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-- The world is becoming more right-wing?
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The Republicans should thank their incompetent, and criminal leaders for making the world become more left wing.

The only country I can name that has turned more right wing in a recent election is Canada, and with that Conservatives shouldn't get too excited. Harper is a minority government that is more socially conservative than most Canadians and was elected as protest against political corruption against the Liberal Party. As for the Liberal Party, alot of people are still very happy with how they managed the economy, and Harper needs to continue that for his party's future success. Alot of people also think he's a suck up to Bush, especially on the Marijuana issue.

Also in the America's Peru, Chile & Bolivia have turned more left wing in recent elections. In fact hatred of Bush played helped Bolivias president get elected.

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Originally posted by HardTranceProd In years past, children and teenagers were much more independent in America than they are now. These days, mothers are so paranoid about everything that they don't let their kids go anywhere by themselves, and all activities are strictly supervised. Also, there are many new laws, e.g. kids cannot ride bikes without a helmet. Teenage girls can't go to a beauty salon without their parents' permission. These are just examples. One indicator of how the world is tending more right-wing is smoking. From Italy to Ireland to the US, smoking is now banned in public places, yet it was very widespread and socially accepted worldwide. I'm noticing a trend where more things or activities are being restricted rather than relaxed around the world.

Thats wrong, and you are wrong. In fact the world is tending to be liberal then conservative. But you are so narrow minded about things that you only take a couple of examples and make it look so bad.

Listen buddy. When you reffer as children or even teens, dont you think parents have responsiblity? Oh wait of course you dont because your a fuckin hippy. You also forget to mention all these cases of little girls being rapped by 40 year old men, or getting kidnapped. Why dont you tell us that?

You really think this is the 60s where everything is perfect and kids and go to the store by themselfs because towns are mostly small. Nowadays cities are becoming big and of course children or even teens can do whatever they want withouth the parents permission. I mean what else are parents there for? To give you advice on how many girls you should screw or how much weed you should smoke huh?

Again, why do you compare everything with the rest of the world? The rest of the world is behind America. Smoking has been proven to damage people and kill, you still think that we should allow it in some public places where the majority is againts it?

You make no sense at all. But then again, your a hippy, your not suppose to make sense.

I am going to have to go out on a limb when I say this but their is no difference between teens of 40yrs ago and teens of now. That is the case in at least America. So when I hear the 'the world is becoming more right wing' I can do nothing but laugh. The US is a great case example that generations don't change and remain the same punks when their young and then assholish when they are old.

My point is that as people olden they turn conservative and while young real liberal at least most. I hate American teens though they are really not honest. For example in my socialogy class the teacher was asking people to write on a piece of paper how many had had sex and used drugs. Out of the 26 people in class only 6 admitted to drug use and another 3 to having sex. When at parties I have seen like all the left side of class smoking pot and some of those girls were really slutty.

My point is that Americans tend on being to close minded when it comes to admitting things they have done, they have too much pride and not enough intelligence.

Renegade: As always, in an effort to keep the posts shorter than the average Stephen King novel, I've abstained from commenting on the parts of your post where we seem to be in agreement.

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Originally posted by Renegade A person found breaking a domestic law should be tried and sentenced according to domestic law: I'm not sure what is to be gained by deporting them.

I guess it depends on your philosophical angle on punishment. As far as I see it, there are three kinds of justification for punishment:
1 - the punished gets a chance to reflect on his/her bad behaviour and will change for the better,
2 - the punishment serves as a deterrent to others,
3 - society (and more specifically, the offender's victims) have their faith in the justice system reinforced.
Furthermore, in the special cases of capital punishment and jail time, society benefits by being protected from the offender for some period/forever (4).
Deporting criminal immigrants/non-citizens is helpful if you follow philosophies 3 or 4, I guess we can agree. Furthermore, in Denmark studies indicate that immigrants from some middle eastern countries have difficulties respecting law and order because they view the punishments as "no punishment". In fact, for a lot of offenses, youngsters apparently fear the punishment at home far more than that of the justice system. Except, that is, the threat of deportation. So if you see punishment as 2, then you can argue that something is gained from deportation, too. Do you adhere to view 1?

