Slashdot Mirror
Australian Deported From Bahrain Over Facebook Posts
An anonymous reader writes "Australian English instructor Tony Mitchell recently moved to Bahrain where he was offered a job at the state-run Polytechnic University. He described himself as a witness of the various horrifying events in the struggling country (see The Atlantic's four-part series). Mitchell was eventually fired, evicted, and forced to flee because of posts he made on Facebook."
Government: Here's your plane ticket. Get out.
Dissenter: Screw you, man! I'm standing up for FREEDOM!!
Government: We could shock your balls instead.
Dissenter: Which flight was that again?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
He does.
It is. They are not mutually exclusive.
I support people standing up for whatever they believe in, and I certainly support this guy's cause. At the same time, I have no idea where this notion that one should be free from consequences if they are doing what they feel is right has come from. It is not a thing to be proud of, but it is a reality. Black people were arrested and beaten constantly standing up for their rights in the civil rights area. I'm sure none of them wanted to be, and but I also don't remember them going on about how they were in disbelief that they were arrested for breaking the law. They expected it. That was their way of standing up and drawing attention to how bad things were.
So yes, he is welcome to stand up to oppressors, but he has to also be willing to accept the consequences of doing so. That's pretty much the crux of the whole "taking a stand" thing; if you're only doing it with the expectation there will never be consequences, you're not exactly going out on a limb are you? Frankly he should be quite happy with the results. Things aren't too bad for him and he has made the news nationally and internationally. That's damn close to a best case scenario for people hoping to effect change.
I'm from the US to, but that doesn't mean that I'd move to Iran and start badmouthing the Iranian authorities.
That's not the question. The question is:
You never intended to badmouth the Iranians; You wanted to support their culture and be open; but now you are faced with the bad side of it. Are you really saying it's a better person who lets the rape victim be stoned to death without a word?
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Mr. Mitchell was not;
1. "deported" His job ended so he probably no longer had a valid work visa
2. "forced to flee". He was advides by his ex-boss to leave as soon as possible. He could have refused and stayed until he something happened.
How about a little truth in reporting. The issue is bad enough as it is without throwing falsehoods on top.
If Germany was to start adopting the same aggressiveness today against it's neighboring countries the Europeans would do the same thing they did the first time around which is nothing but engage in meaningless diplomatic talks and abandon any of their allies in an effort to appease the German aggressiveness. The US could have stayed out of the European theater in WW2 because there were no US interests particularly endangered. The Germans couldn't successfully cross the Chanel to attack Britain let alone cross the Atlantic with a large enough invasion force to attack the US. By the time they could have did so the US had it's nuclear deterence to prevent any such invasion. When Japan made one of the stupidest military decisions in history in attacking the US the US made the European theater their first priority when they officially declared war. The Americans gained nothing out of WW2 in Europe. Instead the US just ended up providing the European countries with military and economic aid for 40+ years. It's still hard to except that the US would sacrifice so many lives fighting for Europe when it is obvious the Europe would not do the same thing for the US if necessary. The civilian navy merchantmen and ships lost just trying to supply England with everything from food to aircraft is never appreciated. Keeping the USSR in check has never been appreciated. The only country that steps up to help the US today is England because they still remember how close they remember how close they came from losing their country by relying on soft power and diplomacy. They are the only country the US can usually count on for support when necessary. The rest of Europe just stands around naval gazing and complaining. NATO is a useless institution where the majority of members are so far behind US military technology they can not even interface with US battlefield systems. The only thing thing they are good at is holding the US coats and staying out of the way of the US military. The Europeans could not handle the Balkan wars without US assistance. Most of the European countries could not even deploy their troops and equipment to Afghanistan without US help. NATO couldn't take out the Libyan air defense systems in a timely fashion and had to get the US to do it for them. I am glad the US is downsizing the military and hopefully they start the process by removing all troops and equipment from Europe and let them handle their own problems for a change. And as a bonus they should also punt the expense of the missile defense system in Europe. The US is in no danger of missiles from anyone in the the middle eastern countries so why spend US money on the project?