NFT: Your feel-good Afghanistan news

Horrendous crimes against a 10 yr old are ok there

who are we to judge.

In comment 11774148 Moondwg said:

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who are we to judge.

I'm pretty comfortable passing judgment. A culture in which a 10 year old can be accused of consenting to sex and the family can respond by plotting an honor killing is a culture that deserves to be relegated to anthropology texts. This isn't representative of Afghanistan as a whole, but these sort of things can only happen in a place where women and girls are so devalued that they can do little but impugn family honor.

In comment 11774166 Dunedin81 said:

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In comment 11774148 Moondwg said: Quote: who are we to judge. I'm pretty comfortable passing judgment. A culture in which a 10 year old can be accused of consenting to sex and the family can respond by plotting an honor killing is a culture that deserves to be relegated to anthropology texts. This isn't representative of Afghanistan as a whole, but these sort of things can only happen in a place where women and girls are so devalued that they can do little but impugn family honor.

I was being ironic and mocking the cultural-relativism idiots I mingle with on a near-daily basis.

I was just about to launch into a whole diatribe shitting on cultural relativism.

In comment 11774179 Wuphat said:

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I was just about to launch into a whole diatribe shitting on cultural relativism.

I thought you guys knew me better than that. (sad face)

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but I wanted an excuse to write that.

Seems like the maturity equivalent of the salem witch hunts of the 1600s.

was light years ahead of this garbage.

you're not human.

Cases like this illustrate the utter impotence of "gender-feminism" to actually help women, as opposed to classical feminism, which was--and is--vitally important in both America and all around the world. The former is a mash of glib french relativism, religiously-felt marxism softened for the masses, and emotional hostility toward the west. Given its cheap and facile relativism, and teenage "blame America first" attitude, it has no basis from which to criticize these practices. And girls continue to life a nightmare (until they are murdered).

For a short article which touches on this, from the perspective of a classical feminist philosopher, see the link below. Here's an excerpt.

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In the new video series that you've created with American Enterprise—"Factual Feminist"—you recently answered the question, "Why Call Yourself a Feminist?" A reader wrote in and asked you to drop the moniker because it's been so "sullied" with man-hating rhetoric. You basically responded that you simply want women to be "free, responsible, self-determining beings." That your concept of feminism has nothing to do with "denigrating men or fixating on victimhood." How do your studies and writings help forge a much-needed, "healthy, evidence-based women's movement." What does evidence-based mean exactly? A:Classical equality of opportunity feminism (I call it “freedom feminism”) is a legitimate human rights movement. There were arbitrary laws holding women back. Women organized and set things right. But, as I try to show in my writings, that reality-based movement has been hijacked by male-averse, conspiracy-minded activists. (I call them “gender feminists"). American women happen to be among the freest, most self-determining people in the world, but the gender feminists seek to liberate them from an all-encompassing “patriarchal rape culture.” What is their evidence that such a culture exits? They point to their own research as proof. But most of that research, including their famous statistics on women’s victimization, is spurious. Gender feminism is the opposite of an evidence-based movement—it’s propaganda based. Social movements fueled by paranoia and fantasy tend to be toxic. What's your take-away from the #YesAllWomen phenomenon? Is it more gasoline on the gender-dividing fire, a societal zeitgeist or something in the middle? A:Hashtag feminism (e.g. #YesAllWomen) is a scourge. It brings out the worst in contemporary feminism: injustice-collecting, trauma-valorizing, male-bashing. It also encourages group think and vigilanteeism. Other than that, it’s fine. What's next on the horizon? A:The Millennials have been cheated out of a serious education by their Baby Boomer teachers. Call it a generational swindle. Even the best and brightest among the 20-somethings have been shortchanged. Instead of great books, they wasted a lot of time with third-rate political tracts and courses with titles like "Women Writers of the Oklahoma Panhandle." Instead of spending their college years debating and challenging received ideas, they had to cope with speech codes and identity politics. College educated young women in the U.S. are arguably the most fortunate people in history; yet many of them have drunk deeply from the gender feminist Kool-Aid. Girls at Yale, Haverford and Swarthmore see themselves as oppressed. That is madness. And madness can only last so long. So, I plan to continue writing books and articles, making my Factual Feminist videos and lecturing at as many campuses and laws schools as I can. American colleges have been described as islands of repression in a sea of freedom. I want to encourage rebellion among the islanders.

link here.
Link - ( New Window )

written not long after the fall of the Iron Curtain. She was addressing a convention of American feminists. She held up a sanitary pad and declared that communism's failure, for women and more generally, owed to an inability to meet the basic needs of the population. The utter incomprehension of the audience struck her. It's not that different from Afghanistan. The government allows for some carve-outs in corners of a somewhat cosmopolitan Kabul, so long as the donor dollars keep coming, but the penetration of these ideas is shallow and fleeting and women in the rest of the country couldn't even begin to understand the language of Western feminist consciousness.

But someone recently made the point that feminist activists focus most of their ire on rather egalitarian first world societies because it's much easier than trying to do something about the plight of women in places like Afghanistan.

Was probably pretty similar.

