Saudi women and the right to drive.

[Envy]

I'm not dehumanizing them. I'm simply killing them. That effectively keeps them from subjugating, torturing and killing the women in their country.

I would also have killed Hitler and all of his active supporters, had I lived at that time and had had the power to do so. They too were all too human.

How active is "active"?

 

[mlp]

I didn't say "all" - I said "most." If you think that "most" of them are not supporting and participating in the current treatment of women, I'd be interested to see the basis for your opinion.

With respect to Hitler, please note I said "active supporters." If that had meant killing more people actively engaged in genocide and aggressor warfare than the number of innocent victims if they were left to do what they did, I would have been O.K. with that. I mean, if I see an arena full of people set on stoning a thirteen year old girl, I would not hesitate to kill all of them to save her.

With the Israelis and the Palestinians, there is wrong and violence on both sides, just like there has been for all thge generations between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. Apples and oranges.

 

[mlp]

How active is "active"?

Well, there's the beauty of the magic button when it comes to Hitler and his cohorts - if you had it early enough, and used it, you wouldn't have had to kill all that many people to stop the genocide and avert WWII, at least WWII in the form that it happened.

Absent that magic button, though, I suspect that Das Nut feels that taking Hitler out through the means of participating in WWII and defeating Germany was A. O.K. Of course, a whole hell of a lot of people died in that process, the totally innocent as well as the just averagely innocent as well as the perpetrators..

 

[das_nut]

But I'm really interested in your education alternative, Das Nut. Please tell us more about your plan.

I think for any plan to be effective, you're going to have to address the cultural norms held by all Saudis. For as much as you are focusing on the men, there's a surprising high amount of support by women for the restrictive policies now in place. So:

1. Removal of all censorship of the press, television, and Internet. The media is a powerful tool for changing peoples' thinking.

2. Education of both genders should be called for. It can even be an education that pushes the rights of women by emphasizing the many strong, powerful women in Islamic history.

3. Increasing women's participation in government. (Actually, considering that Saudi Arabia is close to an absolute monarchy, increasing everyone's participation in government). To increase women's participation, I think a period of gender quotas for government office should be called for, even if only temporarily.

4. Removal of all laws and regulations restricting women.

5. Increase the penalty for violence against women.

So, in short, that's (1) increase the exposure of Saudis to other ways of living, (2) increase their knowledge of equal rights, (3 & 4) empower women (and men) to be able to change their situation and (5) punish those who are guilty of dis-empowering women.

Now, if you're like me and a fellow American, its going to be hard to do this unless we invade the country, which is a bad idea on so many levels. But we can push our government to create incentives for Saudis to change. For example, what if we had mandatory quotas for foreigners who wish to study at US universities? For every Saudi man that's educated in the US, there should be one Saudi woman who is also educated in the US. (Heck, why don't we expand this to all countries? Sounds like a good idea.) We could also push for economic trade penalties for countries that don't have a sizable amount of women in government, or that censor the Internet, or that don't have a free press. (Unfortunately, oil is pretty fungible, and Saudi Arabia is not our major source of oil, so the effect would be somewhat limited, but it is a good policy to have.) We could also encourage more people from nations like these to visit the US. (Again, lets have a quota - for every Saudi businessman who visits the US, there needs to be a Saudi woman who also comes to the US.) We can also encourage more immigration, since America tends towards a far more liberal form of Islam than the Wahhabism that's prevalent in Saudi Arabia.

 

[das_nut]

And if you had a magic button, you could do anything. For example, instead of killing Hitler, make sure his art career was successful. Problem solved - one mediocre artist gets famous, and WWII is adverted.

Of course, this assumes that the economic problems of the interwar years of Germany wouldn't give rise to another fascist aggressive leader, and the anti-semitism and racism of the time wouldn't lead to persecution and violence against Jews and other people.

Or perhaps another nation would have triggered WWII - after all, without an aggressive Germany, we still have the USSR's aggressiveness towards Finland and the Baltic countries, and in our history, both the UK and France were thinking of military action in support of the Finns. In our timeline, the ongoing Phoney War made such intervention unlikely. But without an aggressive Germany, there wouldn't be that hindrance. We could have a WWII between Western Europe and the USSR. Which may have some other bad effects - after all, in our history, Europe and America was against Japanese aggression by the end of the 1930s. The reason why Japan decided to attack the US and the European SE Asian colonies when they did was because the West cut off the flow of oil they needed for their war machine that was committing atrocities in China. But maybe, in this history, the West wouldn't be so quick to annoy a potential ally that could harass Stalin in the east.

Hmmm.

The magic buttons that end up killing people are the wrong way to go. Lets instead wish for magic buttons that enlighten all the people so that such acts are unthinkable.

 

[mlp]

I agree that your items 1-5 make sense. I don't think that your proposals for getting those implemented are at all realistic or effective.

As far as the one-to-one ratio for admitting foreign students - countries like S.A. will just send their young men elsewhere.

Trade penalties - we've seen how effective those are (you really need global support and no loopholes - that has never yet happened), and who suffers (the poor, never the ruling classes).

And more immigration - get real - first you have to change the prevailing winds here on immigration matters. Then you really need a very sizeable influx of immigrants, with the women actually allowed access to the external world (see the sizeable immigrant communities in parts of Europe for an example of how sequestered women continue to be), and then you need to have sizeable portions of future generations going back to the countries of origin.

