I apologize for the lack of brevity in response, but too many cans of worms were opened at once.
The man walked into a police station voluntarily, told them his wife was dead. They arrived at his job and found her body. No confession was reported, and the order of protection she filed would put her in a position of avoiding him at his workplace. Correct? There's much more to this story. I said I was willing to wait. Others are all too willing to fill in the blanks with wild leaps to conclusion at the expense of facts. IMO that's indistinguishable from tabloid tv or garden variety gossip needing an unending supply of scandal to feed emotional avarice. Would all citizens subscribe to this behavior, where would an impartial jury be found to administer justice?
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Originally Posted by camping!
I don't sailordave is your problem.
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You're right, he isn't my problem. He's his own problem if he's responsible for himself, and everyones nuisance when he isn't. Making himself out to be a self annointed Al Sharpton of women... ludicrous. Perhaps looking from that perspective you can see more clearly what's so offensive.
You aren't religious. I am. Might be hard for you to relate, but try to look through the eyes of someone who is just for a moment, not to sell you or force you to believe as I do, but to know just how blasphemous politics moshed into religion & vice versa gets. Listen to our home grown zealots abusing religion to serve their self interests. It's sickening. Nothing could be more opposite the true faith. What exactly are they practicing?
You aren't religious but you're discussing something that has pre requisites. Willingly educating yourself by attending interfaith services to learn about comparative religions is within your means. Another option would be reading theosophical society literature which does point out the universal threads of all religions. Unwillingness would limit any conversation we can have to secular law, which I think is more appropriate anyway considering this whole thread is bent on multi culturalism.
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Originally Posted by camping!
What I do think is a problem and one I cannot possibly understand is how otherwise feminists are able to reconcile a culture and a religion that condones/excuses/justifies/encourages violence against women. And horrific violence at all. How can you watch a video of a 13 year old rape victim being stoned to death for her 'crime' of adultery and still say that the culture of the US and Afghanistan are the same? How can you watch the video of two teenage boys being hung for the crime of being gay and say that the US and Iran are equatable in the treatment of homosexuals?
The point to be made here is that the US has ceased being a melting pot and more of a salad. Sometimes that works out great as most cultural practices that immigrants bring with them are pretty cool. Namely the food, music and dance
But some cultures are not going to blend in with the US. Some cultural practices are so outside our norm that they must first be acknowledged to exist so that they are not allowed to gain a toehold. Things like selling daughters into marriage. Female genital mutilitation. Honor killings. These things have no purpose in our US society, and to pretend that either these practices do not happen or that the US is equally culpible in the abuse of women is nuts.
Do I think that the US will live under sharia law? No. But I do fear that female US citizens who happen to have been born a muslim of Pakistani/Iranian/Afghani/Saudi descent will live a substandard life in the shadows of constitutional freedoms that they will not be allowed to have. I do worry that by pretending that everything is the same women will born, live and die in the US but live a life full of violence and fear all in the name of multiculturalism.
In the end, abuse does not become elevated because it is entrenched in anothers religous/cultural background. It must be stamped out.
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Your perception of what feminism is/ ought to be is very different from mine. Passers by can slap a label on me, I'm clear about my identity which has nothing to do with a convenient category fulfiling someone's intellectual fantasy about demographics. Presuming I condone/ justify any of what gets done to women by men (worse- what women self inflict) is a form of emotional manipulation that makes me deaf. Mary grace (token female @ Faux news) makes me want to smack the snot out of her everytime she speaks. CLICK!
My expression of feminism has been in line with libertarian philosophy prior to knowing about libertarians. I inadvertantly reinvented the wheel as a teen. Equality is a two way street, meaning that if we're all responsible citizens minding our own responsibilities, we're on equal footing. Know that it's a handicap to anyone spending a moment trying to oppress people the same way it's a handicap to those who are oppressed. This arrangement is inherently unstable and resembles the addict/ enabler dynamic which as you know is unhealthy for all parties concerned. Note my language is not limited to female, but inclusive of all humanity. I would as vehemently defend an old white guy as I would any other minority group.
Women are the majority not just in america, but in the world, and consistently treated as second class citizens predating recorded time. So yes, it's particularly absurd listening to some poor put upon white guy whining about the tyranny of the minority. I mean, how narcissistic can the self appointed garbage representing conservatives get? As disgusting as the examples I've had to listen to for decades.
