it's US's responsibility to just stop messing with other countries altogether, no breaking, no fixing, just leaving them alone.
That's right, we leave them alone. Then, the western Euro-trash and other self-righteous leftists like Amnesty International will be able to beat us up for not doing anything.
It's like Darfur. The same asses that want us out of Iraq, and don't want the US or Israel to touch Iran, want the US to do something there - like throw millions of dollars at them. Yeah, like that will do a lot of good.
Effin' leftists are truly brain-damaged and intellectually bankrupt. If they're so damn sure they're right, let them fix the problems of the world, without US taxpayer's dollars.
I generally agree with the sentiment of your post but I'm not convinced it's that clear cut. Also it's just a shame with the likes of Zimbabwe where the population voted overwhelmingly for freedom the international community still refuses to act.
I don't think it's as simple as you say though, it's arguable Afghanistan has gone a fair bit better than Iraq because there was more will amongst the population to be freed from the Taleban than for the Iraqi people to be freed from the Iraqi regime but I think that's only a small part the story. The issue in Iraq isn't that the people didn't want the Iraqi regime removed, it's that there are two factions with a strong hate for each other that the Iraqi regime kept supressed in more violent ways than are acceptable by Western forces, despite the methods applied by the Iraqi regime leading to greater overall stability and lesser overall deaths.
I think you'd be fine to go into somewhere like North Korea and overthrow the government with no real problems in the aftermath not just because the people want to be freed but because the people are all in the same boat and don't really have any qualms with each other - even the majority of the north korea armed forces are only in the armed forces because they want the food it brings and not because they have some allegiance to Kim Jong Il that puts them with opposing opinions to the general population. If however you went into Iran you'd struggle much more because you do have a lot of large factions with opposing views that they're willing to shed blood over. Whatever country you go into there's always going to be a few rebels who will attack the occupiers who have gone in to free the country as a whole but the difficulties in Iraq really are not because of a hatred for the Americans and freedom and a love of Saddams regime but because there were no plans to prevent the warring factions from well, warring.
I suppose it comes down to how you define the cultural prerequisites you mention. North Koreans are hardly creating a revolution to overthrow their government but it doesn't mean they don't want freedom, it just means they're too busy fighting for survival and avoiding starvation to take down their government. Similarly, Afghans for the most part have no problems with freedom, in fact, before the soviets went in they were a pretty free nation, the problems there stem from a minority still holding out against freedom, a minority that unfortunately were the ones who used to hold all the guns. Zimbabwe is another decent example, the people want freedom, they used their vote to show they wanted it, but unfortunately again the government and pro-government mobs are the ones with all the guns again. There's certainly more to deciding whether a nation has the cultural prerequisites for freedom than whether the citizens are fighting for it that's for sure, because sometimes, they're just too busy fighting for their lives instead. In these cases I think we should still intervene because I think there's evidence enough the people want the help.
For the record, I do not think Iran is oppressed enough to justify military action to free them. I do however think North Korea, Burma and Zimbabwe where tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians are dying due to neglect by their government do justify military action to free the people. I also think the people would welcome that freedom, unfortunately, those nations just don't have enough oil to earn the attention of international community. I think it's far more cruel, far more inhumane to let hundreds of thousands die through inaction than to cause tens of thousands to die through action. That's not to say Iraq was justified of course because similar to Iran I do not believe Iraq was unstable enough nor were the people oppressed enough to justify intervention.
We tried that. Seemed to work from 1918 until December 6th, 1941. But by that point the rest of the world was so broken it needed to be fixed with a crowbar.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
If you think World War 2 is at all relevant to the current tensions between Iran and the United States you're a fucking idiot.
But if you really insist on shoehorning World War 2 into this scenario you'll also note that it ended with the Cold War - 45 years of teetering on the brink of global catastrophe from the mutual hatred of two differing ideologies. We got away with it once, I don't think we will a second time.
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
In Zimbabwe it's cronyism with tribalism thrown in not skin colour, Mugabe's opponents are Black as well as he is, though maybe from different tribes or ethnic groups.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
>People hate living under a dictatorship, but they hate living under foreign occupation even more.
What makes you think that an asshole with an accent is different from an asshole without an accent.
It is just easier to point fingers.
Also I had the opportunity to get a slight taste of both at the same time and I find the fact that you live in a dictatorship perpetrated by your own people and the occupiers sucks more as when your country is occupied by people who at least mean well.
I have the impression that the US was successful in spreading the idea of the free world because they so far supported nations who were industrially at a similar level as the US just not socially.
Iran and Iraq are at least at a level where they are able to support a reasonable level of education. So what is wrong about enabling them to become democratic.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:World_literacy_map_UNHD_2007_2008.png)
Je me souviens.
Umm... because they're stoning people? For saying the same things about Islam that Slashdotters have been saying about Christianity for years?
Or are human rights only for the privileged few (i.e. you)?
Still don't get me?
I just intend to seize upon 'punishable by death' thing that seems to be central to this post. Let me just quickly shove up a list of which countries still think it's 'OK' to kill people Afghanistan Antigua and Barbuda Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belize Botswana Burundi Cameroon Chad China (People's Republic) Comoros Congo (Democratic Republic) Cuba Dominica Egypt Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Ethiopia Gabon Ghana Guatemala Guinea Guyana India Indonesia Iran Iraq Jamaica Japan Jordan Korea, North Korea, South Kuwait Laos Lebanon Lesotho Libya Malawi Malaysia Mongolia Nigeria Oman Pakistan Palestinian Authority Qatar St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Vincent and the Grenadines Saudi Arabia Sierra Leone Singapore Somalia Sudan Swaziland Syria Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Trinidad and Tobago Uganda United Arab Emirates UNITED STATES Vietnam Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe Did your mother ever tell you not to hang around with 'bad company'? Personally if your country is on that list, you shouldn't really be allowed to criticize the others. Bit of Devil's Advocacy to finish off - if the pen really is mightier than the sword, if you believe peaceful protest is to be more powerful than military might - well then blogging is potentially quite dangerous to a state. State's have a right to protect themselves - and if there're executions on the cards - what's one more?
Of course one could consider the US Military involvement on Iran's boarder with Iraq, and th US Military involvement on Iran's boarder with Afghanistan as setiing up a classic pincher offense to finally deliver a coup de grass onto a nation that took great delight in seizing our embassy and holding our diplomats hostage only a few short decades ago.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
effectively giving the government a free hand in silencing bloggers
Because we've all seen how heavily the current regime has been burdened by civil rights laws in the past
Wait a minute. What's the actual problem necessitating even talking to Iran in the first place? Why can't we just leave them the hell alone?
Don't worry Iran, we'll invade soon and overthrow your government. You'll see how much better life is after that! Just look at Iraq! They can blog all they want now.
Just like we can't talk to N. Korea. Except we did and they stopped their nuclear program.
