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Comment by ceejayoz | Hacker News Reader

Interesting that you think "look at you funny" and "called me a terrorist" are equivalent.

The latter was said by a child, so it's not even worth talking about. The mother acted wrongly, not the child.

But lets twist it, only without the masquerade: Imagine 'Ela' is on holiday in the Near East and wears a tank top. Don't you think that people would 'look funny at her'? She also might get molested for not being dressed properly. Local women even get stoned for that.

> The latter was said by a child, so it's not even worth talking about. The mother acted wrongly, not the child.

Chances are the kid's asking the question because the parent or another adult equates a head scarf with terrorism.

> But lets twist it, only without the masquerade: Imagine 'Ela' is on holiday in the Near East and wears a tank top. Don't you think that people would 'look funny at her'? She also might get molested for not being dressed properly. Local women even get stoned for that.

NONE OF WHICH IS THE LEAST FUCKING BIT OKAY, EITHER!

> Chances are the kid's asking the question because the parent or another adult equates a head scarf with terrorism.

So either the parents or even the kid itself is brainwashed by poorly spinned U.S. TV.

> NONE OF WHICH IS THE LEAST FUCKING BIT OKAY, EITHER!

Ofc, stop screaming, I didn't said it was.

So what? Is being "not as bad as fundamentalist states" enough?

No it is not enough, but it could be worse. And for most regions in the world IT IS worse.

Stop implying such bullshit into others statement. All I said was that in those countries people treat foreigners much worse. I didn't justify or judge either side.

There's always worse. I don't see what the point of bringing that up if not for making the discussed issue seem less bad.

Total false equivalence. We aren't responsible for what happens in other countries. We are responsible for what happens here. And if Ela is on holiday and wearing a tank top, she wouldn't be doing it for religious reasons.

So your baseline for acceptable behaviour is somewhere that women get stoned for wearing a tank top? You don't want to aim just a little higher?

You need to look up "false equivalence".

I wonder what they would do in one of those countries that attacks and kills people at embassies or sends jihadists off to crash planes into buildings. Probably a little worse than look at you funny or call you a name.

Indeed.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/2010/08/25/cab-drive...

I wonder why you choose to compare your country to "one of those countries" when you clearly indicate you think they are not as good as yours?

You are like the coach of a sporting team pointing out all the teams that finished lower than yours on the ladder and saying "We did great compared to them. Good job. Keep it up."

Surely, if you were actually interested in improving your team, you would point out the teams that finished above you on the ladder and say "We can do better. Here's where to improve."

Somewhere along the line, America was so busy congratulating itself that it has forgotten it should be striving to do better.

"One of those" saved time over naming off each country, considering everyone knows which countries I'm referring to. And is my country better? Um... Yeah. By orders of magnitudes it's better.

I don't, would you mind naming them?

> And is my country better? Um... Yeah. By orders of magnitudes it's better.

You missed the point. Everyone knows the sports team that constantly finishes in the middle of field is better than those below. OK, we get it.

Why are you so concerned with comparing America to the countries that everyone knows are "lower" than America?

If you actually had any interest in improving, you'd be looking at those countries higher than America, and you'd notice the gap between America and the top of the ladder is growing very, very quickly.

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