Software
Another gut-wrencher:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/09/04/iran.stoning/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
Invade and destroy, or look the other way in equanimity with sorrow?
by nicknielsen
Equanimity with sorrow is, unfortunately, the only option.
To think otherwise is to have been brain-dead for the past eight years.
by bergenfx
I feel like Malcom McDowell with his eyes being gently assisted in their openness by a cute little wire contraption. I so much like bliss, but never seem to find it.
Oh well, keep doing your job. Someone has to do it.
Comma after, "Oh,.."; period after, "well." Capital, "K".
Otherwise, you enter the foyer with muddy boots.
by bergenfx
I used to enter, forget my lines and not know where stage left was; where I was supposed to make my exit.
Okay ... still do.
by michael jay
trying to understand some foreign customs.
Some of these peoples actually think this is right.
by nicknielsen
by seanferd
by ansugisalas
- it can be a lot of things.
Invading isn't "do" though, it's only "try", and it's been tried, and it didn't work.
You can't fight belief with bullets. Even China couldn't silence pacifist monks that way.
"Do" is going to be something else.
by ansugisalas
They don't think it's right. They know it.
That's much worse.
by oz_media
Locking up people for 10 year terms for possession of marijuana? locking people up for life or condemnign them rto death due to poorly managed crime scenes and an urge to bring SOMEONE to justice in order to appease teh public?
Oh no, sorry, that's America, you do everything right. Other nations don't have a hard time understanding your completely fked
up customs.
Why is it that Americans always point a finger but never look in a mirror?
by nicknielsen
The editorial "we" coddles you. You get to live.
_______
titivating
Something like that.
I am sure that you, as well as many here, myself included, are more than passingly acquainted with human political history ([i]polis[/i]).
How, for instance, we all now got to where we are, owing to those before us. What's going on now in that place, I take as an example of what went before.
Who am I? Who are you?
Does not make it any easier.
by michael jay
by bergenfx
With respect to a baseline of, what?
I don't expect an opus, [b]seanferd[/b].
We are all in this. I consulted an armadillo, once, and it expressed no concern whatsoever.
by bergenfx
Fact not in evidence.
Last bit of mud on your boot.
by seanferd
by ansugisalas
The anti-stupid ray is for ourselves, then?
It would seem to be required, yes.
by hal 9000
Don't you know that your Spirit Guide doesn't like you telling others who it is?
Col
by av .
Invading Iran is futile. I really hoped the opposition movement when Ahmadinejad was re-elected was successful. Unfortunately, it wasn't. I'll have to go with equanimity with sorrow.
AV
When you come upon an Iranian national?
Conceivable.
Whether visitor, expat, or diaspora, [i]they[/i], in whatever capacity, owe reponsibility to this.
How do you deal with them? What do you say to them?
How do you respond when they say, Help us.
by nicknielsen
Moral support, in many cases, is the most I can do.
I don't like that it's required and would change it if I could, but, for some reason, my wand has been disabled.
by ansugisalas
Used to see them regularly on the shopping street of Copenhagen.
Iranian women, photo album of atrocities - collecting signatures, money; spreading words.
by av .
I would tell them they need to rise up and get rid of their evil leaders and clerics.
Aside from working through humanitarian agencies, there is little we can do in the US unless we want another war to pay for. Where is the outrage from the more moderate muslim countries? I don't hear their voice and that is a tragedy.
AV
by delbertpgh
It's Iran's job to fix its own political and religious culture. We can't do it for them. We've made a sincere effort to revolutionize civic life for Vietnamese, Iraqis, and Afghanis, and discovered what was predictable all along: it doesn't work. No nation wants to be "improved" by another. The success of the Marshall Plan was in bringing a continent back to its former state, not raising it from savagery or out of the hands of religious lunatics.
A country has to look after its own interests. That means we work on ourselves, and not on them, and let Iranians handle their own social engineering. A tidal wave of stupid washed over that country 30 years ago, and we can't suck it back for them.
It's like saying, you are no longer capable of bringing life to being.
So, you sulk off; this, beyond you.
Not being critical -- I find myself in the same boat.
by jkameleon
Mince by bombs, garnish with white phosphorus, pepper with depleted uranium.
Seriously, man, you should stop getting high on corporate media news. It's bad for brain. Just say no!
It takes many small steps for a society to become civilized. It usually takes generations to achieve that. Practicing medeival torture is, despite all of its repulsiveness, still a wee tiny step in a proper direction. A step away from sadistically scientifically perfected shit CIA & SAVAK used to deliver to Iran. True, it was decades ago, but you know how it is... bad stuff is never forgotten.
by dawgit
Necessitates, first, delineation between a this people and a that people.