 

[mlp]

The magic buttons that end up killing people are the wrong way to go. Lets instead wish for magic buttons that enlighten all the people so that such acts are unthinkable.

Nah. I think I'll wish for a magic button that renders all human kind immediately sterile. That'll solve a lot more problems.

Which just highlights how silly all of your outrage really has been.

 

[mlp]

Although, come to think of it, it would be a whole lot easier to design a virus that infects only humans carrying a Y chromosome than it would be to do some super mind altering drug that renders everyone compassionate. Probably could be done in our lifetimes.

 

[das_nut]

As far as the one-to-one ratio for admitting foreign students - countries like S.A. will just send their young men elsewhere.

I think you'd have some takers. The US does have some excellent universities. And you could increase the incentives by partially or completely subsidizing the education for some students.

Trade penalties - we've seen how effective those are (you really need global support and no loopholes - that has never yet happened), and who suffers (the poor, never the ruling classes).

That's the problem with almost any solution - those who have the least ironically face the most risk.

Perhaps instead, considering that oil if a fungible good and can be sold to anyone, the solution would be to create a fair-trade sort of oil, where Western consumers would pay a premium for oil from companies that engage in fair practices in regards to gender. That incentives producers to engage in such practices. Of course, then you're hurting the poor that's buying the oil. Dang this real world, where nothing is perfect!

And more immigration - get real - first you have to change the prevailing winds here on immigration matters. Then you really need a very sizeable influx of immigrants, with the women actually allowed access to the external world (see the sizeable immigrant communities in parts of Europe for an example of how sequestered women continue to be), and then you need to have sizeable portions of future generations going back to the countries of origin.

That's one thing that America does seem to do better than Europe. Our immigrants seem to integrate to a better degree. Although you wouldn't necessarily need them to go back to the countries of origin. You're discounting the effect on their relatives back home, who they probably will communicate with.

 

[das_nut]

Although, come to think of it, it would be a whole lot easier to design a virus that infects only humans carrying a Y chromosome than it would be to do some super mind altering drug that renders everyone compassionate. Probably could be done in our lifetimes.

There's a graphic novel that deals with a virus that kills everyone with a Y chromosome. It's called "Y: the Last Man". Obviously fiction, but it predicts that society doesn't do so well when you remove half of its members. Industries that tend to be male dominated collapse - for example, oil gets scarce (most oil workers are men), and a few Russian nuclear plants melt down. And of course there's all the problems with men dying while working - not too bad if the guy was a convenience store clerk, but pretty bad if it's a male-dominated crew of an oil tanker.

 

[Freesia]

I think some people would never get the point unless they were the ones who found themselves buried up to their neck in stones. Then they might not be so supportive of "tradition".

 

[das_nut]

I think some people would never get the point unless they were the ones who found themselves buried up to their neck in stones. Then they might not be so supportive of "tradition".

There's probably some people in Saudi Arabia that never will change. But we don't need everyone to agree in order to have the society change. We just need most people to agree.

 

[mlp]

Best case scenario, it will take generations. Remember, these countries aren't isolated in the way you imagine they are. You're overestimating the mellowing influences of Western education. The Saudis have been educating generations of their young men at Oxford and the Ivy League schools, and maintain homes in a number of western countries, including G.B., the U.S., etc. We have for many years educated some of the finest dictators and heads of repressive regimes worldwide.

 

[das_nut]

And how much of the lower class is educated in the West or have homes in the West?

What percentage of people educated in the West are women?

 

[kibbleforlola]

Why do these threads always turn into but what about the menz whine fests?

 

[Envy]

Why do these threads always turn into but what about the menz whine fests?

Well, only that this time, it really didn't become that.

Or rather, in this case, the men are very important to the issue as well.

 

[das_nut]

Why do these threads always turn into but what about the menz whine fests?

I'm against wishing anyone dead because of their gender, regardless of what gender that is (or race, religion, ethnic background, etc).

That's not a "but what about the menz" whinefest. It's simply speaking out against wishing genocide based on biology. I believe that's a pro-human viewpoint myself.

Well, only that this time, it really didn't become that.

Or rather, in this case, the men are very important to the issue as well.

Men and women both. Most Saudi women are for wearing the veil and for other restrictions on women. You need to change the entire culture, not just men. One promising sign is the literacy rate among women - it's gone from nearly negligible to the majority of the women population in about 40 years. That's a promising sign. Being able to read allows one to open up their world. Now if we can reduce the censorship, we'll be seeing women exposed more and more to alternatives. If Saudi women can see good Muslim women in other countries who can drive, who can vote, who do participate in government, who don't require guardians all the time, those Saudi women are going to question more and more the restrictions on women in Saudi Arabia.

 

[mlp]

And how much of the lower class is educated in the West or have homes in the West?

What percentage of people educated in the West are women?

Precisely. And that's not going to change.

 

[Forster]

I'm trying to decide whether I care enough to look up that reference. Probably not.

Nukes generate a lot of heat, lots of sand in the Mideast, when it melts, viola glass.

 

[mlp]

Nukes generate a lot of heat, lots of sand in the Mideast, when it melts, viola glass.

Ah, O.K.

Not a fan of bombs. They kill too many innocent humans, not even to mention all the nonhuman animals.