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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

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rshow55 - 05:52pm Jan 26, 2003 EST (# 8136 of 8145)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

Lunarchick is right:

"Regarding STONING - NIGERIA ... the case should be put over the legal frameworks of other countries ... along with the DNA tests of mother child and 'father' to determine if a Nigerian Male might swear on the KORAN .. in order to get-out of paternity duties

When there are new ways of determining facts beyond question - they should be used. Mohammed set out his rules on evidence when false witness on the facts of paternity was very likely. Getting the facts wrong with a DNA test is far, far, far less risk - and people should adjust.

Otherwise, a triumph of precedent and legal technique over purpose will continue to produce injustices and inflexabilities that the leaders of the Islamic nations know very much that they want to find ways to avoid.

There are other options today for assuring paternity - even if it is an uncompromisable value. Uncompromisable values are generally very expensive - this on surely is. The "logical" answer we saw under the Taliban is unacceptable in many, many ways. There need to be some adaptations. Compared to the severities of Sharia, genetic testing and abortion look very good indeed - and fit the purpose of marriage as it is fundamentally defined in Islam.

rshow55 - 05:53pm Jan 26, 2003 EST (# 8137 of 8145)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

Islam is remarkably tolerant, in practice, of all sorts of sexual experimentation - the amount of polymorphous perversity that occurs in practice - including incest - has surprised many, many people. But so long as uncertainty in paternity is not a question - much is tolerated.

Killing women who so much as risk sacrificing their "honor" is an ugly practice - - however one may feel about abortion under other circumstances - it looks like a good solution here. The rest of the world expects the Islamic world to conform to reasonable standards about the rights of women - and to get rid of gruesome practices - honor killing and female circumcision among them.

These are issued that do need to be discussed - and that do need to be accomodated - because if these things aren't fixed - there will never be accomodations to modernity in the Islamic world that are even remotely satisfactory. Not everything can be done at once.

But we should recognize some of the depths of our disagreements - especially when they cannot be resolved by war - and naive people are implicitly assuming that the key problems can be resolved with something so simple as a "regime change."

Some of the worst things about Saddam are not especially unusual for Arab tyrants now - or over the last 1200 years - and that needs to be remembered so we don't expect too much - even if we could get rid of Saddam. We need to find accomdations that can work - not set up conflicts that may make Vietnam look tame. Truth is our only hope.

lchic - 05:54pm Jan 26, 2003 EST (# 8138 of 8145)
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