Kinda what snares us in the first place.
by boxfiddler
From which our legislators exempt themselves by virtue of ruling leadership.
God, do I dislike that word "leadership". It is featured regularly here, on TR.
Calcification of category, it is, leading to fatality of caste.
by oz_media
by ansugisalas
Do you know how it works among the japanese apes?
They have a system where the less clever ape the more clever. The more clever carry the responsibility of providing their cohorts with an example to follow, one that will hopefully lead to general prosperity and rich pickings.
My granddad told me once, of a set of such monkeys. And the clever one saw to his dismay that his cohorts were unable to ape him well enough.
Disgusted, he took off, set up a hermitage and lived there, in dignified solitude - as only a red-faced ape can.
I find it increasingly possible that he has since then joined TR, sensing here an abundance of kindred spirits with similar griefs.
by boxfiddler
This is my return to yesteryear, having seen and summarily dismissed what you said back then.
Your post, you have not withdrawn it. You stand, still.
Do I have to?
by nexs
But you can't choose the laws in Iran.
That's how it goes, right?
A this people and a that people -- yes.
Wrestle, now, with the [i]other[/i], as I wrestle.
by nexs
But why?
Those are laws of other countries, and they've already claimed to be putting the woman to death, so what's to stop them from making an example of someone else?
A this people and a that people -- nothing.
Apply, now, what you are saying to [i]our[/i] Chilean miners.
They are [i]not[/i] ours?
by nexs
To you, or your nation?
Are your Chilean miners being lashed for being the point of mis-identity?
by boxfiddler
Or, Iranians in charge, disparate from "the people"?
Been there. Spoke in tones concealed on the street from SAVAK.
Things are done differently there, still.
by av .
They have no respect for public opinion and there is no justice in that country. Their leaders and clerics are barbaric. Nothing justifies stoning.
AV
in a discussion about the death penalty - which I am toatally aginst - where I put forward the finding that death by hypoxia induces an initial feeling of euphoria which lasts until unconsciousness - followed, of course, by the subsequent death.
I was both surprised and concerned that I got replies and peermails suggesting that the person sentenced to death should be made to suffer as well as being killed. It seems that, for some people in our culture, it's not black and white!
It's interesting that Sharia Law and degrading punishments - generally on women - are quite widespread in the Islamic world, Saudi Arabia being a particular example yet Americans focus on Iran - and only Iran - for American anger at...stuff.
You've whupped Saddam. You're keeping rather quiet about Afghanistan and you so need Pakistan on side that they don't get mentioned. You don't know where Sudan is.
Saudi Arabia have you - literally - over a barrel and yet they have a far stricter interpretation of Sharia than Iran and suppress, opress and punish more women.
Why this one woman, particularly?
I was about to ask him whether I, or he, had taken in libation too much.
You cleared it up in a stitch.
by nexs
Dictates, I know nothing of Chilean affairs. The closest I have to Chilean affairs is a friend whose parents were born over there.
I do suppose, though, that Iran and Chile have very different issues.
by nexs
to all of us, is like 'handshake' is, to a horse.
Morally, to all of us -- yes. But other than complaining about it, there's nothing to prevent it from happening again.
We all lose our nerve, distributed and complacent as we are, tiring of conflict, then, you are probably right.
How does it feel -- being right?
by nexs
In your own place; in your own land.
Right back to what we began with.
by nexs
given by you, anywhere, any place, the day should be cherished.
I'm not concerned my the locale.
by ansugisalas
meaning "for profit", right? :p
Other than that clarification, I agree completely.
Ok, not sure about the profits in vietnam, maybe that was just dominophobia. And maybe afghanistan was just "for revenge"...
by delbertpgh
We thought it would be easy to defeat enemy armies in these places, which was at least true in the short term, and we assumed that political stability would automatically follow military force. We assumed that the military part was the difficult piece, but that because we were good at it, everything else would follow with minimum effort and thought. All it would take would be putting some good people on the job once the shooting stopped.
The idea that we did lots of war for profit is a false trope. Most of our wars have been about power or security. Afghanistan and Vietnam were places where there was no chance of making a profit. I don't think that Iraq was done for profit, even though it has a lot of valuable oil. I suspect the Bush team of lots of crazy reasons for going into Iraq. They figured they'd clean up that one, stabilize the place, turn it into a thriving capitalist paradise that would make Hamas and the PLO drop their guns and start opening Starbucks stores, and modernization would peacefully sweep away all the impediments of tribal and Islamic civilization from Arabia to Libya. And then the team of heroes would fix Iran, and then North Korea. It would all be easy, requiring only the audacity and courage to use American power.