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Originally posted by Renegade Besides, if they have domestic citizenship and / or residency, I'm not sure how deporting them could be legally or morally justified.

In the case of dual citizenship then yes, it cannot be legally or morally justified to deport these people (we'd in effect be exporting a problem to another country that cannot be said to be any more responsible for the acts of its citizen than our own country).

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Originally posted by Renegade A country has the right to restrict immigration on the basis of "need" (i.e. dependent on the population size, skills of the potential immigrants, whether they are refugees - which all signatories to the Geneva Convention have an obligation to accept - and so on) but I would argue that vetting on the basis of potential "suitab[ility] to live in the society" is far too subjective a condition to be enforced effectively. If a potential immigrant is, say, an outspoken Islamist who has publically denounced "western values" then that's one thing, but if the immigrant is from a Muslim nation and has not specified his or her political ideologies then that's quite another. It's fair enough to reject the tiny minority for whom subscription to a nefarious ideology can be ascertained, but what about the rest? Can we begin to discriminate between immigrants on the basis of religion or country of origin (under the presumption that individuals from certain nations are less likely to integrate properly), interrogate all immigrants thoroughly on their political and / or social ideologies, or is there some other way of vetting potential immigrants based on their "suitability" to live in the society?

As I said, the simple "muslim"/"non muslim" classification is stupid, but I wouldn't rule out the questioning of potential new citizens as stupid. Furthermore, some cases are quite clear: Abu Laban, for instance, had to leave Saudi-Arabia and Egypt for "being to extreme", yet Denmark welcomed him and allowed him to practice as Imam here.

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Originally posted by Renegade Immigrants who don't learn English will suffer in the job market, so that should be obviously be encouraged [...] If we were to take it is a universal maxim that those who are slow to adopt the language of their country of residence should either be deported or, at least, denied the full rights of citizenship then I can say that Australia, for starters, would still be an economically backwards country full of drongos and sheep-farmers. This is a country that's been built on migration (and many of these migrants never really fully "integrated" into Australian culture in the sense that Peter Costello must have meant it) and - given our slow population growth - I would say it would be unwise to now adopt a policy which either rejects or deports immigrants based on how quickly they learn English.

I guess the issue is very dependent on your country of residence, it's societal structure, and the values that are held by the majority of people. Moreover, I suggested that people *refusing* to learn the native language should not be supported by the state. People slow on catching up is something else.

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Originally posted by Renegade But that's where much of this started. Much of the antipathy directed to Muslims in this country was sparked by fears after the London bombings that seemingly ordinary Muslims (as was the case with those who committed the bombings in London) could cause great harm to society if left unchecked. All of a sudden the tennet of multiculturalism (which was once an almost irreproachable doctrine in this country) came under attack by conservative politicians and conservative elements of society, who argued that the freedom of Muslims to retain Muslim customs was a threat to national security. In this wave of paranoia, there was no-one who visibly decried this logic, so it quickly snowballed from the (largely) justified fear of radical Islam into the fear of all things Islamic.

Again, it's probably different from country to country. In Denmark we have the airheads who see everything muslim as dangerous (in fact everything non-danish to be honest), but the majority *do* distinguish between Islamists and Muslims - even the openly nationalists, like the leaders of the Danish People's Party. The London bombings didn't really affect us that much here, nor did 911, or the Madrid bombings, as we were not a nation unconditionally embracing multi-culturalism prior to these. In fact, the debate over tolerance, "national identity", religion, and immigration has been dominating in Denmark for the last 10 years, and the points of view that "tolerance always breeds tolerance" and "globalization is not for Denmark" have both gradually lost their adherents.

