"It's because for them adultery is worse than murder – but not all kinds of adultery: an adulterous man might not even be imprisoned but an adulterous women is the end of the world for them. It's because I'm in a country where its women do not have the right to divorce their husbands and are deprived of their basic rights."...
"When the judge handed down my sentence, I even didn't realise I'm supposed to be stoned to death because I didn't know what 'rajam' means. They asked me to sign my sentence which I did, then I went back to the prison and my cellmates told me that I was going to be stoned to death and I instantly fainted."...
"They wanted to get rid of my lawyer so that they can easily accuse me of whatever they want without having him to speak out. If it was not for his attempts, I would have been stoned to death by now."
August 7, 2010
"The answer is quite simple, it's because I'm a woman, it's because they think they can do anything to women in this country."
The woman is Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani. The country, Iran.
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244 comments:
1 – 200 of 244 Newer› Newest»When MacArthur wanted to keep Japan from embarking on another war like the one that had just ended, he gave women the vote.
I have a feeling this lady is another step of a similar movement.
Maybe if we let the stoning take place at Ground Zero we can prove once and for all that Diversity is indeed America's highest calling.
Bloomberg might even take back his asinine comments about Religious Tolerance.
Fox News had a special about honor killings in America last night. It was a good show that focused on a Muslim man living in Texas who murdered two of his daughters.
The family evidently spirited the man back to Egypt and continues to cover up for him.
And, they've learned the drill in America. When Fox News reporters tried to interview family members, they screamed:
"Get away from us, you racist motherfuckers!"
You see, you're a racist if... well, who in the hell knows?
But heaven forbid someone draw a cartoon of Muhammad throwing the first stone.
But but but... there's "racism" going on in America.
CBS news had to manufacture religious intolerance in one of their "news" specials. anyone else have the misfortune to see that last night? It was insulting. But, this is how the left-wing media circle jerks see Americans.
While cruel tribalism, actual religious intolerance and real misogyny take place around the globe, the elite left-wing group-thinkers only focus is how evil America is, and how stupid her inhabitants are... helped along with some of their own manufactured racism.
If feminism is dead, it's because they ignore global issues like this.
Freeing the middle eastern women would cause Islam to collapse. It is built upon women serfs' labor. But the men will not agree to any such freedom. The like it as is. The genetically homosexual men there just go with the benefits and do male on male sex as a diversion that does not make the players homosexual at all. Only women suffer.
Infidelity is taken more seriously in virtually every culture. That's just a function of the biology - men have a strong evolutionary bias against cuckoldry.
Grr. That should be "Infidelity by women..."
Thugs and brutes.
Just another brutal regime run by fascistic thugs. When will the world learn to marginalize these psychopaths.
Article is poorly written neglecting background. She was originally tried in May 2006.
Interesting their attention to security precautions to protect the intermediary. If it was US secret intelligence it would be splattered front page.
In a lot of present day cultures, women are property and nothing more. That's why these same cultures allow for more than 1 wife. Get used to it you BIGOTS, RACISTS!
You don't live in Iran. IT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS! SHUT UP!
Quick- someone call the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women!
downtownlad,
How'd I do?
Kentucky Liz, good to see you back!
Toy
When you have the world's fastest growing religion, which for Sun Tzu'ish reasons is coddled and apologized for by the left, I'm amazed that questions of legalizing polygamy are so quickly dismissed out of hand by SSM proponents.
Women isn't their problem.
It's the 8th Century.
I'm so glad she and her children are speaking out ! I hate to think how many others have been murdered before her under similar charges.
Definitely makes you appreciate what we've got here ...
and it also makes me wonder how people in this country who still hold anti-woman views -- i wonder how they feel about this case, and if that makes them reflect on their own views at all. Sometimes seeing your own views taken to the n-th degree can make you realize how wrong you are even if you're only at level 1 or 2.
danielle,
What level do you think I'm at?
@danielle, hardly anybody holds the "anti-woman" views you ascribe to them.
You are coming across to me as someone fresh out of college who still hasn't come to grips with the fact that the world as presented to her by her professors is not the real world. If you're in your late teens or early twenties, then there's hope for you. If you're older, then you're a bit behind in your mental development.
Are the men who constantly put down Sarah Palin, anti-women?
AllenS, FWIW I thought you captured him pretty well.
As for Alpha and FLS, I'm waiting for them to pop in and earnestly explain that we must respect diverse cultural norms. The problem not being with the Iranian mullahs, but with the desire of folks like you and me to impose American culture on others.
@shoutingthomas, I don't have cable (saving thousands of dollars per year) but this is one of the rare times I'm sorry because I'd have liked to have seen that special.
Pity the Fox News guys didn't respond to the chants of racism by making fun of the family, telling them that American men aren't a whole lot frightened of folks that kill little girls. You need to get back in their faces and punch back twice as hard, don't you? Seems some famous American said something like that.
One more thing, danielle, is a level 1 more better or more worser, than a level 20? How does this work?
Frankly Daniel, the bias here, today is against men. As in areas like divorce law, child custody, alimony, child support, education, protected status, domestic violence, statutory rape, sexual harassment, murder, and sentencing. It's not always in the law but certainly is in the culture. It's no comparison to what women suffer in other countries, but when it's your own society it should be taken seriously. Right now, the disadvantages of being male in the U.S. are the subject of humor, even as they destroy lives and families.
What the challenge is, is for those on the advantaged sex to admit it and level the field. regardless of which sex ,or race, your on.
"Sometimes seeing your own views taken to the n-th degree can make you realize how wrong you are even if you're only at level 1 or 2."
Agreed, and that's what people on the right wish that the left would see in the history of communism and statism.
If our ILLEGAL forays into Afghanistan and Iraq were to suceed, whereas democracy would prevail with full rights for all. Wouldn't this help the plight of women in those LEGAL AND WONDERFUL societies? I get so confused sometimes.
Who is willing to fight for the rights of women in these countries? You danielle?
Spell checkers discriminate against men.
Violence is never the solution, unless you're the bad guy. Then it's damned effective.
What's so bizarre about liberalism is how they demonize Christians over and over. Christians preach against adultery and we're called all sorts of names. Muslims execute people for adultery and liberals have squat to say about that. All that faux rage against "the religious right". Where is it?
When radical Islam is stopped it will be Christians who stop it. And Hitch cheering us on in the afterlife, god bless.
Danielle, You probably thought your comment was pretty non-controversial, but it's a tough room.
There's an amazing novel by Farnoosh Moshiri that describes the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution. It follows the time in prison of some two dozen women who are convicted of various things. The novel is called The Bath House.
It's an old Bath House converted into a prison.
Moshiri was herself in such a prison before she walked out over a minefield and made it to freedom. She was holding her infant son. They are both in America, where she is now teaching creative writing (I think she's at Syracuse).
Her books are tops at describing in a lengthy way what it's like to be a woman in Iran. All of the women are raped before they are put to death. This dishonors them or something, and it's all their fault.
That's multiculturalism for you!
I am woman, hear me roar
In numbers too big to ignore
And I know too much to go back an' pretend
'cause I've heard it all before
And I've been down there on the floor
No one's ever gonna keep me down again
CHORUS:
Oh yes I am wise
But it's wisdom born of pain
Yes, I've paid the price
But look how much I gained
If I have to, I can do anything
I am strong (strong)
I am invincible (invincible)
I am woman
You can bend but never break me
'cause it only serves to make me
More determined to achieve my final goal
And I come back even stronger
Not a novice any longer
'cause you've deepened the conviction in my soul
CHORUS
I am woman watch me grow
See me standing toe to toe
As I spread my lovin' arms across the land
But I'm still an embryo
With a long long way to go
Until I make my brother understand
Oh yes I am wise
But it's wisdom born of pain
Yes, I've paid the price
But look how much I gained
If I have to I can face anything
I am strong (strong)
I am invincible (invincible)
I am woman
Oh, I am woman
I am invincible
I am strong
etc.
--"I Am Woman"
Helen Reddy and Ray Burton
Right-Wing Christian in America = World Moderate.
bagoh20, I don't worry about the assholes @ Althouse. Those people are definitely in the minority, but they seems to always be around !