Until they started it again. And then they stopped it again. And then they blew up a bomb underground. And then they stopped it again. AND THEN....
What many people miss about N Korea restarting their nuclear program after the 1992 agreement is that they were promised oil but did not have it all delivered. They were also promised light water reactor (LWR) power plants, however bids for them weren't held until 1998, 6 years later.
North Korea only broke their part of the 1992 agreement after the west failed to live up to it's parts.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
They are in IRAN you insensitive clod!
You try tweeting through the UK number for "anywhere else" for a while and let us know how that goes.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I won't mod you down or troll but I will respond with article 11 of the 1796 treaty with Tripoli
"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."
and on a side note, Why am I hearing about loyalty oaths in the USA, loyalty oaths have no place in a free society.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
It contains both volumes.
http://www.amazon.com/Persepolis-Boxed-Set-Marjane-Satrapi/dp/0375423966/
Or this one. Newer edition and slightly cheaper:
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Persepolis-Major-Motion-Picture/dp/0375714839/
And for the lazy ones, or those who can't read, there is a movie:
http://www.amazon.com/Persepolis-Chiara-Mastroianni/dp/B000YAA68W/
The movie ain't bad, but it is simplified at some points to make it more understandable to the "western viewers" I guess.
Books are far deeper.
BTW... movie got shafted at this years Oscars.
A talking rat took the little golden statue. A work of great cultural importance I am sure, as cartoons with talking animals usually are.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
In a traditional Islamic society that concept has no meaning whatsoever.
Just wait for DMCA 2.0.
It's time to shoot the bastards...now.
Andy Out!
The only governments that must force it's people to stay are governments that know they are inherently inferior to the governance in other countries. Iran knows that it's power structure is based on a shitty way to live, it knows that it is culturally inferior.
But one is not the consequence of the other, and "cultural inferiority" is a rather inflammatory term to be throwing around in an international forum.
The reason countries like Iran have such brutal laws and maniacal dictators is because they're full of religious extremists hell-bent on killing each other over disputes going back centuries. Every time western society is introduced or imposed upon middle-eastern civilization all hell breaks loose, never moreso than this decade.
Apparently it takes a tyrant to keep the tyrants at bay. Writing about it doesn't solve anything anyway. Obviously I don't condone mortal censorship, but they've got bigger fish to fry.
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
Perhaps you could tell us what is the punishment for leaving the other religions?
>the U.S. was never intended to institute a true separation of church and state, at least that's not what the U.S. Constitution says we should be doing.
Article VI, Section 3. Before there was a Bill of Rights, the Founders had made sure that government would be independent of religion.
>But there is nothing wrong with a state *having* a religion which is what our (U.S. that is) Constitution was trying to accomplish.
"..the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion", treaty ratified 1797.
It's kind of ironic that in the US the people who want the government to display their religious symbols and give money to their churches tend to be Christian. It's ironic because if they believed their own religion they'd believe in separation of church and state. Jesus said flat out "My kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36). When Jesus was asked about paying taxes, he outlined a separation of church and state: "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's." (Matthew 22:21). Caesar's things are separate from God's things. Before Jesus, the faithful were warned about trusting earthly authority: "Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men, who cannot save" (Psalm 146:3).
The problem the US has is with people who have religious followers and want political power. Such people are only too happy to make their flocks believe that anything that interferes with their lust for power is somehow anti-religious.
How many of them are enforced and if they were how many would hold up if prosecuted. Just because we have some silly laws on the books does not mean they can be used, several have been or would be struck down as unconstitutional (well except for sex with a porcupine). Remember we have checks and balances for a reason. Many laws we have on the books have yet to be tested, until they are they really hold no weight.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
Actually, Iraq had fairly good womens right given that it was a Muslim country. Even if Saddam did rule there.
Today however it is a different story, the womens are being threatened by religion fanatics how kill them if they don't cover there face up or work. The list goes on in this matter.
What you are speaking about is Afghanistan, before 2001 it didn't have women rights at all. In many parts of it still doesn't. Even today women rights are almost close to zero, even in the main capital of Afghanistan.
Human rights in Iraq are no better then when Saddam did rule there, thanks to corruption and a broken government that is currently in place there.
U.S can do good, but it can also do bad. Like any other power on the planet. The problem with the U.S is the corporation greed that is currently in place there. Sad to say, this greed has also infested Europe and EU. It is taking it's time on destroying the EU from the inside, but I hope that it is stopped before it does a big damage.
Just like it applies less and less in the US.
One wonders if you are so concerned about the only fundamental right that can guarantee the others.
Because I'd bet you consider the Second Amendment a helluva lot less important than the First, when it's the Second that is the ultimate guarantor of all the rest.
The "end times" is very different to the "millenium", which is the real problem. The "end times" are any times after Christ's first coming and before his second coming and the end of the world.
Revelation 20 speaks of a Millenium in which Christ will reign on the earth. However, it is not abundantly clear whether this millenium will be before (pre-Millenialism) or after (post-Millenialism) the final judgement, and the destruction and re-creation of the world. The jury is also out on whether the whole thing is just figurative, which wouldn't be too much of a leap in the book of Revelation.
Pre-Millenialism brings in all sorts of ideas about things that will happen before Christ returns for this thousand years. Notable examples would be the re-emergence of the Roman Empire and the creation of the State of Israel. There's quite a few Americans are big on pre-Millenialism, and they have this idea that if they can bring about some of these forerunning events, then they can hasten the return of Christ. So, they decry Europe as the new Roman Empire, and are all for crushing Islam to allow the establishment of Israel. The whole thing flies in the face of Jesus saying that "no-one knows the day or the hour" when the end of the world will come, but they seem happy to ignore that.
Anyway. The point is, the end times and the rush to the Millenium are two different things; the former is fairly innocuous to the non-Christian, the latter much more apparent and unpleasant.
Also, the idea that we need a "cure" for religion is ridiculously offensive and backwards. What we need is a cure for intolerance and hatred, and the crimes that stem from there, which would include both religious unpleasantness and your dislike of religion.
Blogging May Be Punishable By Death,
Oh if it were but the same in the west.
Apparently it takes a tyrant to keep the tyrants at bay.
As a free man born in a moderately free country (USA) I have to disagree strongly with that statement. The attempt to use tyranny to keep tyranny at bay is precisely why our freedoms are eroding so quickly here in the USA. That idea is especially prominent if you look at violent crime as a form of small scale, short term tyranny. Of course hiding from tyranny by running under the thumb of a different tyrant is not going to make you a freeman. Taking responsibility for yourself instead of deferring to a central authority is the only road to freedom. Let's look at the events of 9/11 in that light, particularly those on board United Flight 93, and the consequences of their actions. Nothing good happened when the passengers sat passively thinking that government representatives would be negotiating for their freedom. But as soon as those same passengers took action to defend their own lives and those of their countrymen, that plane stopped being a weapon to be used against us and the terrorist plot was greatly diminished. Personal responsibility is the only way to be free of tyrants, anyone who tells you differently is looking to rule you or begging to be ruled.