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Originally posted by Renegade Most of those who are attacking Islam will say that they are doing so under the auspice of protecting Australian society, yet it appears to me as nothing more than the authoritarian mandating of a particularly egregious form of an exclusivist social ideology against a group of people who, frankly, do not deserve it. At base, I don't think it's only "terror" that these conservative types fear (after all, what don't conservatives fear?), but that's certainly how they're justifying it.

Just curious here: What do you expect conservatives to fear, but not talk about? Your conjecture reminds me of some left-wing politicians and journalists in Denmark, who accuse the Danish People Party of being populists "abusing the immigration issue to get more votes", somehow deeming it impossible that the DPP could actually have the radical opinions that they sometimes state. Always baffled me that one - after all no-one ever dismiss a hippie's beliefs on PLUR as an affront.

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Originally posted by Renegade (I'll try to make sure I get around to reading a few of those articles at some point... )

If you're pressed for time, I'd suggest you read the one from the Daily Ablution, as the writer uses hilarious sarcasm, and it's thus not only informative but entertaining as well.

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Originally posted by Renegade [...] a group of people who, frankly, do not deserve it.

and

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Originally posted by Renegade the tiny minority for whom subscription to a nefarious ideology can be ascertained

I don't know if these quotes (taken out of context) really represent your feeling of the matter, but I would hesitate to label the Islamist portion of Muslims as negligible: In Britian more than 40% of Muslims want to live under Sharia, which to me implies that their facsists. Similarly the election results of practically all democratic countries where Muslims are in the majority, show that openly non-secular fanatics are voted into power. The only real exceptions here are Lebanon and Turkey, and Turkey is only excluded because the secular millitary coups all elected Islamists if they get to close to creating an Islamic state. The will of the people is clearly a much more pious society.
But what I find most telling, is that I see far too few Muslims and Muslim organizations clearly distancing themselves from the horrible acts that are carried out in the name of Islam. If I witnessed some psycho quoting from Nietzsche before slicing the throat of some poor dude, I'd make damn sure to tell everyone who would listen to me that that is not what atheism should be about. Similarly, when an entire nation (france) misuse secularism to ban head scarves, I'm quite vocal about that, and I notice that organizations that I feel aligned with are doing the same. Why is it so hard for the "majority of Muslims" to do the same? Unless this majority is not really a majority but a frighteningly small minority, that is?

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Originally posted by Renegade Personally I see Islam globally as facing the same problems that Christianity does in the US: the religion has been hijacked by extremist idiots and the moderate, more liberal adherents fail to engage or denounce these people enough, either as a result of intimidation or as a result of apathy. Ultimately, as in the US, this war of ideologies cannot be won from the outside: the moderates are going to need to stand up and be heard. Whether or not this happens any time soon is, I guess, something that cannot yet be determined.

I appreciate the similarity, but I think that you are comparing bad apples with bad oranges here. Two differences that come to mind: First, in the US there is quite a noticeable opposition to the bad policies of the religous right. Heck, about 80% of the threads in the PDD are about the latest insanity in the US, thus attesting to the fact that people not aligned with wiretapping innocent people because of them being Muslim, torturing people just because they're muslims, and electing religious fanatics for the supreme court, are numerous and vocal about it.
Second, there are far less "active" non-extremist christians than "active" non-extremist Muslims. That is, while I may be baptised and celebrate Christmas, I'm not feeling associated with the Christian belief, and don't really give a fuck if others find Christianity to be a violent or morally corrupt religion, and don't have any selfish problems with Christians suffering from the prejudice of others. Clearly this is not the case for non-extremist Muslims.

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Originally posted by HardTranceProd One indicator of how the world is tending more right-wing is smoking. From Italy to Ireland to the US, smoking is now banned in public places, yet it was very widespread and socially accepted worldwide. I'm noticing a trend where more things or activities are being restricted rather than relaxed around the world.

I'm quite baffled by how you can connect bans on smoking to right wing politics? It seems to me that banning smoking in public is done in order to *free* non-smokers of subjection to smoke, unless they actively seek it out. Hence, a liberalistic project.

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