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Iran abolishes morality police

hindustantimes.com

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Re: Iran abolishes morality police

#211

Post by dartharva »

marcosdumay wrote: post #126
dartharva wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because liberalism is largely a Western concept, at least in origin. And the conservative elites of Iran are popularly of the opinion that the riots and dissent are more a result of "Western" ideals polluting their core society than legitimate dissatisfaction among the people against the government.

> Because liberalism is largely a Western concept, at least in origin. Hum... I suggest you take a deeper look at this. Modern liberalism is an obvious progression of the ancient variety, and it's really ironic that we are talking about Iran.

Please educate me how it is an "obvious progression of the ancient variety". I can't claim to know all about the ideology's lineage but I am sure liberalism was definitely an alien concept that had to be gradually seeped into all Asian and Middle-Eastern societies through globalism. It is still at odds with almost every native social structure in the East.

Re: Iran abolishes morality police

#212

Post by sharikous »

JZM8yKnRvGv wrote: post #98
josh_fyi wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An Arab party and two leftist parties were in the last coalition, though the Arab party was Islamist and the leftists parties were not Arab parties.

AFAIK from 2019 to 2022 there were five elections, all of them where won by the center right (the center or the right) The right is (was) led by Netanyahu, the center by Ganz, a retired military general, former ministry of defense. Not exactly two champions of progressivism. I don't recall a victory of the left or the Arab parties in Israel, maybe it's because, like in Iran, the situation in the area forces them to a…

You are oversimplifying Israeli politics. Concepts like "left" and "right" do not apply fully there as there are at least three fundamental splits that are somewhat independent: appeasement with the Palestinians vs hawkish politics, economic right/left, religion vs secularism. And what wins is a coalition, not a single party, so the bag is even more mixed, not to mention that parties have internal currents too

From 2019 we had 5 elections:

- 2 elections with no winner and no coalition forming

- 1 election that brought constitutional changes and a government of center-right (towards Palestinians), center-left (economically) mixed religious-secular

- 1 election that was also center-right (Palestinians) but included an Arab party too, mixed bag (economically) more secular than religious

- the last election that appears to be full right (Palestinians), mixed right/left (economically), substantially pro-religion

I can agree that the policy towards the Palestinians is somewhat fixed on the center-right but there are very clear reasons for that. Neither ignoring the Palestinian problem, as attempted in the '70s and '80s nor appeasing them, as was done in the '90s and '00s, proved to be less than disastrous solutions.

But economically you will find a lot of leftist ideas even in "rightist" parties, out in the open or somewhat overt (allowances for the religious) and the secular/religious split is becoming a strong force of polarization too

Re: Iran abolishes morality police

#213

Post by JZM8yKnRvGv »

josh_fyi wrote: post #139
JZM8yKnRvGv wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK from 2019 to 2022 there were five elections, all of them where won by the center right (the center or the right) The right is (was) led by Netanyahu, the center by Ganz, a retired military general, former ministry of defense. Not exactly two champions of progressivism. I don't recall a victory of the left or the Arab parties in Israel, maybe it's because, like in Iran, the situation in the area forces them to a…

Referring to the most recent coalition, as listed here, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty-sixth_government_of_Isr... The Islamist party I mentioned was United Arab List and the leftist ones I mentioned were Labor and Meretz.

> The Islamist party I mentioned was United Arab List and the leftist ones I mentioned were Labor and Meretz.

True, but that was what in Germany call "Große Koalition" the only thing the coalition had in common was that the did not like Netanyahu

It only lasted one year.

Ra'am (United Arab List) took only 3% of the votes, Labour 6% and they were among other center-right and full right wing parties.

Re: Iran abolishes morality police

#214

Post by [deleted] »

ethanbond wrote: post #123
cies wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fucked up election systems everywhere. If there are basically only two parties by the way the counting works, then the those two parties can do the "approval of candidates" internally. Main difference being that one system is run by religious group, and the other by the influence of the super-party-donors (aka capitalists). Either way reform does not happen. Political prisoners (Assange in the west) still rotting in…

No, you don’t get executed in the US for saying “down with Biden/Trump/whoever.” This “all imperfect systems are equally imperfect” is utterly detached from reality.

[deleted]

Re: Iran abolishes morality police

#215

Post by moloch-hai »

ethanbond wrote: post #193
cies wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right in the US you can say that. But showing how the govt is criminally scheming against the people gets you in jail just as much. Ask Assange. > This “all imperfect systems are equally imperfect” is utterly detached from reality. I wanted to say they are similar in resisting reform. Sorry if that was not clear.

They're not though. Assange would be tried in a court with codified laws that are written by elected representatives of the people. He'd have a right to legal representation of his choice. He'd be able to call witnesses to defend him. A jury could decide that even if he's entirely guilty of the crime, that actually the law on the books is incorrect and therefore nullify it. If he gets an unfair trial, he can appeal a…

This is the theory. In execution, we see the same sort of railroading here as there. US makes less fuss about expression, but is wholly as devoted to curtailing what could affect fortunes of plutocrats.

