Dubai & the UAE:
Shari'a
Torture
Slavery
Homosexuals, adulterers and apostates can be stoned to death.
Abortion, blasphemy, public displays of affection, premarital sex, all illegal and punishable by flogging.
Domestic violence against women is legal.

Qatar:
Shari'a
Sodomy, extramarital sex, alcohol consumption, blasphemy, apostasy, proselytism all illegal and punishable variously by flogging or imprisonment.

Kuwait:
Blasphemy, homosexuality, transgenderism, public displays of affection, eating or drinking in public during ramadan, alcohol, pornography and 'sending immoral messages' are all illegal.
Domestic violence and marital rape is legal.

Indonesia:
Islamist violence against religious minorities is widespread.
Muslims are pushing hard to criminalise homosexuality.
Female applicants to the military and police are subjected to 'virginity tests'.
Shari'a in Aceh province includes the flogging of homosexuals among its atrocities.

Tunisia:
Homosexuality and blasphemy are illegal.
Persecution of the LGBT by both government and private groups is common and increasing.

Mali:
~90% prevalence of FGM
Half the country under islamist control, with all the oppression, murder, torture and rape that implies.

"People wouldn't get those "impressions" if there was an Islamic theocratic country filled with nice people like this guy. But there isn't. "

Dubai
Qatar
UAE
Kuwait
Indonesia
Tunisia
Mali

People wouldn't get the opinion that Americans are ignorant fucking assholes if there was one American-filled country that wasn't brimming over with paste-eaters who can't pass a 3rd -grade geography class.

@radx

Nothing really new I can say again in response.

It's natural that France and Germany being major decision makers in the eurozone will suggest bailouts that also help their own banks, no surprise at all. Witness the US's about turn post WWII from rebuilding Germany into a de-industrialised agricultural state to an industrial powerhouse to counter Soviet influence in about a year.

I think you have to look, not at Troika funding with or without pension cuts and the like, but with or without the funding. See my post above for what I think would happen in a disorderly collapse. I think honestly we can both be certain that the effect on output and unemployment would have been far worse in a disorderly collapse.

Like I said to oritteropo, I'm not debating that the IMF estimates were correct or even that the IMF has a particularly good history of reform (although you could certainly argue that Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia economically at least were successes). As far as low/middle class Greeks suffering, yes I agree it sucks. Most who risk being indicted for corruption are sure to have emigrated permanently to their vacation homes purchased on stolen money, but that doesn't unfortunately change the reality.

Stupid movie with a ridiculous response from some. Religion of peace

some dialog about it. Innocence of Muslims film that sparked violence in Libya, Egypt, and now Tunisia

How anyone could even imagine Afghanistan embracing the tenets of the west is beyond me. These are uneducated bronze age people with an, almost, surreal grasp on the past. They will resort back to their ancient doctrine, practices and inter faction feuding. The "Arab spring" revolts were looked on, by many, as a blow for democracy. But, looking at countries involved (Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia, etc.) it seems clear that, though they want the wests help, they are clearly anti-west and will demonstrate their dislike once the extremist elements take charge. The facade of democratic intent is simply that. I always felt, and still do, that we involve ourselves in these countries at our peril. Of course I am not naive enough to not realise that the west have interests, but do the benefits outweigh the dangers?

No one has the right to disobey a lawful order. You cannot have a rule of law that way. If it is an unlawful order, that is a different story. If you want to protest, you also have to be willing to take the heat, and to be civilly disobedient and risk arrest. What you're hoping for is to gain public support and enact some change in the mind of the public, which will hopefully led to a change in the system. That's the way it works. I don't buy that someones highfalutin ideals gives anyone the inherent right to defy the police. That's called anarchy. I feel the authorities here were not being entirely unfair, and did let them stay for a few days before asking them to leave. Why should people have the right to form impromptu tent cities and live in the public space for weeks on end? That's not a protest, that's called squatting.

I am speaking here of western style democracies. Totalitarian regimes are a different story. I believe God gives us certain inalliable rights, and if an authority is suppressing those rights, I believe we have right under God to transgress the earthly authority in those cases.

