Is Saudi Arabia The Ultimate Evil Empire?

Ok. Since you are a genius, and far too intelligent to be taken in by the liberal values which allow you to freely be an asshole on the internet and criticize governments and religions, please explain something to me.

What is it about middle east cultures that make you think it's ok to treat women, criminals, dissidents, and apostates the way that you would never allow them to be treated at home? Why can they behave this way and that's just dandy in your eyes, because "they've been doing it for thousands of years".?

Maybe we should re-instate slavery in the US, since they were doing it for hundreds of years?

 

I do not think it's "OK" to treat anyone the way they're treated, but then again I have no say in the matter since I am not of that country or its predominate religion. Nor are outside governments who use this as one of the many justifications to invade sovereign nations to wage war while killing a whole bunch of innocent people in the process. It's pretty fucking disgusting we have people who take issue with the way women are treated in the Islamic countries, yet are silent when the US military slaughters an entire village of people and simply calls it "collateral damage" under the phony guise that we care about liberating these people. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I am all for SOVEREIGN nations having their own cultures, as barbaric as they may be and as much as I may disagree with those cultures, without having outside militaries backed by corporate interests come in to mow people down so that foreign governments and multinational corporations can come in and set up shop with their twisted culture people here think is so liberating.

 

Our President tells us not to be hating on Islamic culture.

Is he correct?

 

Yes, he says things that are true sometimes. I don't see any need to hate anyone.

I am also mindful of the fact that Obama doesn't say a thing his handlers (call them his advisers, etc.) don't tell him to say.

 

The last couple pages of this thread have turned into garbage

 

So you value the sovereignty of nations over the wellbeing of conscious beings?

You understand that a nation is a mental construct? An idea, on paper? A legal entity?

I'm more interested in stopping the torture of those entities who can actually feel torture as torture.

I would violate every single right of every single sovereign nation in the universe if it meant doing the right thing with regards to conscious beings.

 

1) Not really. I simply don't see the US military as caring much about people's well-being.

2) I absolutely do. However nations are preferable to a global dictatorship where a small handful have total control over everything. The people in control want to eviscerate any concept of nation states. The EU is a precursor to this.

3) Then obviously you are vocal about the torture carried out by militaries like the US and Israel.

4) Who are you to decide what's right for somebody else living in a different nation and culture, whose reality is far different from your own? What makes you think they want your version of "right."

 

!Nope
2Nope
'3 THen why did you ask the first two?

YOu violated yourself.

 

YOu know it doesn't do any good to have a free speech forum unless people know the meaning of freedom. Freedom means freedom from harm. The freedom to be harmed is being incarcerated.

 

Good point. What's not completely worthless to realize either is that former generations of our culture/society used to identify and sympathize a lot more with that apect of their culture and life. It's only relatively recent that we as a society and culture have developed in a way that we now find this aspect of their culture problematic.

But it is also true that their government is enforcing this way of life through oppressive laws.

 

Maybe the question in the thread title is subjective. What is the ultimate evil might depend per person. What if a lot of Saudi Arabia's practices are made possible by our own nations, which are publicly convicted but secretly condoned? How does this make our nations good or better? Is hypocricy to the point of being partially responsible not just as evil (I rather use the term bad)?

Why would Saudi Arabia 'win' this of North Korea for example? Because we personally feel more concerened about the dreadful issues in the first? And why is that? So, in regards to the question in the thread title: are lack of women's rights worse than a lot of people dying of hunger? Yeah, I feel kind of mean asking this question. I would feel kind of dubious for seriously asking the question in the thread title too.

I think so. If you have a real strong dislike (or even hate) be sure to target it appropriately.

 

I assumed the title was rhetorical, as Saudi Arabia doesn't have an empire as such. Clearly it's derived from Regan's comments about the Soviet Union.

Worse than North Korea? Probably, as their oppression is clearly a political thing, whilst the Saudis imagine that God has told them they must do all this unpleasant stuff.

 

I wouldn't blindly assume that the rulers of Saudi Arabia believe their own legitimations for their position and actions, BB (even if they themselves might say so ) Do you think Henry the 8th did?

Most dubious rulers are not that naive, they generally just (ab)use such legitimations for their own benefits, needs or cause.

 

I doubt very much they fully believe it. However, they do use it as a means of oppression. Without the justification from the Koran, it would be clear that this is just a nasty regime set up by oppressive humans. Because they base it on their interpretation of Islam, it makes it look more than human to the population who are devout Muslims.

I'm pretty sure Henry 8th didn't believe in the reformation, other then as a means to get more power and a divorce.

 

Exactly. Bush 2.0 then expanded the concept with his infamous Axis of Evil speech.

Like the old USSR, SA's wealth has allowed its toxic influence to reach nearly every part of the world, mostly through the private financing of terrorism.

My impression is that Iran's leaders are much more theological in their outlook than those of SA.

 

If you mean those ayatollah's, yeah. They're probably (hey I don't know them in person, who knows what they really believe) one of the exceptions. That's why I said 'most' But if you notice how they got their place in government in the last century you'll see it is a really different situation than in Saudi Arabia!

 

Another difference from Iran is that the Iranian government officially supports (financially and in other ways) terrorist activities. Considerably more money comes from Saudi Arabia, but it's all private contributions.

 

I'm really bad on current events... Isn't Saudi Arabia one of the main oil producing countries in the world?