I was trying to show two sides.
There was side 1
and side 2
whats so hard about that?

What's so hard is that your writing isn't clear at all. Is English your native language?

I failed to understand much of your argument as well amonkeyperson. And trying to make a rational impassioned plea isn't affected by your point total, but by your 'bitch-slapped' and 'its gonna be a bitch'

I think what he was trying to say is that whichever side we choose isnt totally right or wrong, so there isnt really a clean cut answer, but I agree with Dingleberry and Invictus that the whole thing wasnt very well put together

Bitch-slapped in this context means, we went in there, and help take em out.

"its gonna be a bitch to go against" means its going to be hard to go against.

and yea, I admit, It wasn't made well, but thats because I made it in 5 minutes heh.

but vamos is right in stating my overall point. There is not clean cut answer.

I once heard a story about the British in India in colonial times. I'm not a huge expert on the practice, but apparently it was the custom to throw women onto their husband's funeral pyres? Anyway, the British put a stop to this and executed anyone caught doing it. There was an uproar, with the Indians claiming the British were disrespecting their culture, that in their culture this was what they did. The British response was 'Well in our culture we shoot people who burn women'.

For those of you who are squeamish about forcing other cultures to treat their women better.... for the Americans here at least, if the other cultures were holding black slaves, would you still be squeamish about forcing changes in other cultures?

@Monkey, I wasn't having problem with figuring out the context of what you said. It just loses the sound of an intelligent argument when using words like bitchslapped.

Oh, I thought I was retarded after what invictus said.

Yea like I said, I made in a few minutes, so I was using my natural vocabulary. big words and bad words.

@Sicarius
The U.S. imposed democracy on Western Germany after World War II. It was very succesful. Such success however, is very rare.
@ The thread in generalWho decides morality? Morality is based solely on an individual basis. No one has the right to declare something "moral", or "immoral" for anyone else but themselves. If I told you, it was moral for Israel to invade Gaza, which I do believe (please lets not make this thread about that), what right do I have to tell you that you are wrong for disagreeing.

I, as well as all of you are repulsed by this, but who are we to impose our morals on Afghanistan, other than the man with the bigger gun. And here's another moral question. Is the fact that we have a bigger military grounds to tell everyone else what to believe?

Sadly I would say the typical response would be yes, because we are the ones with the most power, somewhere in the process of becoming a superpower, we have taken it upon ourselves to try and correct everything we deem a moral problem with the world.
(I'm from America btw, but not at all someone who agrees with America trying to play god with the world.)

Well, even though you claimed the typical answer is yes, it seems like you claim no. It seems most people say yes until they realize that it means we actually have to spend MONEY! and send PEOPLE! who woulda thunk?

I personally don't think that just because we have bigger guns, that we should force people to adopt our way of life. However, many people see it as our duty to "correct" the "problems" that other countries have, and clearly some of them are willing to do everything in their power to try and achieve that.
coughnonamesbushcough

Actually, I understood most of what amonkeyperson said. It was strangely organized, but still coherent, if informal and colloquial.

He basically expanded on what I said just before him. I would have made a similar argument if I had had more time.

As far as NATO interfering with Afghanistan's rulings, I would say that this is at least one of the nobler interferences... considering that I would say most interventionist acts of American foreign policy have not been for moral reasons, but for purely practical, economic, and political reasons.

The thing about democracy is people can decide for themselves. As long as there's true democracy in a country they can be as non-PC as they like

> can anyone give me an example of the US imposing democracy
> and succeeding?
Germany, and just about every east-European country, Russia (though that isn't as democratic as it should be)

Don't forget Japan. They had absolutely no democratic traditions before World War II.

Why don't we focus on stopping the rapes and murders here at home before we criticize other countries' cultures that we barely understand?

It is worth pointing out that under the Afghan constitution, that women are guaranteed "equal rights and duties before the law". Which is more than I can say for the American Constitution. Of course, the implementation of that principle down into statute and common practice is another thing entirely.

That's not really a fair criticism of the US Constitution. Men and women are equal before the law in the US, putting something like an equal rights amendment would make it unconstitutional to make any laws applying to gender at all plus it would make differentiation between the sexes in public illegal. Do you want unisex bathrooms?

Men and women are equal, but they're also different.

"The British response was 'Well in our culture we shoot people who burn women'."

I like this one :) Obviously, after the advent of gunpowder, those who wanted to continue having their religious freedom of burning women in Britain had to emigrate to Americas some centuries ago, where they could continue practicing their culture for several hundreds years more :)

They must teach American history better in Croatia, because I don't remember anything at all about burning women here, let alone a tradition of doing so that lasted hundreds of years.

http://www.witchway.net/times/times.html

Invictus, this one is for you to read.

@Invictus - how exactly can men and women be "equal before the law" yet an amendment that states that they are "equal before the law" somehow changes things? Either they are now currently equal before the law, and an Equal Rights Amendment would do nothing... or they are not now equal before the law. You can't have it both ways.

Here is the text of the Equal Rights Amendment yet to pass in the U.S. What in this exactly is objectionable?...

"Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.

Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification."
---
and if your biggest objection is unisex bathrooms, then that is pretty weak... a number of women I know would appreciate access to men's bathrooms - sure beats waiting in long lines... Maybe they would design bathrooms at stadiums and such a little better if men were inconvenienced as much as women. Want true privacy? Go to a bathroom with a locking door.

...it should be further pointed out that 21 states have some version of the ERA in their State Constitutions... and some of those are apparently worded almost identically to the proposed federal amendment and have been on the books for more than 30 years. Where have people been forced to lose their gender-specific bathrooms? (oh gosh) What other really bad things have come about thanks to these state ERA's? What cautionary tales can be told about how those ERA's have wrecked havoc on their state...?

The afghan proposed law also raises the legal age a woman can marry from 9 to 16. Maybe those who are trying to impose western ideals should take a moment to think of what they would say to an 11 year old forced into marriage if the law is kicked into the long grass?

@Invictus
"Do you want unisex bathrooms?"

I really couldn't care less whether we have unisex bathrooms or not.

Yes, I realize this is just a tangent, and doesn't get to the heart of the issue, but I just think it's weird that people get so bent out of shape about things like that. That being said, I don't believe the ERA would actually force that change.

Yeah, ERA would just make it so that those bathrooms would need to be equally well maintained, and all that jazz.

@Invictus,
Yeah, I know you've already received enough flak from the preceding posts, but I just have to jump on. Unisex bathrooms as the reason they shouldn't amend the Constitution to include gender equality...? Unisex bathrooms really only exist for historical reasons, and not for any real rationality that I can think of. Case in point, the bathrooms here at my rez are unisex and it's no big deal. There were some awkward moments at the start of the year, but it quickly passes.

Of course it isn't just unisex bathrooms. I thought that would be the easiest issue to understand, but I guess not.

Smarter people than I have voiced concerns about the unintended ramifications about putting in an Equal Rights Amendment into the Constitution. It could affect a lot of things depending on how it is incorporated and interpreted.

My God, you people don't really think that I believe women shouldn't be equal, do you? Maybe my position is a little too pedantic.

The draft! There we go! Women would be eligible for selective service.