Is it such a bad thing?
POSTED BY: AngusThermopyle
UPDATED: Thursday, February 3, 2005 19:40
VIEWED: 22097
PAGE 8 of 9
Zeek:
I can see where you're just trying to be reasonable, respectful of the cultural heritage of other peoples whose worldview differs from Judeo-Christian mores, and I appreciate that. I really do. Different is not intrinsically Wrong, just different. So, that's a good point, okay?
But comparing an innoculation -- no matter how big the needle -- to cutting a child's clitoris off and then sewing her vagina shut?
C'mon. Hate to say it, but that dog just won't hunt...
Respectfully,
zoid
P.S.
Kudos to the USA for overstepping its bounds and stopping Germany's practice of incinerating Jews, rather than waiting for German society to decide it was wrong. (EDIT: We had cohorts in that heinous invasion of German culture, but I won't implicate them. As an American, I'll step up and take all the blame.)
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Quote:
Originally posted by zoid:
Kudos to the USA for overstepping its bounds and stopping Germany's practice of incinerating Jews, rather than waiting for German society to decide it was wrong.
Less kudos to the UK and the USA for ignoring it for far too long though. If there's any lesson from history that we still don't learn, its to have the guts to step in soon enough - Rwanda being one of the most obvious examples.
"I threw up on your bed"
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Apparently my point wasn't obvious enough. We believe that medical benefit is worth some pain. They believe preventing adultary is worth some pain. (or so it sounds. I really don't know their motives or beliefs.) It's different values.
As for World War II I don't think the attempted genocide against the jews had anything to do with our invasion. Germany was invading other countries and was a potential threat to the USA if they continued unchecked. The Pearl Harbor thing helped a bit too. Ending the holocaust was merely a side effect.
Really the point is this isn't cut and dry. There is no black and white here and I think we both know it. So I don't see any need for the use of capslock. Maybe I never mentioned it, but I don't believe that the genital mutilation being performed is right. Just wanted to make sure I'm clear on that point.
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For the record I'm circumsised. Do you consider my parents monsters?
Depends on how you view circumcision, which for men does not have quite the same physical consequences as female genital mutilation does for women.
Do you remember your circumcision? Did you know that doctors anaesthetize the baby's foreskin before they circumcise? Or was your circumcision a religious thing?
Did you get an infection? Does it affect your sexuality? Does it make urination and menstruation painful? The first time you had sex, did your circumcision cause you to be either ripped or cut open, and to bleed copiously?
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I see no reason why we should assume that any of us here are superior and deserve to decide right and wrong for the world.
Not superior, just aghast at what we see as the torture and mutilation of young girls.
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I wish I had you on my side when I was getting immunization shots as a kid.
Conflating FGM with getting shots is disingenuous at best, wilfully ignorant at most. How does immunizing children against getting sick (check history, come back when you know about rubella, whooping cough, and other childhood disease epidemics before immunization), equate with the cutting off of a girl's clitoris and labia, and sewing her vulva up?
Do we really have to qualify the statement "hurt = wrong" with "except when it benefits more than it hurts?" It really doesn't say much for the level of discourse, or your side of the argument, when inherent assumptions have to be spelled out every single time someone wants to make a point, or even just vent.
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I really didn't like the pain of those needles.
Too darn bad. Most of us went through it. A lot of us are unlucky enough to remember it.
Of course, getting an injection is a matter of comparison, isn't it? I'd say having my very sensitive bits cut off would hurt a hell of a lot more, although I've been fortunate enough to escape that fate.
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Since it's wrong I assume you're out on the streets picketing and writing to congress to ban syringes.
So, what about diabetic children? All that testing, all those needles. Do we need a crusade for them, too? You start the movement, I'll join in when I lose some of my higher reasoning functions.
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Or did you decide that this pain is ok because you have come to accept the result as being good?
