Silly Little Country

Ophelia Eviscerates the Sleazeball Tariq Ramadan

I saw this guy a couple of years ago in Toronto; slick, and empty. Refused to answer a great question about the orientation of human rights in the West as it was uncongenial to his position. Made fun of the idea of 'universal values' because they were Western. Pretty sickening performance.
Ophelia finds a dandy excrescence of his awfulness.

The true liberal position would be to look carefully at those 'principles of our religion' and ask whether they are good principles or not, in secular, human, this-world terms. The true liberal position would be to know that the fact that something is 'forbidden according to the principles of our religion' is not necessarily a good reason to disapprove of it, much less to punish or ostracize or threaten it. According to the principles of some (and not a few) religions it is 'forbidden' for women to work, or travel without permission, or leave the house. Such 'principles' are bad principles and should not be obeyed. The true liberal position would be to realize that no one has managed to offer any real reason for homosexuality to be 'forbidden' or for Tariq Ramadan to be telling gay people that he doesn't agree with what they are doing.

What makes this guy such a magnificent sleazeball is he knows all the rhetorical slime that gets used in the West and plays it for all he can get.

posted by Alan Adamson @ 6:26 PM