Can you please invade India next, America?

[Sandman]

Originally posted by aneeshm
Five simple examples:

1) Openness of sexual promiscuity (over here, we believe that if you have to do it, at least keep it private)

2) Lack of reverence for teachers

3) Lack of respect for elders

4) Putting old people in homes, and in general considering it OK to treat them like dirt, like a burden

5) Expecting children to be independent at the age of seventeen or eighteen

The second and fourth ones bother me quite a bit. They're unthinkable and abhorrent.

That's capitalism for you, bub. Best learn to like it.

[Dinner]

Aneeshm, how then do you explain that there was no outcry when an Indian guy kissed a white actress but when a white guy kisses an Indian actress on the cheek then suddenly every idiot Hindu nationalist in India cries for his blood?

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Aeson


"Sensibilities" and "laws" are sorta different things...

You don't think Americans would be making a fuss if someone here were publicly burning American flags?

People would make a fuss? Big deal. Nobody cares if indians make a fuss. They don't like them threatening to jail people over the fuss though.

Furthermore the flag burning fuss likely wouldn't amount to much. People burn flags from time to time but it never gets on the news unless it's part of a larger news item.

If Aneeshm came here and burned a flag I doubt anybody who wasn't an eyewitness would hear anything about it.

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Aneeshm, how then do you explain that there was no outcry when an Indian guy kissed a white actress but when a white guy kisses an Indian actress on the cheek then suddenly every idiot Hindu nationalist in India cries for his blood?

Could you please provide more details? I've only seen one picture of the current controversy, which led me to say that it was due to the way it was done. And where did this kiss between Hurley and Nair take place? In India, or outside?

And it's not Hindu nationalists who are behind this, it's just one rather prudish citizen. Why you have to bring the bogey of "HN! It's teh HN!!!!11!one!!1!" into everything is beyond me.

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Sandman


That's capitalism for you, bub. Best learn to like it.

Capitalism is an economic system. The issues I outlined are fundamentally social ones. It is possible for a society to exist with such values within a capitalist system. The two are not mutually exclusive.

[Arrian]

Just one prudish citizen? I doubt it.

It's at least two, anyway, because the judge had to issue the warrant, right?

Anyway, my reaction is simple:

A kiss on the cheek

-Arrian

[Dinner]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6596163.stm

Front page of today's BBC.

[aneeshm]

I'm talking about an image of Hurley being kissed by Nair.

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Arrian

Just one prudish citizen? I doubt it.

It's at least two, anyway, because the judge had to issue the warrant, right?

The judge does not make the law, he simply adjudicates based on it. If an old and obsolete law says something stupid, the judge is forced to enforce that too.

Originally posted by Arrian

Anyway, my reaction is simple:

A kiss on the cheek

-Arrian

As I said, I don't think much of this at all.

[Arrian]

OMG! Obscenity!

Does she get killed for dishonoring the nation now?

edit:

The judge does not make the law, he simply adjudicates based on it. If an old and obsolete law says something stupid, the judge is forced to enforce that too.

I guess it depends on just how specific the law was. If it just says "no public obscenity" then the judge could have simply ruled that there was no such obscenity and that would've been the end of it.

-Arrian

[Sandman]

Originally posted by aneeshm
Capitalism is an economic system. The issues I outlined are fundamentally social ones. It is possible for a society to exist with such values within a capitalist system. The two are not mutually exclusive.

It's naive to pretend that there is a distinct boundary between the economic and the social. Capitalism is always aiming to establish new markets, new fashions, new products. Otherwise it cannot grow. Toppling existing social systems is an easy way to do this.

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Arrian
OMG! Obscenity!

Does she get killed for dishonoring the nation now?

-Arrian

As I said, I have no idea WTF the law is in this case, nor about how appropriate it is, so I will reserve further comment.

At face value, however, it appears to be a stupid law.

That does not mean, OTOH, that Gere should not be more sensitive.

[Arrian]

From the OP:

Last week, crowds in several Indian cities burned effigies of the 57-year-old star of "An Officer and a Gentleman,'' "American Gigolo" and "Pretty Woman" after he embraced Shetty and kissed her several times on her cheeks during an HIV/AIDS awareness event in the Indian capital.

More than one silly citizen.

But I understand that it's a bunch of rural yokels with uberconservative values. I'm just joking around...

-Arrian

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Arrian

edit:

I guess it depends on just how specific the law was. If it just says "no public obscenity" then the judge could have simply ruled that there was no such obscenity and that would've been the end of it.

-Arrian

There's the problem of precedent to consider.

[aneeshm]

One thing that made me smile when I realised it:

WTF was the point of kissing her (or anyone) many times in a conference on HIV/AIDS? Isn't that rather counterproductive?