Thread: Honor killing and the difference in cultures.

Originally Posted by jockeys

and what if that 50% isn't happy with it, but is bullied, brainwashed and beaten until it gives up and submits?

I'm just not ok with treating women worse than I'd treat a dog. I'll never be cool with it. Any culture that says it's ok to make your wife obey you (which I also have a fundamental problem with) by enforcing your whims with your fists... is a culture of cowardice and dishonorable wimps.

Well, I don't approve it but that really isn't my own business.
As it was pointed out many times the 'western culture' used to incorporate all these bad attitudes and practices, some of them not so long ago. Apparently it was able to evolve to what it is now and in anoher 20 years will be even more different.
I don't see why would anybody deny the right of any group of people to live the way they want to.
If somebody happened to be born say in USA they have a lot of freedoms that are protected by laws. If they happened to be born in Saudi Arabia they wouldn't have all these freedoms, but I do not see how that is my problem. Yes, if they are unhappy with their culture I would be supportive to their efforts to change it or move to another one which they like better, but the responsibility for this is theirs, not mine.

It is not my responsibility to proscribe how other people should live their lives, I am only responsible for mine. Killing off those who don't live the same way as me, apart from being against my moral norms, has never worked very well. I believe tolerance is the better way and I expect others to be tolerant of my choices the same way as I am tolerant of theirs. Of course I cannot force this on anybody, I can only choose to be tolerant myself.
The only thing I find justified is to defend my rights when somebody tries to infringe upon them.

Let me tell you a story. The first muslim women who I talked about their culture with were two ladies from Algeria and Morocco. They were very well educated, better than most people in the west, and were in a Western country on a career-related business. They were in their early/mid 20s and not married yet. I asked them how they feel about their male-domiated culture for example that a man can have multiple wifes. They told me they have absolutely no problem with that and it is better for a man to take more than one wife and take care of all of them, than divorce the ones he doesn't fancy anymore.
In a way it makes sense in such culture, where a single woman, or even worse divorced one is basically a complete outcast. One way would be to proclaim that culture completely inferior and go wipe it out from the face of the earth, but then our current culture was at the same stage only few hundred years ago. These things change on a generational timescale.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

How do we "win" and bring democracy to people who have a mindset such as this ?

Originally Posted by jockeys

We kill them all. Sometimes peaceful coexistance is not an option. When my very existence offends their imaginary pal up in the sky, there's not going to be any rational dialogue.

Unreasonable people can't be reasoned with.

Originally Posted by gugi

Well, I don't approve it but that really isn't my own business.

I don't see why would anybody deny the right of any group of people to live the way they want to.

It is not my responsibility to proscribe how other people should live their lives, I am only responsible for mine. Killing off those who don't live the same way as me, apart from being against my moral norms, has never worked very well.

You're missing the point I'm making. I've been called racist and worse in PMs and comments for my remarks in the thread. Let me clarify.

I'm not advocating genocide or war. I'm answering JimmyHAD's question. He said, "how do we win?" and I said "kill them all." I was trying to point out that it is unwinnable. My personal feeling is that we should be non-interventionist towards other cultures in foreign lands. It's SO not our fight. Basically, the best case scenario, as it stands now, is a sort of quiet mutual dislike where our culture leaves some other culture alone. But we can't win them over to democracy. That culture, at present, has no interest. We can't make them interested. We can wait, and hope. But we can't win. The current generation is firmly entrenched, there is no mind-changing, only obliteration.

The next generation may grow up different. Our country has grown a lot in the last 25, 50, 100 years. But not because another culture "won" us over. We grew on our own, stumbling a lot in the process. You can't force that. You can threaten, you can kill, but you can't ever force someone to change their mind. They have to want it.

That's the point I'm trying to make. So please. Read my comments and think about them before sending me nasty messages. I don't think our culture should be trying to wipe out any other culture. That was never my point. I guess subtlety was ill-advised in this thread. My bad.

also, to all the folks that are calling me racist, I'm going to have to take offense. This isn't about race, it's about ideology.

Call me a jackass, call me an idealogue, call me whatever nasty thing makes you feel big, but it's certainly not racism. Get your insults right.

Originally Posted by jockeys

I'm not advocating genocide or war...

