We have long discussed the abusive Sharia system and its use to impose medieval justice on whole populations in the name of Islamic justice. The latest outrage comes out of our close ally, Indonesia. Videotapes this week show a woman screaming in pain as she was flogged for merely being seen with a male who was not a family member. Others were flogged for premarital sex or gambling or drinking alcohol in the barbaric public spectacle in Banda Aceh.
The 34-year-old woman simply spent time with a man in public and was given seven lashes. The man was also flogged.
The disgusting display is viewed as a testament to Islamic values and justice — as cleric watched approvingly.
I have long opposed the view of Sharia law as a form of law as opposed to religious dogma enforced through brutal public displays. These displays are designed to terrify citizens into adhering to Islamic beliefs regardless of their personal religious or social views.
Issac, Self criticism is not in short supply in this country. I doubt very much that there is another country on this planet that gets more critisism from it’s own citizens as this one gets. I’m not going to say some of these critiques of our country are not justified. All of us have different views on how things should be. And quite a few of us exersize our first ammendment rights to the fullest. No Issac, this country gets plenty of criticism from a lot of people, both foreign and domestic. Just look at yourself!
Are we any better?
We lock people in cages for decades, steal their homes, and extort them for having a plant that the state does not approve of?
Nor was it long ago that gays were given 30 year prison sentences….
Meanwhile, back in the real world, consensual sodomy was a class B misdemeanor in New York, punished on the same scale as patronizing a prostitute.
Yes we imprison people. No, it is not done ‘for decades’ except for a tiny corps of very violent people, another corps of sexual deviants, and another corps incorporated within organized crime. Yes, trading in street drugs is a crime, as it should be.
You’re a kook and are allowed to walk the streets, no matter how useless and annoying you are.
What is all this outrage at how other nations, with different religious beliefs, govern sexual relations??? Talk about some white Western privilege! I would not want to live there, but if I did, I would obey the laws.
Who are we to dictate to others? We have a 50% marriage failure rate, rampant adultery, tons of little b*st*rd kids running around, STD rates out the wazoo, sexual freaks everywhere, a semi-matriarchy of irrationalism that produces snowflake children and impulsive criminal children – – – all because of our loose to non-existent sexual standards.
Sheeesh, maybe we need to consider looking in the mirror before we start throwing stones.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky, this may all be true, but the answer surely does not lie with something like Sharia Law. The conditions you cite, I believe, are largely due to the continued destruction of the American family and the standards and values that go along with it. However, this adverse trend has been in effect for some time now, and the socioeconomic factors that have caused it are, IMO, the result of business and government social engineering whereby single moms are encouraged by the system.
Answers are not always happy things. If Sharia Law works for them, more power to them. Like somebody above said, they know what they rules are. I hate to say to say it, but it will probably take something like Sharia Law, or a Hitler type, to straighten us out. Assuming there isn’t a natural disaster of huge magnitude.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
However, this adverse trend has been in effect for some time now, and the socioeconomic factors that have caused it are, IMO, the result of business and government social engineering whereby single moms are encouraged by the system.
Conspirazoid rubbish, with the predictable bogies stuck with the bill.
Fully one-third of the workforce was female in 1957, in an era when the total fertility rate was 3.5 children per woman per lifetime, when most women were married by their 21st birthday, and when the number of divorces granted each year suggested a lifetime probability of such of 20% (and lower for marriages with children).
I attended a talk in 1998 by Dr. Michael Peletz (of Emory University), an anthropologist specializing in Malay society. Most of the talk was about matriliny and land ownership, but it spilled over into human relations. He points to a young woman in the room and tells her ‘you-to-me [indicating the distance between them], five minutes alone in this room, compulsory marriage’. Some parts of the globe are very particular about the observance of rubrics in how men and women who are not proximate family members interact. The people who live there understand these rubrics and navigate between the buoys in their daily life.
You cannot look at contemporary occidental society and say that it’s a society which gets sex right (or, you cannot if you have a modicum of a sense of virtue). Other societies have Chesterton’s fences all over the place to prevent their people from getting sex wrong the way we get sex wrong. It may not be optimal, but neither is the world in which we live. Prof. Turley is a tool.
America haters, the Canadian and the Dog. This country is not your beloved Cuba, you are free to leave. And, “don’t let the door hit ya’ where the Good Lord split ya’.” I’ll be happy to start a fundraiser to assist your exit and I’ll even throw a Bon Voyage party. May I suggest Canada where a pretty boy retard can rule a country..well not for long.
Issac is quite right. US goons have done plenty of torturing in recent years, not to mention droning and bombing wedding parties and funerals, gunning down people sleeping in their own beds, and bombing Doctors Without Borders Hospitals. We really need to stop committing atrocities before attacking others for their commission of atrocities.
Each post criticizing an event like this should be paired with a post focusing on the injustices in this country and/or other Western nations. Start with the lives ruined for simple possession of pot. Attach the lives of those who get off because they’re White and/or privileged. Follow with the criminal behavior that is rewarded in the upper echelons of our corporate worlds. Perspective is what is missing here. Muslims in Muslim countries that follow and inflict pain and suffering on people through barbaric practices such as Sharia law are backward. Yet they will have to evolve on their own. I doubt America evolved out of its most gruesome aspects of racism, not so long ago, because of the ‘bad press’. The racist Americans I met in Canada and Europe during the height of the troubles typically came across with the same arguments: ‘You don’t understand.’, ‘It may not be perfect but it keeps things under control.’ etc. I’m sure we all remember. Then look at who we elected President. Memory, perspective, and self criticism, all in short supply in the US. For every revelation of how long Turley has been a critic he should include some criticism of our society’s justice system. Out of sight, out of mind.
