"Emo" and gay kids targeted, killed in Iraq (warning graphic content).

[TheMadMonk]

17. They all stood up and changed THEIR OWN PART OF THE WORLD.

Some truly brave souls go to other parts of the world and help the locals do that changing.

What doesn't work is going to those other parts of the world and dictating terms.

BULL-fucking-SHIT. History tells us that absent something resembling a local support network, the helpless and opressed choose the survival option (no matter how debasing) almost every single time. When people are starving or threatened with death THE VAST MAJORITY WILL demean themselves any way they're asked to, for just a scrap of food or a moment more of life.

How many times have you wanted to scream at the TV, "Fight back! He's going to kill you anyway." It's not a Hollywood plot element, it's reality. The lickspittle foil to the office/schoolyard bully? On TV he's but a pale imitation of reality.

OK a much, much worse bloodbath. As is being seen in Afghanistan right fucking now. As the US looses what little grip it ever held over the nation, those women and children encouraged to come forward to be the poster children of a new enlightened regime are enjoying a second go round as the VERY DEAD poster children for a resurgent Taliban, and a war machine that doesn't want to leave.

A debased life is not a pleasant one. But it is a life, and in the opinions of most, it remains better than the alternative.

Offering false hopes, with no realistic hope of delivery creates exactly the situations we have in Iraq, half of Africa, and Afghanistan today.

It is not that I am willing to let it continue. It's that I'm aware that any attempt to enforce societal change from the outside is far, far more likely to make matters worse than better.

By all means stand up for yourself and WITH others willing (and ready) to be stood up for, but you WILL NOT GET THE DRUNK TO SOBER UP UNTIL THE DRUNK IS READY TO STOP DRINKING OF HIS OWN VOLITION. He may (probably will) need all the help in the world, but he still has to be ready to accept that help, not have it thrust upon him.

I'm old enough (barely) to see just how far forward several "opressed groups" have advanced in the last several decades, and also to gauge the level of opposition they did it against.

AND YOU are throwing a temper tantrum when the the World refuses to instantly catch up several centuries in the face of entrenched opposition many times greater than the suffragettes, the labour movement, blacks, and libbers ever had to face.

It might not be happening fast enough to please you, but it is happening. Forcing it will not get you there any faster, and (again) as is happening in Afghanistan, is far more likely to invite bloody minded reprisal anywhere you are unable to enforce compliance.