"Just part of their culture"
Somewhere out there, somebody is excusing the Saudi treatment of those girls in the school fire. Take this entry with a grain of salt for the obvious strawman but please trust me that the strawman pretty fairly reflects what people actually say. It's one of the most insulting, unwittingly racist lines of argument one can take, and yet people still do. They use it to explain why Muslim nations tend not to be democracies, why the Chinese have lived under tyranny for so long, and so on. The thing is, most people in undemocratic nations have NEVER BEEN ASKED what their preference would be.

More to the point, any culture (note the difference between "culture" and "people") in which preventing young girls from leaving a burning building is put up with, is a culture that richly deserves to die out. I wouldn't mind contributing to the extinction of this culture. The danger to thinking like this is that there are, no doubt, young Muslim radicals who are just as dead-set opposed to Western values. Whatever: The fact of the matter is we're right and they're wrong. People are afraid to argue this. People assume there's no point in arguing this.

But thank God the founders of this country found it a point worth arguing.

While I'm being political
The Saudi girls' school fire speaks for itself. Read all about it if you haven't already: You may not have, since it took a really good blog to call my attention to it.

Let's put it this way: Any religion that beats young girls when they try to escape from a fire is unworthy of the name religion. It's awfully convenient of the Saudis to criticize their religious police after the fact, but that's the thing: After the fact. Shouldn't have happened in the first place. End aid to Saudi Arabia. Now. Nuke 'em for all I care.

Be forewarned that my take on foreign policy is excessively influenced by Travis Bickle's worldview. I am unapologetic about this, though. Shithole nations that fuck with kids have no right to exist. Shithole nations that fuck with females have no right to exist. Might doesn't make right, but when we (the U.S.) have both might and right, let's cut the crap and start using a little more of the might part.

This goes a long way toward explaining why one of the few things in domestic politics that deeply offends me is when left-wingers unfairly compare people who believe what I believe to religious tyrants. The whole crock of "Taliban wing" bull. It all makes me want to grab some NARAL chick by the lapels of her business suit and scream: Women around the world are getting killed, maimed, mutilated, and otherwise abused for the crime of being female. And amidst all this, you have nothing better to do than bitch me out for wanting a few more babies to live?

*sigh*

Saturday Night Special
I should know better than to argue politics against the writers of rock lyrics. I especially should know better than to bother with the band that -- God love 'em -- sang of Neil Young, "the Southern man don't need him around anyhow."

(In the realm of music-as-politics, if you want to treat it as a wrestling story line, where is Neil Young these days? I think "Let's Roll" puts him in the unambiguously good category, or at least "reformed"; your mileage may vary.)

But "Saturday Night Special" just came on and I have a bone to pick with the first verse. Two creeps are sneaking into a house whose tenants lie naked in the bedroom. As the one man reaches for his trousers, suddenly he's staring down the barrel of a .44.

Wait a minute, though: If he had his own .44, it wouldn't have come to this. Put it this way: If guns are legal, there's a good chance both sides in this confrontation have one. If guns are illegal, exactly one side will -- the wrong side.

"Handguns are made for killing, they ain't no good for nothing else." Uh right. Except that defense is a really good thing, and sometimes the best defense is the threat of a good offense.