I know a young woman who spent about 48 hours in Dhubai and found her treatment by the locals to be completely humiliating and degrading. And she was there on a business trip with male co-workers.
Ironically, the last time we had this conversation i likened living in a Muslim majority/sharia ruled country to the unlikely/impossible scenario of the US being ruled by Christian Dominionists but the Dominionists actually have a foot in the White House now so living under the hell of religious law might actually be reality rather than a theoretical.
Nah, America will never become a Christian Caliphate. I think the reactions we’re seeing to the Trump Administration right now, only 1 month in, are proof of that. Conservative Christians are only a part of the Republican base, and they are not a strong enough political bloc to seize and maintain power on their own. Other conservatives are waking up to the fact that they’ve been had by the Trump Administration. People who voted Trump for a single issue, like SCOTUS, small business or manufacturing jobs, are beginning to recognize the deal they made was with a devil. He will not enjoy the same support a second time, and the opposition will be far more mobilized against him.
Bottom line, there are far too many non-Christians and Christians who do not subscribe to fundamentalist values in this country to ever let religious law overcome constitutional law.
Mate I completely agree, the sentence after what you quoted was “I think the way forward for human rights in poorer countries is development and exposure to more cultures and religions” which sounds like an extremely paraphrased version of your own argument. Hooray for agreement!
Except Christianity, that gets a free pass amirite?
Dubai, is one of the biggest tourist destinations in the world right now, and if that young woman’s experience was typical, it’d be a largely known and discussed issue.
I have traveled through Dubai many times, and while their airport and customs people have never been friendly (borderline rude in fact), the area overall has generally been pleasant.
We had to redefine hypocrisy sometime ago here so arguments can be applied to scenarios that benefit an individual’s self interest but are completely okay to back out of when talking about someone else’s point-of-view in the same scenario.
Actually you don’t even have to really do that. Just look at Christian evangelicals. They tack right in line with Muslims on these sorts of issues. Like the percentages are nearly identical.
My apologies, I didn’t mean for my comment to be taken as a comment directly back to you, but as one to the thread in general. Poor quote phrasing on my part. I saw your comment about human rights and completely agree, so I expounded upon it in my post while taking a swipe in general at numbers like the ones you quoted (while making the same point).
So yes, complete agreement rocks! Internet high five my friend! =)
Try going there as a SE Asian and you can experience the irony of being treated like a subhuman by a Gulf Arab.
No, fuck those people too.
edit: Just to clarify, they can believe whatever they want until they start infringing upon other people’s rights. Sorry, the pain pills resulted in a truncated response.
You made me laugh, Teiman :)
The rest of you suck at being optimistic.
Like a kaleidoscope.
The guy in the last pic looks like David Cross (the guy from Mr Show).
OK, you got a legitimate LOL from me. Good show.
Yeah, sorry, I should’ve made a LOL post like dive^3 here. I certainly did LOL. :)
Nicely done slipping that last pic in there.
“There are dozens of us!” LOL.
On the subject of optimism…
That speech was FAR better than I had anticipated. It’s obvious that Trump had assistance in writing it, and was using a prompter rather than trying to wing it. Maybe he’s finally coming around to the fact that he needs to at least make an attempt at appearing and sounding Presidential. That said, it still sounded way too much like a campaign rally speech.
There were positive overtones to it among all the “facts” and self-congratulatory back patting. There was quite a bit of lip service paid to bi-partisan efforts and bridging the divide. This would make me a hell of a lot more hopeful if it wasn’t Trump making the claims though, as I sincerely doubt both his ability and his cabinet’s desire to reach across the aisle in any meaningful way, especially with Bannon still running the show.
Some trash was talked, a few impossible promises were made, but in the end a lot of solid goals were set forth that make sense for the country. One I especially liked was the idea that it’s time for a new New Deal, a stabilization of the economy paired with an investment in infrastructure that could combine to placate the rural and lower-middle class segments that came out heavily for Trump in 2016. Of course that assumes those segments are OK with changing careers into construction, transportation and infrastructure jobs and aren’t just waiting for him to bring “60,000 factories” back to the Heartland (which is never going to happen).
Anyway, this is the Optimism thread, so there is my optimism. Better speech than I expected, touched on some topics I feel are import to work on immediately, and didn’t have an epic “Oh my God, did he really just say that” moment. Low expectations - Achieved!