Who says the honor killers would be suicide bombers? When they honor kill they are not risking their life obviously (6 months in prison remember). It is two different things and as you said honor killing is a cultural thing and not a religious thing. Suicide bombings usually have the proclamation of Jihad behind it. Suicide bombing is not all religious but it's a part of it, if it wasn't they wouldn't count on being a Martyr and getting 72 virgins in Heaven or whatever their belief is. Since Honor Killing is not a religious thing and only a cultural thing (as you pointed out) they are not looking to be martyrs. As for Capital punishment making them think twice. How do you know it wouldn't work for the reasons I just stated?. I would say in Saudia Arabia (one of the few more civilized nations in the Middle East imo) who has the death penalty for alot of offenses the crime rate is low there compared to our own country imo (Eastern thought is different then western thought). Call me naive but some people do not like the idea of being stoned or beheaded when they receive the death penalty in S.A. Remember that honor killers are not claiming to be Martyr's for anything much less for religion.
I only brought the issue of suicide bombers to articulate the level of importance placed on "living" in the Arab culture, I was IN NO FUCKING WAY drawing a comparison between suicide bombers and honor killing. You wasted a very large amount of time in this post articulating the faults in my argument regarding suicide bombers that
you implied on your own. I in no way insinuated a connection between the two, and I don't know why the hell you assumed that I did.
As for Saudi Arabia, you have to actually have knowledge of the country to understand the issue. Saudi Arabia is the land owned by the Saud family and is in fact largely made up of a populous descending from that lineage. The majority of Saudi extremists who would be committing violent acts leave Saudi Arabia because they are not a major player in the turmoil, and instead go to Iraq, Iran, and Syria. And a lot of the violent crimes that does go on in Saudi Arabia go on unreported, especially when it involves the royal family. A helpful resource on this matter would be
Secrets Of The Kingdom: The Inside Story of the Saudi-U.S. Connection by Gerald Posner.
I am only addressing Honor Killing in our conversation so you are getting off topic. But like i said just above in S.A. the crime rate is low in violent crime compared to our own country. And it is because they get severe penalties (the death penalty notwithstanding). In the U.S. criminals for the most part get off easy alot of the times. You get 10 years and you can get out in 5 for good behavior etc.. etc.. The argument is that they demonstrated that they can behave and not act criminally but that's a joke because any true con would act in good behavior to cut their sentence in half. You once said I did not research capital punishment well but you are incorrect. I wrote a Term Paper in my english class in my College years ago to pass the class and I got a A+. It is naive to compare crime rates that are not deterred in our own country by the Death Penalty with that of the Middle East when S.A. among others (in the more civilized and ones with stabilized gov'ts not the ones in conflicts) prove that in their own countries their violent crime is below our own so therefor it can be argued the death penalty does work in their nation as a deterrent in some crimes. It hasn't been done with Honor Killing to be proven right or wrong in any Middle Eastern Nation. But let's take your side of the argument and give them Life without Parole. I agree with both punishments but we have to influence our "puppet" gov't in Iraq to implement it without the world knowing that we are behind it. After all in the CIA's history it has influenced Gov't's to do certain things whenever the CIA (or U.S. you can say) is behind the Gov't that is installed. Why stop now? lol Hell, we haven't stopped "influencing" our puppet Gov'ts at all.
I'm not even sure what you're arguing here, but I've already addressed the issue of Saudi Arabia.
That's cute. Don't punish the criminals severely for violent crimes because they need stabilization.Award the criminals. Let them do what they want.
Giving somebody a life sentence is not severe punishment and letting them "do what they want?" I've never heard life imprisonment described that way.
Anyways I am not suggesting destroy their culture but to use it against them. They have capital punishment for other violent crime, adding one more crime to the list would hardly make things worst in that region. Could make it better after all. Like I said it hasn't been implemented in any Middle Eastern nation to prove it will or won't work. Doesn't work in our own nation obviously but S.A. seems to make it work.
Again, I've addressed this issue.
Giving them light sentences will obviously not deter them. There are few people throughout my life I wouldn't mind killing but you know why I don't? Because sentences of more then 6 months and/or the death penalty deters me.
If punishment is the only thing deterring you from killing somebody, that's your own mental issue. I would like to think that most people do not kill others because they believe it is wrong from a moral or objective standpoint, and not because they will be punished.
Like I said previously, Honor killers are not matyrs nor claiming to be so they perhaps fear death themselves unlike Suicide Bombers who are the opposite.
Suicide bombers are not the only people in the Middle East who constantly put their lives on the line. General apathy to living is also an aspect of the culture found there, though obviously it's most clearly seen through suicide bombers who actively take their own lives.
