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I believe that Jefferson's statement is true: "All men are created equal and they are endowed by their creator with certain inaliable right, among these being life liberty and the pursuite of happiness."
Unlike Jefferson himself, I believe this rule applies to all human beings on the planet earth. Including Arabs.
So when we are trying to help a country set up a government that will protect these rights, I believe that we are helping promote justice around the world. Arabs deserver these rights just as much as we do, and they are entitled to these rights just as much as we do.
When some says you are trying to impose western values on these countries, I disagree. I think we are trying to impose universal values on these countries. People said it was naive to try and impose these values on the Japanese and Koreans. But if worked there because these values are not western they are universal.
A moral relativist might say that in Arab countrys these rights are not part of their culture so it is both arrogant and naive to think that we can impose a system to protect these rights. Hello Ty.
I believe these rights are universal and apply to all cultures and people. It is interesting though when you discuss something like female circumscission how all of a sudden liberals discover universal rights and don't thin it is arrogant to impose such a right on different cultures.
What I also find hypocritical is when we are critisized for trying to impose these rights on another country, but when we do, and we don't impose 100% of these rights for practical reason - in other words choosing 95% instead of Zero (like not giving women equal rights with men so we can get a constitution passed that protects most of these rights) then we are critisized for not insisting on 100% of these rights. If it is arrogant and naive to impose our system and values on these countrys, then isn't it better that we only impose on 95% of our values instead of a %100.
Either morals or rights are universal, and we should try and spread them, or they are not, and we should not blink an eye when females are circumsized in foreigh countrys or widows are thrown on funeral pyres.
Telling these countrys to stop mutilating their young women and killing widows is either an arrogant and naive attempt to impose our western values on these countrys or cultures or an attempt to promote an absolute universal code. You can't have it both ways folks.
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