Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Interesting point made by Bulworth late last week, before Abdul Rahman was released:

Should Afghanistan "give in" to international pressure and substitute international notions of basic human rights in place of its own constitution and religious mores?

This may sound like a callous question to raise regarding the case of the Afghan Christian convert facing a death penalty under Sharia law in Afghanistan.

But isn't this basically the complaint of far-right conservatives in this country when U.S. Supreme Court justices appear to base their decisions at least in part on international laws and concepts of human rights? Complaints that have, as the link points out, reached the level of death threats?


Right: What we've wanted Afghan's justice system to do in this case -- infuriating Afghan conservatives -- is the same thing that infuriates American conservatives when it happens in our own justice system. Our absolutists don't take it very well either when our system takes into account the views of the rest of the world.

No comments: