Now THIS is the definition of true solidarity with Muslim women

[Burney]

You no read too good neither.

I have already pointed out that, as a politician, you have the further option of gathering your military forces and changing things if you perceive them as incompatible with decency. I've already said that.

So the options are complete cultural submission or complete cultural domination? No middle ground as far as you're concerned?

[Monty92]

You no read too good, huh?

I'm suggesting that a gay politician, aware that he would be jailed in Lebanon, should not visit Lebanon.

Well I don't agree. I think a gay politician should visit Lebanon, attempt to engage with them, and if they cart him off to jail it would simply shine a light on their barbarity and perhaps even knock some sense of reality and urgency into the west's assorted apologists.

Just as the Allan fella insisting on Le Pen wearing a headscarf shined a light on his barbarity.

[Burney]

I have no idea, I was replying to Monty's somewhat hypothetical question.

Were I gay, and on the verge of visiting Lebanon, you may rest assured I would check the detail.

Well things have changed a bit, haven't they? The only westerners who ever used to go to these places at all used to be homos.

[Sir C]

So the options are complete cultural submission or complete cultural domination? No middle ground as far as you're concerned?

I don't understand what you mean by 'cultural submission'. If you mean respecting local custom, I don't really know why you choose such an emotive term.

Would you visit a Muslim country during ramadan and drink water from a bottle in public during the day? To do so would be offensive to local people. If you were determined so to do, you would be visiting a foreign country intent on causing offence. This seems to me odd.

On the other hand, if you truly believe that everyone should be able to drink during daylight hours, nuke the fúckers. That's not rude, that's Realpolitik.

[Pokster]

Well I don't agree. I think a gay politician should visit Lebanon, attempt to engage with them, and if they cart him off to jail it would simply shine a light on their barbarity and perhaps even knock some sense of reality and urgency into the west's assorted apologists.

Just as the Allan fella insisting on Le Pen wearing a headscarf shined a light on his barbarity.

I don't think he would be carted off to jail for being gay, wouldn't he have to do a gay act?

[Ash]

But I haven't suggested kowtowing in any way. I'm suggesting that if you don't like a country's customs and culture and/or are prepared to abide by same, don't go. As a politician you have a further option: gather your military strength and change the regime, cultures and customs to something more suitable to the 21st century

So not wearing a headscarf is rude, but regime change, which invariably means destroying the country, unleashing chaos and extremism worse than the regime being changed, up to hundreds of thousands of deaths plus millions of refugees is ok?

Regime change policy in Iraq, Libya and Syria has been catastrophic in every case.

"First remove the beam out of your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother's eye."

[Sir C]

So not wearing a headscarf is rude, but regime change, which invariably means destroying the country, unleashing chaos and extremism worse than the regime being changed, up to hundreds of thousands of deaths plus millions of refugees is ok?

Regime change policy in Iraq, Libya and Syria has been catastrophic in every case.

"First remove the beam out of your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother's eye."

It worked ok in Germany and Japan in 1945

[Burney]

I don't understand what you mean by 'cultural submission'. If you mean respecting local custom, I don't really know why you choose such an emotive term.

Would you visit a Muslim country during ramadan and drink water from a bottle in public during the day? To do so would be offensive to local people. If you were determined so to do, you would be visiting a foreign country intent on causing offence. This seems to me odd.

On the other hand, if you truly believe that everyone should be able to drink during daylight hours, nuke the fúckers. That's not rude, that's Realpolitik.

No, I think there is a reasonable halfway house whereby we are given a pass by virtue of the fact that we are not of the culture or the religion and therefore should - within reason - have some of our cultural norms tolerated (not adopted or assimilated, but tolerated) accordingly. I don't think that is an unreasonable suggestion, not least because it is what we do when people from those cultures visit us.

[Sir C]

No, I think there is a reasonable halfway house whereby we are given a pass by virtue of the fact that we are not of the culture or the religion and therefore should - within reason - have some of our cultural norms tolerated (not adopted or assimilated, but tolerated) accordingly. I don't think that is an unreasonable suggestion, not least because it is what we do when people from those cultures visit us.

Yes, that is what we do, and that is what they don't do for us. Big News! Western liberal democracy is more polite, well mannered and far less barbaric than benighted Islamic ****holes! SOMEONE INFORM THE BBC!

We are better than them. Demanding that they play to the same standards is, well, a little rude. Best just to avoid them, really.

[Monty92]

Yes, that is what we do, and that is what they don't do for us. Big News! Western liberal democracy is more polite, well mannered and far less barbaric than benighted Islamic ****holes! SOMEONE INFORM THE BBC!

We are better than them. Demanding that they play to the same standards is, well, a little rude. Best just to avoid them, really.

That, I believe, is a fine example of what George W Bush rather neatly described as the soft bigotry of low expectations.