I am pleased the tyrant Mubarak has been evicted from his palace, although he should not be granted a permanent refuge in Egypt. His crimes against his people cannot be overlooked. It is likely that at the present time, he is liquidating much of his fortune and attempting to spirit it out of Egypt, foreseeing his dim future in that country. I suspect he will eventually emerge in Saudi Arabia.
I hope that Egypt evolves into a multiparty republic similar to the European republics. There may be a place for the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood is Egypt's equivalent to our Christian Right. Ignorance and evil are no disqualifications to voting, for better or worse. Indeed the Christian Right has access to the very highest levels of government, including the offices of our Senators, Representatives, Governors, and even our generals. It can be argued that the Christian Right is responsible in large part for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. They wish to bring about the end times to fulfill the fantasy drama in their heads. To this end, they are willing to wage war and commit any act which serves to revert the modern world to the world of Biblical times.
If WikiLeaks made any small contribution to the current turn of events in the Middle East, then it must be allowed that Julian may be smarter and better than he at first appeared. I do believe all charges against him in the sex case in Sweden should be dropped. It is probably true that the prosecutor in that case is a man-hater. It is also probably true that the Swedish government is persecuting him for political reasons.
Western law in general has moved to a position that is anti-male. Today, few would dispute that women have a distinct advantage in most areas of legal justice. Divorces deprive men of half their life earnings as well as their children, even in cases where the woman was only married for a few years and only married for money to begin with. For biological reasons, it is easier for women to remain monogamous than men. Sexual mischief is punished severely in civil and criminal cases, even in instances where the harm was negligible. Harm should be evaluated carefully and punishment doled out in proper measure to it.
There needs to be an accommodation made for the male of the species. On the other hand, if men are not a desirable counterpart in our species, then society should eliminate the Y chromosome and switch from natural reproduction to cloning. This would incur certain risks. It is interesting that almost all the leaders, inventors and discoverers in history are male. We can argue about the reasons why this might be so, such as the patriarchal social structure of earlier times, but it does not change the fact. If our species were all women, perhaps we would be more at peace, but still huddled around a fire.
On the other hand, the Islamic world tends to be anti-female, another extreme, and even more anti-female than Western society is anti-male. The Islamic world seems preoccupied by excessive concern over female sexuality. I believe women should have the right to fraternize with whomever they choose, and their fashion is not an issue for the police. I would not be offended even by nakedness, although I wouldn't recommend it. Women should have free access to education, birth control, and the same occupations as men. Iran may be the most anti-female country in the world at this time. I don't know why the Iranian regime despises women, but they despise homosexuals as well. I can't think of anything more tedious than to live in such a repressive and ignorant society. My hopes for regime change in Iran have not died, but been delayed.
On another topic, an argument has gained currency among the right bemoaning the popular uprising in Egypt on the grounds that transition into a free European-style republic is impossible in the Middle East. I am undecided. There is no example of a Middle Eastern country that has transitioned from dictatorship to republic, but that does not prevent Egypt or Tunisia from breaking new ground. In any case, I do not believe that fear of an Iranian-style Islamist regime should stand in the way of democratic change. Perhaps the people will succumb to ignorance and evil. Perhaps they will choose radical Islam over peace, freedom and prosperity. If so, it is their choice. Certainly our people have made their share of mistakes. Nixon, Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II were all mistakes betraying poor judgment on the part of the electorate, and each mistake had consequences for poor citizens and for foreign people. The U.S. national debt is in large part the result of those mistakes. Most social ills in our country can be laid at the door of those Presidents, who preferred squandering vast sums of taxpayer money on foreign wars instead of investing in science, energy, infrastructure, or education. Those who would argue that Egypt is better off with a tyrant would also place a tyrant in our own country. They have declared themselves as enemies of freedom. Democracy, of course, is not without risk, even grave peril.
Mubarak is a fiend to argue Egypt is not ready for democracy. He had several decades to prepare Egypt for democracy. What was he doing all that time? He was stealing vast sums of money for himself and his own family, that's what. His manner of government involved equipping brutal thugs with policeman's uniforms and an array of weapons and torture devices and letting them do whatever they please against the working class. There are some on the right wing that believe this is fine and dandy, and they would like to have society ordered in a similar manner in the West. The evil of Nazism lingers on in various forms.
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