I just come to talk to the reasonable people who are mature enough to not be pathetically antagonistic, and are mature enough to not descend into personal attacks.
The ironic part is Mohammed really did not condone stoning. That is why to prove adultry you needed four witnesses to the act. And the Koran actually says, repeatedly, to show mercy, lower sentances, yada, yada.
This is a thing that these religious leaders in Iran are into. It is not even a Persian thing.
bagoh20, I was thinking more along the lines of people in FLDS, some of whom marry off women around the age of 15/16, and certainly by age 20, and use their multiple wives for procreation...
i doubt they hear about these new stories though.
there are plenty of other people too with objectionable views about women and what they should and shouldnt be doing. Just visit any battered women's shelter, and you can see and hear about the havoc they wreak.
don't worry about the assholes @ Althouse. Those people are definitely in the minority, but they seems to always be around !
Yeah like people who talk about "Anti-womyn" and NEVER define it, leaving to his/her judgement about what is or is NOT "anti-womon."
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a woman who fights enslavement of women. And who hates her...the leftest progressives. All progressives hate women for making babies, just like they hate Jews for making the Messiah.
Assholes @ Althouse. I like the way that anagram looks: A@A
All progressives hate women for making babies, just like they hate Jews for making the Messiah.
Ding! Ding! We have a winner for dumbest comment of the day. Or at least an early leader for that prize. Congratulations.
In any case, this is a pretty wretched situation in Iran. It's also one that hasn't been ignored by feminists in this country, despite the claims here to the contrary.
It also makes me wonder how people in this country who still hold anti-woman views -- i wonder how they feel about this case, and if that makes them reflect on their own views at all.
Killing people who commit adultery is not "anti-woman." Adultery does not equal woman. Adultery is adultery. It's an act people engage in.
It's normal to hate adultery. It's particularly normal for men to hate adultery, since adultery destroys fatherhood. Is this my baby? You don't know. Fatherhood is biologically indefinite and has to be protected by institutions like marriage.
My world moderate position ("adultery is bad") taken to extreme ("kill the bitches") makes it a bad position. It's the extremism that makes it bad, not the hostility to adultery.
Just curious, Danielle -- is everybody who points out the weaknesses in your reasoning an "asshole"?
As my whimsy leads me.. said...
Kentucky Liz, good to see you back!
Toy
Definitely!! Hope you are feeling well.
Saint Croix said...
What's so bizarre about liberalism is how they demonize Christians over and over. Christians preach against adultery and we're called all sorts of names. Muslims execute people for adultery and liberals have squat to say about that.
Only because they know the Christians won't kill them and the Moslems will.
Somefeller...Thanks. It is seldom that I strike a nerve like my simple comment that women and Jews are hated by leftist progressives. When the leftist progressives stop favoring a surrender of Israel to Mohammed followers, and when they also support a woman for President, then let me know and I will adjust my observation. In the meantime cheap talk about preserving and funding women's rights to abortion and Israel's right to trust Obama and his Arab brothers will be seen as the propaganda war it is.
@Paco, I take it your question is rhetorical?
Danielle: I'm so glad she and her children are speaking out ! I hate to think how many others have been murdered before her under similar charges.
Definitely makes you appreciate what we've got here ...
and it also makes me wonder how people in this country who still hold anti-woman views -- i wonder how they feel about this case, and if that makes them reflect on their own views at all. Sometimes seeing your own views taken to the n-th degree can make you realize how wrong you are even if you're only at level 1 or 2.
Dont worry Neda, help is on the way, as soon as Dani finishes lecturing those sexist conservatives in the USA....
Really, I think America deserves to fall. The people that thump their chests about tolerance and the Enlightened dont have the stones to defend the things they lecture us about.
Paco Wové: If I wanted to find a blog where people hare my views, I could very easily do that.
So please, do ask a better question.
I hope you can at least see that the critique that you suggest has not happened in this particular post. I've had some really good conversations with a few people (including Ann, Meade, baghoh20, Roger J, edutcher, and a several others) where I'd say I learned something about conservatives and their assumptions and views, and from which I've refined some of my own positions.
*share* my views ...
Sarah Palin, by the way, is the perfect antidote to Islamic madness. She inspires women throughout the world, just by being a strong woman. And yet she also addresses the moral objections so many have to the USA. As a right-wing Christian, she doesn't believe in divorce or adultery or abortion. She has a strong religious faith. Her attitudes are conservative. Islam is conservative. Her election would affirm what Islam sees as good in its own culture. Elect Sarah Palin, and we say to Islam, "you have a point, perhaps our sexual (and secular) revolution went too far, and we need to be more modest."
Our own culture used to be far more conservative about sex, not so long ago, either. And far more religious, too. If Islam is a reaction against our free and open sexuality, and our drifting from God, Sarah Palin addresses that. Her election would suggest that our country is adopting a more conservative approach.
At the same time, the election of Sarah Palin would show what is wrong with modern Islam--the political oppression of women. Their inability to vote, or even be seen in public. A strong and powerful woman as President in the U.S. is a direct challenge to radical Islam and the oppression of Islamic women.
It's important to understand that most Islamic women like their society. They are sexually conservative and highly religious. And yet they are oppressed, and repressed. Islamic societies need to open up. Islamic women have a lot in common with Sarah Palin and she might bridge our two worlds.
Obama is secular to the core and has very little in common with religious people. He's political through and through, worldly. If we are to find peace with Islam it will be a spiritual reconciliation.
Sarah Palin, world moderate.
Danielle: I don't worry about the assholes @ Althouse
Arab Women are being gnagraped and then burned alive for showing too much skin. Your response is to segue into a lecture about sexism in the US.
And you think we're the assholes?
I too would like to know what counts as "anti-woman". Not in an antagonistic way you know, just as a clarification.
Are there sexist idiots who hate on women in this country? Of course there are.
Institutionally, legally, and culturally is it men who usually get the short end of the stick in the US, yes... it really is.
Do conservative women come in for an inordinate amount of truly hateful attacks based on their gender and reproduction? Can someone look at Sarah Palin and say this isn't true?
I don't think that feminism ignores global issues like this, just as gays don't ignore the execution of gays in Iran, but pretty clearly focus on this sort of blatant inequity in the courts is weakened to incoherence by multiculturalism (human beings can not be assumed to even want the same fundamental things) and by the need to portray women in the US as oppressed somehow.
It's very interesting if Fred4Pres is right and stoning women for adultery isn't pushed in the Koran and it's not even part of the Persian culture... it's very interesting to think how timid we must be about an aberration in another culture... oh, sure, everyone condemns this, because it's just way over the edge, just like the condemnation of female circumcision is pretty much universal, but who really condemns the culture and leadership that implements this? There is a lot else going on in Iran. Why do we pretend that Iran is anything like what their government is like?
The multi-culti "rule" of not judging other cultures is evil. It's one thing to tolerate individuals who make choices with which we disagree and another entirely to tolerate cultures and what they impose.
So please, do ask a better question.
In time, perhaps. I'm still savoring the juxtaposition of
"I don't worry about the assholes @ Althouse. "
and
"reasonable people who are mature enough to not be pathetically antagonistic, and are mature enough to not descend into personal attacks."
We must be more tolerant of other people, YOU RACIST BIGOT WOMAN HATER PIG MOTHERFUCKER.
Is this considered "Traditional Marriage"?
um, see what I mean, Paco ? same goes for his big friend earlier. QED.
there is no other way to classify it: A@A. Call me antagonizing if you want, but I challenge you to come up with a better way to classify and refer to this group of people that really isn't offering any critique of ideas, and that just offers wildly extrapolated judgment and hatred.
St. Croix: if, in practice, women are more likely to be killed than men, then I'd say that counts as "anti-wom(a|e|y)n".
WV: prinn, like Hester, I guess.
Snyova .....could be a dissertation in itself ..... I simply meant seeing women as not deserving/worthy of the same rights and freedoms as men. In this particular case, I was talking about the right to marry and file for divorce ....
Danielle: "there is no other way to classify it: A@A. Call me antagonizing if you want, but I challenge you to come up with a better way to classify and refer to this group of people that really isn't offering any critique of ideas, and that just offers wildly extrapolated judgment and hatred."
This, in some universe, passes as intelligent discourse.
The Left hates these stories because they show our enemies for what they really are. Brutal hate-filled primitives so terrified that their property (women and children) will wise up and turn on them that they savage their own families.
So I suppose it makes sense that the current Administration wants us thinking about their contributions to arithmetic rather than their serial human rights violations and murderous rejection of all decency and diversity.
Well thank goodness NASA is going to make them feel good about their contributions to science.
Allan S wrote:
downtownlad,
How'd I do?
Spot On. I thought you were dtl for a second.
The only thing I'd add is that if it were Israel then of course those rules don't apply.
Danielle: I don't know which state you live in but in many, if not most, all a woman has to do to get a divorce is drive to the courthouse and file. If you were referring to Iran you might note that the repressive Islamic government makes marriage of a chose mate difficult for women and divorce nearly impossible. There is no possible moral equivalence between the status of women in the United States and those in Iran or other repressive states. To suggest otherwise is to mock the women in Iran and have very low expectations of the women in the U.S.
"this group of people that really isn't offering any critique of ideas, and that just offers wildly extrapolated judgment and hatred."
You mean like α-Lib, and M. Montaigne, and Jeremy, and... oh, that's probably not what you mean.
Look, I agree that there are far too many people, of all persuasions, who seem to harbor the touchingly naive belief that you can sarcastially insult people into agreeing with you. It is a human failing to which even I -- yes, I! -- have succumbed on occasion. But in this thread? I see dismissal (Big Mike), a serious and insightful statement (bagoh20), mild snarkiness (AllenS), annoyance (Fen & Michael), and calm disagreement (Synova). Not seeing "wildly extrapolated judgement", at least in relation to anything you've written. And certainly not "hatred". If what you see in the replies to you strikes you as "hatred", well, I don't know what to say.
kentuckyliz, why do you assume feminists are ignoring Ashtiani? I've seen a petition site and a letter writing campaign to Clinton and the State Department on feminist blogs and websites for various feminist organizations in the U.S. and around the world.
(Welcome back, kentuckyliz!)
danielle: and it also makes me wonder how people in this country who still hold anti-woman views -- i wonder how they feel about this case, and if that makes them reflect on their own views at all. Sometimes seeing your own views taken to the n-th degree can make you realize how wrong you are even if you're only at level 1 or 2.
Yep, one day you're arguing that maybe it's better if women stayed home with their pre-school age children, and the next thing ya know yer sizing up the garden rocks for adulteress-stonin' purposes.
bagoh20, I don't worry about the assholes @ Althouse. Those people are definitely in the minority, but they seems to always be around.
Danielle, you are one of the assholes chez Althouse.
Beth,
Why not give us some links to these sites.
Kentucky Liz, good to see you back!
I second that!
"Hi, my name is Bill Smith, and I'm your local NASA Outreach officer. I'm so glad that you all could make it out to our community science lab this morning.
"Today we're going to talk about physics, specifically the physics of one of this area's favorite pastimes: Stoning. We will focus on The Physics of Overarm Throwing. If you didn't receive a handout on the way in, please pick one up at this time.
"By the completion of today's lab, you will have a better understanding of the relationship between stone mass and throwing speed. I hope that for at least some of you, this will ignite a real interest in the sciences, and for any of you who feel drawn into this field, we have virtually limitless resources available to you to continue your studies. Our office is always open.
"Ignite the power of the mind, not the bodies of your women! Heh. Just a joke we have in the office. It's nothing. Okay, let's begin..."
Instead of signing a petition, why not hold a candlelight vigil?
AllenS: Instead of signing a petition, why not hold a candlelight vigil?
Only if it helps to raise awareness.
Paco, see AllenS @ 8/7/10 10:56 AM for hatred.
Freeman Hunt @11:53: Brava.
Good to see you kentuckyliz.
I was asking about you about a week ago.
danielle: Paco, see AllenS @ 8/7/10 10:56 AM for hatred.
I take it back, Danielle. You're not an asshole. Never attribute to assholery what can be explained by densitude.
Danielle: It seemed obvious to me that AllenS's comment ("We must be more tolerant of other people, YOU RACIST BIGOT WOMAN HATER PIG MOTHERFUCKER", for those who don't want to scroll back) was an example of the sarcastic hyperbole I mentioned in my comment.
As I see it, it his interpretation of what you said, wildly exaggerated for juvenile comedic effect.
Whom is the statement expressing hatred of, or towards?
Call me antagonizing if you want
danielle, please don't go to the candlelight vigil, I don't want you playing with matches. Or fire for that matter.
WV: redne
Almost a redneck.
Good one Freeman..
Maybe Obama should send MLB there and find us some pitchers, relievers ;)
danielle --
"Paco, see AllenS @ 8/7/10 10:56 AM for hatred."
You are being purposefully ignorant.
nice try Paco. but AllenS's comments are not far from what he has written (towards me and others) previously. Obviously he is writing with previous encounters with me in his mind, and I am skimming his comments with similar knowledge. You're interpreting a subset of that interaction without the full context.
Anyhow, I'm done wasting time on this side topic. I was here discussing the article about the Iranian woman.
I thinke danielle is a very nice person and you should give her a break. We don't agree on pretty much of anything, but she comes from an honest and sincere place.
Just my humble opinion.
Lem on the other hand is a deluded fool if the thinks the Red Sox can ever get back in the race.
BOSTON SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
what Trooper just said.
Anybody messing with danielle they are messing with me..
" Lem said...
what Trooper just said."
FINALLY WE AGREE!!!!!!
BOSTON SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And nobody wants to mess with a deluded fool. That's for sure.
ahhhhhh!!!!
I take back what Trooper just said was meant for danielle..
and not his stupid Yankees
"AllenS said...
And nobody wants to mess with a deluded fool. That's for sure."
That's not true. We just elected one President after all.
WE did not.
The Yankees suck big time!!!!
tropper is just taking advantage of my slow typing thats all!
(hey tropper I dont think we should be on doing this on this tread.. a woman almost got stone to death for pete's sake.)
Well some of the people did. The blogger lady for example. Just sayn'
Good point Lem.
You make a lot of sense before happy hour.
I love ya man.
(But not in a gay marriage kind of way)
(Not that there's anything wrong with that)
Back to the topic.
IRAN SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Evidently 'rajam' means "world of hurt".
Sorry, but the problem isn't Iran.
Iran and Afganistan have been a problem since the time of Alexander the Great. They just suck. Big time.
They sucked before Islam, they suck even worse now that they are religious fanatics.
Agreed.
thanks Trooper and Lem !
It's a shame that the femminists and liberals just keep making excues for these barbarians like they were a Democratic candidate knocking up a staffer.
If they did kill her, they would just tell us we don't understand their culture and that we have no right to judge them and that we should let them build a monument to them on the site of the next terrorist attack.
They are the religion of peace after all.
Que the appolgists and excuse makers in one, two, three.......
To those on the left here, I'm genuinely curious: If you believe in the gender equality, and if the repression of women in the vast majority of Muslim societies in intolerable, then how do you address this?
Petitions?
Vigils?
Striving to understand the "culture" of these people?
Boycotts?
Really?
There comes a point when a situation as intolerable and repugnant as the treatment of women in Iran can only be dealt with in one way; societal change. And that can only come about through the use of massive violence.
Until you are able to reconcile these concepts, caterwauling about stoning women in Iran simply reflects your powerlessness to effect an actual solution.
Either women have the same rights as men or they don't. Everywhere. It's a very simple moral equation.
but I challenge you to come up with a better way to classify and refer to this group of people that really isn't offering any critique of ideas, and that just offers wildly extrapolated judgment and hatred.
We could call them "danielles"
Checkmate bitches!!!!!!!!!
AllenS - you can use the Google as well as me, I'm sure.
ChefMojo - what exactly do you propose? We've been in Afghanistan since 2002, and so far, women there still are subject to terrible violence.
Right wing fantasies aside, feminists aren't stoning women in Iran, Iranian courts are. I don't think very many of us disagree that Iran's is a seriously fucked up regime.
Liberals love them some Sharia. Coexist, right?
Right wing fantasies aside, feminists aren't stoning women in Iran, Iranian courts are.
Do you ever get sick of lying, Beth? I mean, really, do you?
Or is it just a reflex by now?
Assholes @ Althouse come in all sizes and colors. Lots of variety. Releasing everything from mild gas and pinched loaves to chronic diarrhea and noxious explosions of foul, necrotic matter.
The really disgusting smell in this thread is not coming from the Assholes at Althouse, but Iran, where throwing wild extrapolations of judgment and hatred in the form of stones is considered to be appropriate and normal.
I'm done wasting time on this side topic. I was here discussing the article about the Iranian woman.
Jeez, Danielle, you were the one who brought up the "side topic" in the first place. Now it's all waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah AllanS is being mean to me!
Whatever. Anyway, I have to agree with Beth -- there isn't much we as a country can do, and there's even less that we as individuals can do. (Well, effective things. We can do lots of useless things.)
Ultimately, somebody is probaby going to have to use force to stop these atrocities. The question is, who?
Hey, Angelyne, I like yer style! Where have you been my whole life?
'Course, I'm a happily married man, so I never fool around. If I did, Lorena would divorce my ass in a heartbeat.
And SHE'd be the one chuckin' stones at MY noggin.
She'd also wind up with everything I ever had, and I'd be sleeping in a storm drain under I-10. All nice and legal, too.
So, women have it pretty good in this country these days. Y'know, I just don't pay attention to historical reenactors, 'cause they're really weird. Once met a woman who spent her whole working life at Colonial Williamsburg playing ye olde Colonial wench. Pay's lousy, but it's steady. Wasn't the brightest bulb, either. Suppose if it makes you feel better, you can imagine it's the '50s or'60s or some past decade, but you gotta know, the rest of us aren't in in your own personal time machine.
I meet Iranians all the time in my work. Mostly they come out from LA, aka Teherangeles. As crappy as So. Calif. is these days, they still seem to like it a whole lot better than the Islamic Republic. Come out here sometime and take a look around. People think THIS is a paradise?
As they say, everything in comparison.
The problem comes when we are lectured by the liberals that we have to understand multi-culturalism. That we have to not impose our Western values on other cultures. That we have to acquiese
to these barbarians and not denounce them for the animals and terrorists that they really are in their heart of hearts. There is no moral equivalence that will give them pause. The silence is deafening.
Lets all get behind them building a great big cultural center on Ground Zero. Don't be bigot. Don't be a hater.
Maybe they can stone some women outside on the street during a holiday like how they play bocce on Smith St to celebrate Columbus Day.
Don't you see how this all fits together?
I'm with you Trooper..
The muslims should not be able to build there on that ground any more than we, one crazy day, would want to build some kind of memorial near the Hiroshima or Nagasaki nuked sites.
do I make any sense? I don't mean to change the subject btw.
I did Google, Beth, and there was one of the hits that said there some about 1200 signatures. I laughed. I just lit a candle, won't you?
Just came across this headline from Feb, 2009:
"Israel, Iran, Pakistan World's Least Popular Nations"
Link:
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45688
As heard on Sesame Street: "One of these things is not like the other. One of these things just doesn't belong..."
World opinion is like a candlelight vigil at an Iranian trial.
WV: "sithsh" Yep.
Let's stand together on this. Everyone, please light a candle. Not you, danielle, I don't want you to get burned.
"The Muslims should not be able to build there on that ground any more than we, one crazy day, would want to build some kind of memorial near the Hiroshima or Nagasaki nuked sites. "
Remember the raising and lowering of the American flag in that square when Baghdad fell? I had mixed feelings about that: I felt that after dying to get there, we had the right, but was also proud that we chose to immediately take it down out of respect for those liberated, even though we were technically at war with them. Virtually no other nation and certainly no Muslim nation would ever act that way. We actually respect other peoples, rather than just talk about it at the U.N. Too bad the Muslims pushing that Mosque are lesser people.
Ultimately, somebody is probaby going to have to use force to stop these atrocities. The question is, who?
I don't know that it would stop the atrocities butt..
I do remember a Clinton maneuver, popularised by the movie Wag the Dog (1997)
Obama needs something to get his numbers up - there are these nuke plants, even the UN says Iran is not supposed to have..
Didn't Spike Lee (that American raconteur ;) say that Obama needed to "Go Off" on somebody?.
Obama himself said he always wanted to know "which ass to kick".
I'm just sayn..
Saint Croix said...
Sarah Palin, by the way, is the perfect antidote to Islamic madness. She inspires women throughout the world, just by being a strong woman.
==============Yeah, yeah...STRONG WOMEN are the answer to radical Islam.
I've heard that argument advanced that Hillary, as a STRONG WOMAN, would transform the Planet. That STRONG WOMEN flying in a warpane perfectly safe 5 miles above Afghanistan - create fear and awe in Taliban and make them consider ending their oppression of their Jihadi-making broodstock.
And Now on top of Goddess Palin, we have Michelle Obama - who is a STRONG WOMAN that inspires women from Iran to waitresses at 5-STar hotels in Spain.
Obama is small man, when it comes to kicking ass, he will aim for those who don't kick back. I mean that in both possible understandings of "kick back".
Horrifying. The links are especially depressing today and yesterday for some reason.
I fully acknowledge the West's superiority on this issue, yet this sentiment is still echoed in even America's liberal population who cry "racism" far more often and more loudly than they ever would think to cry "gender genocide" because one is interpreted as helpful to their domestic political philosophy ("Tea Partiers are RACIST. Bush's war is RACIST) and one is not. (Afghanistan mutilates its women. Our presence has helped. Hillary was sold out for Barack. Relatively powerless, often blue collar, women were sold out for Clinton. The most grievous misogyny was used against Palin.)
I often wonder how liberal women can sell out their own gender to some mere idea of the Racial Man over and over again. Maybe that's just it. It's the difference between real life and a misty ideal.
Obama can't kick anybody's ass. Michelle decided she was going to Spain on vacation, and not be attending his birthday, and he said nothing, because he didn't want his ass kicked.
Isn't there an economic theory that says bombing is good for the economy ;)
Maybe that's why that woman left.. the chair for Economic Advisors.
We are going to bomb Iran and she was against it..
lol,, Obama knows "kick back" but not kick ass?
Ahh, so she did do it? Glad that got cleared up - she's guilty - and now trying to sway others to her side, using feminism (of course) to avoid punishment.
Should've thought of that, first, the stupid idiot.
I have no pity for this woman.
Is there a website telling us where the carriers are?
Or maybe I should ask that and compromise the .. what are we going to call it?
wow Crack..
You condone stoning?
hey where did everybody go?
was it something I said?
Allen, I was wrong. You don't use the Google as well as I do.
But please let us know where and when you'll be training your small invasion force. I'm sure some folks will want to join you as you overthrow the Iranian government and liberate the women there. In the meantime, we should probably continue pressuring our State Department to use whatever leverage they might be able to bring to bear.
Hey, as long as the guy gets killed too, right?
Oh wait, he won't be.
St. Croix: if, in practice, women are more likely to be killed than men, then I'd say that counts as "anti-wom(a|e|y)n".
Islam allows for a man to have many wives, but aside from that I don't think they wink at men committing adultery. They chop off hands for theft. It's a very severe, moralistic, right-wing culture. We say "misogyny" because in the west we are used to lazy thinking like that. I'm guilty of it myself. It's probably impossible for an entire culture to hate women. Think about it.
I grant your point, though. What I was responding to was how people on the left seem to turn everything into identity politics. Behavior is defended and accepted based on who you are. I find that completely annoying. Anti-human, if you will.
I'm not planning on invading anybody, Beth. As bad as this story is, and it's bad, that's just the way of the world. Get used to it. There's a possibility that Islam will eventually take over the world. Mosques are being built in this country (USofA) faster than I ever dreamed of. I can give you any number of small Wisconsin and Minnesota cities where there is a growing Muslim population. One of those is little Baron, WI. Just north of me. There's a good possibility that that's just the way everything will work out. Islam will be the law of the land. As a straight man, what do I have to worry about? Nothing. I can convert. If I want an extra wife, and I can afford one, the first wife couldn't stop me. If she tried, I could kick the shit out of her, and not get in trouble. It will suck to be a woman, and a homo, but that's just the way things are going. Learn to adapt, Beth. I have.
One word for the women of Iran, Lysistrata.
Do a Farsi translation of the text, set it in modern Iran, and maybe add a castrate the bastards in their sleep twist to the play. Make available on torrent sites, keep the bitrate low so it can easily be transferred and stored on any phone, and see what happens.
Women in Iran are screwed, anyway, so to screw the assholes in charge, they need to stop fucking those fuckers until those fucking idiots acknowledge that their panicky attitudes toward female sexuality have nothing to do with Islam, and everything to do with their inadequacies as men.
Crack,
It's utterly mystifying how guys like you and Ritmo have some people here convinced that you're capable of rational thought.
Hey, Crack, what was "it" she did?
Adultery? You mean screwing around on the side? That deserves stoning, hanging, or even jail? As I say, some people's time machines are on different settings.
'Course there IS this weensie little problem of the dead husband. Funny how that hasn't gotten much play.
Seems the perp in THAT little inconvenience is in slammer, but not looking at a noose, 'cause the dead husband's relatives "forgave" him.
Ain't that heart-warmin'?
Now, the question is how much did the unstoned woman have to do with hubby's untimely demise?
Accessory to murder?
Accessory after the fact?
Murder II?
Murder I?
Innocent 'n pure as the driven snow?
Because things are so effed up over there, we'll never know. The way they do "legal" stuff is to say, "Bitch and her lover did in hubby! Stone her! Hang him! (but let's ask the relatives first)."
Seems to me we could be lookin' at a "Postman Always Rings Twice" thing, for which, as I recall, the actual perps were fried in the electric chair in Sing Sing in '28. The guy got strapped into a still warm n' smokin' electric chair, as it was a kinda "ladies first" deal.
Some sneaky reporter with a hidden camera managed to get a picture of the woman just as they turned on the juice. Ran on the front page of some New York paper as softcore execution porn.
Anyway, we used to take a dim view of premeditated murder, and we still do in some places, with or without Ol' Sparky.
Unlike here, I can't tell a damn thing about what actually happened over there. But whatever it was, I sure as hell have a hard time thinking people in the world today still have their time machines set on "7th century." BC or AD, take yer pick.
Bloomberg and religious tolerance. What a joke. Maybe he should go witness this woman's stoning, should it take place to that unfortunate soul, and then he might understand that Islam is NOT a religion of peace/love/understanding.
GMay: Who has Ritmo convinced?
Paco,
I've seen few (2 or 3) folks do it on occasion. I couldn't name names though.
Mainly complimenting him on his writing skill (what the fuck?) or saying that he argues well. I guess if you consider verbal calisthenics and linguistic manipulation to be good argumentative technique, then sure.
I've heard that argument advanced that Hillary, as a STRONG WOMAN, would transform the Planet.
There's nothing strong about Hillary. Has she ever held a gun? No. Why do we know who she is? Because of her husband. Because of the man she married. Hillary is a whiny, book-reading intellectual. She needs to do some push-ups before I call her strong.
When I say "strong," it's not a metaphor. We're dealing with people stuck in the middle ages. Strong. As in, strong. Sarah Palin is a self-made woman, up from nothing, and she will shoot you if she has to. That is a strong woman.
Sarah Palin is religious. Right-wing and religious. "This is right and this is wrong" religious. That is what Islam needs to see. A culturally confident Christian in the White House.
Islam is engaging in a right-wing attack on the USA. They attack our obsession with money and sex. They have a point. Acknowledging they have a point, reforming our own society, would help our relations.
We're not a perfect society. In the USA, stoning women is awful. But killing babies with Down's syndrome is fine.
Our society can learn from Islam. We need to take our religion more seriously. We need to be more spiritual. We need to quit being hypocrites, going to church on Sunday and then sinning the rest of the week. And certainly Islam has a lot to learn from us, about freedom and tolerance.
Islam needs to go through a Reformation. But we can't lead them there if we don't take our own religion more seriously.
Sarah Palin, World Moderate.
You think that you can count on Hillary to stand up to this outrage? That fuckin bitch couldn't stop her fuckin husband from doing anything that he wanted to do to any woman that he wanted to do, any time he wanted to do it. They know this in Iran. Bill was ridin' dirty. Hillary kept her fuckin mouth shut.
Your heroes suck, Beth.
Ultimately, somebody is probaby going to have to use force to stop these atrocities. The question is, who?
The far left and the far right meet again, this time on the justification of violence. Just depends on your definition of *atrocity* or *marriage* or whatever moral it is you want to impose on others.
The far left and the far right meet again, this time on the justification of violence.
Bullshit. Anyone from the right would be a fool to follow anyone on the left in anything that involved justification of violence. Let the left handle this situation alone. Beth and danielle don't need any help.
Note how C-fudd who is normally in high dudgeon 24x7 fails to express even the slightest objection to the stoning. That's because despite his faux outrage at the Ground Zero mosque he loves guys who hate women and Jews as much as he does.
So I'm doing dome house work and as I'm cleaning the oven I realize that, in some ways, CrackEmCee is a whiny @rsed-B!tch!
To repeat:
CrackEmCee is a whiny @rsed-B!tch!
Crack dood you CHOSE to marry the womon who became your Psycho-Ex....and you no what let me repeat that too, you CHOSE...conscious act, volition of free will, you CHOSE to marry that womon.
She was CRAZY WHEN YOU MARRIED HER...unless she went "clinically crazy"-term of art. You know what, you chose to ignore her craziness...her drinking, her gambling, her mood swings, her impetuosity, her whatever...her dysfunction. YOU CHOSE TO.
You're not a victim...at best you're a survivor!
Get off this He-Man Womon-Hater CR@P....Womyn didn't do anything to you...in fact, you FREELY ENTERED INTO A RELATIONSHIP WHEREIN YOU GOT ABUSED...It's as much YOUR fault has her "fault."
Rather than playing the crying, whiny @rsed B!tch game about "womyn this" or "Womyn that" why don't you just own up to your error(s)? Ask why did I marry this crazy womon? Was she a rescue project? Was she "excitement?" I don't know, did she remind you of your abusive MOTHER?
Your current Shtick is getting old and really, if it isn't shtick, isn't healthy for YOU. You're just being a "victim." "Boo-Hoo someone did me wrong...feel sorry for me. Let me be an @rse to you, because I've been wounded."
Dood, seek 12 Step Work, Counseling, or Therapy...find out WHY you married the crazy-@rsed B!tch in the first place, what sick need she fulfilled for you and MOVE ON...
Otherwise it really is getting tiresome...you're like some High School "Jock" who can't let go of his "Glory Days." Your "wound" is now central to you, just like the past glory is to the jock, only both of you are sad little men who can't move out of the past and in the end become laughable, pitiable figures.
Ultimately, somebody is probaby going to have to use force to stop these atrocities. The question is, who?
Far right justifying violence. Might makes right, is that the thinking? Isn't that why women are beaten and stonned in the first place?
Sunsong: Since you've quoted me twice, now, perhaps you could explain how what I said, which I intended as a mere empirical observation, is in fact "[f]ar right justifying violence".
Do you disagree that the stonings are unlikely to be stopped, except by force? What other mechanism do you think is as likely, or more likely, to do so?
Who are my heroes, Allen?
You're a brave guy, out there battling strawmen (or strawwomen, whatever.)
Thanks, Beth. You'll be glad to know that you'll always have me and Bill Clinton to figure out what's best for you.
Allen, you make it hard to know who is and who isn't a Moby. Just when I think I know who's so over the top in parodying the worst illogic of the right, you raise the bar. Thanks for keeping things interesting.
Used to be trolls. Now we got parodies.
Althouse always liked that performance art stuff.
Beth: Do you ever have a belly laugh? A great big, tears in your eyes, laugh? One that isn't laughing at someone or someone's point of view, just a loving life kind of laugh? It would not seem so, but perhaps you do.
Beth,
I try to make my point a lot of times, turning the argument around. I like to parody this arguement by using downtownlad's idiotic usage of CAPITAL LETTERS TO DESCRIBE ANYONE WHO DOESN'T AGREE WITH HIM AS A bigot racist homophobe evil bush lover. You should realize this.
Do I like what's happening to this woman in Iran? Absolutely not. AllenS in sometime around the mid 1970's risked my life to stop what I thought was a rape of a woman in a dark parking lot, the woman I was with said: "Go, and help" and I did. I did what any man should do, I got out of the car and stopped this man beating the fuck out of this woman who had the front of her blouse ripped off, her bra torn open and her face beaten badly. I stopped the violence. The police showed up and arrested him. Myself and the woman I was with filed a police report. Turned out he was her husband. I have no problem standing up for what I think is right. Please, don't give me that straw this or that shit.
Beth: Allen, you make it hard to know who is and who isn't a Moby. Just when I think I know who's so over the top in parodying the worst illogic of the right, you raise the bar. Thanks for keeping things interesting.
Beth, you're coming perilously close to doing a Danielle imitation. There is a huge gulf between the essentially hack nature of mobyhood and the art of AllenS, you philistine.
"I'm sure some folks will want to join you as you overthrow the Iranian government and liberate the women there."
"Far right justifying violence. "
You see, Paco and AllenS, it would be terrible if anyone actually did anything that might actually help the Iranian women.
That would embarrass all the smug, self-centered, self-satisfied, self-congratulatory, and completely ineffective online-petition signers and candlelight vigilantes.
(And of course, if the U.S. does eventually liberate Iran as they did Iraq and Afghanistan, the impotent little danielles like Beth and sunsong would still bitch and moan from the sidelines about how things aren't perfect.)
sunsong wrote
Far right justifying violence. Might makes right, is that the thinking? Isn't that why women are beaten and stonned in the first place?
No, people are stoned because they follow a religion that tells them to do so. They have islamic religious leaders sermons on how to beat your wife. It's built into the law that women are inferior to men and that different rules apply. Women have to wear clothing covering their bodies to their eyes. All sanctioned by their religion. How do you propose to stop it? Tell them it's wrong? Who are they going to believe, you, sunsong and your decadent western values that wants women to be topless, and allows hardcore porn, and gay marriage, or their god Allah, which they are unable to even question? I think, you, sunsong, would lose.
Still live in New Orleans, Beth. Would you like to give us a crime report from the city? How about violence against women? Are you trying to do anything to stop this? What is causing this violence against women? It seems like it's been going on forever. You clean up your house, then get back to me about my problem with strawmen and strawwomen.
Hey I have been having a problem with my strawberry's.
And I don't mean just Darryl
The problem sunsong, is your liberal values can't allow for the fact that sometimes it requires force to impose those values on people who wish to remain barbarians. If you think human rights and human values are worth fighting for then sometimes it requires armies to step in and stop killling or genocide, which also sometimes requires said armies to actually fight people.And you're going to resort to "two wrongs don't make a right" schoolyard logic? Did that logic even work in the schoolyard? IIf there's a bully preying on weak kids, sometimes the best way to deal with the bully is for someone to kick the shit out of him so he knows the consequence of said bullying. Sometimes it's the people being bullied who do the ass kicking, sometimes it requires a force greater than the bully. Didn't you watch the show My Bodyguard or 12 O'Clock High? Somebody has to deal with the Buddy Ravelle's of the world.
Using a historical example, England banned slavery. Yet slavery continued. So England used it's political and military might to wage war against those carrying out slavery. They used their formidable navy to seek out slave ships and destroyed them. They declared that participation in slavery was considered piracy and piracy was punishable by death. I can't imagine liberal sensibilities would ever allow for that. In fact if the liberals of today were the liberals of the past, we'd probably still have slavery. Luckily, those you might consider liberals by todays standards, who most stood for human rights were the abolitionists, god fearing christians who saw no problem putting force behind their morality and wiping out an abominable trade.
to also put a lie to the notion of the evil white imperialst slave trader being the source of all evil in the world, the brits even took action against african leaders who weren't honoring the treaties abolishing the slave trade.
Certainly these would never be sanctioned by the modern liberal, yet, for all the talk of abolishing slavery how else would it have come about? Now, we keep hearing about genocides in Rwanda and Darfour, yet all people really do is talk about it. Does said talk ever stop the genocides?
Paco Wové,
Ultimately, somebody is probaby going to have to use force to stop these atrocities. The question is, who?
Aren't you suggesting outbullying the bully? If so, is the the only possible solution you can think of?
Do you disagree that Karl Marx said violence was necessary to change society?
I love how you guys make assumptions, and run with them, except when I don't. I never said I condone stoning (that's not directed at you Lem) but I'll get the lectures like that's what I said anyway. That's a true sign of stupidity, there.
And, yea, the "it" that she's guilty of is adultery. When this subject was last referenced by Ann, it was a "maybe" about if she was guilty, but no longer - she did betray her husband. That much is settled. Guilty as charged. And in Iran. She's an idiot. And I have no pity for such people.
Or are you going to tell me that she HAD to commit adultery? Did Bill Clinton HAVE to sleep with Monica? Does anyone HAVE to do these things? And, if your answer is no, then who is responsible? Joe wants to blame me. (Tell me Joe: Am I also responsible for her murders?)
sunsong,
Bring a better game to your argument. I don't understand where you're coming from.
Pull your head out of your crack. Bill never slept with Monica.
So England used it's political and military might to wage war against those carrying out slavery. They used their formidable navy to seek out slave ships and destroyed them. They declared that participation in slavery was considered piracy and piracy was punishable by death.
But they didn't invade the Southern states of the United States, did they? And in fact they considered supporting the Confederacy for awhile there. The point being - while it's all well and good to talk about how it would be great to remove offensive regimes like that of Iran from the world by force, realpolitik and simple issues of military priorities and logistics tend to intrude on such fantasies. I see people here saying that it's so easy to sign a petition or send a letter. Well, saying we should attack Iran from the comfort of a computer screen when you don't actually have the responsibilities of power isn't all that difficult either.
@Beth, sunsong, etc.
I really doubt you can show me how diplomacy has freed a single society or culture throughout history.
In fact, the concept of diplomacy can only work if backed with the credible expectation of violence should diplomacy fails to yield the desired results.
Extreme violence, or the credible expectation thereof, is the prime impetus for freeing individuals, societies and cultures from tyranny of one form or another.
In other words, violence works. It's fact of the human condition, and no amount of Friend's school peace studies bullshit can change that.
When this subject was last referenced by Ann, it was a "maybe" about if she was guilty, but no longer - she did betray her husband. That much is settled. Guilty as charged. And in Iran.
Reading is obviously not your strong suit. Or you're just too busy mewling and trying to drum up sympathy for yourself and your self-inflicted trainwreck of a life to pay attention to someone suffering actual oppression:
She thanked campaigners for highlighting her case and said international pressure was her only hope for release. "For all these years, they [the officials] have tried to put something in my mind, to convince me that I'm an adulterous woman, an irresponsible mother, a criminal but with the international support, once again I'm finding myself, my innocent self."
Meanwhile, you remain a pathetic, whiny, demented misogynist, Crack. Take Joe's advice and seek professional help.
Sunsong: I'll answer your questions, if you first answer the questions I asked, back there at 4:33, which I'll repeat here:
Do you disagree that the stonings are unlikely to be stopped, except by force? What other mechanism do you think is as likely, or more likely, to do so?
Synova wrote:
Do conservative women come in for an inordinate amount of truly hateful attacks based on their gender and reproduction? Can someone look at Sarah Palin and say this isn't true?
I was just over on Facebook watching a liberal writer (with a regular newspaper column) together with one of her commenters talk about how Meg Whitman, Republican candidate for governor of California, was “just a blonde Palin with less breast material and more money” and a “bimbo” — this concerning a woman who graduated with honors from Princeton University with a degree in economics, subsequently obtained an MBA from Harvard Business School, and for ten years was CEO of high-tech giant eBay — which under her tenure grew from 30 employees to 15,000 while revenues went up from $4 million to $8 billion.
