Peterson Pace - "Those who can, do ....."

[_Daniel Peterson]

Hush.. our own personal Neville Chamberlain has spoken..

That's right. A soft-on-Islam Neville Chamberlain who supported the invasion of Iraq, the surge in Iraq, and the invasion of Afghanistan, and who defended Israel in a public debate with Professor Amr al-Azm, a Syrian, at BYU a couple of weeks ago. Uh huh.

Hush! (TAK thinks he knows what he's talking about. Again!)

As for Harmony: Afghanistan under the Taliban definitely forbade the education of post-pubescent girls. Post-Taliban Afghanistan absolutely does not. Not officially. Is the culture of Afghanistan resistant to the education of females? Yes. But is that Afghan culture, or Islam? Since neither Egypt nor Iraq nor Iran nor the Afghan government opposes the education of women, it seems unlikely that Islam, as such, is the relevant factor in this case. And, in fact, it's not. Is illiteracy high among women in Afghanistan? Yes. But it's also far too high among men. Is that because of Islam? Not likely. Is it because Afghanistan is a poor, isolated, backwater country? That seems plausible. Women don't do all that well in poor rural India, Zimbabwe, and China, either.

[_harmony]

As for Harmony: Afghanistan under the Taliban definitely forbade the education of post-pubescent girls. Post-Taliban Afghanistan absolutely does not.

Try again. It appears that your "post-Taliban" utopia for Afghanistan's women was of pitifully small duration.

17 February 2009: Women's education has been severely compromised in Afghanistan as a resurgent Taliban has practised a policy of intimidation of female students. Women, who make up a significant proportion of Afghanistan's population, have been killed, burned and threatened for attending school. Many teachers have been executed in remote villages by the Taliban during the latest resurgence

That quote is less than 2 months ago and speaks to a "resurgent" Taliban. Unless I'm much mistaken, the Taliban is Islamic.

[_Pokatator]

I have heard, of course, tongue in cheek.

Those who can do, do.
Those who can't do, teach.
Those who can't teach, manage.
Those who can't manage, run for office.

Maybe more truth than fiction?

PS How about that a post from me that isn't about DCP, or oops, maybe it is.
.
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[_TAK]

That's right. A soft-on-Islam Neville Chamberlain who supported the invasion of Iraq, the surge in Iraq, and the invasion of Afghanistan, and who defended Israel in a public debate with Professor Amr al-Azm, a Syrian, at BYU a couple of weeks ago. Uh huh.

Haa !
One need only watch your(embarrassing..) discussion with Robert Spencer of jihad watch to come to the same conclusion.

http://www.youtube.com/user/JihadWatchVideo

[_antishock8]

I can't recall the hadiths off the top of my head, but they call for women to pursue knowledge because it makes their god happy.

I tend to think it's more of a patriarchal issue, in order to keep women ignorant and subjugated, rather than a Quranical mandate. I suppose I'll have to ask Googlegod for further light and knowledge on this matter.

[_Daniel Peterson]

I don't believe that I lost my debate with Robert Spencer. I understand, of course, that some of his more militant acolytes believe that I did, and that, in fact, I was massively humiliated by him. However, I felt fine about the debate, and I still do.

It appears that your "post-Taliban" utopia for Afghanistan's women was of pitifully small duration.

Can you please cite the post in which I described a "'post-Taliban' utopia for Afghanistan's women"?

If you intend to attempt a conversation with me, as opposed to a fictional discussion partner of your own creation, you might want to interact with what I actually say.

I'm fine if you don't want that, though.

That quote is less than 2 months ago and speaks to a "resurgent" Taliban. Unless I'm much mistaken, the Taliban is Islamic.

The Taliban [pl.] are Islamic, yes. So is the government of Iran, which has denounced the Taliban as oppressive to women. So is the king of Saudi Arabia, who is establishing the thoroughly co-educational King Abdullah University for Science and Technology with his own money. So is the government of Egypt, which sponsors numerous completely co-educational universities. So are the Gulf States, which have established more than one university for women.

And, though the Taliban are resurgent, they are not the government of Afghanistan. So when you suggest that Afghanistan is hostile to the education of women, and you mean, by Afghanistan, not the nation itself but a revolutionary faction seeking the overthrow of the government, you're engaged in a fallacy of equivocation.

[_Chap]

And, though the Taliban are resurgent, they are not the government of Afghanistan. So when you suggest that Afghanistan is hostile to the education of women, and you mean, by Afghanistan, not the nation itself but a revolutionary faction seeking the overthrow of the government, you're engaged in a fallacy of equivocation.