>> ^Kofi:
What you are saying is that if it is legal it is right. Legal positivism. If it is illegal then the police have the duty to respond with whatever power is within their means, not just what is appropriate.
Lets take that principle to its logical conclusion.
If the government says "You are not allowed to continue with the activity that you are doing. Therefore we are asserting our duty to protect the community at large and are going to forcefully prevent you from continuing in your unlawful act" Does this seem reasonable?
Google "Laws for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service"
This is the logical conclusion. What the protesters represent is a cause higher than that of the law. They are going about it in a peaceful manner with the minimal violation of laws and others rights (rights pertaining not to life, limb or property but of occupying public land. PUBLIC land).
If this is still unsatisfactory please ask why it is ok for police to do this and not ok for the lethal crackdowns we saw in Egypt, Syria, Yemen and Tunisia.
>> ^shinyblurry:
I'll preface this with the statement that I feel that police brutality is on the rise and unchecked power is never a good thing, however
This video is not shocking. What is shocking to me is that people seem to think they can defy the police and get away with it. They had no right to be there, and they were told to leave and refused to go. So therefore, the police had the right to use reasonable measures to force them to leave. Were some cops using more force than necessary here? Probably so, but the protesters made the conscious choice to resist which gives a police officer the right to use force at their discretion. If you are going to use civil disobedience as a protest, you should expect to be arrested. If you are going to openly defy the police, you should expect a response. In civil society there is a rule of law. I don't see why anyone is shocked at the police enforcing the law on people who are breaking it. It doesn't matter how peacefully they were protesting; their right to protest became null and void when they decided to refuse to obey a lawful order.

What you are saying is that if it is legal it is right. Legal positivism. If it is illegal then the police have the duty to respond with whatever power is within their means, not just what is appropriate.

Lets take that principle to its logical conclusion.

If the government says "You are not allowed to continue with the activity that you are doing. Therefore we are asserting our duty to protect the community at large and are going to forcefully prevent you from continuing in your unlawful act" Does this seem reasonable?

Google "Laws for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service"

This is the logical conclusion. What the protesters represent is a cause higher than that of the law. They are going about it in a peaceful manner with the minimal violation of laws and others rights (rights pertaining not to life, limb or property but of occupying public land. PUBLIC land).

If this is still unsatisfactory please ask why it is ok for police to do this and not ok for the lethal crackdowns we saw in Egypt, Syria, Yemen and Tunisia.

>> ^shinyblurry:

I'll preface this with the statement that I feel that police brutality is on the rise and unchecked power is never a good thing, however
This video is not shocking. What is shocking to me is that people seem to think they can defy the police and get away with it. They had no right to be there, and they were told to leave and refused to go. So therefore, the police had the right to use reasonable measures to force them to leave. Were some cops using more force than necessary here? Probably so, but the protesters made the conscious choice to resist which gives a police officer the right to use force at their discretion. If you are going to use civil disobedience as a protest, you should expect to be arrested. If you are going to openly defy the police, you should expect a response. In civil society there is a rule of law. I don't see why anyone is shocked at the police enforcing the law on people who are breaking it. It doesn't matter how peacefully they were protesting; their right to protest became null and void when they decided to refuse to obey a lawful order.

this is exactly the same premise as when the Arab spring uprising happened in Tunisia, the U.S. would forever state "If only the citizen's would take matters on themselves and rise up against their oppressors in favor of democracy rule, things would be soo much better" and when it happened they did not know how to react to it because they had absolutely no control over the outcome and whether it would favor their interests as well.

it's a really tragic thing now how the tea party is wholeheartedly accepted and embraced by CNN and other news networks now as legitimate and the more grass-roots movement of occupy wall street is not!. and personally i like and respect even the individuals who aren't in sync with the overall message and bring their own opinions which means its theirs, and they are not being feed notes on what to think or not to think by the shadowy millionaires in the background who are really the cause of its appeal.

I fully support what they did. Disrupting a speech is a perfectly legitimate form of protest and given Israel's continued policies in the Gaza strip it is certainly warranted, in my opinion.

I do not support them trying to get the charges dropped, though. The whole point of civil disobedience is to break the law peacefully and to go to jail for what you believe. If they feel that strongly about the issue they should do whatever jail-time they're given with pride--and be willing to do it again if necessary.

Honestly, I don't see how they even have a case. As this article clearly explains, the Supreme Court has routinely ruled in favor of governments' (both local and federal) right to limit the time, manner, and place of speech so long as there is no infringement on content. Given that the speech-place will probably not be considered a "traditional public forum" (see the article) I don't think they have much of a legal chance of winning.

