The Iraq Study Group seriously proposes that we have a nice little coffee klatch with Iran as one of the ways to resolve the situation in the Middle East, putting the group in comfortably with many Democrats and all Europeans. Put aside the fact that Iran has for 27 years spearheaded the Jihadist revolution. Put aside the fact that Iran is going nuclear as fast as it can. Put aside the fact that Iran is trying to rewrite history to advance its own tyrannical rule. Let’s just take a minute to look at how Iran treats its own citizens.
Did you notice, by the way, that while women in Iran are veiled from head to toe and have no rights whatsoever, making them little better than animals, girls become legal adults at 9 years old?
Have you also noticed how this is not a cause celebre on the Left, although it manifestly should be? While the Left is demanding gay marriage, its members are almost completely silent about stopping gay torture and execution in Iran and other Muslim countries. It’s an extremely twisted version of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” In other words, these people are so anxious to see George Bush politically humiliated that they’ll be silent about any nation that has the potential to humiliate him.
By the way, this somewhat boring video will give you a good idea about the political alignment regarding gay torture in Iran. A small group of gays are appropriately outraged; everyone else says we’re just slandering those poor Iranians who are already suffering enough from Western imperialism:
Here’s an overlapping video that’s a little shorter on the same subject:
Hat tip: Gay Patriot via PowerLine
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Interesting and fitting music for the first vid. My sense of justice is perhaps, different from most Americans. A lot of british and canadians don’t believe in violence. But I do. I also believe in the meta-golden rule, which says instead of treating others like you wish to be treated yourself, it states this. Treat others as those others treat the people under their power.
I have no qualms, moral, ethical, cultural, concerning public executions of sheiks,clerics, mullahs, terrorists, Z man or Saddam. In point of fact, there are many other execution techniques I would favor that are crueler, more painful, longer lasting, and several times more brutal, but because of the soft stomachness of my compatriots, I try to keep it clean.
You will never execute an innocent and you will never free a guilty person under the meta-golden rule. For an innocent man does not punish the innocent, and a guilty man does not let the innocent free without abuse.
Those who show mercy, shall themselves be shown leniency and mercy. Those who are ruthless, shall be met by a higher and greater ruthlessness. Most of the world do not behave under ethical considerations, but instead selfishness. They don’t support the death penalty because they don’t want to be executed by accident. They don’t want to support Bush, because they hate him too much, even if Bush liberated millions of people in need.
I recommend you read this, for a very nice post on feminism, from inside feminism, Book and Companions.
Link
[...] [Discuss This Topic With Bookworm] [...]
I don’t think this issue is all black and white. Gay marriage in the US is a different discussion than gay torture in foreign countries. Thus, anyone can support one, the other, both, or neither.
The US does not torture or hang people for homosexual activity. And many who do not support gay marriage (for various reasons) do support certain legal rights for gays.
The idea that marriage takes place only between a man and a woman is longstanding; it is supported by the church and the state historically. Church history also supports the idea that homosexual activity is sin. Deviation is labeled progressive (or worse). This is not a matter of physical life and death for gay people, but it is a matter of US internal affairs.
Islamic countries do not differ in their idea that homosexual activity is sin. They do, however, differ in the fact that it is punishable by torture and death. This is horrific, and decent people in the US see this a violation of human rights (as well it is). But the government reaction is a matter of US foreign policy.
The question of gay marriage is a matter for discussion, because (to date) progressives and conservatives are not engaged in a violent, physical civil war and because the US policy affects US citizens directly and the world indirectly. We can flip-flop back and forth on this issue, as we do with school integration, abortion, and even alcoholic consumption (remember prohibition) before we finally come to a stand still, if we ever do. If the US is becoming too much like Europe, whose fault is that? Isn’t that where our Judeo-Christen values came from (along with many of our ancestors).
The question of foreign torture is different because it involves other countries. It involves people who have a way of life we do not fully understand: people who don’t think like us and don’t want to. Imagine that. The US can either use force or reason to change the situation there, because an act of Congress means nothing to the citizens of a foreign country. Should people be killed for homosexual acts? NO. But does the US have the right to go into another country and stop it? How? All talk is not a “tea Party,” but food and drink give the hands something civil to do.
Progressives, liberals, whatever in the US clearly have the right to lobby for gay marriage, but they and other Americans, while appalled at torture, have little they can do other than voice thier opinions. Oh, the US could offer sanctuary. But then we’d fight about legal and illegal “aliens,” Iranian pain being bigger than Mexican pain according to some. Am I right?
I don’t think many Americans want to see gay youths hanged, but the issue is not as simple as the original post implied. Domestic and foreign policy are not synonyms for a reason. Some see problems at home as more pressing than problems in foreign countries. I’m willing to bet the two young men, hanged for homosexual acts, are not among them. But they don’t get to vote in the US, and that is right.
The Link I posted directly addressed the argument that foreign policy is not a progressive’s concern, which was based upon the reasoning that the only solution is sanctuary.
More and more, progressivism begins to look like isolationism.
Gay activist groups are largely silent about this becauase their activism is so mixed with progressive multi-culturalism. Their issues are domestic; gay marriage, gay, lesbian, transgendered school books, and the like. They could have made a comparable film for women’s groups concerneing raped women stoned to death for “adultery”, little girls getting their genitals hacked out with razor blades, honor killings, and the like. But it aeems that gay groups don’t advocate for the rights of gays in places where they are totally denied any more than women’s groups defend women who are truely without voices. So sad and so cynical.
It is a cruel world, Lulu.
Bookie,
Have you seen Iran’s version of Mel Gibson’s new movie?