AC245,
What are you talking about? That's not a denial. That's not "I didn't do it." She's rationalizing.
You're the one who can't read. And you're definitely lame at interpretation. She's guilty, she said so - and now, because she's got international support, she's going for the feminist angle - because she knows it'll win her sympathy and possibly get her off the hook. Typical liberal bullshit.
She's not in this mess because she's a woman, she's in it because she fucked up.
I was just over on Facebook watching a liberal writer (with a regular newspaper column) together with one of her commenters talk about how Meg Whitman, Republican candidate for governor of California, was “just a blonde Palin with less breast material and more money” and a “bimbo”
Too many liberals don't see people, only ideological tools. They've played identity politics so long they can't stop. And of course identity politics reduces people to race or gender. When a woman or African-American is Republican, the liberal starts to obsess about their race or sex. And they utter the most shameful racist or sexist garbage. It's amazing.
The press hostility to Palin will backfire, big time. It will make her seem sympathetic. And her sense of humor will make her more popular than ever.
Palin has been huge for feminism, by the way. Almost single-handedly she has upturned the good ol' boy network in South Carolina and Georgia, respectively. I'm voting in a primary tomorrow, which is rare for me. I know very little about the candidates. But I trust Palin and I'm following her lead. The upshot to Palin's rise--and her independence from party politics--is our nation is going to be flooded with attractive, pro-life Republican women. And all liberals can do is talk about their breasts, their vaginas, and how stupid they are.
AC, I'm with you pretty much about Crack, but, hey, we all inflict our own wounds, and marriage is sometimes a crapshoot. I wound up in the money, but a lot of guys are lookin' at snake eyes.
Anyway, AC, the lil' inconvenient trooth here looks like a dead hubby.
That's right, dead, as in stone cold.
"Moidered," as they said in Noo Yawhk in the days of Ruth Snyder, the Electric Chair Queen.
Is this a "Double Indemnity" deal, or is she a poor, poor victim of effed-up Middle Eastern macho crap?
I dunno. I don't think anybody else here knows either.
I do know that stoning somebody to death for screwing around is seriously effed-up.
You know, Jesus didn't argue how terrible stoning was, and why don't we all light candles for an International Women's Vigil Against Nasty Sexist Bastards.
No, He raised the bar, big time, in John 8:
And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst,
They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.
Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?
This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.
So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.
And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.
When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?
She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.
Eric said:
Infidelity is taken more seriously in virtually every culture. That's just a function of the biology — men have a strong evolutionary bias against cuckoldry.
Eric said:
Grr. That should be “Infidelity by women…”
Really? Let's see what A History of Private Life has to say about Roman civilization in this regard. As historian Paul Veyne writes in his chapter “The Roman Empire”:
“A woman was like a grown child; her husband was obliged to humor her because of her dowry and her noble father. Cicero and his correspondents gossip about the caprices of these lifelong adolescents, who, for example, might seize upon the absence of a husband sent to govern a remote province in order to divorce him and marry another. These women's antics nevertheless had real consequences for political relations among the nobility. Needless to say, it was impossible for a woman to make a fool of her lord and master. Cuckoldry (as we know it from Molière) was not a part of the Romans' conceptual universe. Had it been, Cato, Caesar, and Pompey would all have been illustrious cuckolds. A man was the master of his wife, just as he was the master of his daughters and servants. If his wife was unfaithful, the man did not thereby become a laughingstock. Infidelity was a misfortune, neither greater nor less than the misfortune of a daughter who became pregnant or a slave who failed of his duty. If a wife betrayed her husband, the husband was criticized for want of vigilance and for having, by his own weakness, allowed adultery to flourish in the city — much as we might criticize parents for overindulging or spoiling their children, allowing them to drift into delinquency and thus making the cities unsafe. The only way for a husband or father to avoid such an accusation was to be the first to publicly denounce any misconduct by members of his family. The emperor Augustus detailed the affairs of his daughter Julia in an edict; Nero did the same for the adultery of his wife, Octavia. The point was to prove that the man had no “patience,” that is, connivance, with vice. People wondered whether the stoic silence of other husbands deserved praise or blame.
“Because deceived husbands were aggrieved rather than risible and divorced women took their dowries with them, divorce was common among the upper class (Caesar, Cicero, Ovid, and Claudius married three times), and perhaps also among the urban plebs. Juvenal tells of a woman of the people who consults an itinerant soothsayer about whether she should leave her tavernkeeper husband to marry a secondhand clothing merchant (a prosperous profession in a time when the lower orders bought their clothing used). Nothing was more alien to the Romans than the biblical notion of taking possession of the flesh. Roman men did not hesitate to marry divorced women. The emperor Domitian remarried a woman he had divorced, who had subsequently married another man. For a woman to have known only one man in her life was considered a merit, but only the Christians would undertake to make such fidelity a duty and attempt to prohibit widows from remarrying.”
Reference: Paul Veyne, Chapter 1: “The Roman Empire,” Volume I: From Pagan Rome to Byzantium, edited by Paul Veyne, translated by Arthur Goldhammer, A History of Private Life, the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1987; pp. 36-49.
Paco Wové: Sunsong: I'll answer your questions, if you first answer the questions I asked, back there at 4:33, which I'll repeat here:
Do you disagree that the stonings are unlikely to be stopped, except by force? What other mechanism do you think is as likely, or more likely, to do so?
Paco, you are under the misapprehension that Sunsong understands the dispassionate, non-personal discussion of issues. It is obvious to you, and me, that your question has nothing whatever to do with your personal feelings about violence, or whether you think using force in this circumstance would be a wise policy choice (in fact nothing whatever about your personal preferences can be inferred from what you have so far written).
But it should be equally obvious by now that Sunsong is incapable of interpreting your question as anything but an expression of personal preference, because what you see as a forum for eliciting ideas and debate about possible real-world, efficacious responses, is viewed by Sunsong as an arena for moral posturing. Sunsong can't answer your question because Sunsong doesn't understand your question.
Jesus, Angelyne, yer turnin' into a conservative Ritmo.
And I thought you were hot there for about 5 minutes.
Looks like you ARE Ritmo or someone like him. Say, do you live near Sandy Eggo, like my cousin Lucky?
Nobody else can use those big words like some of Lucky's characters. Hey, you aren't Lucky, are you?
Y'know, the good Perfessor LOVES this performance art crap.
Note to newbies: None of what I just said would make a lick of sense unless you've been hangin' around the good Perfessor's here for some years.
Jus' sayin'.
Beth said: “But please let us know where and when you'll be training your small invasion force.”
And: “what exactly do you propose? We've been in Afghanistan since 2002, and so far, women there still are subject to terrible violence.”
Beth, I bet you have one of those “War is not the answer” bumperstickers on your car.
It turns out that sometimes war is the answer. You’ll note that it’s been several decades since Germany invaded France or attempted genocide. That’s because we killed enough of the right Germans.
You act as though Iran is some undefeatable goliath. Their navy consists mostly of speed boats; their air force consists of ancient MiG-29s, and even more ancient F4s and F14s left over from the pre-revolution days. Their tank corps consists of targets. And try as they might, they just haven’t quite mastered the atom bomb we developed in 1945.
And you act as though our military is ineffectual (“small invasion force”). We’re operating under rules of engagement that would have been laughed at 65 years ago – that’s why women are still “subject to terrible violence” in Afghanistan.
But no, you’re right. War is just too horrible to contemplate. This is just a right-wing fantasy – I’m probably actually masturbating while typing this. Much better to allow thugs to stone women and hang homosexuals, than to actually do something about it.
I mean, why did we even declare war on Germany in WWII? So they had a little Jewish problem, and disagreements with some of their neighbors. Why was that even any of our business? We should have levied sanctions against them. And issued tersely worded letters of condemnation. And signed petitions.
Arms are for hugging!
Chef Mojo,
So you agree with Karl Marx that violence is necessary for changing soceity?
No difference on the far left or the far right about the necessity (in fact the *only* possible solution) of violence, right?
