Er, I meant “conversation”, not “conversion”. I don’t know if that counts as a Freudia slip or not.

“The thugs make up rules as they go. It is not our responsibility to know what might possibly offend. It is their responsibility to learn how to discuss differences and resolve problems in a civilized manner.”

The problem with a “theocracy police” is that they simply DON’T resolve problems in a civilized manner. And there is no discussion. Whoever is currently in charge gets to enforce their own unique vision of what the Book says. They’re never interested in dialogue, conversion, agreement, or mutual resolutions.

Thank God for our own enlightened Founding Fathers, who saw fit to create a system of law based on Christian principles, rather than instituting a theocratic police force. I say this because a theocracy police always devolves down to the Rule Of Man, rather than the Rule Of Law. Whoever is in charge of the theocracy police gets to be God, basically. Again I say, Thank God for our Founding Fathers!

If in fact Sudan has a law about naming teddy bears, it is probably not the first thing one would learn about the country. I bet that if the principal had quietly explained that this might be offensive, this teacher would have would have gone back to her class, suggested they change the name, and made the episode into a tolerance lesson. That is not what this episode was about. It was about power and intimidation.

Recall that the Taliban outlawed kites in Afghanistan, jihadis in Somalia forbad watching soccer on TV (tell that to the Iraqis), and that some AQ thug started roughing up women in Iraq for keeping cucumbers and tomatoes next to one another. The thugs make up rules as they go. It is not our responsibility to know what might possibly offend. It is their responsibility to learn how to discuss differences and resolve problems in a civilized manner.

This woman voluntarily chose to live and work in this country where harsh Islamic law is in effect.

I’ve always thought national sovereignty is paramount. Every country has its own system of law, and you can find, in any country, a law that you consider outrageous. I find Singapore’s harsh caning laws to be an outrage, and the Saudi Arabian practice of hand-chopping, head-chopping, and stoning to be an outrage as well.

However, many Europeans and others find our own death-penalty laws to be a violation of universal human rights.

I’ll let Singapore, Saudi Arabia, etc, etc, be themselves, and we will continue to be ourselves. If you live in our country, you’ll be subject to any of our laws that you find draconian; and if you live in Sudan, you’d better be prepared for their version of outrageously harsh Islamic law to be in effect on you.

If your family comes here to the USA and you burn your sister alive as an honor killing, you’d better be prepared to suffer OUR punishment. Naming a teddy bear Mohammed… the lady might have wondered if the rigidly theocratic, fanatically religiously sensitive authorities might not have seen that as a provocative action by a worthless infidel?

In any case, it’s yet another reminder why I don’t want to travel to any such country mired in its Dark-Ages culture of vicious, inhuman, racist, intolerant attitudes.

Does this then mean that America will go the way of the British Empire? Two different things. Their analysis of America is sourced too much from their guilt over what Britain did in the past.

Hey, if the world was safe, Blackwater would be out of a job.

Some people, sad to say, seem wired to rationalize and accept slavery as their natural standing in life.

Most people are born followers. That is how human evolution set it up. A hierarchy with most of the members being leaders would self-destruct soon. This is kind of why communism and socialism failed. Evolution dictated that humanity must have leaders and those that are superior to the majority, whether through birth, skills, merit, luck, or whatever. Regardless of how powerful revolutionaries think theyr ideology is, it ain’t more powerful than the hardwiring of the human species through evolution.