Subject: Re: [lpny_manhattan] Re: Fwd: Today is the International Day to Eliminate Violence Against Women Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2003 20:39:03 -0500 To: From: Bob Armstrong On Tue, 09 Dec 2003 00:13:36 -0000, Nicolas Leobold wrote: >=A0--- In lpny_manhattan@yahoogroups.com, Blay Tarnoff= >=A0wrote: >=A0>=A0Nicolas Leobold wrote: >=A0>=A0>=A0Yes, often we do [love our daughters more than do the >=A0>=A0>=A0parents of the children in "one of those countries"], >=A0>=A0>=A0because we know better and we're better able to. >=A0> >=A0>=A0That is a horribly racist presumption which no one, including= you, > > are=A0entitled to make. > > Blay, there are many, many poor countries ... which ... > Despite their lack of education >=A0they're smart enough to know that it's anti-life and wrong. If it's "anti-life" they will die . It doesn't matter who is or isn't a "cultural relativist" . Reality will select only those practices which are survivable . You don't seem to have read the link Jim L gave early on which differentiated several practices lumped under "circumcision" . I made the major distinction between those practices which remove hard tissue from those more directly analogous to male circumcision which remove only soft . Only the former is prima facie likely to cause a great impairment to sexual sensation . But all of this emphasis on sex for pleasure , ie , recreation= , versus reproduction shows a tremendously last-half-century post-pill population-pressured mentality . There is no remote rainy valley in , eg , New Guinea which is immune from the global conversation condemning these practices= . But that conversation reached them only in this last 50 years . It's simply not something that that is relevant to the war here in NYC to warrant even this conversation except for the same attractions the movie Mondo Cane or "Real Video" has . I must admit to being very bias toward considering families to be very much responsible for their own actions among themselves so long as they do not aggress against mine . Because it is the family that evolves . Apropos , the "advocates against the horrors of \"Bad\"= cultures" industry , Jim Rogers in "Adventure Capitalist" = www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=3Dhttcoscom-20&path=3Dtg/det= ail/-/0375509127/qid%3D1070932891/sr%3D1-1 tells of One Sudanese entrepreneur, applying his talents to making easy money rather than building a productive enterprise, worked the corrupt NGO system perfectly. It was a "known fact" that slavery was rampant in northeast Africa, especially Sudan. He and a Swiss NGO found each other, and he agreed to by slaves for the charity, which would then set them free. By the time the Swiss figured out what was happening -- he was going to his friends and relatives and "buying" them, giving them good stories to tell the charity about their enslavement -- the Swiss were out $20 million. I'm inclined to let the locals take care of their own resources and their own children and in general , themselves , rather= than "impose" our enlightenment and "freedom" upon them . If I were there , I'd ask them , both adults and kids , why they do what they do if any of it seemed cruel . But I wouldn't send troops= . --=A0 =A0Bob Armstrong -- http://CoSy.com -- 212-285-1864 Computing Environment : =A0http://CoSy.com/CoSy/ A WTC vision : http://CoSy.com/CoSy/ConicAllConnect/ Liberty : http://CoSy.com/Liberty.htm Restore our Right to Relax : =A0http://ny.lp.org/cgi-bin/petition.cgi?Against_the_Smoking_Ban =A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A02003/12/08 7:29:38 PM