We are all just people.
The mullahs want to kill people for using the Internet because they understand that Jerry Pournelle is right: the Internet, western style entertainment and fashions are all weapons of cultural mass destruction and they don't want their people westernized. They know that if that ever happens, the mullahs will be out on their ears.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
Only in as much as the death penalty deters real crimes.
When the Iranians talk of "death" it's not the same "death" here in America. I had family members there before the hostage crisis. Here's one punishment: for adulterers, they nail your b***s to a plank. So if I were there, I wouldn't blog at all!
"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God; that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship; that the legislative powers of the government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation
So I guess it is okay to prevent public displays of religion because separation trumps the freedom of religion? You are still confusing a government enforcing a religion and a government having a religion. Get those 2 straightened out in your head and then we can have a deeper discussion, until then this discussion will go no further than the thousands of discussions that have already occurred on the this topic.
between church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore man to all of his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties. " Thomas Jefferson
The Founding Fathers very explicitely set up a secular state, a state with complete religious freedoms and a state free of any potential government religious coercion.
Exactly, no coercion such as what is happening in Iran. The U.S. is not coercing. The fact that the government has a religion does not prove and has not proven that the gov't is coercing the citizens of this country to share in the same religion. A citizen is not punished for not believing in the same God as what is mentioned on U.S currency. If that were true we would have had mass killings already or the prisons would be even more full than they already are. The U.S. shouldn't separate church and state because we aren't like Iran. We believe in the freedom of religion which includes no religion at all. If you lived in Iran then, yeah, separation of church and state would be a good thing because they actually use coercion (threats of death).
That means that a Jew, atheist or Hindu has equal rights before the law and has a right not to have any particular religion pushed on him by the government.
Just because a government has a religion does not require them to push it on the people. Iran is an example of a government pushing religion on the people. The U.S. is not an example of that and not because we have a supposed separation.
Attempting to redefine what the Founding Fathers meant is a pretty weak tactic, particularly when their views on religious freedom and on the noxious mix than religion and politics make is so well known.
It is also well known that secularists spin whatever tidbit of info they can to prove we have a separation and/or that we need a separation. We definitely don't need it because our gov't isn't like Iran; some people just want it maybe because they think we might turn into Iran. I don't know. Despite secularists believing in a 'free exercise thereof' it seems to only run as far as a Joe Public's front door. As soon as Joe Public steps outside, the 'free exercise' belief no longer exists with the excuse that if Joe has a religion we must be careful not to offend anyone who doesn't have religion.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
Wait a minute. What's the actual problem necessitating even talking to Iran in the first place? Why can't we just leave them the hell alone?
Well the problem is nothing related to what the article submitted is about if that's where your confusion lies. We *could* leave them alone but if they do something stupid then we *will* have to do something about it. Ahmadinejad continuously makes threats against the U.S. that are not shown in the mainstream media. He continuously makes threats against Israel too. Israel may do something unprovoked that could spark WWIII and we would be required to join the battle. It definitely wouldn't be pretty as someone else said. The Straits of Hormuz may not get blocked but when idiot traders and speculators get spooked about oil supply when a hurricane is way over near Africa you can imagine what they would do if shots were fired and Iran was involved. Crude has already gone up about $10 in the last week or so partly because of Iran being in the news again. When idiots determine the price of crude oil, nothing has to actually happen in the world for prices to go up. They just do and strangely enough when the "dust" settles the prices never seem to go back down. That, my friend, is pure speculation at consumers' expense.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
Link
god is dead. Netcraft confirms it
"Intolerance and hatred" ... religious fuckwads keep claiming that things like homosexuality, which is common among mammals, can be "cured". Talk about not just intolerance, but outright ignorance.
Fortunately, religion CAN be cured - there are plenty of atheists who can attest to it. If you're offended, tough shit -you guys started all this nonsense. Look throughout history - where there's war, there's religion, either profiting from it, or instigating it in the first place.
Now if there is sufficient desire by the people of Iran (or any country) for democratic freedom, then they will fight for it.
They had a democracy prior to the US-backed coup in 1953 which installed the brutal Shah. The people eventually fought back against the Shah and his murderous CIA-trained SAVAK secret police. Unfortunately they didn't end up with a democracy, but they certainly don't want another Shah either. If there hadn't been a coup in 1953, Iran might still be a democracy now. As for a Iran being oppressive though, Saudi Arabia is worse.
Well, you got to admit, if your culture can't stand up to Hollywood culture, then it definitely is inferior to western culture.
[quote]Non-separation of church and state is not necessarily bad but most (if not all) "states" which do not have the separation are also dictatorships therefore giving non-separation movements a bad connotation. [/quote]
Afganistan, the new democratic one, not the Taliban, is a prime example of a democracy without church and state separation, they regularly execute people for saying, believing, and reading the wrong things.
Of course, Great Britain is a good counter example of this, since I believe CoE is still the official state religion, and its mostly decent (and the problems it does have do not appear to stem from religion).
[quote]Despite what many want and think, the U.S. was never intended to institute a true separation of church and state, at least that's not what the U.S. Constitution says we should be doing.[/quote]
Funnily enough, they said they wanted to do just that when they wrote the first amendment, however, I'm far more curios, as to what kind of joining of church and state could be made with a strict interpretation of the first amendment?
Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (TM)
I don't think the situation in Iran will improve until the people follow the example of other countries that took measures to destroy the political and economic power of the dominant organized religion.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
As long as companies are free to provide te tools that allow censorship, and the murder of people to sell in those countries, then it will be partial successful. Meaning a lot more people will die trying to express their opinion before people in power realize it is not possible to have a modern society, and have complete censorship.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
This would be a lot different the Iraq and afganestan.
It owuld be a 'stand up' war.
Then you would see the US unleash it's dogs of war.
They do noy have the Naval might to block anything from the US, if the US decides to use full force.
we could close their oil fields, flatten their cities, and squash every person there with tanks.
I'm glad we are fighting a more selective war with more specific targets, but don't think Iran will come out, at all.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Philosophically speaking, it applies to all people, not to just our government; which is why it's appalling when this administration seems to want to apply it only to Americans..and not even all of us.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
i love how people quote the founding fathers and only quote Jefferson. Brilliant. I guess, Jefferson was the only father... forget those other pesky signers of the declaration of independance and framers of our constitution like George Washington:
"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports." -Farewell Address
or John Adams:
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." --October 11, 1798
The first amendment was avoid what was going on in England at that time with the Church running the county. Let's not forget the basic laws that our country had early on about working on Sundays, mandatory church attendance... requirement of Christian profession to hold office etc... doesn't sound like the separation of church and state that I hear from your interpretation of Jefferson.
