It's Libyan for "thank you"

[DaShi]

That's not going to happen. Fundamentalists in the US are very used to having their hero figures lampooned.

Yup, those lampooners deserve a Nobel Peace prize.

[Felch]

We have, temporarily, given 3 countries "freedom", at the cost of western and local lives. 10 bombings in one day in Iraq doesn't get a mention here. Australian soldiers killed by Afghani police barely gets a mention. Since Libya is newly free, it is still interesting. Oh well, I guess Iran will distract us from that, too.

A Muslim with freedom is a little like the mule with a spinning wheel. No one knows how he got it, and danged if he knows how to use it.

[Uncle Sparky]

Indonesia seems to function, despite their several on-going civil wars.

[Zevico]

Indonesia seems to function, despite their several on-going civil wars.

Well, function is a strong term. Take Aceh, the place where Indonesia decided the best way of winning the civil war was losing it and allowing the imposition of province-wide Sharia law.
Or take Jemaah "Bali bombings" Islamiyah. Please--we could spare them. A former coworker of mine fled from Indonesia. She said they burned churches there and that she was afraid to live there.

[DaShi]

A former coworker of mine fled from Indonesia. She said they burned churches there and that she was afraid to live there.

How odd. I knew someone from the U.S. south who said the same thing.

[Al B. Sure!]

A Muslim with freedom is a little like the mule with a spinning wheel. No one knows how he got it, and danged if he knows how to use it.

Turkey? Morocco?

[Hauldren Collider]

Turkey. You mean the country that elected Erdogan?

[Felch]

Or Morocco, where rape victims are forced to marry their attackers.

[Al B. Sure!]

Turkey. You mean the country that elected Erdogan?

What exactly is wrong with Erdogan?

[Al B. Sure!]

A Russian with freedom is a little like the mule with a spinning wheel. No one knows how he got it, and danged if he knows how to use it.

A Chinese with freedom is a little like the mule with a spinning wheel. No one knows how he got it, and danged if he knows how to use it.

[Al B. Sure!]

According to Freedom House, Turkey, Morocco, Kuwait, and Lebanon are free

[Felch]

Russians (at least on this board) seem to love Stalin and all his tyranny, but the Chinese in Taiwan have a boisterous and healthy democracy.

[Felch]

According to Freedom House, Turkey, Morocco, Kuwait, and Lebanon are free

So a handful of tiny countries on the periphery of the Muslim world, those most exposed to the civilizing effects of the West, are "free." Of course, Lebanon is a Syrian puppet, Kuwait is a monarchy, Morocco blames women for being raped, and Turkey (the only big one) vacillates between Islamic governments and military dictatorships. That's as free as Islam gets.

[giblets]

A right winger with a brain is like a mule with a spinning wheel.

[Al B. Sure!]

So a handful of tiny countries on the periphery of the Muslim world, those most exposed to the civilizing effects of the West, are "free." Of course, Lebanon is a Syrian puppet, Kuwait is a monarchy, Morocco blames women for being raped, and Turkey (the only big one) vacillates between Islamic governments and military dictatorships. That's as free as Islam gets.

Sounds like all of Latin America and Spain/Portugal up until the 1970's.

Hispanics were incapable of freedom, clearly


Germany was a seemingly perpetual military dictatorship long before Prussian unification and continued into 1945 and into 1991 in the East.

France was a feudal then absolute monarchy for a millennium until a violent revolution that led to a Reign of Terror and the formation of a military dictatorship. France then alternated between brief republics and military dictatorships.


The Islamic world seems right on a Hegelian schedule.