I mean, why did we even declare war on Germany in WWII?
Actually, Germany declared war on the United States in WWII. We declared war on Japan after they attacked us, and Hitler declared war on us. We soon reciprocated with our own declaration, but Germany struck first. I don't think FDR was particularly surprised by that, but it did make it a lot easier for us to focus on Germany from the beginning.
Anyway, as I mentioned above, it isn't pacifism that leads one to decide that while the Iranian government is a vile one, it isn't in America's interests to go to war against them right now. But go on pounding your chest on the internet and criticizing others for not having the immense courage to do so. It's even easier than signing a petition.
Let's see what A History of Private Life has to say about Roman civilization in this regard.
Romans killed their babies. All the time. Adultery just means you have another baby to kill.
Judeo-Christianity objects to infanticide. Thus Jews and Christians (and Muslims) object to adultery, orgies, prostitution, fornication, the whole pagan universe.
Sexually free societies create babies. Sex makes babies. Sexually free societies practice infanticide, or abortion, or both. Destroy fatherhood and you will have a lot of single moms. And a lot of dead babies.
The Islamic revolution, like the Reagan revolution, was a response to our sexual revolution.
Ever notice how most of the text around here looks like oatmeal?
Naw, that's not right.
Looks more like Wheat Chex.
Wheat Chex prose:
Lotsa little lines.
Not much to 'em.
Think I'm gonna eat those quesadillas Lorena made and have a Dos XX.
Good night.
But somefeller, how do you feel about the stoning thingy?
Are you all cool with the religion of peace and save all your tsk tsking for conservatives on the Internets?
But somefeller, how do you feel about the stoning thingy?
In my comments above, I referred to this as a wretched situation and the Iranian government as a vile one. That should make it clear what I think about the stoning.
But if you want me to amplify the point, I think this stoning is an outrage, but I would be happy to see a stoning - if Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the recipient of that stoning and the people doing the stoning are a collection of Republicans, Democrats, Iranian women and gay bikers on acid. Have I made myself clear?
Allen, do you understand that a strawman is a fake opponent, a purposeful misrepresentation of an opponent's position? That's what you've been doing with me - I don't know what you think strawman meant, so I don't understand what you're railing about now.
Somefeller, I'm not sure what your point is about Germany. As you pointed out, we declared war against them.
I'm not sure how it matters that Germany had already declared war against us. Radical Islam has declared war against us, and according to Democrats, we're not at war with them. So that declaration by Germany didn't make our declaration moot.
You said: "...it isn't pacifism that leads one to decide that while the Iranian government is a vile one, it isn't in America's interests to go to war against them right now."
Perhaps not on your case. In Beth's case, I suspect that the only war she's ever supported was LBJ's war on poverty.
But regardless of your reasoning, I disagree with your conclusion. I think it's absolutely in our selfish best interests to liberate a nation of 70 million highly educated people who sit on one of the biggest oil reserves on Earth and whose government has been stirring up shit for 30 years.
That would be a big fucking deal.
And I disagree that self-interest should be the sole determining factor in deciding whether we go to war. Just how oppressive does a regime have to be, to justify its removal by force?
Should we have declared war on Germany? Or was this wrong, too?
Is there some magic number of murders of innocents that's tolerable to you? And at what point did this Bob Taft isolationist 40s Republicanism co-opt the "liberal" wing of the American political spectrum?
You also said: "But go on pounding your chest on the internet and criticizing others for not having the immense courage to do so."
Ah. The chickenhawk argument. My son is planning on signing up for the Marines soon, so...go fuck yourself.
And: "It's even easier than signing a petition."
You're right. I'm quite ashamed that I lack the courage and conviction that you've shown, by signing a petition. Perhaps several. You're my hero.
Dickweed.
And you act as though our military is ineffectual (“small invasion force”).
No, you moron. I was calling out Allen to put up his own answer, if he thinks other people aren't doing anything. He wants to ridicule any efforts people are making to influence Iran in this woman's case, so I wondered when he'd be hitting the shores and liberating Iran himself.
What a clusterfuck of idiocy.
Allen, do you understand that a strawman is a fake opponent, a purposeful misrepresentation of an opponent's position?
Yeah, Allen, quit saying things like:
Right wing fantasies aside, feminists aren't stoning women in Iran, Iranian courts are.
(You're a dishonest little bitch, Beth.)
somefeller said: "...but I would be happy to see a stoning - if Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the recipient of that stoning and the people doing the stoning are a collection of Republicans, Democrats, Iranian women and gay bikers on acid. Have I made myself clear?"
So it's OK for gay bikers on acid to kill people and break things; but not the American military, who would probably do a much better and more efficient job of it, and who could actually be summoned to, you know, actually do it, as opposed to gay bikers on acid, who are notoriously unreliable.
Interesting.
But do go on, pounding your chest on the internet about your gay bikers on acid.
Pastafarian said...
Beth said: “But please let us know where and when you'll be training your small invasion force.”
And: “what exactly do you propose? We've been in Afghanistan since 2002, and so far, women there still are subject to terrible violence.”
Pastafarian responds that Iran is technologically inferior thus war would be easy against obsolete planes, a smattering of speedboats, and "tanks that are just targets" for our high-tech heroes.
The same argument was advanced by the New American Churchill and the Neocons that war against Afghanistan and Iraq would not be finished until we gave the grateful, noble people Westernization, Freedom!!!!, woman's rights, nation-building, do-gooder free doctors, more Freedom!!
As I recall, that was all to be cakewalks. Technologically inferior, and all that...One American "hero" worth 100 Taliban in combat. Grateful women shedding their burquas Laura Bush trilled, as "their dear friend Ahmed Karzai nodded at her remarks at the 1st Bush State Dinner held in his honor as the voice of Afghan democracy"... Liberated Iraqis showering our high tech superheros with flowers. Commanders concerned about the problems of gifts and Iraqi women eagerly fraternizing with "The Heroes" in the early days.
That was 8+ years ago. 1.1 trillion and 37,000 US casualties ago. Plus about 300 billion in burned out planes, ships, Army equipment not replaced.
Beth is on the liberal side, but at this stage , plenty of conservatives and independents join her is saying we will not take on new eternal wars to "help and uplift the Noble Muslims and make them love us by showing how great Americans are as we occypy and patrol their lands and give them Freedom!!"
NO war with Iran, unless they attack us 1st. America desperately needs to work on American problems, jobs - not Somalia's problems, or Yemens, or Israels, or Pakistans, or Irans, or rush back for Iraq War 3 if the Freedom Lovers!!! there go to all-out Civil War when we leave.
Chef, are you arguing that we should be liberating every unjust society militarily? Or just being obtuse? We may well end up in Iran, but if we do, it will be because of their nuclear ambitions, not to spread democracy.
Beth, I was talking about your use of language -- the choices of words and phrases that you use. They seem to imply a certain disdain for the use of military force, and a dismissal of those who suggest it as 'right wing fantasists'.
As I'm a moron, I'm probably mistaken. You're probably in complete agreement with me, that we should reduce Tehran to rubble.
Good that we can agree on something.
The chickenhawk argument.
The chickenhawk argument is the argument that people who support a war should be willing to fight in that war or be actually signing up to serve in it. That's a silly argument, and is not the one I was making. Maybe you should look up what that term means. What I was saying was that it's easy to be an online hawk and disparage others for stating their opposition to the Iranian regime in other ways, when both cost about the same if you are an American citizen who isn't deciding matters of state. Regarding when America should go to war, I'd say a lot of factors go into that, with no magic numbers and with self-interest being the primary one. America's goal is to be the friend of liberty everywhere, but the guarantor of ours alone. And as far as the dickweed comment goes, I'll leave that one to experts like yourself.
I fear you are correct, Anglelyne. It saddens me, because apparently the peaceful -- O glorious word, peace! -- peaceful solution to this festering horror lies locked away within Sunsong's bosom, where it will wither, never to fulfill its potential, liberating all those poor benighted Iranian women.
Maybe we should take up a collection so that we could send Sunsong to the U.N. -- stat! and her vision of peace will save the world!
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