well, to respond to mr e's ill-thought out and unadvisable post:

Quote Originally Posted by Mr. E View Post
it has been proven empirically that any culture will eventually
i should say that this point is technically incorrect. i'm sure you know it's impossible to "prove empirically" that anything WILL happen.

but i'll stop nitpicking. more importantly, it's incorrect in every other possible way there is to be incorrect. it's not even vaguely correct. not a single culture on earth has "evolved out of these things" -- presumably you mean archaic, barbaric and immoral traditions -- and certainly not any culture that calls home the united states of america. (good luck drawing a relevant distinction between the stuff that's wrong with the states and the stuff that's wrong with the middle eastern theocracies -- i just tried; no dice.) not only is there a lack of "empirical proof" that "any culture will eventually evolve away" from archaic barbarism, but there is mountains of historical evidence suggesting that it's very possible for entire cultures to implode on themselves because of them. what an utterly vapid claim. it's just completely wrong.

as for your second vapid claim, what's the value in judgment if it doesn't lead to action? what's the value of belief that doesn't lead to action? nothing at all. there's limited value in saying "those people should not be doing that", in that it might lead to you and your culture behaving better, but your culture should already be behaving better, because you know well enough to understand that what their culture is doing is wrong. you say we shouldn't intervene? if they were just stupid and simple with silly old traditions that didn't do any harm, i MIGHT say you have a valid point. but they're inflicting pain and suffering on their women. brainwashing their everyone with hateful religious dogma. pretty much everything about that culture that harris was talking about is WRONG, and is harming innocent people. how can you say it's just to avoid intervention? it's the definition of unjust. what makes an innocent person in your country more or less deserving of aid, understanding, mercy and protection than an innocent person in any other? "we should deal with the problems in our own country." i'm not simply resorting to hyperbole when i say that it's this kind of thinking that hurts humanitarianism, promotes closed-bordered nationalism and basically allows suffering and torture to keep happening. that's not exaggeration. it's fact.

if something is unjust, and one has a way to solve it, one should damn well solve it. screw this anti-intervention bullshit.

edit: sycld, how did you not already say all this?