While many of my posts mock American politicians for their foolish, short-sighted, and corrupt choices, I’m still very happy to be a citizen of the United States. Or, to be more accurate, I’m glad that I live in a nation that is part of Western civilization.
Consider what it would be like to live in Iran, where the government executes people for victimless crimes. Here’s part of a report from AFP.
Iranian courts on Sunday sentenced two people to death for running porn sites, prosecutor general Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi said, quoted on the Islamic republic’s official IRNA news agency. …Last December, Canada expressed concern over the reported death sentence handed down to an Iranian-born Canadian resident for allegedly designing an adult website. …Malekpour was detained in Iran after returning in 2008 to visit his ailing father. He was sentenced to death in December. The Netherlands froze contacts with Tehran after Saturday’s hanging of an Iranian-Dutch woman for drug smuggling, having initially been arrested for taking part in anti-government protests.
Iran also executes gay people, so the thugs running the government get bent out of shape about all sorts of private, consensual acts.
And let’s not forget that these nutjobs apparently are on the verge of getting nuclear weapons.
I rarely comment on foreign policy, and I don’t pretend to know what, if anything, should be done about Iran. My libertarian instincts tell me that any Western intervention would backfire. That being said, the world might be a safer place if Iran’s nuclear weapons program was disabled by an Israeli strike.
The best outcome, at least to my untrained eye, would be a domestic revolution. Some people fear this means instability, but Anne Applebaum persuasively argues in today’s Washington post that the uncertainty of change is better than the certainty of oppression. She’s commenting on Egypt’s turmoil, but I think her message has wide application. As such, one can only hope that the Iranian people rise up and overthrow the current regime. At which point, maybe gay Persians should be allowed to decide an appropriate punishment for the ousted tyrants.
[…] Pathetic. Particularly since the Italians bent over backwards for a truly heinous regime. […]
[…] Pathetic. Particularly since the Italians bent over backwards for a truly heinous regime. […]
[…] care whether people approve of gays or pot smoking, but I do want to be part of a society that (unlike Iran!) doesn’t persecute or harass people for behaviors or beliefs that don’t harm […]
[…] care whether people approve of gays or pot smoking, but I do want to be part of a society that (unlike Iran!) doesn’t persecute or harass people for behaviors or beliefs that don’t harm […]
[…] care whether people approve of gays or pot smoking, but I do want to be part of a society that (unlike Iran!) doesn’t persecute or harass people for behaviors or beliefs that don’t harm […]
[…] are still on the books in some places, though thankfully they’re no longer enforced (though the thugs in Iran and similar places obviously haven’t taken this step in societal […]
[…] still on the books in some places, though thankfully they’re no longer enforced (though the thugs in Iran and similar places obviously haven’t taken this step in societal […]
at least shortsighted on international politics, of course you may have some voters with double nationality us-is
Greetings;
Do you not find it to be rather ironic that when a corporately controlled democracy receives a wink and a nod from the corporately controlled UN to evade a free society in order to incorporate a countries resources it’s
called a Liberator, yet, when the peoples of the evaded country sets out to form a resistance in order to protect
its countries resources, it is deemed a terrorist organization by the corporately owned medias?
The very best to you on your journey of discovery,
Travis
PS – None of which means that I advocate a pre-emptive attack against Iran. (Dan said it best; our best hope is an internal change of regime.)
Just because their foreign-policy actions are rational doesn’t make them right or that the values and goals from which they proceed are ‘sane’.
Uh, Paul – we don’t execute people for running pr()n websites or adultery. We don’t even execute them for smuggling drugs (unless they killed someone in the process, in which case we’re really executing them for *murder*).
And then there’s the whole ‘due process’ issue. I’m sure our ‘due process’ could use some work, but are you even suggesting that the accused have the same rights and the same access to legal resources in the Iranian system that they do in ours?
I’m sure Dan was using ‘crazy’ in the colloquial sense as opposed to the clinical sense.
Perhaps ‘barbaric’ or ‘medieval’ would have been a better choice. There’s only one U.S. state where hanging is still on the books and none where stoning or beheading is permitted. And even Delaware doesn’t have the mobile gallows-on-a-flatbed-truck that the Iranians use…
The whole moral-equivalency argument is tiresome, especially when even a cursory look at the context demolishes it.
Letting Israel attack Iran (because they would have to fly through US-controlled Iraq airspace) would mean possible dire consequences for US as well. It is debatable if Iran can attack Israel with missiles, but it sure can attack Americans in Iraq with those missiles. So it definitely won’t be wise from US perspective.
Besides, Mossad chief thinks that they can’t get a-bomb until 2015 (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iYHHs00vw9PChXXyFSn1ZKfSFJ3w?docId=be34af607f3748dbac654960bf118b3b).
It is also kind of stretch to say that a regime is crazy because they execute people. US does it too, also China. That does not mean that they are irrational in their foreign policy actions. Iran knows that they can’t win a nuclear exchange with Israel, never mind one with US.
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