[karajorma]

So in this case we're more looking at someone who makes off with some gum or a candy bar every time they go to the grocery store telling a car jacker to knock it off.

Add in that this someone has a very good friend who is also a carjacker but who never gets told to knock it off and then you might be closer to the truth.

[Asuko]

Plus, as far as I know, nobody (outside of this forum, at least) is telling Iran to live up to any treaty.  They're telling Iran to knock it off because it's not just against a treaty, it's sickening and repulsive.  Most of the people outside of this forum saying that are the ones pressuring Bush to end the torture at Gitmo and the ones backing the Roper case.

What part of Iran is sickening and repulsive? It's a completely different culture and you end up making the assumption that our society is better than theirs. This is only a perspective.

Then again, what right is there to say such a thing? Iran is a country as much as we are and they can make their own decisions, if you believe in what America is for.

[Nuclear1]

Then again, what right is there to say such a thing? Iran is a country as much as we are and they can make their own decisions, if you believe in what America is for.

Iran has the right to make its own decisions, but I have the right to not agree with them.  Since the majority of Iranians would agree with me that the Iranian government isn't the best government the country could have, then I'd say Iran is spot-on to make some new decisions.

While Iran does have the right to make its own decisions, does that make what it does in violation of any sort of natural or human right correct?  Doesn't unjustly convicting and hanging a 16-year-old girl on bogus charges purely inspired by religious fanaticism somehow violate what government is about?

I'm not intolerant of other cultures, as you seem to think I am; I'm intolerant of governments oppressing their constituents and citizens and then attempting to place some big bad other country as the scapegoat for all the country's internal and external problems when, in reality, it's the country's own government attempting to abuse religion in order to have its citizens blindly obey or be ostracized. 

And yes, I'm referring to both the US and Iran, since there's a lot of problems with both.  However, the US is in a position to actually fix itself--elections, the Supreme Court, Congress, and the First Amendment.  Iran, on the other hand, is ruled by an ultra-conservative wacko who constantly tempts the West into bombing his country back to the Stone Age just to prove a point about "The Great Satan."  Religion, not the the rule of law, dominates; human rights are dictated by the Qu'ran, in some cases inaccurately...  As JFK said, those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.  The way Iran's going, I'm afraid we're going to see violent revolution inevitably...

[Asuko]

Thank goodness. I thought I was going to get heated into another flame war.

What was that part about human rights being dictated in the Qu'ran inaccurately?

[Nuclear1]

I might be wrong, but I remember there being some passages in the Qu'ran saying something to the effect of what every Abrahamic holy text had said; you know, the whole "love thy neighbor" concept.  What I'm saying is that ultra-conservative Islamic governments pick-and-choose what passages they want their constituents to believe in.

Which is why there, worldwide, needs to be one of those big, fat walls of separation between church and state.

[karajorma]

I don't think there is anything which directly translates to the same concept but if you take the good passages as a whole it certain has the same effect.

[Asuko]

So, there is a general agreement that parts of the Qu'ran were taken out of context and used to convey extremism, whether in Iran or otherwise. That's about it.

[karajorma]

I don't think there is any doubt about that.

[Bobboau]

yeah the Abrahamic religions all have there "and take them to the city gates and ****ing beat them to death with rocks, for God does not condone those who double dip" verses.