Quote:
|
Originally Posted by loquitur
willravel, you need to see a real theocracy in action if you think we're anywhere close to one here. A place where women can't be seen in public without elaborate cover, where your hand gets cut off for theft, where if you happen to have a religion different from the accepted one you have to hide your worship, where you can't criticize the rulers or, worse, criticize the majority religion. We are very very far from that.
|
My point is that thing aren't black and white. Iran is not this crazy oppressed nation of Islamofacists the way everyone wants to make it. It's an Islamic republic, which means that it's a theocratic government that features representation of the populace. It's similar to the way the US would be if the Christians were to appoint Justices to somehow abolish the separation of church and state. They have legislation, judicial, economic, and other policy decisions by running them through the Qu'ran like a filter, to make sure that they agree with Islamic law. Luckily, the Qu'ran is really quite well written and teaches peace and equality, which brings us back to ratbastid's comment about freedom of youth culture in Iran as proof of my claim.
I'm still left wondering which is worse, removing the hand of a thief or spending millions on the asshole and sending him to a place that will harden him as a criminal and that will make him MORE likely to break the law again. Do you think one handed Frank is going to steal again? BTW, many in Iran are pushing for removing things like that from law. Obviously, things like stoning to death for adultery, hand removal for robbery, 80 lashes for slander or intoxication are a bit stern and no longer have a place in Iran. The nice thing about religious texts that are hundreds of years old is you can feel free to interpret it in whatever way suits you, so saying that removing of hands can mean lashing the hands until the stolen goods are removed from the hands would be kosher. I also get the impression that if the president/oval office monkey didn't have his finger on the button, the ME would feel a little more safe trying to move forward on their own.