An Eye for an Eye

Well, I had wanted to write something for One Single Impression today. It's an anniversary for them and I always like participating but my muse is apparently not out of the cave or if she is, she is keeping her mouth shut.

So I was sitting here tormenting myself with the Sunday morning talking heads. I don't know why I insist on doing that every Sunday morning. It just makes me cranky. A lot of pointless pontificating and people trying to do "gotchas" with other people and even the people I agree with being pretty inane and stupid. But do I stop listening? No. I thought about writing something about the budget arguments. Being as liberal as I am, I'm delighted with much of Obama's proposed ideas... and I do think that sometimes in life you have to spend money up front in order to save it in the long run or come out even. But that's a big subject and I'm not really qualified to speak coherently about it.

Then I was thinking about one of the most interesting blog posts I've read in a while. Mary the Teach posted an ethical dilemma over at Work of the Poet and had some interesting discussion on the topic. Then this morning I was listening to Fareed Zacharia (hope I spelled that right)'s GPS program where they were discussing radical Islam and the differences between the Taliban and Bin Laden and whether it's our job to fight only bad guys who are waging global jihad or to also fight people who are abusive to women and their own citizens. A whopper of a moral dilemma, but not the one I want to raise.

What I want to talk about is a story I heard a week or so ago and would have written about except for the whole withdrawal-from-the-world-being-in-a-cave thing I was going through. But anyway. There was a story - I think on CNN - about a young woman in Iran who has sought and won the right to extract vengeance literally in terms of an eye for an eye. In 2004, an unwelcome suitor threw acid in her face, blinding and disfiguring her. As a rule, these kinds of cases have been settled by the attacker's family pay a large sum of money to the victim. Ms. Bahrami chose instead to demand an eye for an eye. She says it isn't about revenge but about putting a stop to such attacks in the future.

My first response to this was horror. I'm not an eye for an eye kind of person. I abhor violence. I don't think revenge is useful. But then I thought maybe - if this is truly not about revenge - she knows her society better than I do. Historically, in societies like India, Pakistan, Iran and many Muslim countries there has been no meaningful consequences (other than monetary) for men who burn their wives or disfigure and abuse women. By insisting on a consequence - even a barbaric one - perhaps she is setting a precedent. Perhaps she truly is making a safer future for women like herself.

It's a horrific decision. But is it more or less horrific than there being no consequences for her attacker other than paying blood money. Is this less about revenge than making her society respect her pain and suffering and that of women like her and insist on true atonement. Perhaps her eye for an eye will make men stop and think before they commit such an act in the future. Perhaps the society will come up with a better consequence than an eye for an eye. And perhaps it is a profound shift in their societal dynamics which will alter the future for Islamic women. Or maybe it's just ugly revenge.

On the face of things it is anathema to me and my personal moral code. But is it wrong?

Here's the original story which prompted this post:

I'm curious to know what others think.

Sometimes Private Matters Have Public Relevance

I really can't stand Republicans. Well let me correct that. I can't stand the Republican Party. There are some perfectly fine and kind people who for reasons beyond my comprehension think that's the way to vote. That's how democracy works and I'm glad they have that right.

The thing that bothers me about what the Republican Party has become is that it seems to preach a kind of Democracy in which only their rights and beliefs count, a democracy in which if I disagree with them, I don't love my country. In the Republican Party's democracy, they get to legislate my values and assess my spirituality as "lacking." What makes this even more irritating is that when they themselves fail to live up to the values they are trying to impose on me, they get all huffy and say such things are private and not up for discussion. They get to have it both ways.

In principle, I agree with Barack Obama about Bristol Palin's pregnancy being none of anybody's business. It isn't. At least not in a personal way. Bristol Palin is a teenager. She shouldn't be fodder for gossip. Being 17 and pregnant is hard enough in the "privacy" of your own community. Being 17 and pregnant on a national/international stage has to suck in spades. Personally, Bristol's life and decisions are none of my business.

But on another level they are my business, because they are a reflection of how well the social policies that the Republican Party want to impose on the rest of us work. If Mrs. Palin and the Republicans only wanted to shield their own children from options like sex education and abortion, Bristol's pregancy would be absolutely none of my business. But Mrs. Palin and the Republicans want to teach Creationism in everybody's school. Mrs. Palin and the Republicans oppose educating not just their own children about the dangers of unprotected sex; they want to keep everyone else's children ignorant as well. So the success of this approach to education in her own child's life does have relevance in the larger debate.

As a mother, Mrs. Palin has every right to thinks her own pregnant-at-17 daughter should have a baby that she probably doesn't want and be pushed into a teen-age marriage to make it "tidy." The thing is, Mrs. Palin and the Republican Party want to force that same "values" system onto my young neighbor and my great niece and everybody else's sons and daughters. I have a problem with that. Mrs. Palin's idea of good parenting isn't the same as mine. I don't think pushing teenagers into marriage because they got knocked-up is wise or loving. I think it's expedient and potentially spirit-killing.

Mrs. Palin's daughter and her prospective young soon-to-be husband will undoubtedly have lots of family support - especially given that it's an election year and what was once a private family matter is now being played out on a national stage. Interestingly, Mrs. Palin's compassion for unwed mothers doesn't apparently extend to other people's children. She used her line-item veto pen to significantly slash funding to a program designed to offer housing and counsel to young unwed mothers in Alaska. Hmmm. Mrs. Palin and Mr. McCain both oppose funding for sex education in our schools and they oppose spending money to cope with the results of such policies.

I'm not delusional enough to think that sex education in the schools will prevent all unwanted pregnancy. I'm also not delusional enough to think "just say no" will work either. Clearly it didn't work with Mrs. Palin's daughter. One of the things that really bothers me about someone like Mrs. Palin who wants to keep everyone else's children as ignorant about sex education as she keeps her own, is that she then had no compassion or sense of responsiblity about cleaning up the mess that her own policies create. Unborn babies are treasured. Other people's knocked-up teen aged daughters, not so much. And I guess that while it's important to Mrs. Palin and her ilk to keep unwanted babies in teen (and adult) wombs, they draw the line at providing support and education to their mothers so that when the beloved precious foetuses pop out of the womb and start needing love and attention, both they and their parents have have a chance at a decent life. I just don't get that kind of selective sacredness. How can the life of a non-viable egg be more sacred than the life of a real, flesh-and-blood young adult?

I'm finding much of the Republican spin about the wonders of Mrs. Palin entertaining. Bristol's pregnancy isn't a reflection of failed parenting or the pit-falls of not educating your children about unprotected sex. Nope. They're marrying the kid off and not kicking her out of the house, so it's a sign of the strength of family values. And apparently just living in Alaska makes people foreign policy experts because part of Alaska borders the Soviet Union. Wow. Who knew! And then Mrs. Pailin's year-and a half as governor trumps everyone else's experience. Simply by living in Alaska, she apparently has more foreign policy - this is a Republican talking point - than Joe Biden after 33 years in the Senate much of it serving on the Foreign Relations Committee, currently as chairman. It also apparently trumps Obama's 8 years in the Illinois Senate and his 4 years in the US Senate. Something about Alaska, I guess, and that intense border proximity.

But I'm digressing from my theme. Bristol's private life is and should be private. But since her mother wants to legislate my private life and that of those I love and care about - the success or failure of how her policies work is profoundly relevant.

That's it for now.