Related article: Woman tackled and arrested for disrupting Netanyahu's speech in front of U.S. Congress

Food for thought (from the article above):

And after I spoke out, Netanyahu said, you know, “This is what’s possible in a democracy. And you wouldn’t be able to get away with this in other countries like Tunisia.” And I think that is ridiculous and absurd. If this is what democracy looks like, that when you speak out for freedom and justice, you get tackled to the ground, you get physically violated and assaulted, and then you get hauled off to jail, that’s not the kind of democracy that I think I want to live in.

>> ^marbles:

>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^marbles:
>> ^bcglorf:
Snide comments have their place, but in this context your just sympathizing with a deposed tyrannical dictator.

Says the cheerleader for Western colonialism and imperialism.

You say that like Gaddafi's fall is a bad thing...
Oh right, you believe that. In case you haven't noticed, the world is wising up and rejecting your kind en mass. Tunisia, Egypt and Libya have already thrown your ilk out, and with any luck the Syrian and Iranian people will manage similar gains in the future.

You say that like NATO actually gives a damn about helping the Libyan people. You're a fool if you think that's the case.
Oil and Gold. Notice how they never targeted any of the oil infrastructure with the bombings? No, they targeted residential areas and civilian infrastructure. Lol, and you think they're there to help the people. They're there to help themselves! Bomb and pillage.


What's wrong with you?

I said Gaddafi's defeat is good for the Libyan people. Do you agree with that or not? It's a simple question.

>> ^bcglorf:

>> ^marbles:
>> ^bcglorf:
Snide comments have their place, but in this context your just sympathizing with a deposed tyrannical dictator.

Says the cheerleader for Western colonialism and imperialism.

You say that like Gaddafi's fall is a bad thing...
Oh right, you believe that. In case you haven't noticed, the world is wising up and rejecting your kind en mass. Tunisia, Egypt and Libya have already thrown your ilk out, and with any luck the Syrian and Iranian people will manage similar gains in the future.


You say that like NATO actually gives a damn about helping the Libyan people. You're a fool if you think that's the case.

Oil and Gold. Notice how they never targeted any of the oil infrastructure with the bombings? No, they targeted residential areas and civilian infrastructure. Lol, and you think they're there to help the people. They're there to help themselves! Bomb and pillage.

>> ^marbles:

>> ^bcglorf:
Snide comments have their place, but in this context your just sympathizing with a deposed tyrannical dictator.

Says the cheerleader for Western colonialism and imperialism.


You say that like Gaddafi's fall is a bad thing...

Oh right, you believe that. In case you haven't noticed, the world is wising up and rejecting your kind en mass. Tunisia, Egypt and Libya have already thrown your ilk out, and with any luck the Syrian and Iranian people will manage similar gains in the future.

@hpqp
@marinara (because it indirectly addresses your post)

First, did you even read the book?

Second, quoting the Koran is not evidence--hard, empirical, data. You can quote-mine any religious text--including Buddhist sutras--for passages that can be interpreted out of context in quite a negative way. Where is the empirical data that shows all Muslims not only literally believe this but actively act on those beliefs? Hell, how many Muslims have you personally talked to and asked about those passages? I would consider that as "action-research" and be willing to hear the evidence you came up with.

Third, those links you posted are not evidence. They are reports of particular instances of violence whose causes are far more complex than simply "Islam made them do it." If Islam causes this kind of behavior, why aren't they stoning women in Malaysia, Tunisia, Algeria, Indonesia, or a host of other Muslim countries? How is it that the actions of a relatively few individuals within an enormous group can damn the entire group? How is it that Harris can ignore cultural, educational, and socio-economic factors involved in these incidents and claim with certainty that Islam is to blame when he doesn't seem to have any evidence to support his case?

The difference lies in the specific tenets of Islam.

Again, I ask you to show me the evidence of that. He can claim violence is caused by the specific tenets of Islam all he likes but I've never seen him show any empirical evidence that proves his point. And you know why? Because he can't. Such evidence doesn't exist. Sam Harris may be a brilliant scientist but he is a gobsmackingly awful anthropologist/historian/philosopher/theologian.

In conclusion, Sam Harris doesn't make good points at all. He spouts opinions unsupported by empirical data with a clear intent to espouse fear and hatred against one particular religious group. He is no better than a KKK member standing up there telling us how dangerous black people are and using pseudo-data like the number of black people currently in jail or anecdotal evidence of a white woman raped by a black man to prove his case. He lumps all members of a religious group (diverse in nationalities, ethnicity, cultures, socio-economic backgrounds, education, etc.) into one category and pretends they're all the same. His actions are detestable, all the more so because he is not some uneducated hick but a respected scientist who should know better than to claim things without having the evidence to back them up.

