Mentally ill girl hanged from Crane at age 16 by Iran's "Morality Police"

how about a ceasefire!

 

So you admit to it, that's a good start...

No, smartie, some posters were confusing the issue of why Nazi Germany met its demise, I tried to set them straight; that's it.

And as far as 'hypocrisy', I wouldn't exactly want to 'throw stones' if I were you. It's funny how you endlessly mock 'international law', assert the dominant role of the nation-state and the issue of 'legality' when it suits you, but now suddenly reverse gears and start to take a more 'univeralist' approach to issues, showing endless concern for 'values'...it's quiet entertaining really.

Umm...no. Until they start undertaking genocides against their own people or attacking other nations, they have every right as a sovereign nation-state to establish their own laws, however distasteful that might be to you and others. If the UN had a problem with it, I am sure they could pass resolutions condemning them and may be even establish basis for an intervention based on humanitarian concerns.

The bottom line is this: we don't have a clear-cut or a well-established system in place as an international community to intervene into these matters; see Sudan for an example, or even opposition to intervening against Milosovic. As you often assert -- and you should know this -- the nation-state is the dominant actor in the international arena, they have sovereignty over their territory and can establish their own laws. Now, I find some Iranian laws distasteful and disturbing, that doesn't mean that I have a right to invade them and force them to change; that's the crux of our disagreement here. You believe in the benevolence of using force to 'get our way', I don't believe that's doable and will lead to more trouble than it's worth.

LOL! Not at all. Now remember when you suggested that civil war in Iraq might be a good thing? THAT was embarrassing...I have quiet a way to get there.

In international matters? YES! That's what the UN is for, that's how we came about the numerous 'conventions' we now have. In international relations, there is no substitute for establishing standards and 'norms' outside of a consensus amongst a group of sovereign states. Do you contend that? Absent of a World Government, that's reality.

Now you're confusing matters. You are now talking about domestic affairs, which are entirely different from functioning in the international arena.

OK, I guess you are being purposely obtuse. Thanks for answering my question.

LOL! Once again you confuse "sharing" or educating the world on our values with "forcing" them. I am a huge proponent of American sharing its values with the rest of the world, heck, that's about the only thing left that even Muslims still like about us. It's a huge positive for us to market our values abroad. However -- and pardon the caps -- ARE YOU PROPOSING THE ENDLESS USE OF FORCE TO BRING OTHER CULTURES IN LINE WITH OUR VALUES? If so, then you have a future in the American Enterprise Institute or other neocon outfits that preach just that.

LOL! No, I am not conditioned to be tolerant, I am just a 'realist' (something I thought you were) that realizes we can't go around forcing our views and values on the rest of the world. That's where we disagree: I say I am supportive of America sharing its values abroad, while you seem to indicate that you're for using force to get our way.

Please let me know where I said we can't criticize other cultures, I have repeatedly stated my opinion to the contrary...who's acting desperate now?

The best way to protest the actions of other nations/societies is to through the use of sanctions or some other way of using economic/political pressure to affect change; there are past and modern examples of just that.

That's probably the best way to go about it.

 

In certain strict sense, even the proverbial apple to apple comparison is not doable since no two apples are identical. Does that render the proverbial comparison useless? No because a comparison can still be made reasonably under a set of rules and assumptions with common sense. Likewise, comparison between apple and orange is not at all nonsense by the universally accepted knowledge that both are fruits that grow on trees. Further, a nutritionist, who is only interested in the levels of certain nutritions such as vitamins, minerals, and fiber, can advise her audience with confidence these two seemingly different fruits provide same benefits to their health, in other words, an apple is no different from an orange.

Say apple trees only grow in Iran and orange trees only grow in U.S., and picking an apple that's still attached to the tree is a capital offense in Iran and picking an orange from its tree would get one hanged in U.S. You tout hey we Americans never picked apple and how in the world they Iranians could possibly do this atrocious thing blah blah. When someone points out that getting executed for picking undropped fruits from their trees are the same thing regardless what kind of fruits they are, you throw out your hayesian defense that since apple cannot be compared to orange, citing the example of picking orange in U.S. is irrelevant to the discussion.

Similarly, it would also be ridiculous for a Milosevic apologist to argue the Serbian leader didn't commit ethnic cleansing that was comparable to Hitler's holocaust on grounds that mass killing Muslims and mass killing Jews are not the same because a Muslim cannot be compared to a Jew.

It may be a waste of time by arguing with you back and forth on sementics, but the discussion on "enforcing morality" by extreme force is not "fruitless" when the context is taken into consideration, unless you want to be deliberately obtuse in the first place.

First it's good to see you are expounding on the meaning of "us," which could also be interpreted as "people" by losttexan. Second, government officials who are charged with taking bribes cannot use the defense "since we didn't declare we accepted gifts on behalf of so and so people we are not guilty to the crime." Hanging a live human being in public is not like killing a chicken in your own backyard, nor is exactly the same as killing someone sneakily. When government officials participated in public executions which could only be carried out by local, state, federal authorities, they represented the government in their respective capacities -- the message was unequivocal. Third, you are entitled to your hayesian style argument just as you were in your silly "legitimacy of war actors" theory, but claiming outright that hanging a 16-year girl in Iran and hanging black men in old American South are "completely dissimilar" smacks of intellectual dishonesty.

LOL hayes, what's the objective of that site, to sing praise for our capital punishment system? You have elevated your absurdity to a whole new level. No proof? Here's one for you: "1906 Tennessee Conviction Overturned" -- the hyperlink is in the article near the bottom of the page. Coincidentally, it is about the lynching of a black man on false raping charge.