"Come to accept?" Come to accept the virtual eradication of certain illnesses because of immunization? Are you comparing the health of many with the torture of the sharp, stinging sensation of being immunized?
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Amazing how a culture can teach people such things isn't it?
Yep. I'm glad I've been immunized, no matter how distasteful I find needles. I'm glad I never had the measles, whooping cough, diphtheria, smallpox, or tetanus.
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I do understand that the children who undergo these operations may not be capable of making their own informed decision at the time. Neither was I as a child.
So, you'd rather take the risk of contracting a disease that, what with our lack of immunity to germs now that everything is so antibacterial and antiseptic, would probably kill you in ten days, rather than have undergone the pain, the horror, the terrible mutilation forced upon you by your parents of that tiny little needle?
I'm glad my parents had me get the shots. I'm glad I've never been fatally ill with a common bug, and I'm really very happy about my tuberculosis scar. It means I won't ever get tuberculosis, and that's worth the prick.
Oh, by the way, I got the tuberculosis test and innoculation because my family emigrated to New Zealand - that country's government required emigres to be innoculated against tuberculosis when coming from the United States. I'm glad they "interfered" with the "culture" I was coming from. Saved me from spreading anything around, or from eventually coughing up a lung.
Comparing immunization to being castrated is, despite what your caveat impli
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Misguided By Voices responded:
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Less kudos to the UK and the USA for ignoring it for far too long though...
Hmmm. Well, it was a different world. There is still serious question regarding how much the rest of the world knew about the Final Solution. There were certainly whispers circulating that atrocities were taking place. But the official line is that sHitler was pretty good at keeping secrets, and spycraft at the time wasn't nearly as sophisticated as it is today (and we have recent results to prove it's not as good today as it's cracked up to be).
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If there's any lesson from history that we still don't learn, its to have the guts to step in soon enough - Rwanda being one of the most obvious examples.
Unfortunately for all concerned, it just doesn't work that way, does it? Step 1: You've got to float the concept that it's a basic human right not to have one's genitals sawn off past the obstructed intestine that is the United Nations, half the member nations of which think carnal knowledge of a goat is okay. Step 2: You've got to run the gauntlet of sanctions and subsequent extensions to allow compliance, then delays while trying to certify compliance, then new extensions because compliance couldn't be confirmed because the inspectors got their heads cut off, ad infinitum. Step 3: After 13 years of people continuing to get chopped up in a culturally acceptable way, and still no resolution in sight, you say, 'bugger this for a lark' and just go in and stop it, while the entire world calls you a criminal.
It's the American Way...
Respectfully,
zoid
P.S.
God Save the Queen, and bless her People. Not implicating anything, mind you; I'm just sayin'...
P.P.S.
Never vote for me for President. The first thing I'd do is kick the UN off our property, take a pair of scissors to our membership card and tell 'em to stop sending us the monthly newsletter.
_________________________________________________
"Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me." The Ballad of Serenity
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Quote:
Originally posted by Zeek:
As for World War II I don't think the attempted genocide against the jews had anything to do with our invasion. Germany was invading other countries and was a potential threat to the USA if they continued unchecked. The Pearl Harbor thing helped a bit too. Ending the holocaust was merely a side effect.
The US didn't join WWII because the Germans were invading other countries. If that'd been the case, they would've joined in 1939 when Britain declared a state of war between her and Germany following Germany's invasion of Poland. The US didn't give a toss about Germany annexing other countries until Japan joined and made things a little more uncomfortable. America joined because of Pearl Harbour and for no other reason.
Britain had been trying to get America to join for 3 years, but America would only sell her weaponry and equipment (at full prices with interest that had to be paid in full and took 20 or so years).
Then, years later, the Falklands are invaded by Argentina. Britain sends a taskforce to take them back. America will have no part of it, France sells Argentina Exocet missiles and trains them (in secret and against UN articles) to shoot British planes down, even during the conflict.