I was agreeing with you... now I'm not allowed to agree with you on a point and admit that I was wrong with the regards to that point? Or you just need to goad and rub it in with your narcissistic personality?
It didn't seem like you realized that you were saying the same thing that I was saying, actually.
Looked it pretty much to me and probably to others on this board.
Not my problem, and frankly not really even important.
Care to show me when I have disrespected you in the past before you did to me on this thread? He'll I even voted for you for Moderator before V5 got voted in. And I normally don't do that for youngsters who think they know it all and think they are always right.
No, sorry, I don't feel like digging through old posts.
Would be condemned by women yes by men in general no. Their society (and not just the elite) is a macho society where women are not held in high "honor".
This is not entirely true. I would say that the majority is a male dominated culture, but even some of these "macho" members of society would most likely be in favor of not stoning people to death for seemingly arbitrary reasons.
Many protests? I don't see any protests whatsoever from any man that lives in the Middle East unless he's a westernized individual.
Since you don't see them, they must not exist, right? And actually there is a large number of "westernized" individuals as you describe that don't think stoning people to death is such a wonderful thing.
I would hardly call 6 months to 2 years in jail as condemnation (and why do the men only get 6 months and the woman who killed her daughter 2 years?). The arrests are probably just P.R. purposes to the rest of the world.
It's not much, but if it was a universally accepted practice, there wouldn't be any reason to arrest people for it, would there?
No ignorance on my part. I think of all the angles. Pro's and Con's. You do not. You only think of the World According to Doden.
What the fuck are you talking about? This issue is not new to me, and I've argued this before, so my position is well defined. Just because you don't see me internally debating points in my own posts does not mean that I have not looked at other angles. Don't make such rash assumptions.
If you condemn the Death Penalty for honor killings then why not for other crimes that already have that penalty?
I condemn the death penalty in any and all instances.
Oh, that's right. S.A. for a example would probably go into chaos like Iraq currently is and their would be more murders, rapes, etc. in S.A.
No it wouldn't, because you don't know what you're talking about.
That and if you condemn the death penalty and want to eradicate it in S.A. then you would technically be interfering in their culture.
When did I ever say that I opposed interfering with a harmful element of a culture that unnecessarily puts lives in danger? I don't have any problems with that at all.
I already agreed with Life without Parole but like I already stated you confuse suicide bombers with honor killers.
No I don't, that was false implication on your part.
No one can predict someone's state of mind in a situation. They can say this or that before anything like that happens but history has shown us that humans sometimes act "irrationally" when that situation does arise. You can right now say you would not wish death on your mom's or sister's killer (if it happened to you) but till that event does happen you cannot predict your "rational". You might very much want revenge if it happened.
The likelihood of me being anywhere near my mother's killer when I learn of her death, unless of course I'm THERE when it happens, is fairly slim. Naturally, I will have instinctual, immediate impulses to most likely kill whoever did this to my mother, but in all probability by the time that the killer is found and put on trial, I will be in conscious of my rational state and will not let it be subverted by my instinctual, irrational impulses. And by rational state is that the death penalty is unjustified. So yes, I do feel that if somebody killed my mother, I would not want that person dead. Maybe if I was there and acting purely on instinct I would try to kill that person (and obviously would if I was being attacked as well), but any degree of separation from the incident allows one to reflect and recall reason and rationality.
I agree that life in prison is horrible but everyday he or she is alive in jail you are alive also and it would eat at your gut that they live while your loved one is dead. That and once that killer is dead they cannot kill anymore (that includes in prison where they can kill someone whose in there for some non violent crime like stealing cars etc. who could be your relative).
Whether or not the guy is alive is fucking meaningless, it's not going to bring my mother back. If I was having trouble living, the answer would be to kill
myself to stop myself from grieving, not the person who killed my mother, because that wouldn't change a damn thing.
Anyways it is obvious we will not agree on anything except perhaps thrash or other metal genre's. We will just keep going back and forth and it is pointless. We both think were right in our own opinions. You much like me when I was your age and still am are very passionate about issues and I can only hope when you turn 18 you will practice what you preach and vote and/or get involved in such issues and not only just post on a forum about them.
HEY LOOK AT ME I'M OLDER HEY GUESS WHAT I WAS LIKE YOU AT YOUR AGE LOL I BET UR NOT EVEN 18 YET.
This is essentially the position that you're communicating here. I don't give a shit if you're older or if I remind you of me when you were younger, because the likelihood of us being very similar is very slim. And for the record, I am over 18, and for future reference, playing the age card is rather pathetic and generally reflects the loss of anything substantive to communicate. And for the record, I think our differences stem more from miscommunication and a less than full picture of the issue at hand than from fundamental contrasts of ideology.