I have a question for you. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't you once say that you work for a weapons manufacturer? If that's true, then "we kill them all" is uncomfortably close to the truth.

Hey, if war is inevitable... Besides, if everyone is killed, I'm out of a job. Gotta leave someone alive to keep hating and fight the next one. :-)

Originally Posted by jockeys

My personal feeling is that we should be non-interventionist towards other cultures in foreign lands. It's SO not our fight. Basically, the best case scenario, as it stands now, is a sort of quiet mutual dislike where our culture leaves some other culture alone. But we can't win them over to democracy. That culture, at present, has no interest. We can't make them interested. We can wait, and hope. But we can't win. The current generation is firmly entrenched, there is no mind-changing, only obliteration.

Jockeys; this is a very astute assessment! I can't say I agree with you on the whole; but, it's a hell of a good thought!

You know; I can sort of see the Muslim culture spreading out to the greater Eurasian Continent and Africa in 50 years or so. Mind China's stance on Muslims is not good, Japan seems to be acting against “Islamization” but its efforts may be too little too late ref a , and Russia will do what it what it has to, to protect itself, but the rest of the area is in real danger of loosing their "identities" as nations.

Al right Jockeys! For the first time in my life I will agree and say that: "We should not have meddled!" I think it started in Kosovo by our interference between the Albanians and the Serbians.... I was there and I did my homework. The KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) was Muslim, founded by Adem Jashari ref b so by meddling with the natural balances; perhaps, we emboldened the “Islamization” of the world!

"We should not have meddled!" Thought I'd never agree on this one... dammit Jockeys!

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Originally Posted by jmueller8

Jockeys; this is a very astute assessment! I can't say I agree with you on the whole; but, it's a hell of a good thought!

You know; I can sort of see the Muslim culture spreading out to the greater Eurasian Continent and Africa in 50 years or so. Mind China's stance on Muslims is not good, Japan seems to be acting against “Islamization” but its efforts may be too little too late ref a , and Russia will do what it what it has to, to protect itself, but the rest of the area is in real danger of loosing their "identities" as nations.

Al right Jockeys! For the first time in my life I will agree and say that: "We should not have meddled!" I think it started in Kosovo by our interference between the Albanians and the Serbians.... I was there and I did my homework. The KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) was Muslim, founded by Adem Jashari ref b so by meddling with the natural balances; perhaps, we emboldened the “Islamization” of the world!

"We should not have meddled!" Thought I'd never agree on this one... dammit Jockeys!

But...when is it "meddling" and when is it defending your national interests? If the Taliban is harboring people or groups who have attacked you, is going after them meddling? Is supporting an ally (say, Israel or South Korea) meddling? Is maintaining reasonable access to oil for us and our allies meddling? I'm not saying what our specific policies should be on such issues. I'm just trying to say it's a fine line between meddling and defending your interests.

It's increasingly difficult to be "isolationist" (not saying anyone here is advocating isolationism-but as an extreme course,etc) in today's world (for the last century, really). Sometimes, not meddling gets us into a bigger, more destructive war down the road. We have interests all over the world - some are more legit than others, and this is what brings us into conflict with "them" It gets tricky.

Jordan

It is hard to see genocide taking place on the other side of the world and stand by and do nothing. Harder still to send our own over there and see them killed and maimed trying to help. I would tend to the isolationist stance in terms of the Islamic extremists. Go after the al quaida and seek, find and destroy on an individual basis.

The scary thing is that now there are nuclear weapons in Pakistan, a Muslim country with a weak government and a sizable part of the population that would celebrate using them on the USA and it's allies. I don't think we can afford not to be in the game doing what we have to do to defeat them in any way we can. You can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs and all of that.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

It is hard to see genocide taking place on the other side of the world and stand by and do nothing. Harder still to send our own over there and see them killed and maimed trying to help. I would tend to the isolationist stance in terms of the Islamic extremists. Go after the al quaida and seek, find and destroy on an individual basis.

The scary thing is that now there are nuclear weapons in Pakistan, a Muslim country with a weak government and a sizable part of the population that would celebrate using them on the USA and it's allies. I don't think we can afford not to be in the game doing what we have to do to defeat them in any way we can. You can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs and all of that.

And now it looks like Iran is closer to a bomb than the UN had previously thought.

Joran