Think about that not just in the context of world history, but in present tense policies throughout the same world. Don't you find it pathetic that at this late date in civilization we're still having this discussion? Makes me wonder what's the point of civilization. Just a more orderly version of oppression to maximize yields? I'm no fan of anarchists but evidence is evidence.
Birdseye view- Sit in your local ER for a few hours. Watch how many bodies get wheeled in. They're human beings, not the million irrelevant categories y'all label each other with (what's the purpose of these labels?). Human beings everywhere do horrible things to themselves and to one another. We manage it through secular law within our own borders and renounce it internationally by refusing to do business with them. Creating more laws in house instead of applying the laws already on the books, yet to be realized or ill enforced in order to favor a pet group... that's the problem.
A human being was beheaded. The law is clear. The job of law enforcement & our court system is clear. That is until folks want to pull an OJ, tamper with or invent bogus evidence, tamper with jurors to get their way, change his skin color on a magazine to hype up race as the cause, destroy a case to prove a case. Our system is only as good as the faith we invest and our commitment to abide it.
Do you fear islamic religion presuming it's criminal? Go ahead and start a thread questioning the legitimacy of muslim faith as a true religion. Maybe some Islamic folks who aren't sick to death of being harassed or having their daily lives on public opinion trial might answer you politely. You disagree strongly with human rights abuses in middle east under the guise of a legit government... so do I. Want to fight their civil war for them? What shall we do about it beyond leading by example? That's also another thread geared toward america redefining it's foriegn policy.
You fear islamic immigrants will force substandard lives for middle eastern heritage women? How is this not true of latino culture that practices female mutilation to 'mark their territory' or justify violence against women within their culture excused by passion or jealousy? How is this not true of mormon polygamy, or extreme forms of born again christians who demand strict obeisance to a husband? What about cults? Moonies? Krishnas? Amish & menonites are very outside what is typically our norm, yet they made it work within the framework of secular law. What about asian female immigrants in the exact same scenario you describe but have been wholesale ignored as a phenomena because they aren't muslim? How about mail order brides from the ukraine? Human trafficking within our borders? Men participating with dollars, and women being instrumental in recruiting??? The list goes on. Again, who is the paragon of virtue on the planet???
The laws exist in our country. Freedoms are <allegedly> guaranteed for all. Why doesn't it get enforced, and more importantly, why aren't women realizing and taking responsibility for their own choices directly? We're not just talking about battered women syndrome. Why do they accept 70 cents on the dollar? Why would a mother discourage her talented daughter from going to college? Why do women resent successful women in authority? Why marry a creep? Why are there strippers, porn stars, and prostitutes? That is yet another thread- the difference between voluntary/ self inflicted abuse vs external abuse.
There's plenty to disagree with, but I made my choices in my own life because that's the limit of my authority-- my own life. Boundaries minded not just internationally, but within my own country, state, town, and neighborhood. Judgement to me is most useful for discerning personal choices, not chasing everyone down about how they ought to be. I'm only willing to chase down my fellow citizens and government institutions when they fail to abide the law by neglecting enforcement (micro and macro scale).
Surprised you're not more concerned about american statistics of young girls and women resorting to violence when the law failed to stand up. That's OUR cultural problem. How shall we interpret? Girls are being taught by a male dominated society that the way to self preservation, respect, and keeping civil rights is to mimic male aggression? This is the american way???
Another excellent thread starter is immigration policy--- this concept of melting pot vs salad, which I interpret as retaining cultural identity as an individual vs deferring to the group (secular law). Thoughout these blogs I've seen too many people seemingly in conflict or act confused about negotiating their way in American culture. I'm referring to natural born citizens being confused. In my experience immigrants seem to have much less of a problem grasping the concept, but that has more to do with their commitment/ motives for coming here and the blue book value of our constitutional mystique abroad.
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. These incidents cannot be compared to acts of random violence. Many incidents of "preachers" and "Christians" perpetuating acts of heinous violence and depravity have been cited in this thread but there is no correlation to these "honor killings". The former individuals KNEW what they were doing was wrong, and the acts had NOTHING to do with the Christian faith or religious doctrine at all. These people were just general scumbags that happened to be "Christians" or "preachers". The only thing poignant to the media about these cases was that fact, and THOUSANDS of other cases of violence get ignored because the perps were not "preachers" or "Christians". This is an attempt to show a religious motive where none exists, the same cannot be said about these "honor killings". In the latter cases there IS a religious and cutural motive and the individuals feel justified in the act because of that fact. It's the MOTIVE for the crime that is in question here and not the act itself.
