So glad we defeated the Taliban!

Originally Posted by Gumby

Umm wtf. Our military will investigate it, if anyone actually did what is claimed they will be spending time in a military prison. How does this have anything to do with the topic at hand?

As for Afganistan's stupid laws. I don't agree with what these people are doing but these are the laws they have enacted on themselves. Stupid as it sounds it us, this is what the majority of the people want. They are not the US where there are many different kinds of people. They do things differently and while I find it very offensive that they will kill a man rather than just deport him for being a christian, it is not my place to say they can not do that to themselves.

Religious Equality seems to be something to complicated for them :/

Deport him? How can you just deport people whom you don't want in your country? Where would all the undesired people go?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Wesker

Have yet to hear of any American facing capital punishment for switching religions. Quite a difference between executing a man who rapes and murders children and executing a man who dares to deny Islam.

So you are just confirming that the punishment isn't the issue, it's that they hold different values than you do.

It's unfortunate that 'freedom' 'democracy' and 'morals' have all been lumped into the same thing. They have the freedom to chose, by democratic means what laws they wish to uphold and live by. That they do not reflect the laws that you or I would like to chose does not have any bearing on their having freedom and democracy.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by lordjames

The appeal to relativism is so weak. So we're just going to accept hundreds of thousands of Darfurians dead or displaced because it's acceptable in their culture, and we shouldn't intervene in other cultures because that's bad (unless, of course, we're dolling out hundreds of millions of dollars in aid with no strings attached). Puh-leeze. Human rights are universal and don't apply to just one part of the planet. Human dignity transcends borders, and Westerners should be enforcing those values wherever we can, particularly in countries where we are nation building and where we expect those countries to live up to internationalal human rights standards.

What are these human rights that you are talking about? Please show me where their laws differ with Internation Human Rights Standards. I'd love to better understand the conflict between these two.

Double Post:

Originally Posted by Wesker

They may have democracy, but that does not ensure freedom. Thats the problem. Their democracy consists of electing hard line Islamists, like the palestinians did with hamas, so their version of democracy denies freedom. A democracy can pass a law that says all minorities are to be imprisoned. Where then is the freedom for all the people. What I'm saying, that at least to Americans, these new elections were touted as a great thing, freeing an oppressed people, when this isn't even close to being true. Military force and a change in government, and a written constitution can't change people's hearts, and the hearts of most Middle East Muslims is bogged down with Sharia law.

Then the issue is that their religous/moral ideals differ from ours? What can be done about this other than taking out Islam? I mean, your argument is that they chose to live by laws, which they have had great opportunity to change, that are in conflict with those that we would want to live by.

"Freeing an oppressed people", is exactly what happened. They are no longer being forced to live by Sharia law (or one interpretation thereof), instead they are chosing to live by the values they hold dear. Just as most western countries chose to live by Judeo/Christian values.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by lordjames

Do you not know what human rights are?

Executing someone on the basis of his religious affiliation doesn't strike me as respect for one's human rights.

It doesn't strike me as a respectful thing to do either. What I wanted was that you might back up your stance with documents which in some way indicated that every country, or at least Afghanistan had to abide by the morals which you and I consider common sense, or human rights.

Instead I get a smart-ass remark.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?