I freely admit to having thought Obama was the real deal, and that it's obvious he wasn't. I think my disappointments with him aside, he was still the right person to support, given that it was only ever going to be him, Hillary, or McCain who became President. I think you're vastly overstating it when you say that Obama is "leading the charge" in Libya, but that's just how you are.

I don't really see it as "chickens coming home to roost". Obama has failed to rise to the occasion on several issues, but he hasn't gone and done anything all his own that creates new problems to be undone. Maybe this no-fly zone in Libya will become that, but this doesn't strike me as some sort of imperialist impulse from Obama, so much as him going along with the world community.

If you told me that in 2008, after Bush put together an Iraq withdrawal plan, I would've said that I pretty much expect him to follow the Bush withdrawal plan to the letter...which he has, with no sign of extending our stay there. On Afghanistan, I would've said that Obama openly campaigned on escalating the conflict in Afhganistan, and I didn't like it much, but that that did seem to be the one place in the world we had any reason to be involved in. On Libya I would've said "why Libya?" If you said "to defend pro-democratic rebels who wanted to overthrow Gaddafi", I would've said "hmm, if the UN supports that action, and the mission remains limited in scope, I would oppose it, but I would understand it".

As for Gitmo and PATRIOT, if you told me that he'd be stopped from doing either by a bipartisan coalition in Congress, I would've found that completely believable. That he's passively let the topic fade from the public stage is probably my biggest disappointment with him.

On taxes, which taxes went up? Income tax rates below $250K (and above!) are the same as they've been, and payroll taxes just got cut a bit. My federal taxes definitely went down, while my state & local have increased slightly, but Obama has nothing to do with those. The only tax increases I know of are on cigarettes, and maybe the expiration of tax cuts that began with the stimulus.

As for the democratic process, all it proved is that it takes more work than voting for President once every 4 years. I was too carried away in 2008 about how much one election would do, but it did seem like a sea change at the time.

Part of what's wrong is that people here are too complacent. Tunisia, Egypt, etc. all just managed to topple dictatorships with peaceful protests. I think if we did the same here, we could topple our oligarchy. But first we need to stop letting fear of loss make us keep our heads down...

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
Oh, you're such a victim, aren't you? *raises hand* "Oh, teacher, blankfist is picking on me!"

Stop deflecting. You and DFT claimed Obama was the real deal; that he'd enact some real change. He hasn't. He received a Nobel Peace prize, yet has extended the war effort. It makes no sense to people like me, and now that he's leading the charge in Libya, your chickens have come home to roost, and you don't like it.

I know you don't regret a second campaigning or voting for a warmonger and a liar. It's all too common for people to defend their vote, and the dissonance is alarming. My father used to defend his vote for Bush saying he's better than Clinton or something irrelevant like that.

If I could go back to 2008 and make wild claims that Obama would not end the war in Iraq, he would instead extend the war into Afghanistan, and before 2012 he'd go into Libya, I wonder what you'd say. Or that he'd never close Guantanamo or repeal the Patriot Act, I wonder what you'd say. You'd probably disagree and beat the "Democrats. Party of peace." drum.

I bet you still have an Obama/Biden 2008 bumper sticker on the back of your Prius, don't you? How typical if you do.

And by the way, I made less this year because of the economy, yet my taxes went up (as did the cost of living). I thought those of us who made less than $250,000 would not have our taxes raised. Looks like that too was a lie. I'm glad we still have idiots out there who think we can change the system with the democratic process, because singlehandedly Obama has proven that to be false in his first four years.

Seeing you, I think I now understand why the entire nation of Germany gave into Nazism and thought it was a good thing.

In reply to this comment by NetRunner:
So what you're saying is...what? That harassing me is somehow going to reverse a UN resolution against Libya?

I do think that if you don't like something, you should get involved and change it. In this case, part of that would be trying to get like minded people to join you in some sort of petition or protest. You don't seem to have any interest in doing that.

Do you have a bumper sticker with "Don't blame me, I voted for <insert losing candidate here>!" on your car? I mean if you don't, you really should get one. It might be too on the nose though, because it's not just some humorous witticism to you; instead it's a statement of your entire political philosophy, such as it is.

Oh, and by the way, I don't regret for a second having voted for and campaigned for Obama.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
Wait, I thought you said if you didn't like something, then you should get involved and change it. Wasn't voting for Obama that change? How's that working out for you?

And I'm a liberal. The original liberal.