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I agree that gold reward would be more effective than dollar reward in those wild tribal mountains, assuming the tall bearded one is still living there . . . not lying flat six foot under the ground, or walking around in the basement of a building in Virginia. Even gold however only works on the recipients' hope about what the gold could purchase, and even gold has to be paid by taxpayers, who will pay not only the reward amount but also an order of magnitude or more when money flows through the monopolistic/bureaucratic government institutions before reaching the recipients. Compared to that, the fundamentalists can create the promisory note of "72-virgins" out of thin air! Unlike our paper notes created out of thin air that would dilute the purchasing power other holders of existing notes, the "72-virgin" promisory note would actually remove the dummy foolish enough to take it at face value from the market place and leave more real life "virgins" available for remaining young men.
Governments seldomly win wars against religions, precisely due to this kind of asymmetry. That's why religious freedom was invented, not because people really liked "heretics" but because fighting them would be even more counter-productive. It took only a little over 200 years from Masada to Constantine. I certainly would not wish my own great great grand children to live in an Islamic state. The Roman experience seemed to indicate that radical religions thrive on being persecuted by the state: in order to suppress/eradicate the "cult," the state would have to pay for a vast corps of enforcers, which would mean higher taxes and more intrusion into people's lives; the inevitable resulting economic collapse would then turn people towards that very "cult" precisely because it is the forbidden fruit and obvious alternative to a dysfunctional society (that such an alternative could be even worse is not commonly known). That happened to Roman Empire, to soviet troops occupying Afghanistan . . . and by the looks of rising islamic influence in the military and in the prisons, the same process may well be in play for us.
The more productive solution is ignoring the rabid noise makers, and focus on economic growth (curbing government growth, letting individuals make his/her own choices in life), so that the youths are enticed out of the ghettos by economic opportunities in our free, open and prosperous society. It's the same mechanism by which the young would-be foot soldiers for "Catholic terrorists" and "Italian mafia" became productive Americans instead.
As for civil courts that are cultural-specific, so long as compliance to their rulings on disputes are voluntary and not enforcible by coercive force, I'd have no problem with that while keeping an eye out to make sure that those civil judgements are indeed not enforced by violence; anyone resorting to violence would be prosecute criminally in a normal court. In most civil disputes, about half the litigants are not happy with the judgement. It's better for them to be upset at their cultural-specific civil courts than at our English-Common Law derived courts and suspect they are at disadvantage due to ethnic reasons. First-hand experience would also probably help remove some illusions about how great a "Sharia" court would be, just like those Iranian women who fled from Iran now are most vocally against any "Sharia" court. A small limited dose/exposure often works well as an immunization shot, immunizing people against unrealistic utopic dreams. I wish there were a mechanism for any wannabe suicide bombers to get a quick preview of what a croc those "72-virgins in after-life" are. LOL. They'd probably quit their missions in a hurry.
posted by 96.233.42...
, Thu, 25 Nov 2010 15:25:26
, Tue, 23 Nov 2010 05:56:11
, Wed, 24 Nov 2010 08:08:05, Tue, 23 Nov 2010 09:54:18
, Tue, 23 Nov 2010 15:10:44, Wed, 24 Nov 2010 06:43:46, Mon, 22 Nov 2010 21:02:58
, Mon, 22 Nov 2010 03:33:49, Mon, 22 Nov 2010 08:29:31, Tue, 23 Nov 2010 15:25:45, Wed, 24 Nov 2010 08:05:01
, Mon, 22 Nov 2010 13:43:10, Sun, 21 Nov 2010 16:22:28
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