At some point you have to just beat on these authoritarians. The only thing they know is violence. Sure, try peaceful protests first, but don’t stop there if it’s not getting the job done.
The paradox of tolerance – those who break the ‘social contract’ deserve no tolerance from the otherwise tolerant, otherwise they’ll just run roughshod over everyone. I hate violence as well and have no stomach for it, but it does seem there may be no other way to stop regimes like this.
As always, it’s not that easy
First you would.do well to read up on the history of Iran, especially the involvement of the US in basically creating Iran as it is today.
Once you got that down, you have got to understand how religion and culture works there. Simply saying “kill the masters” won’t work, we did that with Saddam Hussein and after wars and deaths, shit was and is worse.
A LOT more will be needed to change counties like these for the better, and simply talking about breaking the paradox of tolerance won’t do.
No, you’re totally right – there’s no easy way out of this. But how does one work towards a peaceful solution, and overcome multi-generational, cultural, ‘religion’-based attitudes shaping foreign policies (I place ‘religion’ in quotes because I believe that religion is just used, by all sides, as justification for intolerance and abuse of power) that insists on conflict? BTW I’m referring to both Iran and the ‘Western Powers’ here.
Simply trying to ‘kill the masters’ would only create a vacuum for whomever is waiting in the wings to take their place, and just perpetuate the cycle… sigh. I dunno.
Huh. Turns out wanting a theocracy in your country because you were tired of royalty was even worse for everyone.
To be fair, the CIA pretty much made that happen, not the people.
Religion of peace at it again.
People abuse other People. Concepts and ideas do not. Religion is not remotely involved in anything a fundamentalist does except as their excuse.
Fuck their religion. And they wonder why the US wants to spread western values.
Their values have no place in this world. None. It’s not “culture” it’s exerting control over other people who have no recourse. It’s an invalid way to live
Not so different from other extreme religious positions, like hate and violence towards LGBT or removing personal freedom with banning abortion coming from Christianity. Or Hindutva terror coming from Hinduism.
Christianity would do the same if given the same level of power. All theocracy is evil.
OK I’m just saying we may have found the silver lining in the israel-Gaza war.
Iran has so many irons in the fire right now,they can’t focus on them all, and this movement might get another chance.
Probably not but it’s nice to dream
