RON PAUL'S RACISM. One of the declared contenders for the Republican nomination for President in 2012, Texas Representative Ron Paul, has put his foot in his mouth again. During an interview on MSNBC, Paul frankly stated that he is against provisions in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed major forms of discrimination against blacks and women, including racial segregation. Paul said he would "vote against the law because it imposed unfair rules on what private business owners can and can't do on their own property. Essentially, they should be free to discriminate if they wish, however distasteful that may be."
By the same line of reasoning, business owners should be free to commit theft, rape, assault or murder on their property, because refraining from doing so would impose "unfair rules". Paul's position favoring business over individual civil rights is typical of conservative ethics (or ethical bankruptcy). His laissez-faire stance is at odds with every freedom guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, documents which Republicans conveniently ignore when it suits their selfish interests. How sad, and how repulsive, that 47 years after the law was passed, women and racial minorities are still struggling to achieve parity with white males. The good ol' boy mentality is alive and well among us, and needs to be bitch-slapped into oblivion.
MUSLIM PORN. It is not news that when you prohibit hedonistic activities like the consumption of alcohol or marijuana, people will find ways to achieve their pleasures anyway, even if it means breaking unrealistic laws. Just so with sexual activities, including pornography. Far better to legalize and regulate such pasttimes, than to try to stop an unstoppable force.
In her article Osama's Dirty Mind, Asra Q. Omani reveals that "the smut in bin Laden's compound reveals the Muslim world's dirty secret: porn is rife, everyone looks at it -- and the U.S. finds it in militants' hideouts all the time .... Called fuhsha in Arabic, pornography is considered haram, or illegal, according to most interpretations of Islam, because it publicly exposes a person's awrah, the Arabic word for the zones forbidden from public eye. The debate over pornography, masturbation, and the line between the erotic and the pornographic is a serious one in the Muslim community. Muslims today are negotiating these issues much like the West started doing decades ago .... [the presence of pornography] speaks to the contradictions that permeate Muslim society."
Or for that matter, the contradictions that permeate any repressive society. While Islam, with its archaic laws and subjegation of women, makes an easy target for ridicule, most nations and cultures don't have to look much further than the mirror to find equally egregious ideas. I wonder when we, as a species, will ever grow up?
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