Of course, nothing was easy, and it was hideously expensive, and ground to a halt in the face of facts that wouldn't budge. It's probably the most fantastic feat of political self-delusion in the history of the American republic.
That your homilies, analogies, and metaphors were home-spun.
If so, good job. Damned good summary.
Comports with mine.
Although, somehow, I have reservations about the homespun part.
I think that you like I do a lot of assiduous reading.
by hal 9000
You shouldn't have upset it so much that it no longer wants to be your [b]Spirit Guide.[/b] ;)
Col
by ansugisalas
Any individual human's beliefs and activities should be assessed in terms of their own culture. Your culture is different to mine (as is our language; you would say "different than") so if we assess the actions of those of a third culture according to our own cultural tachings, we would have different ideas as to the rightness or wrongness of those actions.
But it's all bollocks, isn't it? The day that I accept cultural relativism is on the day that I hear a Saudi or Iranian or Afghani woman sentenced to death by stoning admit that she deserves her punishment.
by ansugisalas
don't intersect.
Nothing protects the application of "culture" over and above human rights.
So far so good.
Whose bill? Whose rights? We have to agree a set of natural rights that are not dependent on culture or politics.
When we start to define such rights we start to run into a whole mess of contradictions. The rights are, by definition, independent of law or society yet can we really have rights without responsibilities? And responsibilities need a framework of law to enforce them. And that is before we even begin to discuss content...
There are those who regard natural rights as a gift of God, Allah, Vishnu or gods. Others regard natural rights as duties imposed on man by the same gods. Some regard them as inseparable from human nature or reason. some, quite obviously, don't accept the concept at all.
Where do we start? The US Declaration of Independence?
"Differs from" (less ink).
As to your other, we cannot avoid establishing existential identity to begin with -- each, afterall, goes by the name of "culture": Persian, Saudi, Afghan, English, and American, mentioned here.
To culture what?
by boxfiddler
by creed44
by oz_media
Seriously, one has to ask oneself, who the hell do you THINK you are? Are you feeling tough now because you have a keyboard, old man?
What a bone head! Condemn another's culture as if your own is so pristine, idiot.
by creed44
by boxfiddler
by oz_media
I think the US should do something about it. Then go to Africa and do something about the corruption, lack of US justice and random killings there. After Africa, select any country of your liking, there are many cultures to choose from, who also don't abide by US laws and the US justice system. TSK, now if only the rest of the world could be just like America, get on it, make the world comply, you are the best and have the best laws...well, maybe you should invade yourselves too, for the thousands of people sentenced to life or death row due to minor drug crimes or wrongful conviction, they don't comply with European or Canadian standards and they should.
America is a horrific country for how it treats its citizens, they should be taught how to act like a more humane society for once. You should have to comply to more humane laws found with other countries cultures, this death row and lengthy, wrongful incarceration is just WRONG!
Or is it okay because that's what YOUR society accepts?
F-kin hypocrites!
'Be like us! No, we don't have to be like anyone else, we set the golden standard, a paradigm of how a nation should be, at war and broke, but righteous due to our strong religious faith.'
You are such a joke, however not a very funny one.
Do you not think that people in nations around the world post the same horrifying enws articles, illustrating how America treats its people? Thay also see what a horrible place to live America is and how poorly it treats it's lower class citizens and minorities.
Am such a joke, I don't know what to tell you.
I certainly don't know what to tell you, Oz, about the entirety of the country, if that instead is what you meant. I leave that to you.
I can speak to capital punishment. However, I don't think I speak to it the way you conceive of speaking to it.
I am dead-set against it. I am dead-set against the whole of us -- whoever the whole may be -- conspiring with malice aforethought to kill another. The meaning of, "to culture", is not what I have in mind.
Exigent homicide is another matter. It belongs with each of us, where it has always resided.
That unique act -- [i]attempt[/i] in your instant case -- to kill, would be for the rest of the whole to sort out.
________
Comma Police
by oz_media
Do you feel that the US is a paraigm for others to follow?
If no, then why bother posting what other nations do instead of pointing teh finger inward at your own problems that have a possibility of resolve? Is it easier o rmore palpable to condemn others rather than admit your own horrible shortcomings?
If you live in such an advanced and upstanding nation or cultural brilliance, why not illustrate your superiority for others to follow, instead of being the pot calling the kettle black.