It was horrifying in its own right, but you sound pretty shallow when you make a facile comparison between a singular event and a longstanding culture. You might have more of a point if hanging people for witchcraft were a widespread, common occurance in the Massachusetts Bay colony, but it wasn't.

had a somewhat representative government, due process and the like. The majority was tyrannical and the due process still ended in the same place, but these distinctions are not insignificant. Plus they eventually stopped the witchhunt, whereas Afghanistan's version is still going strong.

were more relevant, that was, you know, 300 years ago.

here is a famous takedown of the queen-bee of gender theory by another, more "traditional" sort of feminist.

There are many things that Martha Nussbaum may say that I don't agree with, but I'd give her a high five for this one.

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There is a void, then, at the heart of Butler's notion of politics. This void can look liberating, because the reader fills it implicitly with a normative theory of human equality or dignity. But let there be no mistake: for Butler, as for Foucault, subversion is subversion, and it can in principle go in any direction. Indeed, Butler's naively empty politics is especially dangerous for the very causes she holds dear. For every friend of Butler, eager to engage in subversive performances that proclaim the repressiveness of heterosexual gender norms, there are dozens who would like to engage in subversive performances that flout the norms of tax compliance, of non-discrimination, of decent treatment of one's fellow students. To such people we should say, you cannot simply resist as you please, for there are norms of fairness, decency, and dignity that entail that this is bad behavior. But then we have to articulate those norms--and this Butler refuses to do.

Martha Nussbaum 1, Judith Butler, 0 - ( New Window )

you just have to look at the Catholic church.

Somehow we are able to distinguish between perverted priests that molest and rape children and the corrupt institution that abetted them, and the entire Catholic religion and its followers.

I'm not sure why that same reasonableness isn't extended to our views of the Muslim world.

because Catholic families routinely blame pre-pubescent boys for being seductive and kill them to salvage the family honor.

Fucking moron.

No one's even talking about Islam, really. We're talking about Afghan tribal culture.

so that's the distinction that matters? Why?

And what is your point here? To shit on Muslims? To feel superior about your culture? What exactly are you driving at?

In comment 11774339 chris r said:

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you just have to look at the Catholic church. Somehow we are able to distinguish between perverted priests that molest and rape children and the corrupt institution that abetted them, and the entire Catholic religion and its followers. I'm not sure why that same reasonableness isn't extended to our views of the Muslim world.

Chris - that analogy fails on multiple levels, specifically, I don't see anything remotely comparable to honor killings and children being forced to live with their attackers in lieu of being murdered.

Of that cultural relativism we were discussing earlier.

And, in particular, the fact that it is the girl's own family who is likely to murder her.

of yourself to mess with us? As a grand joke? If so, nice job!

Always pointing due Dumb.

I'm appropriating that one, Wu.

I wouldn't say nothing, because it is Afghanistan's unique relationship with Islam that makes things like this happen there and not elsewhere (likewise child brides in India, among other gender-related issues, owe to particulars of Indian religious and cultural experience - or that of regions within India), but it's the importance of valuing women more generally that acts as a corrective to stories like this, and sadly Afghanistan outside Kabul has a long way to go to do this.

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In comment 11774342 Dunedin81 said:

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because Catholic families routinely blame pre-pubescent boys for being seductive and kill them to salvage the family honor. Fucking moron.

The first rule for arguing with a fool is "Don't".

In comment 11774378 Wuphat said:

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I am too. That is pure gold.

radar'd.

In comment 11774366 Wuphat said:

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Always pointing due Dumb.

he wouldn't know due Dumb unless it were the opposite direction of where everyone else's compasses were pointed.

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In comment 11774366 Wuphat said:

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Always pointing due Dumb.

Summa cum Jocus!

he does help to unit people, who have historically disagreed on many things (as seen on this thread).

So bravo radar for your unifying effect. Only you (well...maybe few others as well) would post such imbecilic comments that we all agree is fucking stupid.

I'm very glad that there oceans dividing us from a majority of the world

In comment 11774634 RC02XX said:

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he does help to unit people, who have historically disagreed on many things (as seen on this thread).

It helps to see the good in things.

In comment 11774698 Moondwg said:

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It helps to see the good in things.

That's me..."glass is half full" kind of a guy.

In comment 11774815 RC02XX said:

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In comment 11774698 Moondwg said: Quote: It helps to see the good in things. That's me..."glass is half full" kind of a guy.

A gentle beacon of light in a dark world.

chris r would be in Chris Young territory for 2014.

Just brutal posts on a routine basis.

His purpose is to sting people and whip them into a fury, all in the service of truth.




In his own mind.

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about how no molestation victim is forced to either be murdered or MARRY THE PRIEST in the aftermath of the crime's public exposure, but maybe this paragaph from the article will provide further distinction for you?

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The girl's own testimony, and medical evidence, supported a rape so violent that it caused a fistula, or a break in the wall between the vagina and rectum, according to the police and the official bill of indictment. She bled so profusely after the attack that she was at one point in danger of losing her life because of a delay in getting medical care.

but I didn't want to legitimize the existing ISIS thread started by the troll.

But it does fit in well with the sardonic "feel good news" theme of this thread...
Iraqi jihadists order genital mutilation of all women - ( New Window )