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Originally Posted by Flash Walken
50 years ago people in the west were chemically castrating homosexuals, putting them in prison or killing them outright. It wasn't until 2003 that anti-sodomy laws were struck down by the US supreme Court (That's just 12 short years ago, around the same time Klein was threatening to use the non-withstanding clause to prevent equal rights for homosexuals).
Buggery was a death sentence in England years after it had been decriminalized in India.
It wasn't even 200 years ago that the United States nearly split in two over the idea of Slavery.
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Quite right. So why did things change? How?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Flash Walken
Are you suggesting that the Arab world is somehow less capable of evolving from tribalistic or religious notions like Western society has?
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I'm saying that it's worth noting that the Arab world is about a century behind the West when it comes to a lot of important social issues. It's always good to start any discussion with factual knowledge, no matter how distressing those facts, rather than work backwards from how we want the world to be (or who we want the villain of the story to be).
Liberals don't hesitate to denounce evangelical American conservatives as a threat to liberal values. Why should ultra-conservatives be treated any differently just because they're from a different religion or ethnicity? Bad ideas are bad ideas, regardless of who holds them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Flash Walken
I'm not saying you are, but pointing at public opinion polls doesn't tell us anything at all except for contemporary feelings.
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Don't contemporary feelings matter? Opinion polls show half of Americans are fiercely protective of their rights to own personal firearms. That matters, because it's the reason it's so hard to restrict gun ownership, and it contributes to lots of people dying.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Flash Walken
Unless you are of the belief that Arabs themselves are incapable of cultural evolution, there MUST be something else at work here.
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Two things:
Islam does not have a 'render unto Caesar' approach to civil authority. That makes it much more difficult to separate religious observance from public laws. Yes, Christians often try to influence public policy to reflect their beliefs. But they aren't strongly encouraged to do so by the bible.
The Arab world has had tremendous difficulty adapting to the modernity for a host of historical and political reasons, some of which can be laid at the feet of the West, but some of which are self-inflicted. Fiercely patriarchal, anti-cosmopolitan, warrior-culture, backward-looking societies are going to fail in the modern world. There are demographics at work as well. Very high birth rates by the least educated, in a society that discourages girls from learning to read, is not a recipe for success.
And to be clear, I'm not saying Muslims can't be good citizens and neighbours in a secular country. I'm perfectly okay with the Syrian refugee plans in Canada, and I don't have any problem with Muslims immigrating to Canada. For the most part, those who come here are quite willing to live in a secular country. And since we tend to attract educated immigrants, I don't expect Canada will have Europe's problem of an enduring underclass of uneducated and un-assimilated Muslims. Let's applaud and welcome secular-leaning Muslims in our communities, and treat the ultra-conservatives the same way we treat ultra-conservative Christians - with a wariness and vigilance to ensure they don't undermine our liberal values. That's where the struggle is really going to be fought - between moderate Muslims and conservative Muslims. But let's not kid ourselves about the proportion of the one to the other globally.