That answer is clear for all with vision already. Americans have so many internal issues that they simply don't wish to begin addressing them, it's easier to say 'hey, look over there' instead.
You are just like a fat kid pointing at a skinny kid and harrassing him for his inability to manage his weight.
Pot kettle black
by oz_media
I would find it hard to speak TO as well, but perhaps speaking OF it would be more acceptable.
So lets just scoff at other nations, other than our own instead. It's always more comforting to laugh at others an forget our own shortcomings.
Damn, you are pretty dim for someone who portrays himself as a being somewhat clever.
Here's a question you should be able to get your head around then; If you were to interview everyone on death row in the US, and ask them if they would prefer being sentenced to death or receive 99 lashings, I wonder what the results would be?
How many US citizens are wrongly executed each year, not on the street through gang violence but through the US Criminal Justice System (perhaps that should be rephrased as the US Justice System is criminal)?
by nexs
However, it is black/white point of view.
It's intriguing to wonder why the american 'whole' really cares about these offshore political issues. For example: What, do you think, is the fuel for indulging in the chase? Would it be bragging rights? Personal moral righteousness? Political agenda?
Note: when I say 'american "whole"' I really mean the media and political faces, of all flavours.
by oz_media
Fuel for the chase is the general hatred due to ignorance that is propagated by the media. Fear and ignorance leads to distaste of others and favour towards US actions in foreign lands. It's been that way since WWI and I am sure long before that too. People who don't know better are fed such info to make them support the US 'fixing' others.
Bragging rights; What else does the US do ANYTHING on a global scale for, to become a better place? Right.
Personal righteousness, yup that too. Look how much better we are than anyone else.
So all of the above would be correct.
by delbertpgh
... or with a lot of other countries. However, the world would be better off if a lot of places were more like the United States. Or like Finland, or Canada. I can't imagine Canadians, or even Americans, burying somebody to the ribs and then killing them with stones. Or hacking off a thief's hand, or throwing acid in a school girl's face, or strapping on a bomb and blowing themselves up in a crowd, all for the greater glory of God and his kingdom on earth.
I'm quite aware that my country puts people to death, and produces a lot of multiple-murder/suicides, and that 100 years ago we had community groups that would hang black men from a rope and burn them as they strangled to death. However, we don't do that killing like we were singing a psalm, which is what these abhorrent Islamist fools do now, and what the west's own religious maniacs did hundreds of years ago, like Torquemada.
Not that I want France to be like the U.S., either. If all their cheese tasted like Colby, and all their wine was Almaden, and all their pate was braunschweiger, it would be a crime and a loss to civilization.
by oz_media
Time is your only recourse there.
You didn't lynch people for religion, you did so out of pure ignorance. once people realized that black people were just as worthy and capable as white people, it was put to an end. Ignorance is the fuel for such actions.
England has done it, crusades. People didn't have bombs to strap on themselves but went to war with a pride in death for one's God king and country.
How about sentencing someone to 15 years in a federal penitentiary. They are often lead into a criminal world for the sake of personal survival, their lives are completely destroyed, their families and children suffer immensely. they risk being beaten, stabbed, raped and worse for that 10-15 years of imprisonment for a crime that barely receives any court attention at all in many other nations.
Nobody expects you to follow their lead, nor should they. they certainly don't plaster the news with it and scoff at your country as being behind the times and inhumane, most just think themselves lucky for not being an American
by generalist
If the United States of America is that horrible, then how come there are a lot of people who want to move here and become citizens? Not all people perceive America to be a horrible place.
Now there are discussions that America has problems when it comes to how it treats its citizens, and some progress is being made to resolve those problems. It will take time to deal with the problems and there will likely be a lot of resistance from those who consider the status quo to be the 'gold standard' of national behavior. But a resistance to change is human nature.
This resistance, combined with a strong religious faith, is why some Muslim nations still use punishments that many Americans, Canadians, and Europeans consider to be inhumane. And to make matters worse, the punishments are for 'crimes' that would be considered minor or non-crimes in other countries. They make American violations seem trivial.
If nations had to have a clean slate relative to human rights before they could complain about other nations, then there would be very few nations that could complain. This includes America AND those countries that criticize America.
That's why...
I saw Dallas on TV! I've also been there for a visit. Much as I'd like to get out of Croydon, I think I'll stay here for the moment.
:)
by bergenfx
I like the way you painted 300+ million people with the same brush. Kind of makes you an authority on prejudice.
You are all over the place in this discussion. You will note this response may refer to other posts, but I thought one response preferable to a bunch of piecemeal ones.