Later again, the US invade Afghanistan after 9/11. Britain is asked for help and stands shoulder to shoulder with the US.
When Dubya Bush decides he wants to take on the Iraqis too, Britain are right there in the front lines. Even in some cases right in the insurrenction, when US troops can't put it down. The British expertise with terrorism and Northern Ireland was of great use and even helped Bush secure a second term when soldiers of the Black Watch regiment were sent to Falluja so that Bush didn't have the bad headlines expected.
The special relationship. Can anyone explain that to me?
You learn history from books, not Jerry Bruckheimer...
May none of your pizzas have unfortunte toppings.
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OK ReeQueen, apparently my point with the immunization thing wasn't clear enough.
I totally understand the reasoning for immunization and I believe the pain of a needle is worth it. There are two points though. 1.) I was too young to care at that point. I just didn't want to get a painful shot. So, I won't assume children around that age are going to be able to make a decision about painful proceedures. 2.) Is that obviously from some of the responses, we have totally excepted immunization shots into our accepted culture and find it obsurd to even consider not immunizing children. The parallels are right there in the open. South African culture might view their practices the same way. It may be painful but the result far outweighs the pain. I don't know for sure that this is how they view things but it's possible. So telling them that they are being barbaric just because we don't weigh the effects the same way they do may sound crazy to them.
This argument isn't going to go anywhere though. It seems that you are 100% decided and no other points of view are going to matter. So we might as well drop it.
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Quote:
Originally posted by AngusThermopyle:
The special relationship. Can anyone explain that to me?
Its as the old brother to the younger sibling who is outstripping him in what was his sporting/academic achievements - with a mixture of pride and pathos, pointing out the stumbles he made in the hopes that they will not be repeated.
Then again, we know how much siblings listen to each other...
Long may it reign. I don't necessarily agree with Blair's unstinting support for the War, but I understand why he felt he had to risk falling on his sword politically to maintain the special relationship, and having had that ephiphany (for a life long Tory it takes some doing), I find myself respecting him in some ways.
"I threw up on your bed"
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Quote:
Originally posted by Misguided By Voices:Quote:
Originally posted by AngusThermopyle:
The special relationship. Can anyone explain that to me?
Its as the old brother to the younger sibling who is outstripping him in what was his sporting/academic achievements - with a mixture of pride and pathos, pointing out the stumbles he made in the hopes that they will not be repeated.
Then again, we know how much siblings listen to each other...
Long may it reign. I don't necessarily agree with Blair's unstinting support for the War, but I understand why he felt he had to risk falling on his sword politically to maintain the special relationship, and having had that ephiphany (for a life long Tory it takes some doing), I find myself respecting him in some ways.
"I threw up on your bed"
Personally, I'd rather be allied with America that Europe. I certainly don't want to be in the EU and when we finally get a reforendum (spell?) that is worded fairly and specifically, I'll vote for us to get out.
I'm not a supporter of any political party, personally. I voted UKIP in the last locals. However, I won't vote for them again with Kilroy "cover me in cowshit" Silk trying to get the leadership. I'll probably vote Tory in the general this year, not because I like them - they seem to be going backwards to the 80s - rather as a tactical vote to help bring down Labours majority in the House. I live in a Lib Dem area - and they'd sell us straight out to Europe...
I just put the previous message coz it really gets up my nose when Americans speak about winning the war and you'd be speaking German if it wasn't for us... etc etc. I wish they'd stop getting their history from Hollywood.
I hate to think what Zeek will make of Churchill: The Hollywood Years. Probably think it's a documentary.
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Zeek. I think your problem with getting anyone to agree with you is that your comparisons are completely off. You are not comparing apples to apples, and not even comparing apples to oranges. More like apples to hand grenades. The only thing comparable to female genital mutilation is a man getting the head of his penis chopped off.
Now every man who thinks this would be okay even in the name of culture, raise your hand.
Anyone?
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