 

Execution of any kind is barbaric and out-dated. however, the only Regime that practises Stoning woman
raping womaqn before there execution is the mollah's filthy corrupt system. not to mention after North korea iran has the worst freedom of the press on the planet. it's a staistical fact. last year alone, there was a massive number of Newpapers being shut down. a record number of journalists dissapearing. not arrested , they vanished off gods green earth.

 

Never! I am in a "take no prisoners" mood.

 

I want to point out that hanging a woman from a crane for pre-marital sex, and hanging a Black man, a probably innocent Black man in the vast majority of cases, are two different things, happening in two different time periods of history, in two different cultures, even different cultures within the United States, and that both were wrong. The United States pulled itself out of it's morass of racism, by and large, and while still struggling for equality with men (for a woman) and equality for Blacks continues, huge progress has been made. Flawed as a country we certainly are, but we don't hang women for having pre-marital sex, from a crane or the branch of a tree, and we don't hang Black men due to mob violence over a crime likely committed by a white man. We still have a ways to go, but compared to Iran, this is an exalted mecca of freedom for the individual.

I don't "get" the continued attempt to place the US on the same level as Iran in it's treatment of women. There is simply no comparison. In the US, women are struggling for equality in wages and executive opportunities. In Iran, they are struggling to be treated as human beings with rights that are self-evident to any reasonable understanding. And I have no doubt that the vast majority of Iranians think this treatment of women is horribly, horribly wrong. What can they do? The reform candidates in their "elections" are disqualified, the reform newspapers are shut down. Protesters are brutally beaten, and sometimes just disappear.

What can we do? Certainly, a military action for this is out of the question, which doesn't exclude a possible action because these lunatics in charge of Iran's theocratic government want atomic weapons. We wait for the public to rise up and overthrow the oppressive government? That is the ideal solution. I would hope that we are sending many millions of dollars and supplies to Iran to make such a thing possible. With our own current government's gross incompetence in foreign affairs, I don't expect success anytime soon.



Keep D&D Civil.

 

is that a serious question?

 

death of one 16 girl...... genocide of an entire peoples...... the math isn't that difficult.

it's downright sh!tty what those bastards did to that girl, but it is not our job as a country to protect every individual in every country from what we perceive as oppressive rule.

is it unfortunate and appalling that these types of things still happen in 2006? you're damn straight it is! but i'll be damned if continue with our "Team America: World Police" experiement. if the people of Iran want change, let them go at it. until they make the concientious effort, we should stay out.

the selective absolute morality taken by many on this board is comical.

 

Deckard, I don't get you are getting that somebody (presumably me) here is comparing the treatment of women in Iran and in U.S.

All I was arguing with hayes is the similarities between hanging a 16-year old girl in Iran for having sex with a man and hanging a black men for having sex with white women in the old South overwhelm the dissimilarities concerning gender, age, culture/country, and so on, in that both "perpetrators" are the memebers of harshly discriminated against class of people that are/were at the bottom of social orders, and are/were forced upon incredibly unjust "morality." Also notice how the other, more privileged parties involved in the same sex acts -- the man in Iran and white women in U.S. South -- is/were not subject to the same punishment.

 

It's a dangerous ideology, I can understand speaking out against something that you believe is wrong. With exception of extreme circumstances (i.e. genocides, ethnic cleansing), I can't support forceful intervention to stop these actions, which even then is not assured to stop the practice and will only result in numerous more killed/murdered, which sort of defeats the purpose.

Heck, look at what's going on in the Sudan and other parts of Africa now, do you see anyone in the the 'humanist' world lifting a finger? Sure, they're speaking out, but what else are they doing? You have to be somewhat selective in these matters, no one has unlimited resources to deal with these issues alone through force, not even the almighty U.S. of A. That's the nature of world politics.

 

I don't disagree with this at all, I think we should help the people in Iran if possible.

The only way to overthrow that government internally is if their military tosses em out, we should be working the back channels telling them we would support a military coup.

Because if we attack, it would be a massive mistake, and we would be destroying their military which by all accounts is not all that fond of the Mullahs anyway.

DD

 

well i dont disagree with working "behind the scenes" to get something going (ie, a coup), but if the majority of the people there don't want it, any attempt of ours will be futile - amongst a myraid of other nasty things.

surely this disaster of ours we call "Iraq" has taught us something.

 

No one is condoning this. It's a horrible horrible thing. What I have an exception to is the higher than though attitude. Like this is just some Muslim thing and that Christians, Jew, Hindus, or anyone else hasn't committed atrocities.

Great, scream at the top of your lungs about this, and please do the same about the genocides in Africa, and do the same when people in this country or in Europe, China, Russia, Bosnia or any other place in the world where people are mistreated.

To say no US convict of death row has ever been put to death is a joke.


Tragically, while other civilized nations progressively move to abolish capital punishment, the United States is actually adding to the list of crimes for which adults and children may be killed by their government -- despite the fact that over 75 people sentenced to death in America since 1976 have been later proven innocent.
Statement on the death penalty, The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL)

And please you can be for the penalty if you like, just realize that innocent people will always be killed and except that that is part of the price we pay.

 

Not if you're overly exposed to these...

 

i like your quote from the Quran. are you muslim?

 

A freethinker.

 

That is not allowed in Iran...well the thinking part is....just can't tell anyone.

DD

 

that's cute.

i don't think those exist. we all bring our own baggage, ideas, culture, thoughts, junk, experiences, etc. to every issue.

 

I just wanted to preach 'forgiveness' to the Islam word and to Lonny Baxter

 

more power to ya!!!