Hey the Amish actively encourage there young adults to go experience western "Hollywood" culture, and plenty of Amish come back into the fold. The AMish culture has real strengths that make it worthwhile for many people. I don't think Iran would be completely depopulated, but I think given the knowledge and choice many many Iranians would opt for the western culture and lifestyle. But by the same token you would be perfectly free to leave this "Hollywood Culture" you so despise, I wonder what culture you would find superior enough to leave us for? I wonder why you haven't left already.
We are all just people.
India on that list? WTF?
We do have capital punishment for extreme crimes, but no way that we think "it's OK to kill people"
Get your facts straight.
Idiot.
http://dilemma.gulecha.org - My philospohical short film.
Man, thank you. Absolutely thank you man. Finally someone who actually finally agrees with me on some of my thoughts. Don't let any of the other idiots on this forum try to change your mind. The truth is that most of the posters are people who would try to dodge a draft, absolute cowards, weak bodied nerds who probably sit next to a computer all day, and only has book smarts and lives in the ivory tower of intellectualism where they think that their reason or logic will persuade the crazy religious folks to listen. These extremists are lead by faith, not reason so they are irrational. A lot of these posters will never understand until al queda topples their ivory tower, burns their books, smashes through the front door, and unplugs their computers.
Iran executes bloggers? There's only one solution! Send over our army to kill a bunch of people!
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
It seems to me that the issue is not with any public display of religion, but with state-sponsored displays of religion. You see, a government having a religion is the same as a government enforcing a religion.
No, it isn't the same. A state can sponsor displays of religion without enforcing it, especially if the display is provided by non-government employees, aka regular citizens. Enforcement still denotes coercion. There is no coercion on the part of the U.S. government to institute any religion. Favoring a particular religion does not enforce a religion either which is good since the government (locally in places, not federally) is favoring Islam all too much lately.
For example, in many U.S. states, atheists are barred from holding public office. This gives atheists less rights than theists. This is an example of government enforcing religion. It's nowhere near as extreme as Iran ("if you abandon Islam you'll die" is much worse than "if you're not religious you can't take part in governing"), but it's the same concept.
I'm not sure why they are being barred or what law/regulation is being used to bar them. Care to provide references? I'm curious to read about it b/c I hadn't heard of that happening until you mentioned it. However, it isn't an example of a government enforcing a religion. They are not enforcing anything other than who can be in that public office which isn't out of the ordinary. Are you going to accuse the federal gov't of enforcing ethnic bias by requiring a U.S. President to be a native-born U.S. citizen? If you aren't a citizen you pick a different job.
You look at it as if the person has to change religions to be in public office while others may view it as the person just changes which position in public office he/she wants to be in or they choose a different position outside of gov't altogether. Yet some others view atheism itself as a religion and therefore those states are definitely not enforcing anything remotely close to what you are accusing them of. Would you care to specify which religion they are enforcing? Theism itself isn't a religion. Atheism is historically counter to Christianity however it really is counter to any religion that has a God figure so with that said, which religion are they enforcing? Since the person isn't being forced to be in public office it can't be said that religion is being enforced especially if no religion is ever specified such as by saying "Mr. Smith, you are barred from public office in Utah because you are an atheist, however if you convert to Mormonism we'll let you have any position you want, subject to the usual terms of hiring state employees." Mr. Smith has alternatives so nothing is being forced on him.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
"without US taxpayer's dollars"
Not much of that left, even if leftists wanted US taxpayers' dollars (which they don't, you're just trolling or have no concept of geopolitics, I cant decide which it is) they won't be getting any as they are being spent to exhaustion in Iraq. So take comfort that your dollars are being wasted responsibly.
I hate printers.
There's a beautiful book for you non-muslims if you want to understand the issue of man-made laws vs shariah (divine laws)
Your laws are divine? I would say that my feces are divine too. The problem with you fundamentalists is that you don't realize that your saying your laws are "DIVINE" is an act as subjective as my saying that my feces are divine.
The whole idea of secular laws is to remove this subjectivity. That is the ideology behind secular laws. (Is it too much to ask for?)
If you don't like it you can claim, subjectively, that Islam is the truth, and you can fight senseless over it with us infidels. We can kill each other, if you want. Or we can make do with secular laws.
Can't he be both?
Actually the AC had somewhat of a valid point hidden beneath his own self-righteous rightist opinion.
If you give the US permission to be the world's policeman, that permission is irrevocable. The US is the only superpower. Once the US has that badge, it will assert its authority often, and not always for noble reasons.
The situation in Sudan demands criminal prosecution and nation building. So far, I haven't seen the UN accomplish much in line with its mission. And I haven't seen any nation with a strong military step in to try to check the Sudanese government. Personally, I would like us to be there as I believe the mission to be just; but I know being there only furthers the argument that the US has some kind of authority to intervene with the internal matters of another sovereign nation.
Yeah, it's almost as if the First Amendment doesn't apply to Iran...
Obviously not, but the USA's Bill of Rights did not provide people with their rights, rather it tried to remind future governments that people have rights by virtue of their existence.
Of course, that constitutes a belief, which makes it a kind of religion, from which people have a right to be free of as easily as a right to take part in. If we in the USA truly want to practice what we preach, we would withdraw from all these countries we occupy and open our borders to any and all who wish to share our beliefs that humans are free to believe what they want.
These opinions guaranteed or your money back.
If it makes you feel any better, I always tell those people that intervention in Sudan would be the dumbest idea ever.
"We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security." Dwight Eisenhower
Another thing. France supporting us in the revolution bankrupted their country. The end result of French support for the Americans was the French revolution. Unfortunately, we seem to be heading down he same path (The French revolution was the result of France going bankrupt and being unable to feed its people, or support its own bloated monarchy.)
"We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security." Dwight Eisenhower
How egotistical do you have to be to claim that ANYTHING we go through in the U.S. is close to comparable to the citizens of those three states? You cheapen their plight and make light of the grueling lives of millions.
I have actually been to Zimbabwe just a few years ago and things were already catastrophic then. I saw firsthand things you simply do not see in the U.S., even in the poorest parts of the land here (which I have also been to).
People like you are the apologists that enable things to suck so hard for people elsewhere. The read your words and think, well then things cannot be so bad there if they are like the U.S.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Goddamn it, this whole thing is retarded. We should be *friendly* with the Iranians. Persian civilization is highly developed and extremely honorable. Yet we had to depose the elected, democratic government.
Honestly, fuck it. If we want to back Israel, just let the Iranians know that a strike on Israel is a strike on the United States. That statement may not carry much respect or force any longer, but it's all we can do. We have no moral or pragmatic grounds for getting ourselves more deeply involved in Middle-Eastern countries that the average American government official can barely find on a map.
State property belongs to ALL people. Religious display on any state property enforces that religion on EVERYONE.
Feeling like you have to conform to the majority religion and actually being forced to do so are 2 diffrent things. You, my friend, are referring to the latter but in reality the former is what happens in the United States.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
"I couldn't cope with the anguish of losing another baby." So she aborted it instead. Make sense?
