I won't equivocate: your string of posts in this thread are your best ever. You moral relativist.

Yeah, our two big allies in the Middle East are the authoritarian monarchy in Saudi Arabia, and a military dictator who overthrew a democratically elected leader in Pakistan.

Isn't our policy to be spreading democracy in the region? Just wondering.

Whatever happened to the president's plan to get us less dependent on oil?

There's a sizable difference between the two situations. First, and annoyingly, there's an obvious distinction between scope - whatever you think the US may have perpetrated in the War on Terror (is it yet a factual?) and the repeated brutality we see in the Saudi Kingdom.

But the real question should be the idea of "controlling for" in statistics. Across different types of governments, Muslim' countries tend to have this systematic application of brutal laws and policies. Across different types of governments for Christian nations, you don't see the same trend. Brutality seems independent of Christianity, while positively correlated to Muslim ones. Of course we could not be using other variables, like poverty, development, so on.

But it does suggest a causative link.

Also, which way is the underlying society applying pressure? In America, tentatively it's the government RESISTING calls by a minority its populace to enforce religious norms. In Saudi Arabia its the government ENFORCING calls by its populace (and not a minority of it, either) to enforce those religious norms.

It's not all equal.

that would be like me getting shot in a drive-by while robbing someone. sure, i was the victim of a shooting, and it led to my arrest on the robbery, but i was still guilty of the robbery.

(also see my last post)

hey in america lots of guys are in jail, some for a long time, because they picked up the phone and called their exwife/gf and said, hey, what is going on, a police officer just served me with a restraining order against you ...

what's the difference really?

lol. Thought 'equate' and typed extra letters and stuff.

Slave from the 1840s: Man slavery sucks, we need to get rid of it.

Taso: Yeah, you should tell your congressmen to outlaw it

Slave: I don't have a congressman, slaves can't vote

Taso: Damn, that sucks, you should totally write a letter to a newspaper talking about how [censored] slavery is

Slave: Umm, dude, my master forbids us to read and write, and beats us if we try to learn.

Taso: Damn that really sucks, you should move somewhere that slavery isn't allowed.

Slave: To do that I would have to break the law, slaves aren't allowed to run away + the closest places without slavery have fugitive slave laws where the citizens there are required to return us.

Taso: Damn, that sucks, well keep on keeping on man, just don't break these unjust laws, try working within the system that set up these laws and one day, hopefully your grandchildren won't be slaves.

But its still all relative. I mean, a lot of people were perfectly ok with slavery.

That's the insidious part of this law, how are you going to get to an airport if you can't own a car or ride in a car of a man who is unrelated to you? That severly limits your ability to "get away." Especially when your country is a giant desert.

If you see moral relativism as a slippery slope to sadism, you merely reveal yourself as scum. Do you see why?

God does nobody read their Nietzsche these days.

claiming moral and cultural relativism is just a cop out. relativism should be used to create empathy not apathy. we all understand why the Saudi's have these laws, but according to people like John Lock every human being is born with innate rights and the government is supposed to protect those rights not give them or take them.

True. Good points. I wonder how slavery ended. Did it end by the slaves breaking the law and running away? Or did it end with a political movement, and an amendment to the constitution. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Next time you want to make a post that proves a point of mine, or maybe is completly irrelivant, make it shorter, please.

Edited: My bad.

thanks for stretching out the thread and making it unreadable ass

How about you try not being such a condescending [censored] and elaborate? And I'll freely admit that its been a while since I read Nietzche, so feel free to enlighten me, I'm all ears. Maybe you can help me not be scum.

Slavery ended in every other industrial nation before it ended in the US because it was uneconomical to continue using slaves instead of free labor. Tariffs and laws in the US kept the institution of slavery alive for several decades longer that it would have with a handful of legislative acts (or lack there off).

On the other hand you totally ignore that Slavery in the US existed for CENTURIES, your position seems to be that those slaves who lived during those times should have never attempted to run away because "breaking the law is wrong". Of course you would ignore the issue because eventually the descendants of these slaves were granted their freedom and that makes it OK for you to condemn those slaves who did escape and those people who did help them. Your position is one of the most vile imaginable, holding up words on scraps of paper as more important than empathy, freedom, and life itself.

Im not surprised, didnt even read the OP. I suppose the true agressor got 5000 lashes or something amirite?

Who's up for a draft so we can invade Saudi Arabia, get a regime change, and load up on oil. Let's gogogogo!

Well, if there really is such a strong correlation that we can infer causation, why not go ahead and cite some kind of study instead of just hand-wavingly asserting it?

I mean, you seem to understand there are other variables at play, but you then claim there's actually a suggested "causative link". Do you have any kind of formal study you could provide a link to, or is this just a hunch of yours?

I'd say we should first go ahead and prove there's actually a statistically significant correlation to begin with, instead of just assuming ante hoc it actually exists. Then we can go about deciding if there's actually anything causative to be inferred. Assuming there's actually a correlation, then doing a bit of head-scratching to see if the assumed correlation suggests a causative link is putting the cart before the horse.

First of all, you brought up slavery. I thought it was an irrelivant example (and I wrote as much). There is a difference between the two examples. These women practice Islam. They don't revolt against it. How did women get rights in the United States? They proved that they deserved it; they said "Listen Bob, I know you're my husband, but I'm not going to suck your dick anymore unless you get the law changed." And what did Bob say? "LETS CHANGE THE LAWS!" Women had no say in this country either until the 1920's, yet they managed to get the laws changed.

And please don't make unfactual assumptions about my character as if you know me, based on a few sentences I wrote, based on a ridiculous example you brought up.

Originally they got 1-5 years. It was upped to 2-9 years.
The victim is Shi'a.
The rapists are Sunni.
Sunni run the country.

This woman was sentenced to 70 lashes for sitting in a car with a man not related to her. This is against islamic law, unless she was
A. Ignorant of the law in Saudi Arabia or
B. Hoping to be punished for it

she is de facto rebelling against that tenet of that religion.

None of this changes the fact that women prior to 1920 in the US lived under unjust laws, and that you state people living under unjust laws should not violate them because you are against breaking the law.

So why is slavery an irrelevant example? Would a slave in 1794 have been wrong to take a chance to escape in your opinion? Would you condemn another for helping him escape because he was breaking the law?

I specifically attacked your position, said nothing about your character.


My ridiculous example ACTUALLY EXISTED. And if you read enough history you will come across passages written by people who take a very similar position to you, people who condemned both slavery and the slave who tried to escape, holding up the "rule of law" as justification of the latter.

Not that im supporting the saudi law in anyway, but i think its worth mentioning that had she been following the law she would not have been raped.

I don't know if there is a trick to doing the multiple qoutes thing that you did, but if there is, I don't know it, and if there isn't, I don't have the time, I'm just gonna respond point by point, without qoutes. I know it's not as easy to read.

I don't think breaking a law is equal to revolting against the system. I speed all the time, breaking traffic laws; do I consider myself a revolutionary? A rebel? No, I'm just an [censored], breaking the law. Would I speed if I was going to get 200 lashes? lol, no.

Yes, the women in America lived under unjust laws...The point was, they took action to change the laws, they got the constitution amended. Getting the constitution amended is not breaking the law - I'm not sure what you are talking about here.

A slave would not have been wrong to attempt to escape. I'm not 100% sure how you are equating a muslim woman riding in a car with an unkown man to escaping. How was she escaping? She wasn't, she was breaking the law and staying in the system. How does that help anything? No escaping being done. Amount of escaping = 0.

just an ugly comment all around