I could have sworn that the first reference I saw to this story was in The Guardian and I believe I saw it in The Economist, too. I would imaging it was in LeMonde and other papers around the world ... just not Canada, right? Just kind of confused here: it's okay for non-US news sources to report on this, but not the US. But then, if we don't publish it, won't we be accused of being insular? Let us know which you would rather have us; insular or hypocritically reporting Human Rights issues?
Oh, and about human rights issues and self-examination in our own country I guess you wouldn't lower yourself to consulting US news sources; that human justice within our own borders gets a lot of ink (and electrons) in this country, and self-flagellation is our major sport. (Thanks for helping us).
And about history and decimation of indigenous peoples, plundering wealth and resources, slave-trading, genocide, oppression of minorities and class and caste systems and general man's inhumanity to man ... Portugal, The Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, Germany, England, France, Italy ... or working from the East, Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand, Myanmar ... or from the south or north ... more of the same. It doesn't take long for the whole planet to be colored in crimson red. It seems this hemisphere was well plundered by European countries long before the United States was even a glimmer in a fore father's eye.
Speaking a little more present tense ... traveling Europe I saw several examples of enlightened European attitude in overt racism against just a few individuals ... and they were just passing through. And lately Europe is just beginning to experience immigration of the massive scale that the US has just taken for granted. At least a Japanese writer has made the connection and given credit for how hard massive immigration of multiple-ethnicities is.
I'm glad we could all make you feel so superior. Let us know if there is anything else we can do, and send us more fuel for self-flagellation. There is a big tournament coming up.
by ansugisalas
by jessie
I know my pinkie is swollen and bloody, but first, thank you, I'll see to my friend who's lost his leg.
We know our system is not perfect, but at least for now, we've stopped the legalized stonings and lynchings. Is it wrong to hope that others will stop as well?
by oz_media
Your culture has set out what it feels are necessary punishments for crimes, even crimes that are not seen as being that bad in most other free nations.
When Canada says that you should loosen your laws on marijuana possession/use, should American justice heed it as they are more humane to their soft drug users than the US is?
No, your laws, your crimes, your idea of what reasonable punishment it.
So with all the people who are wrongly executed, wrongly incarcerated and sentenced to unfathomable time in your system, ho ware YOU to decide what is humane or cultured in another nation that most can't even find on a globe?
In other words, mind your own f-in business, it's not your nation to make such decisions and judgments for.
That, yesterday, the Vatican condemned it. Today, the EU.
Castro may even have something to say about it.
by oz_media
That's right, not allowed to look at yourselves, not allowed to criticize America, not allowed to do anything unpatriotic. Allowed to criticize others, allowed to scoff at other nation's culture and customs while waving the stars and stripes though.
Forgive me for seeing the hypocrisy in the OP and being unpatriotic towards the good ole land of perfection.
by nicknielsen
You also accuse the wrong person. I am not, and never have been, one of those 'my country, right or wrong' people.
I'm just tired of your screeds.
by ansugisalas
Reminds me of a dumb puerile joke I once heard.
A number explorers caught by natives, defiling something.
They get to chose their punishment; either umpapumpa or death.
One after another choses umpapumpa which turns out to be something common to US prisons according to popular fiction.
The last one decides, no, not for me.
The answer: Right - umpapumpa till he dies!
99 lashes isn't a safe punishment. It can well be lethal.
BTW punishment is so a noun. It's a noun derived from a verb, but it's still a noun.
A qualifier doesn't change that.
How many are executed, let alone "rightly" or "wrongly".
I regard the protocol as lawful but, as I told you above, wrong-headed and extra-cultural.
by ansugisalas
by generalist
If you use the executions by year defined by www.deathpenaltyinfo.org, the maximum number of possible wrongful executions by year since 1976 would be 98. (The site claims that 1,224 people have been executed since 1976, as of August 18, 2010.) This would assume that every execution is a wrongful execution, which would be stretching things. The US Criminal Justice System isn't that incompetent.
Life imprisonment avoids the wrongful execution problem, but is hell on those who are innocent, much less those who are guilty. But I suspect that most if not all countries have instances where the innocent are convicted of crimes they didn't commit. And it is highly likely there are people who claim to be innocent who are actually guilty. All countries need to work on dealing with this.
A better solution would be to have the punishment fit the crime with an eye to rehab as opposed to punishment. Why lock somebody up when they can become productive citizens with the right help?
Of course, if they don't learn from their mistakes, and their mistakes harm people, they really should be isolated from society. I suspect that these habitual offenders would love to take the 99 lashes as a way of avoiding long term incarceration.
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