I'm going to go ahead and assume the quote in your sig is from your mom.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
Fuckwads claim all kinds of things, religious or otherwise.
And no, religion can't be cured, because it's not a disease.
Wrong. Bloggers who set up blogs to promote apostasy, promiscuity or "corruption" may be opened up to the joys of the death penalty in future, not anyone who's "blogging."
It's not forbidden yet to do that either. They're debating a draft bill. Looks like we're going to continue to be flooded with shit about Evil Iran for quite a while yet. Are there any wars being planned, incidentally?
Russia won WWII for Europe - not the US. You might need to rethink what sources you use in your life.
it's in my head
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad_and_Israel#Defense_of_Ahmadinejad_by_Canadian_Professor_Shiraz_Dossa
it's in my head
i misread that myself! sorry, nothing to see here, please move on...
The Pacific Rim was also badly broken - the Japanese empire was not a good place to live. Of course, significant portions of it are still broken. But not all.
As for Europe, the American forces conquered everything west of the iron curtain. That's the reason is didn't end up as part of the Warsaw pact. If you have sources that prove the opposite, please cite them.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
Actually, I'd argue that it is a good idea even from purely religious point of view. Power corrupts, and having the Catholic Church wield political power led to some pretty heinous corruption in Europe during the Middle Ages; so heinous, in fact, that it eventually led to Reformation and splintering of the church. Even the rise of anti-religious proselyting atheism (as opposed to simply not having religion yourself and not caring what others believe) can largely be traced to church's abuses, real or imagined.
Basically, having Church and State separate makes both work better, while having them joined will pervert both.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
http://www.hbo.com/billmaher/new_rules/20061020.html
There might be no real difference, but the perceived difference is always there. When the USSR was invaded by Nazi Germany, most Soviet soldiers still fought for the communists, even though the Nazis did claim that their invasion was a "liberation from the bloody Bolshevik regime", and, indeed, oppression in the USSR was at its high point during this time period.
You do not have objection to stoning "adulterers" to death?
I may not be a histomatorian, but seems to me that the "democratic social trend" in Germany and Japan started after surrender.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
It's a mental disease. It contains all the manifestations of a psychosis, or "loss of contact with reality." It's sufferers indeed have delusional beliefs, and we've all known people who suddenly comes down with a case of religion and show significant personality changes, as well as impairment in their getting along with others ("self-righteous prigs with broomsticks up their arses" is just one way of describing it).
It *can* be cured, and there are plenty of examples of atheists who used to be "true believers". The usual cure involves a healthy dose of cynicism, mixed with reality and disillusionment.
And yet both countries also were becoming more authoritarian and more militaristic - despite these long-term "trends".
That is, until they bit off more than they could chew.
The thing about trends is that they can be reversed, starting another trend.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
The sources are: Everything besides Hollywood. Seriously - is this the crap they teach you in schools?
No wonder you actually believe the US stands for freedom.
Anyway; "Mr Falin cites figures suggesting that German forces suffered 93% of their casualties on the Soviet front and argues that this shows the Soviet contribution was decisive."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4508901.stm
it's in my head
The Indian state believes that it is acceptable (actually it's more 'required' I guess) to kill some people deemed guilty of commiting an 'extreme crime'
Happy?
Each country has a selection of crimes, a selection of punishments available and in a fuzzy way associates the two together in sentencing guidelines.
Yes being executed for reading a blog is quite ridiculous, as I assume everybody in this thread has agreed with - but what seemed to be being missed is that a large number of citizens of this world find execution for anything ridiculous.
Yeah, it's almost as if the First Amendment doesn't apply to Iran...
Yeah, but at least they don't have the Patriot Act!
(which from reading many a blog, I have learned is worse than death by firing squad)
Their culture has been declared evil enemies of the US and Israel. They would be idiots if they didn't expect subversion and propaganda campaigns to be launched at them from within. Hell, the play book is available on Wikileaks. Seems like a reasonable measure for them to consider, under the circumstances.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
I consider stoning adulterers to be barbaric. But my name is not George Bush--it is not my role to change a government (or a system of law) solely because I do not like it.
My objection to "Bid'ah law" stems from the inherent ignorance and/or dishonesty that forms the foundation for such law. The word "Bid'ah" means "innovation," and religious innovation is considered a sin in Islam. Those who are religious or political leaders in Islam, yet who propagate "innovative" actions that are contrary to Islam, are guilty of Bid'ah.
Were Muslims to actually follow Sharia, there would never again be a "Muslim" suicide bomber. Such actions are a flagrant violation of Sharia.
If you haven't been down-modded lately, you aren't trying.
Sacred cows make the best hamburger.
This kind of posts is just what leeds us to an Iraq War.
There are many places in the world were people die just in worst condition or without any kind of freedom.
So, why we focus on Iran? Why Iran is so important? Why Iran need democracy more than other countries?
Timoty, please think about that and stop promoting Wars with this kind of posts.
Peace!
Get my e-mail after a captcha test in: http://tinymailt
Remember to pay your bill before you check out. Remember those those hundreds of billions of dollars that you owe to the rest of the world? Particularly the Chinese. Oh, and we'd strongly prefer being paid in a stable currency, not dollars. Seems there's too much debt associated with the USD for it to maintain it's level against the rest of the world's currencies.
did you think that the Chinese accidentally let your country get so deeply in debt to them? If war is a "continuing of diplomacy by other means", then economics is obviously becoming a "continuation of war by other (and more profitable) means".
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Philosophically speaking, it applies to all people
...all people, except the people trying to deny those rights to others.
There's no place like
I am most certainly NOT claiming that West Germany/Japan would never have become democracies on their own. That would be a hypothetical.
I am claiming that they DID become democracies because the allies forced a surrender of the authoritarian regimes and then installed democracies. To claim otherwise is silly.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
War DID cause democratic change in both Germany and Japan. West Germany had an authoritarian government, which was forcibly removed and replaced with a democratic government. Ditto Japan. I can't believe that you are arguing such a simple and obvious fact.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Let me quote another part of the same article you cited:
Richard Overy, professor of contemporary history at King's College London, notes that after the war, Hitler's foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop listed three main reasons for Germany's defeat:
* Unexpectedly stubborn resistance from the Soviet Union
* The large-scale supply of arms and equipment from the US to the Soviet Union, under the lend-lease agreement
* The success of the Western Allies in the struggle for air supremacy.
Two out of those three reasons require the US to be there, at least as a safe place industrial production.
But lets assume the US stayed out of WWII and the USSR won in Europe without it. Russian soldiers had conquered everything until the Atlantic. West Europe would have "enjoyed" the same communist regimes that East Europe had until the late 1980s.