And though the disaffected malignants led by Washington are resurgent, they are not the government of America. So when you suggest that America is hostile to paying taxes without representation, and you mean by America not the nation itself but a revolutionary faction seeking the overthrow of the government, you're engaged in a fallacy of equivocation.

(And no, I am not suggesting that Washington et al. were morally equivalent to the Taliban.)

[_Daniel Peterson]

And though the disaffected malignants led by Washington are resurgent, they are not the government of America. So when you suggest that America is hostile to paying taxes without representation, and you mean by America not the nation itself but a revolutionary faction seeking the overthrow of the government, you're engaged in a fallacy of equivocation.

Nice try. Really, rather clever.

But, alas, misguided.

America was not a nation. Afghanistan is.

Thus, there's another fallacy of equivocation here.

In speaking about American policy during the 1770s, one could not be speaking about a national government because, in a sense, there wasn't one yet. In the event, the revolutionary faction represented by General Washington can be retroactively ratified and recognized as the American government after 1776 because it won. As of ten minutes ago, though, when I last heard the news, the Taliban had not yet seized the reins of power in Kabul. They remain a revolutionary faction, rather than a government. And, typically, when people say things like "Germany was Nazi during the 1930s" or "Spain was Fascist under Franco," they're talking about the government, the group in power, rather than about Count von Stauffenberg or the Weisse Rose resistance movement, or about the Spanish Republicans.

Harmony's statement about Afghanistan is more precisely analogous to describing Cuba as "communist" in 1958 and then, when contradicted and informed that Fulgencio Batista was corrupt but not a communist, responding that Fidel Castro (who rolled into Havana and declared a new government in January 1959) was indeed a communist -- while, for good measure (and in true Harmony-style), ridiculing the critic (who has actually been absolutely correct) for supposedly seeking to portray Batista's Cuba as a democratic free-market utopia. Except, to make the analogy even closer, one has to be claiming that Cuba is communist in 1958 in 1958, before Castro's entry into Havana.

[_Chap]

I am flattered that DCP thinks my little parody was clever, and unsurprised that he describes it as "misguided". I am happy to leave it to readers to decide whether it made an effective point.

Going back to the substantive point about what "Afghanistan" thinks about the education of women, I wonder what the result of a plebiscite of all adult men and women of Afghan nationality presently resident in that country on the education of women would be, if conditions existed to enable it to be conducted?

Does anyone feel confident that the majority of Afghans would vote in favour? Have we any reason to feel that the probabilities point one way or another?

(Yes of course, we can't know. People who don't wish to venture an opinion need feel no impulsion to comment, and I am certainly not asking them to.)

[_Daniel Peterson]

You might, with equal cogency, say that "The United States of America opposes the teaching of evolution as fact in the public schools," and then point to a poll that might well (I don't know the precise recent figures) show that a majority, or, at least, a plurality, of Americans do in fact oppose teaching evolution as fact in public schools.

But that would still be misleading.

As would be a claim that the United States of America favored the selling and consumption of alcoholic beverages through the 1920s and 1930s. My bet is that a large plurality, if not a considerable majority, of Americans held precisely that attitude throughout the 1920s and 1930s, but small things like Prohibition (the eighteenth amendment to the Federal Constitution, in force from roughly 1919 to 1933) make the simple claim that America supported the selling and drinking of liquor in the twenties and thirties fallaciously equivocal.

But let's not lose sight of Shades's suggestion that "Islam" penalizes the education of women, which is simply false, and Harmony's attempt to save it by throwing four specific majority-Muslim states into the pot in order to suggest that Islam at least opposes the education of women, which she has since sought to salvage by pointing to a revolutionary faction within one of those states -- an ethnically-based faction against which the entirely Muslim government of that state is currently waging a substantial military campaign, and which the Muslim governments of the other referenced states have publicly condemned on the very issue of its treatment of women.

Suppose Harmony were to declare that "Algeria" favors slitting the throats of villagers, when the real case is that a revolutionary faction at war with the government of Algeria does this. Would that not be seriously misleading?

Would people here complain if I were to characterize this as an atheist, anti-Mormon board? That would not be altogether unfair. If you don't think it just to simply declare this place an atheist, anti-Mormon message board, though, it seems to me that you don't have much logical basis for declaring Afghanistan to be opposed to the education of women.