Oh was I supposed to recognize Aristotle by statue?

I don’t like being made to defend anything UAE does, they’re a corrupt dictatorship with racism and classism. But blaming any of their idiocy on religion is stupid; the rulers don’t follow any of it and they’re secular because there’s nothing in the religion authorizing their behavior.

Islam grants specific minimum human rights; and women are enshrined some specific rights like the right to their own property and who they choose to marry etc. Other religions lack these, so a Muslim woman marrying into a non Muslim family can’t be guaranteed those protections as well as the worldwide custom that the husband choose the religion to raise the children (this is in all cultures and religions), so as a result of all these reasons it’s considered a sin as well as a bad idea for a Muslim woman to marry a non-Muslim man. Its a reality even if you find the de facto reality distasteful.

Yes, UAE is an authoritarian dictatorship surveillance state that not accountable to its people and meddles in multiple foreign wars and runs its own mini Guantanamo. All of this is true. BUT the above comments that they’re tracking people to see if they’re having sex and arresting them for it is simply false. Not every dictatorship has morality police, and UAE certainly doesn’t. The police are well aware of the drugs and prostitution in Dubai and let it happen. Can we all agree on this? Because I don’t want to defend this dictatorship, but this conversation always circles back to generic racism against Arabs (as if they’re all like Saudi or Taliban) and Islamophobia (since people assume the religion is at fault despite UAE being a secular dictatorship) and I’m trying to make that distinction here.

No. While there is a ton of inequality, there, it still does not change the fact that UAE is not Iran or Afghanistan, it doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor, the police will still not arrest you for holding hands in public, police will not stop to ask you if you’re married to the girl you’re with, and if you’re having sex outside of marriage literally nobody will care. UAE does not have morality police like Saudi did. You failing to make this distinction undermines the rest of your argument. As to this story, the police in any country would take notice if a woman called and said her daughter is underage and with a man in a foreign country, so it’s not surprising he got detained and the story progressed from there.

It’s not a free country, but that’s not relevant to the point I was making above. They’re still not sex policing like Afghanistan or Iran. On that topic they’re closer to Las Vegas.

And yes, the authorization laws are everywhere, I know an American who got charged with adultery in the US because he had an unfriendly prosecutor. I think you’re missing my point.

And employers in Vegas threaten the immigrants with deportation if they complain to any authorities about the work conditions. Stop pretending Vegas is somehow good in any way.

And yes, Dubai has bad working conditions too.

I think everyone here thinks that Dubai is like Saudi Arabia. It’s not. Nobody at all cares who is having sex or not in Dubai, there’s a thriving sex work industry there. The police aren’t monitoring for couples or care. This only got escalated because a mother complained and the daughter was underaged.

Vegas is run by people paid below minimum wage.

The NRA would scream about it and MAGA would turn it into demonizing the rich; “y’all can afford bodyguards!”

State senator pulled over in another state. The ID doesn’t say his job, so if they don’t recognize him out of jurisdiction…

Absolutely. This should not have been difficult; “we grieve the loss of these children and something needs to be done to force both sides into a ceasefire” was too controversial for the mega donors of Biden/Harris. Any talk at all of nudging the rightwing Israeli government was too unpalatable even though Chuck Schumer himself was publicly criticizing Netanyahu.

A little, but they lost many many votes by shutting out any pro-Palestinian voices from the DNC. They wouldn’t even let Palestinian-Americans endorse Harris at the convention, let alone talk about Palestinians suffering (but they stacked the convention with Israeli-Americans and families of hostages).

Is there any way to defend Biden’s failed policies without mentioning Trump?

Who are “these people?” There’s a wide spectrum of pro-Palestine voters. Those who voted for Harris, those who voted for Stein, and those who voted for Trump. We’re not the same.

And in the end, Harris lost by a margin greater than all the Arab-American voters and greater than all the college students in swing states or Muslims. So repeatedly blaming this on this specific issue is obviously silly and not backed up by facts. If you wanted more turnout then actually promise something, not “I’ll continue whatever Biden did and will make no promises for peace and won’t even let Palestinian-Americans endorse me at the DNC but I expect you vote for me and my lack of promises because Trump is worse.”

He’s made many many comments against trans people. It’s not just his supporters; he himself called transgender a mental illness.

Is that 5 or 6 billionaires in his cabinet now?

Depends on the religion.

For Muslims, we are told that God gives respite to people; so that after they die and they face hell they will beg to be sent back so they can undo all the harms they did, and will be told no because they were mercifully given extra time on earth to do that and refused.

No that’s just you putting your opinion and spin on it. You and Trump would prefer that they teach “slavery wasn’t so bad” or that it’s overblown? Nowhere does anyone teach that slavery is the primary part of American history.

Read the article, it talks about “slavery” and not the examples I gave above.

He spoke about how the 1776 project to be mandatory in schools and any schools that teach 1619 project or critical race theory to be defunded and sanctioned. Those are just examples and evidence.

Edit: But here’s a more recent article talking about banning teaching about slavery itself https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-threatens-defund-schools-teach-155006275.html