Maybe you see things differently, but I'd say that still constitutes being broken:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Pact_invasion_of_Czechoslovakia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_law_in_Poland
I'm going to take the high road and avoid ad-hominem attacks on your sources of information. In case you're wondering, I went to school in Israel, and WWII was taught as background to the Holocaust - including the Russian liberation of East Europe. But also including the American part you seem to ignore.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
"I think you'd be fine to go into somewhere like North Korea and overthrow the government with no real problems in the aftermath" I very much doubt that: when a people have been held in check by either a dictator or a Colonial occupation, when that stronghold is broken you end up with a lot of very dubious characters jostling for positions of power, without a stable evolved form of government; look at the various Serbian & Warlords, Look at Boris "MakeMineaDouble" Yeltsin & look at the bunch of Clowns-In-Exile that the US backed to lead the new Iraq Government - until they went crazy with the first taste of power & the US discarded them. Society is something that evolves; you can't impose "democracy" on a nation that is not ready for it. "North Koreans are hardly creating a revolution to overthrow their government" Neither were Iraquis under Saddam... "justify military action to free the people" You need to explain this one... unless you are suggesting that being shot, napalmed, clusterbombed, raped, maimed & pillaged by occupying forces is some kind of freedom - Military action involves doing all this to the peole who you are supposedly freeing. If the aim was really to free the people from a dictator, it's not actually necessary to occupy a country in order to do this... unless, I suppose, that country has something you want... oil, perhaps?
Is this a joke? ...Iraqui State terrorism? Is Nathrael an alias for Rumsfeld?...
You're tripping. my friend - The Dictator Saddam ensured that Iraq was a secular state. It was probably the most Westernised & pro-Western state in the Middle East. To suggest that girls were not allowed to attend schools under Saddam is simply false; the religious intolerance & violence has only erupted since the occupation.
"man-made laws vs shariah (divine laws)" So, in other words, man-made laws vs man-made laws...
Eh, sorry, I admit that I confused Iraq with Afghanistan again. I apologize. Though this doesn't change my point of view that human rights got much better after the war.
A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
Nah, sure, Saddam never gave the order to gas thousands of people. The police never used extreme amounts of torture, "Saddam's Cubs" are an urban legend, Kurds were always treated nicely. You see, all the evil things you hear about Saddam's Regime are a lie told by the, unlike him, really evil US government. Sorry, but as said - you can argue about a lot of things, and members or contractors of the United States may have done much wrong, but the human rights overall increased very much.
A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
I slam, you slam, we all slam for Islam!
-- thinkyhead software and media
Oh, my mistake... I thought you meant Terrorism. ...Nah, sure, Bush never gave the order to make war on thousands of people. The soliers never used extreme amounts of torture, "Abu Graibh" is an urban legend, Iraquis were always treated nicely. You see, all the evil things you hear about Bush's Regime are a lie told by the, unlike him, really evil Islamic governments.. ..So murder rape & torture by Saddam is "Terrorism", the same by Western mercenaries & soldiers (who, thanks to the US, have total legal immunity from any & all atrocities they may commit, unlike Saddam)is an increase in human rights? Abu Graibh? Guantanamo?
You are speculating. You cannot know what would have happened in Germany or Japan without an allied victory.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I insist on being factually accurate, In that speach, Ahmadinejad did not use the Farsi word for Israel (Israel, oddly enough), map (or earth or other equivalent) or wipe (or subsitutes like destroy, annihilate, etc..) the direct translation from Farsi to English is "the Zionist Regime this too will pass" which sounds considerably less threatening than "wipe off the map" which is gross mistranslation perpetrated by western (mostly US) media.
If given the chance I would not replace Ahmadinejad for two reasons, first it's better to have the devil you know and secondly, he is an extreme liberal in the Iranian government (which is extremist right), and is quiet unpopular with the ruling council (I forget the name but its a council of religious leaders outside the democratic system in Iran). Pretty much the only reason they haven't tried to replace him (they cant remove the president but they do dictate who can run for president) is that he is popular with the youth (which is at a higher proportion to the rest of the population due to the Iran/Iraq war killing off the generation that would be in their 40's by now) and he does what he is told.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
to make Iran's gov't look evil, with the endgame being of course another invasion for oil. Don't believe their lies! This is just like when they told us Saddam used chemical weapons on the Kurds and Iranians. Just like when they told us that Saddam was spending Oil for Food money on palaces instead of medicine. Remember that picture from the first gulf war of the "baby milk factory"? The gov't put that in the picture to make us think the Iraqis were trying to hide something. Or the so called "SCUD attacks" in Israel... all that footage was shot on a set in Burbank. And don't get me started on the obvious photoshopping of a guy standing in front of tanks in Tienanmen Square!
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
You should look at the debt of some of the other western countries like France and Germany. France's debt is 67 percent of their GDP, Germany's is 63.2% of GDP, the UK is roughly 43%, The US's is about 60.8% of GDP, China carries around an 18.4% of GDP, Canada's is 68.5% of GDP and Japan's debt is around 195% of GDP.
In case your wondering, GDP is the gross domestic product. It is the amount of transactions that product taxable income and is used to calculate the purchasing power of the country. You can compare the debt to GDP in the same way as you compare debt to income rations on personal finances. With the exception of the UK and China, the US is doing a bit better then other countries in the rest of the world. Probably better then the country your sitting in unless your another America who thinks it is couth to mindlessly bash his own country.
It isn't true that US soldiers have legal immunity against the atrocieties they may have committed. Every soldier involved in the Abu Ghraib abuses was brought before a court martial. Also, Abu Ghraib abuse was, unlike Saddam's state terrorism, an incident, and by no ways deliberately used by the US government. And that's the most important difference here - all of Saddam Hussein's atrocities were planned and used as a tool to stay in power and keep opposition against his government down, the coalition soldier's atrocities however are the act of an individual, by no way supported by his government. Guantanamo; you act as if the US was the only nation in which prisoners are abused, and every nation takes innocents into jails occasionally, but you act as if the US was the only one. Besides, I'd rather be imprisoned in Guantanamo as in one of Saddam's jails.
A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
Ah. Combining Israeli and US education I definitely understand that you have absolutely no clues whatsoever as to any real history.
