From: psc@sei.cmu.edu (Peter Capell)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.iranian
Subject: Re: Hard Truths
Date: 29 Sep 92 17:50:10 GMT
Organization: Software Engineering Institute


28-Sep-92 20:24	ali@utrcv1 (ALI BABA)	HARD TRUTHS FOR PETER CAPELL

>Technically,   neither  this  system  nor the one in  Iran  has  democratic

I said "at it's best."  In other words, at the very least, there is the
presumption that democracy, or fair treatment is what we strive for.

You needn't lecture me on our genocide war against the Native Americans.
We slaughtered them in an act that was the ultimate hypocrisy.  This is 
the U.S. at it's worst.  But I was not referring to the worst.  I was refering
to a borderless set of ideas, ideas that young Chinese students were willing
to die for in Tienanmen Square.  

In fact, in the aftermath of that event, there was a lot of discussion on
soc.culture.china, about how "democracy" and "democratic ideals" were not
inherently Chinese and were ill-suited to their culture.  Guess what?  The
only people saying this were American intellectuals (real boneheads). The
Chinese students argued back that in fact Chinese communism was also a total
import--from Stalinist Soviet Union.

In fact your point about the Native Americans is a good one.  To me it is an
example of where our principles of democracy are not applied, there is
travesty.  When most of the members of this netnews community can honestly
look you in the eye and say "things were freer and better under the Shah..."
the you've got a problem, because there is hardly one of them who didn't
initially support the revolution--after all, they were deposing a tyrant,
right?  

There is no room for tyrannical leadership.  Amnesty international is a
borderless assessor of world political conditions and has cited Iran
repeatedly for murder and torture of its own citizens.   I cannot verify the
stories, but from many different sources I have heard how if a young (virgin)
woman is found guilty of a state crime and sentenced to death, she is raped
so that the Islamic prohibition against the killing of a virgin will not be
violated.  I do remember that the source of this data is Iranian.  This is
extremism.  This is perversion.  

And when I here about the women in the hotels and on the streets waiting for
women to show some leg, or some hair, just to accost them to "Cover your
hair!"  Do you really believe that this person is acting under an impulse from
Allah?!  I think they have nothing better to do with their time.  I think they
are on a power trip (ego trip), because of the tiny-ness of their minds--just
like in the good 'ol US of A, when the head waiter keeps you waiting just
because he's the head waiter.

You'll get nowhere throwing religion in my face.  It is obvious that the
government in Iran is just like any other--a powermongering force.  I often
thing that if the U.S. weren't the big-ass military power in the world today,
it would just be someone else--such is human nature.  

The only thing to stop our powermongering and Iranian powermongering and
country XYZ's powermongering, is adherence to a set of principles that are
defined by and for the people.  And as I pointed out before, if you were today
to give Iranian women the free choice, to wear this garment (roosarie or
chador), I do not believe that the majority would choose to do so.  Just like
the majority of men and women here do not choose to go naked in public--when
they are given the freedom to choose.  

So, all I was saying was that if the US is bad (freedom -wise) on a relative
scale, Iran is now worse.  This is not to say we are better or worse as
people: we are talking about governments here.  I think in the next ten years
we will have to wage major political struggles in our own back yard to avoid a
fascist regime.

Incidentally, the only kind of crimes I care about at all are those which 
harm others.  I don't care what people do in their homes by themselves.  I
think this concept is probably truly foreign to Iranians though--just my
belief. 
Newsgroups: soc.culture.iranian