Assange is far from an isolated instance, but it takes only one to prove the case. Assange is perhaps not the best choice, since he illustrates UK's failings more than US's, even if US is the one driving. We might take Manning as a local example, with their heavy use of isolation as torture.

But we have very many more than one, though it is hard to keep more than a few in the public mind.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_whistleblowers

Re: Iran abolishes morality police

#216

Post by Eisenstein »

pchangr wrote: post #158
Eisenstein wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but they are monsters that we created. I think we should be careful using wording like that. The Iranians have agency and can do things on their own. Just because the west meddled in things doesn't give us the right to claim the results as ours, be they good or bad.

As a third world national whose country was immersed in a 35 year old civil war purposefully created by the CIA.. I find it incredibly difficult to restrain myself. I would really suggest you to research a little bit more about your own history. It’s really hurtful to read this.

I think you are completely misinterpreting what I wrote. I know exactly what we have done and it is horrific. I object to wording which in my view is quite paternalistic, as if other nations are things that our meddling can change without regard to other internal and external forces and the will of people who can act in ways we cannot and never will be able to control.

Re: Iran abolishes morality police

#217

Post by moloch-hai »

kelipso wrote: post #200
grumpymouse wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, historically 50% or above of people in NI have wanted to be part of the uk and considered themselves British (often to the point of marching around waving Union Jacks etc). Over time that number has gone down relative to people who consider themselves Irish but the numbers are still fairly equal.

Aren't most of those people waving Union Jacks genetically/ethnically Anglo? As in they are descendants of people from England.

Similarly to descendants of Russians in Donbass or Transnistria.

Or the elective majority in North America. Descendants of the people displaced and oppressed are still here, in radically reduced number.

The same story has played out all over the world, for tens of millennia. It is not less objectionable for that.

Re: Iran abolishes morality police

#218

Post by NicoJuicy »

cies wrote: post #110
enkid wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the entire elections system built to reinforce regime legitimacy? All of the candidates have to be approved by the Guardian Council which is controlled by the Supreme Leader, so it's not like they have any threat to the regime itself. It's a way to appear willing to reform without actually reforming.

Fucked up election systems everywhere. If there are basically only two parties by the way the counting works, then the those two parties can do the "approval of candidates" internally. Main difference being that one system is run by religious group, and the other by the influence of the super-party-donors (aka capitalists). Either way reform does not happen. Political prisoners (Assange in the west) still rotting in…

"political prisoner" about a guy that leaked top secret information unredacted that probably led to the death of those people.

Foreign agent would describe his actions much better.

Ps. In other countries you can go to jail for holding up a blank paper. Where would you want to live?

Re: Iran abolishes morality police

#219

Post by LegitShady »

AzzieElbab wrote: post #208
h11h wrote: post #89

"Iran state television is reporting that the morality police has definitely NOT been removed" https://twitter.com/borzou/status/1599396059251253249

NYT reprinted the same thing and I am completely lost as to why https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/04/world/middleeast/iran-mor...

the paper of record doesn't appear to post a central list of retractions and errors

Re: Iran abolishes morality police

#220

Post by ethanbond »

moloch-hai wrote: post #215
ethanbond wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not though. Assange would be tried in a court with codified laws that are written by elected representatives of the people. He'd have a right to legal representation of his choice. He'd be able to call witnesses to defend him. A jury could decide that even if he's entirely guilty of the crime, that actually the law on the books is incorrect and therefore nullify it. If he gets an unfair trial, he can appeal a…

This is the theory. In execution, we see the same sort of railroading here as there. US makes less fuss about expression, but is wholly as devoted to curtailing what could affect fortunes of plutocrats. Assange is far from an isolated instance, but it takes only one to prove the case. Assange is perhaps not the best choice, since he illustrates UK's failings more than US's, even if US is the one driving. We might tak…

Chelsea Manning was court-martialed. Military personnel, very reasonably, have a different set of rights and duties than a normal citizen. We can have a conversation about certain punishments or mechanisms and whether they're humane, but an even more basic feature of our system than whether X case was correct or Y punishment is just, is the fact that we can and we do have lively, 24/7 conversations about this stuff. And they do actually change! Usually for the better! We've made immense progress on many of these issues over the last 200 years.

An edge case in one system having some vague similarities to the base case in another system indicates that they are dramatically different, not similar.

This distinction all seemed pretty academic to me too until I actually went to one of these theocratic countries - one way more liberal than Iran - and asked a local for their thoughts on [local authority figure]. The reaction was absolutely chilling. They didn't go into a rant about all the horrible abuses of power and how evil this leader is, how another country has it better, etc. They instead clammed up, looked around, and ended the conversation immediately.

No, "convicted leaker of state secrets got treated poorly" does not in any way substantiate "we see the same sort of railroading."

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