I do not believe in "if X then Y because" when rewriting history. For all we know - the Soviet Union could've been a perfectly democratic place if Europe hadn't been divided after the war.
it's in my head
You are mistaken: the USA fought strongly against their troops being subject to a universal code of conduct, and as such, they refuse to allow their troops to be held accountable for anything - it is true, they will occassionally bust a couple of low level non-coms for the look of things; Up to 10 years for them (soldiers at Abu Graibh), but the camp commander was simply demoted - & she wasn't even allowed near the Interrogation section. The people who sanctioned the policy were untouched. I think the cause of your error is that you are talking of US soldiers being prosecuted by the US, I am referring to International Law, under which Saddam has paid the price, but the US military have total immunity. In fact, if not in law, this also applies to all the private "security" forces of the West in Iraq - i.e. Mercenaries. I don't act like the US is the only country in which abuse takes place, but it is the only one which has illegally invaded Iraq in order to perpetrate those abuses, and, frankly, what kind of defence is "Others do it as well.."? Other nations do not pretend to be the ultimate arbiter of Justice, other nations do not impose "democracy" (when they can't even get it right in their own country)... and with all the dictatorships around (such as the USA's great ally K.S.A) the US seemingly only has concerns for oil-rich states... You are mistaken in your contention that the treatment meted out at Abu Graibh differs from Saddam's regime in that is was an "incident" rather than policy. This kind of treatment, along with torture & so-callee "rendition" (abduction of foreign nationals & transporting them to other countries in order to torture them with impunity) is standard policy of the USA. One of the things that makes Guantanamo so heinous & barbaric, is that in a nation that bangs on about freedom, justice & liberty, this place is maintained specifically because they can operate outside US law, International Law, & any kind of moral or ethical code. Simply put, dictators don't pretend to be anything but he sole authority, whereas the US talks of Liberty whilst behaving as badly as the worst of tyrants.
A start.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I just think that you are over-simplifying the problem, and giving the platitude that "violence never solves any problems" too much credence.
Iraq probably shouldn't be a single country. The Kurds, Shiite, and Sunni don't particularly like each other, yet they were forced together artificially by the British... it's not exactly a surprise that they don't get along well. That said, Iraq is a very different country from Afghanistan - not least of all because it has an actual source of wealth besides heroin. I think that Iraq will actually become a stable democracy if the US does not back out prematurely and if it's neighbors can be persuaded to stop destabilizing the country... not exactly a sure thing.
Afghanistan is totally different. It never has been anything approaching a stable modern state. It has absolutely no resources at all - even the trees are pretty much gone. I think the irony in all of this is that ultimately we'll be in Afghanistan longer, and have less to show for it than in Iraq.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Yes, Joseph Stalin and his happy crew of Communists knew that religion was a mental disease and did not fail to act.
Is that the path you want to go down?
I'm no religious nut and consider myself agnostic but I sure as hell respect the right of others to practice
their faith until it abridges me in some significant manner. Your path sir, is the one leading to mass graves and pyres to
toss the 'non 'believer' on that refuses to bow to the god of Atheism.
What amazes me is how you fervent and frankly rabid athiests refuse to admit is your 'belief' is nothing more than the same
thing in mirror image.
I'll toss further flames into the fire. Why is it western homosexuals and atheist crusaders who so deride those of Christian
faith do not take up the banner of rabid indignation against a far larger threat to their 'lifestyles, Islam.
Your fools if you do not see the larger threat to your comfey little lives.
We are all going to need rationality to rise to the front on all sides but at present I'm not seeing a lot of rationality around.
Watch your back, you may end up in one of the pyres. That day can come again.
Peace.
Something between the lines jumps out and bites your arm off. Soltan Gris / London
Some excellent points. But recently I have come to understand that the concept of a state which claims total sovereignty is really no different than a priest or mullah claiming total sovereignty. In either case the individual and his or her conscience is unfree. In either case we lack capacity to act with the dignity in which God created us. In either case we are unfree to obey what I understand to be the highest law of God, both according to Christianity, and to many other faiths (love God with all your being, and your neighbor as yourself - which implies not robbing, enslaving, imprisoning, or killing him, either directly, or indirectly via said State). So I tend to reject any authority, religious or secular, which claims sovereignty over me or my conscience, or that of any other, without my willing consent.
Nonaggression works!
SCOTUS has long held the Danbury Baptist letter as being a major component of informing them what the Founding Fathers intended. Jefferson in this letter was making clear precisely what the intent of the First Amendment was, and the phrase "wall of separation" entered Constitutional jurisprudence from here. It's very clear. The United States is a secular state. It has no official religion, and is forbidden by the Constitution from in any way favoring one.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
They are the guys that wrote the Constitution, and it's been this sort of funny tradition to inform Constitutional arguments based on what their intentions are, rather than ignoring inconvenient elements.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Thank you for so ably illustrating my point.
As for which country I'm in - of course it's not America.
It is always couth to bash a country, or any other entity, that's in the wrong, regardless of your relationship with it.
Someone is reputed to have said "my country, right or wrong" ; that's a deeply dangerous sentiment which is likely to have been responsible for hundreds of millions of deaths throughout the world and throughout history.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
I can see your point when it is proper because of a set of circumstances and facts. I probably should have been more specific but there seems to be a set of people that think bashing on America lends credibility to any argument at all even if it isn't warranted. Like the swiss cable car accident when some jets during a training exercise decided to do a flyby of a cable car and the tail section of the jet cut the cable sending a car or two down the side of the mountain. I actually seen people bringing up actions of the government so removed from current people involved like giving small pox infected blankets to Indians as some validation that their point about the accident being ordered from the then "President Clinton" was somehow elevated to some righteous stature. You see it every so often when people attempt to throw the fact that before we knew and understood how bad nuclear bombs were, because we used a couple to end a war, it somehow vilifies our attempts to stop the proliferations in rogue and hostile states.
Don't get me wrong, thrashing on a country because of it's actions isn't a bad thing. But thrashing to bash simply because you think it might offer prestige and somehow elevate your comment is wrong. The way you mentioned the debt rising implied that you were doing that and it would be true if you were an American. The truth of the matter is that our debt isn't near as bad as some other countries but we also generally have a higher growth rate on average then those countries (which I probably should have pointed out too) which shows that even though it might be a problem at this exact moment, it won't be in the future nor will it remain a problem for long. Most of out expenses in Iraq (which is a significant chunk of current debt) will be repaid by Iraq in part in the distant future. It isn't like we are bankrupt or going to be before that becomes a reality. Although I do fault our congress for not controlling spending knowing that while the war funding is off budget, they also know that it exists and could actually treat the budget like it does.
I think it's clear these people can't be rehabilitated.
Yea, some might not be rehabilitatable, but then lock them up and throw away the key.
Without the death penalty, assholes like Dennis Rader will rot in jail forever. I'd rather see him put to death.
When I'm thinking sadistically I may say the families of the BTK's, Dennis Rader, victims should be allowed to do to him what he did to his victims. Now if punishment is the goal then life in prison may be worse than capital punishment, some are more concerned about their freedom than about death, they'd rather be dead than locked up. I believe if I were locked up for life and saw no hope I'd do what I could to kill myself.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Sheeh - read what I've written. I've never said that people can't practice their own religion in private ... just that they do NOT have the right to impose their beliefs on others. Abortion is a good example of that - xians are always going around sticking their nose in other people's business, but sure as hell don't like it when others disagree with THEIR beliefs, and their right to impose them on society at large.
Nobody's saying xians have to get an abortion - but a lot of them are hypocritical assholes who get one, and rationalize it ("This was an exception - god will forgive me.") while still throwing rocks at everyone else. Same thing with the closet gays in the fundies.
