Woman jailed in Saudi Arabia

[Kailen]

The point of that last about the clintons, sharpton and your Uncle Jesse; is these people are notorious for spinning bits and pieces of information in the sake of what they say is saving the common man.

When reality another way for them to control the people, take their nuts away and have them become dependent upon the socialist system.

[leira]

Originally posted by Yarzin
The point of that last about the clintons, sharpton and your Uncle Jesse; is these people are notorious for spinning bits and pieces of information in the sake of what they say is saving the common man.

When reality another way for them to control the people, take their nuts away and have them become dependent upon the socialist system.

Um, okay. But Malacasta wasn't talking about the Clintons, Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, or socialism in this thread. She was talking about things like women fighting for the right to vote, and african-americans fighting for fair treatment. She wasn't talking about people like Al Sharpton, she was talking about people like Martin Luther King.

[Kailen]

You've completely missed the boat

[leira]

Originally posted by Yarzin
You've completely missed the boat

I've been trying to do this nicely, but I'm quickly growing impatient with it. You, in fact, are the one that missed the boat. You are flaming and insulting Malacasta for nothing that has to do with this thread. Let's take a look at your first post to Malacasta shall we:

Originally posted by Yarzin
The only thing that is artificial is the peddling of your beliefs of caring about the common man/woman. When in reality, its just smokes and mirrors; cryptic propaganda sought out to give ARTIFICIAL hope to those who truly seek to obtain a dream ; a dream of a better tomorrow, a dream of becoming whatever they wish; a dream not based on race, social class or gender when attempting to obtain their goals.

This is absolutely ridiculous. Malacasta hadn't been "peddling her beliefs of caring about the common man/woman" until AFTER you made this bullshit post intended to insult her and her political beliefs. Here's every post Malacasta made in this thread before you started flaming her:

Originally posted by Malacasta
Sometimes your schadenfreude is sickening Saveric. What did this woman do to deserve your wrath, and the indignity of being strip searched, jailed and condemned to hell?

Any theocracy is vile, and it is the theocracy that deserves your hatred, not the poor victims of its rule. I had read about this case earlier today on Daily Kos, and I must say that that author's anger was far more eloquent and pointed than yours.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2...9120/450/452109

Originally posted by Malacasta
What does it mean when someone says "is there anything sweeter?" In this particular case, the author said "Poetic Justice - is there anything sweeter?" To me that means, is there anything more wonderful, more satisfying, more enjoyable. I mean he could have said "Poetic Justice can be a bitch", but instead chose to revel in this woman's misery. That's schadenfreude in my book.

Originally posted by Malacasta
I'm proud of the men and woman in Australia (many of them not "Australians" by anything other than current location and many of them Chartists) who fought to win a forty hour week in 1856. I'm proud of the men and women who fought for and won woman's suffrage in 1901. I'm proud of all sorts of movements and individuals that brought change to Australia.

"Australia the nation", however, fought against those changes and killed some of the brave men and woman who struggled to make life better for those around them.

I frankly find it difficult to understand the sentiment of those people who say "Country - love it or leave it". What about changing it for the better?

Originally posted by Malacasta
No. The idea of the nation is meaningless to me in terms of pride (obviously I know nations exist) I'm just as proud of the Hungarian folks who threw out the Russians, or the Spanish folks who fought against Franco, or the American civil rights movement as I am of the movement against Australia's involvement in the first world war. I can be proud of people who do great things without attaching those great things to some sort of artifical border.

There is absolutely no communist(which Malacasta isn't) propoganda or dogma in those posts that I can see. The only time she even hints at caring about the common man/woman is when she states that theocracy should be hated, not the people that suffer from it. That's not propoganda or dogma. I think many people from most political affiliations would agree with her. She had done nothing to warrant the irrational flames you threw at her.

[Aristotle]

Originally posted by Malacasta
I can be proud of people who do great things without attaching those great things to some sort of artifical border.