Their country, their rules. Having said that, I am not a fan of this law.
She needs to obtain a rifle and sneak up on one of the Islamic Clerics as he comes out of his home and put a bullet in his brain. This is a no brainer. You see, in Islam there is no justice like: “an eye for an eye”. Ten lashes with a cane is far more harsh than being seen with a man. So by “no brainer” it is ok to go farther in punishing the Cleric than the Cleric did to her. Also, the male should have been punished by the Clerics. The male was seen with her. “Not family”? How does the Cleric know? Maybe their mothers had the same mail man. Get it? Mail men deliver more than mail. And if they are a “carrier” they might pass on disease. Clerics need to be shot. Mailmen need to be given condoms without holes in them. Women need to be seen and not heard. We had Hillary. That was enough for a while.
Mr Oswald
You are wrong. Islam and these laws are fine for the Nations whose people and culture allow them. Under NO circumstances should any form of them be practiced in the West. No matter,what the British are doing.
Yes seven lashes is barbaric and cruel. I bet former Marine Blackstone would take seven lashes in place of seven years imprisonment, let alone 21. Every society passes laws and rules its members must abide. I do not agree with many of the laws in my society in the USA. I choose like most to remain and obide because of my family and friends. Blackstone probably saw the corruption and lies of our government and felt entitled to the small financial gain he received for comparatively small lies that did not result in near the death and destruction as the governments lies that he served. When the powerful, wealthy, and connected are not guided by the same rules and laws as most of society; the government becomes an intolerable oppressor. I do not approve of Blackstone, but 21 years when Cheney, the Clintons, the Bushes, Portreus, and the corrupt military industrial, security, medical, petroleum, information, industries steal from all citizens daily? I know it is all legal; they have many lawyers and politicians that can prove their services are legal. The people know it is corrupt, so most decide to join the game and pretend they are pure. This old man is tired of the hypocrisy.
barabajagal,
It’s all or nothing with the Law. We’ve allowed our legal system to be undermined by the very people we elect to write and enforce the laws.
“No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree. The safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law. These two evils are of equal consequence, and it would be difficult for a person to choose between them.” Frederic Bastiat
http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html#SECTION_G010
The belief system of Muslims raised in nations like Indonesia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are; as this story shows, are incompatible with Western law and custom. I ask you, is a lifetime Of tradition law and culture abandoned because you now live in Europe or the United States ? NO. You bring them with you and teach them to your kids. Of about 30 terrorist attacks in the U.S. these past 7 years I have yet to find One, not committed by a person fitting the above description. Perhaps we should think more about preserving Our culture / way of life and assimilation before we become Strangers in our own Land. Diversity means you can live among us and never share our views, or be one Of us.
Indonesia is famously lax and syncretistic in its religious observance.
I believe that Prof. Turley means well, but he fails to recognize that he is engaging in Islamophobic conduct. Sharia Law is a very serious matter in Islamic culture and to criticize it any way, shape, or form is sheer blasphemy. Although Prof. Turley may not agree with some of the punishments that have been administered for various offenses, he should at least recognize that the clerics carrying out Islamic justice are properly trained in following and carrying out Sharia Law. The same can not be said for how the law is administered in the U.S. In fact, the punishments under Sharia Law are far more consistent than those issued in State and Federal Courts in the U.S.
Prof. Turley also inappropriately assumes that the punishments are always overly harsh. This simply is not so. Many times clerics have shown great compassion and restraint, while still adhering to Sharia Law. For example, in one recent case, a young pregnant woman was seen laughing in public in a way that several witnesses thought to be an affront to the Prophet. The cleric in charge of her case was prepared to issue the standard punishment for this offense: flogging with a cane, consisting of 10 strikes. However, the cleric made a permissible exception in her case by deferring punishment until such time as she has completed her pregnancy.
I would heartily recommend that Prof. Turley begin to actually study Sharia Law so that he is better informed.
Sharia is blasphemous to anyone of sentience. And the accusation of Islamophobia in this case is meant only to immunize religious lunacy from criticism.
With all Of that being said, it is still incompatible with western Law and customs.
[Sarc off]
There Ralph, I helped you. 🙂
Whew…. Thanks, Olly!
So just because some clerics believe they have the right to harshly punish anyone they deem needs it, it’s OK. I have news for you, this type of punishment is not permissible under any circumstances. Evidently these clerics (all men,I presume) are setting themselves up as God just as their leader, Mohammed did. Jesus was truly the Son of God and He never advocated such physical injustice for even the most grievous sinner. It also seems to me, that WOMEN in particular are subjected to this type of treatment, while men are the administrators of the punishment who stand by enjoying it as entertainment!
It’s a society where women are blamed for the failings of men.
John I have to admit that I agree with you100% on this issue. Sharia law has no place in the legal system of any country on Earth.
Here’s a suggestion: you don’t want Sharia law, stay out of countries where Sharia law is respected and popularly desired.
Don’t be stupid, these people are under the authority of mediaeval monsters.