And yes, delusions and superstition (which is what we're talking about when we talk about religion) are curable by knowledge.
Homosexuality and lesbianism, on the other hand, don't need a "cure" - they're part and parcel of the normal human experience, same as they are for many other animals.
Yes, "war does not solve anything" is a platitude. It most certainly does solve things, though perhaps not always in the best or most desirable way.
What news bite am I repeating? That Iraq is made up of several disparate groups who don't really trust one another? It may be a sound bite, but it's also true. In isolation, any one of those groups would probably accept a democracy, albeit one without separation of church and state - but the Sunni and Kurds sure don't trust the Shiites to govern them.
We can shoot the shit and speculate all you want about what might work here and what might work there - and we can argue about the reasons democracy will or will not take hold in Iraq or Afghanistan. But to claim that war did not bring democracy to Germany or Japan is just plain wrong and flies in the face of reality. It may very well be true that democracy would have taken over in those places through peaceful means, but that doesn't change what actually happened.
Note that I'm not advocating war, simply pointing out that it has brought the desired outcome (to the victor) many times throughout history. I can't recall the last time I heard about an Indian (native American) attack occurring in the Americas - and that was a flat-out genocide. Arguing against war based on "it won't work because war never works" isn't a very strong position to take.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I've said that it does not bring democratic forms of government forward.
And I've said you are wrong, and I pointed out two examples. You dismissed them because you claim that they would have become democratic anyway.
Did I miss something? Is that an unfair characterization of your argument?
bring democracy to a society that is unready
This is the attitude that people had 100 years ago about the Philippines. Rather than give them their independence, the US decided that they needed to be "civilized" first and killed hundreds of thousands.
As if people love to be repressed, and need to be made "ready" to manage their own affairs.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
You have not explained why war was the crucial point rather than the background history.
Because it was not "background history" which brought democracy. The most direct "cause" of democracy in Japan and Germany was war. You can speculate on what would have eventually happened without war, but it is just speculation. You can speculate about what might have happened if they "weren't ready" for democracy - but again, that is just speculation.
The points on the divisive nature of Iraq and Afghanistan are not points against the requirement of that background as Spain was as divided but established a democratic government on its own-even though authoritarians won their war and had their time before it.
Spain is and was surrounded by democracies. It's dictator decided to ally himself with the West during the cold war, which also added pressure toward democracy. Note that the constitution didn't get written until a few years after Franco's death. It's not like he was deposed by a sweeping democracy movement. I should also note that the Philippines has had more years of democracy in its history, despite being "forced" into it. Remember that the Philippines was a democracy pre-Marcos, and has been ever since Marcos. While Spain had some brief brushes with democracy, they collectively add up to only a few years until 1978 came along. This despite the Philippines being forced together as an "artificial" country, and then occupied by the Spanish... only to be "liberated" by the absolutely brutal US occupation - with a stint in Japanese occupation just for good measure.
There is some poetic justice in the fact that the Philippines has had a longer total period of representative government than their former colonial master.
(the math in case you care: 1949-1972 + 1986-2008 = 45 years vs. 1871-1872 + 1931-1936 + 1978-2008 = 36 years)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Some people would assert, on very defensible grounds, that while American scientists (and others) who worked on the Manhatten Project have a lot of numbers about the effects of a nuclear bomb, the only people with a comprehensive understanding of what a nuclear bomb is are the Japanese.
I recall, as a child, reading a book by one of the first journalists into Hiroshima. Really quite horrifying stuff, and the sort of thing that simply doesn't get published these days. (I see from Amazon's UK page on it that there has been a new edition with an additional chapter published some time in the 1980s ; I might have to get that out of the library. Here's another review.) Arguably the people of Chernobyl could add a few relevant observations to the Japanese experience.
What sticks in the craw of many aspirant nuclear nations is the way the the old, colonialist, paternalistic, white overseers (I use the language of slavery deliberately) are trying to deny the new, formerly colonised, developing, various shades of brown, freed nations from achieving tools to ensure that they'll never be enslaved again. (I wouldn't bother wasting electrons on protesting that this is a false description of the West's motivations ; what matters is the perception that people have and the rhetoric that politicians use to justify their actions.) By the way, I note that you use the term "hostile", which implies that you're concerned about countries with plans inimical to your own. This does not, of course imply that their actions are wrong on any "absolute" or disinterested scale, only that their actions are not in the interest of your country. While it's a perfectly defensible, pragmatic, position to take, be very careful because politicians often play with words to imply that this pragmatic position is in some sense absolutely, morally correct.
More importantly, it's poor rhetoric, which any competent debater would be easily able to take apart. Not that TV politicians generally bother with debate these days, not when there's soundbites, rabble-rousing and compliant media to use to control the thoughts of the sheeple.
An argument from economics. Find someone who's interested in economics - like my Boss. My degree is in Geology and Mineralogy ; his is in Geology and Economics, which is probably why I look down a microscope on oil rigs and he's the Boss in the office. By the way - he would disagree with you. I'd give you his personal email address if I had it - it might be interesting to see what arguments came out. Hang on - did I just use the words "Economics" and "interesting" in the same sentence? I'd better go see the doctor, or take some of my schizophrenic friend's medication - I can't be a well man.
One of the things that I've never understood about economics is their concentration on growing economies. Given that all economies are, to some extent, linked into some "global" economy ; given that the Earth is a finite syste
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
You know, I totally agree with you. But I guess my points was that given what happened and all the horrific stuff associated with it, we havn't used them again. We even passed on the opportunity when our boys where losing big time in Korea and the generals were asking for them. Our usage before we really realized or saw how horrid they were, isn't the same as usage after we knew about it. But something more significant is that people bring it up like it happened yesterday in the context of what we found out after the face "sure no one else can have nukes while the only country to ever used them has them". It isn't like we have used the since, most of them were from Reagan's brilliant MAD program that basically took their usage completely out of the arena for any large country without a death wish.
I use the term hostile with the intent to show a purpose other then defense towards any country. Israel is one but if Iraq would have nuked Kuwait or Iran, which I'm confident that Saddam would at least seriously consider, it brings a different light onto the situation. Iran has paid the families of martyrs, or suicide bombing terrorist and has supported Hammas. It really isn't a sane thing to sit back and watch them get the power that could be devastating in ways much worse then Hiroshima (nukes today are massively more powerful then the hydrogen bombs used in WW2). North Korea is a bit of a peculiar situation, it was the war that the generals were asking for the bomb but failed to get. The old leader was pretty sane but the new one, Kim Jong-il, is a little off the wall and we never ended the Korean war. He has launched missiles over Japan, claimed to have aimed them at Hawaii, but they failed to reach them. It really is something to be concerned with. However, I am happy that talks have produced some good results in that manor.
As for the occupiers and colonists, I don't think we need to get into that either. That is another situation that if they believe it the way you presented it, they are just ignorant about the situation and history of the area.