Asperger's and political activism...........

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Some people are so scared of being seen as being discriminatory that they won't even discriminate between good and bad.
Do we really want to see more honour killings in countries like the UK? Honour killing is undoubtedly a feature of Islamic culture. As is arranged marriage for 12 year old girls. As is female genital mutilation. These practices belong in the Dark Ages.

I wasn't saying the Islamic world can't improve. Cultures evolve. The culture of modern Western Europe is undoubtedly superior to that of medieval Western Europe, where most people were illiterate and witches were burnt at the stake.
The thing is the Islamic world hasn't adapted to modernity very well. Even in the Arab world (especially in the Arab world!) with all their oil wealth, there is still no democracy, there are still high rates of illiteracy, and they still need foreign workers to do the vast majority of their work for them.

And look at the periphery of the Islamic world! Muslims are engaged in fighting and mass-murder almost everywhere: in Sudan, Nigeria, Palestine, Bali, the Philippines, Thailand, Somalia, etc. (Is this all America's fault?! Or are these people still bitter about the Crusades?!)

And by the way, the idea that the women-repressers in the Islamic world have somehow misinterpreted their religion is a myth:

Sure, I agree that Muslim fundamentalism is bad, but so is Christian fundamentalism. However Ascan and Klytus are only using extreme examples of people interpreting the Qu'ran literally.

There is nothing superior about Western capitalism over Eastern Islamic culture. If western leaders were afraid they would loose their power, they would do anything to prevent it. They would be prepared to send millions to their deaths in wars for oil. We are talking about a death toll far higher than a group of poxy Americans getting killed in a terrorist attack.

The very fact that we may feel superior may suggest that we are actually morally inferior to Muslims. I respect Muslims. At least they actually believe in something - a purpose for living, the worship of a higher being. Our leaders don't believe in anything except their own self-interest, and I don't call self-interest or capitalism a "culture".

Sure, I would rather live here than in an Islamic country, but that is because this is what I am used to. A Muslim would probably prefer their own country rather than a godless, principle-less Western culture.

Yeah, right. That's why Europe's swamped with Muslim immigrants fleeing from violence in their countries (caused by Western warmongerers), is it?

I'd guess that most human beings want to be free. Of course, freedom is somewhat subjective, and never, in any human society, absolute. Nonetheless, as far as possible, people want to be free to read what they want, say want they want, associate with whoever they want and to go wherever they want. And that is why we should uphold our civil liberties in the face of an autocratic Blair government that wants to lock people up without trial, and censor what we truly think about terrorism and the state of the world. Why is it that I am not allowed to say that terrorists are actually freedom fighters without the threat of being arrested? Why is it that an 82 year old man can't say that the War in Iraq was wrong without being violently kicked out of the Labour conference by security guards and arrested under the Terrorism Act upon his attempt to return to his seat as a Labour Party member?

Compare Western countries with Islamic countries, and what do you see? Modern societies are shaped by their religion, more noticeably by how that religion is currently interpreted and practised; therefore, you cannot separate Islam from the problems faced by those living in Islamic countries, nor Christianity from the absolute greed and hypocracy and indifference to the poor that we enjoy here.

As for the war you mentioned, if we do go to war, those who commission the action are open to the scrutiny of a corporate press that will portray everything in a censored right-wing format. There is also the opportunity to remove them at election time, that is assuming that the elections aren't rigged and financed by the corporate elite. Granted, the system's far from perfect, but it's the best there is, assuming that you are rich and have the money to influence political decisions. Certainly better than Mad Mullah Mohammed issuing fatwas on a whim, in the hope he may free his country from Western Imperial biggotry.

Klytus the UK media is not dominated by lefties. Though the television media is largely dominated by lefties, the newspapers are totally dominated by the right wing press. I mean are you seriously deranegd enough to believe that the low circulation Independent wields major influence over UK politics? The Mail sells 6 times the copies of the Indy. Thats unhealthy influence.