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This response is supposed to make you grasp that the most thorough effort in current times to force tradition and religion at gun point failed as thoroughly as it could fail.
Where did ayatollahs go wrong? Were they too soft, were they too concerned about human rights, should they imprison, torture and kill more?
This isn't true. In western society that remark is hyperbole and we all know it, because nobody here is forcing tradition and religion down people's throats at gunpoint. Do you know what kind of societies 'are' doing that? Afghanistan. Somalia. Not even Russia or China are doing what you're suggesting, and it's the latter that are facing these problems most intensely.
He asked what a more traditional solution sounded like. Well, I gave him one. Current trends and demographics seem to be making the case that the latter is the more attractive long-term option. The only problem with my solution isn't the content of the policy, it's that it's too piecemeal and unfortunately lacks the strength and extremism that seems necessary to reverse current trends.
This is why I've repeatedly said in this community, when nation's get caught in a death spiral like this, there's 'zero' historical evidence to suggest that they reform their way out of it. The more severe the problem becomes, the more extreme the solutions become. The more extreme the solutions become, the more unacceptable they become to the population, etc., and you end up stuck in this self-reinforcing negative feedback loop. What history suggests happens is that these nation's die off or get conquered.
This subthread is not about Western society, it is about Iran.
Iran - society with all drawbacks of modernity and none of its benefits - is not attractive at all.
If your solution is Iranian one, it is unsatisfactory.
Is Iran forcing women to have sex at gunpoint? They've done that no more than Japan, Russia, China or the west has.
And all to its own activities in the world, I'm sure. Not the fact that there's an economic war being waged against the country. Which absent wealth, what else does modernity have to give?
Iran may be down in the 4th quarter, but they know they're on the field and can at least find the ball. Other nations are living on borrowed time and unless they get their head on straight, they'll be in an even more precarious position than Iran is.
Iran is enforcing all the online trad wish list - no porn, no homosexuality, no fornication, no adultery, no no-fault divorce (on woman side), no indecent clothing, no women's (or men's) rights in general. We were told it would result in happy wonderland full of big happy families. Somehow, it happened otherwise.
So that would be a "no" then.
In your opinion, should the mullahs try harder? Should they do more?
Assuming they could try harder - remember that Iran is country with massively disaffected populace, with regular riots and urprisings with death toll in the hundreds. Country more like Tsarist Russia than Stalin's one.
Evidently so, if current policies are ineffective. But short of applying direct force, this is a problem virtually every developed and semi-developed country on Earth doesn't have a solid proposal for. If people's own choices can't reliably produce an outcome, and coercion can't reliably produce an outcome, all that remains is to institute more crushing and draconian penalties.
Your link doesn't work properly. And the same incidentally could be said of many western countries, where suicide rates are up, there's a great sense of apathy in the population, I'm told we've never been closer to fascism and wages have stagnated considerably for the past forty years. I'm sorry, but reports of America's death have been greatly exaggerated, all other problems considered. You'll forgive me if I'm not going all in on Iran, either.
So the mullahs are weenies, so your plan for creating perfect trad society is more prisons, more torture and more executions. Your proposed solution is you and few hundred thousands of Revolutionary Guards (how many of them would be wiling to obey?) waging full scale war against the whole population (while Iran is indeed surrounded by enemies willing to exploit the opportunity).
Good luck with your plan.
LOL. People willing to do this are anything but apathetic. Especially when they know they will not get slap on the wrist like BLM, when they know they can be shot or tortured to death. The Iranian government wishes the people were "apathetic".
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