Again I ask, are you talking about being proud of the dirt and water?

Because if you are talking about being proud of a certain group of people, you are indeed being proud of that nation. It sounds like you are just so against the concept of nationalism that you are stubbornly refusing to acknowledge logic and reason when it comes to the concept of someone being proud of a group of people and giving that group a name.

[Aristotle]

I think we are getting off topic here and starting to get personal. Lets try to pull this back to the issue of what happened to this woman, and then the broader issue of nations protecting or taking away personal liberties for whatever reasons (in Saudi Arabia's case, religious reasons). This naturally drifted to whether or not it is appropriate to be "proud" of one's nation for NOT abusing personal liberties in this manner.

Those are all pretty reasonable topic drifts. Lets stick to those, or even whatever naturally drifts from there (but is still connected). I am fine with topic drift, and I feel it is an important part of forum/usenet style discussions reaching their full potential. But when things get too personal we lose all the benefits of drift.

[Malacasta]

Originally posted by Aristotle
Because if you are talking about being proud of a certain group of people, you are indeed being proud of that nation.

I agree with you that I am proud of a certain group of people Aristotle. I really am. I am proud of left wing activists and working class unionists. My identification is with those people, and I have far more in common with them than I do with say... Rupert Murdoch or Steve Irwin. I share with those people a common interpretation of the world and common ambitions. So if I were to meet an Italian or Japanese left winger, I would (and anecdotally have) be far more likely to consider myself their associate than I would some random Australian.

I'm not trying to be tricky, I'm an internationalist.

[Aristotle]

Originally posted by Malacasta

I'm not trying to be tricky, I'm an internationalist.

Ok, I got ya now. I think perhaps this is somewhat of a canard. It strikes me as being stubbornly "internationalist" if one can never admit to being proud of a nation, while admitting to being proud of the accomplishments of people from that nation.

Nations, while flawed in some ways, do a lot of great things that would not be possible of those nations did not exist.

We are too diverse a species to operate as one international unit. Furthermore, it is better for us that we have choices in the types of societies and governments we prefer to live in.

[Savaric]

Originally posted by Aristotle
We are too diverse a species to operate as one international unit. Furthermore, it is better for us that we have choices in the types of societies and governments we prefer to live in.

*clap clap*

[Runatsu]

First I'd like to apologize for not having the decency to reply to any of your responses.

I'm bogged down in homework, my job, and plain old life, giving me only a little free time. That isn't the only reason though, I get distracted, and then lose interest in things, and is one of the reasons I've been away from Threshold for, sixteen days I believe.

Anyways, to say that I am not proud of America would be a false statement. Perhaps because humans seem to always remember the bad things more then the good things. My father was a Marine for thirteen years and I lived on a base for eight.

What makes me not so happy is things like tax cuts which eventually makes the military assume a few rookies can replace a highly trained aviation mechanic in the assumption that it is more "economical", namely my father. The military was my fathers life, it took him a long time to adjust to a civilian lifestyle.

Both my father and mother are immigrants to this country, from Germany and England respectively. I've been to these countries, lived in England for more then a year and others many times and seen differences, throughout my life.

One of the things that drives me irate is Americans who assume America is the only nation like it. England had given women rights twenty years before America did. Maybe because America is larger, had a whole lot of problems with getting people nationwide to agree on something in the past, but in many cases, it was America that was lagging behind in the simplest of things like rights.

Another thing that I think is crazy, is people who refer to the government or businesses, or any collection of individuals as a single body. Saudi Arabia, America, you can't simply give these names and say that everyone in that nation thinks the same and acts the same. Every country or collection of people under a name, has a large amount of individuals with different ideas and personalities. To assume that everyone in the middle east, or china, or cuba, is bad, is gathering everyone in those nations up and making a general assumption.

Anyways, I should stop ranting. I know no one has replied to this topic in eighteen or so days, but I felt the need to elaborate on my previous post. My apologies for once again being absent. Hopefully I can find more time for discussion.