Well, this is very interesting.

Just looked at her wiki page. Someone has already updated it to refer to her as a former British national. Speedy!

The general opinion over here is that she should not be allowed back in
But as a citizen without dual nationality it may not actually be possible

She has not actually expressed any remorse and has said that severed heads in a bucket did not faze her at all
It has also been pointed out that her wanting to return happened to coincide with the capture of her husband

If she does return she will have to be monitored round the clock till she is de radicalised [ if that is possible ]
But the truly shocking thing however is that there are apparently 23 000 potential jihadists over here already

She has broken British law by freely going over to Syria in order to support ISIS
And so whether or not she has engaged in terrorist activity is entirely academic
It is a criminal offence over here to be a member of any proscribed organisation
Therefore on this single charge she is guilty beyond all doubt if not on any others

Her husband was a member of ISIL. There's no evidence she was. She obviously supports the ideology but she's right that no one will be able to demonstrate she did anything but get married and have babies while in Syria.

I don't know how British law works, but in France, being an accomplice to a crime is punished the same way as actually committing the said crime, she's guilty of supporting an organized group aiming at launching terrorist crimes, ergo, she'll be punished as severely as if she had committed them herself, if she didn't want to be castigated so severely, she had the option not to go to Syria in the first place. History is written by the winners, and she committed the double offence of siding with the losers and being caught to boot.

We've got one here too. She's in some sort of displaced person camp at the moment and Alabama is looking pretty good in comparison.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/alabama-born-isis-wife-who-reportedly-told-americans-to-kill-themselves-now-begging-to-come-home

I'm struggling to work up a give-a-shit. I know I'm supposed to, because she's young and impressionable and all that good shit, but I gotta be honest, I'm struggling.

surreptitious57 wrote:But the truly shocking thing however is that there are apparently 23 000 potential jihadists over here already

That's a drop in the ocean compared to the fact that the UK harbours at least 33 million potential rapists.

surreptitious57 wrote:She has not actually expressed any remorse ...

Just on that, she has, in the video interview I posted.

In other news, and arguably more on-topic:

(apologies if this has already been cited)

Indian man to sue parents for giving birth to him
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-47154287

"Mumbai businessman Raphael Samuel told the BBC that it's wrong to bring children into the world because they then have to put up with lifelong suffering."



The particulars of the case may be.....particular, and the issue of (the impossibility of getting) consent may be tricky and the suggested remedies (including financial compensation) possibly dubious. But I have a lot of sympathy and agreement with the suggestion in principle and with what the text in that pic says, by and large. Human life in the world, including inevitable suffering, and death, are foisted on people, all people, without their consent, and mostly for the pleasure of the parents, imo.

And the consent issue is possibly not all that complicated. One can't get consent from non-human animals, or prior consent from babies. It doesn't mean something is right or is not abusive.

Whether something is useful for the continuation of the species or has evolved or is an evolved instinct is a slightly separate matter, imo. Evolution doesn't care about 'right' and 'wrong', obviously. It's just a process. Processes can't give a damn.

Don't get me wrong. I am by and large happy. I like life. I have children. I think they are by and large quite happy too. And I love them. And generally I like people. Imo, that is sort of not the point here.

And these days there is another issue about the effect of having children on the natural environment, by which I mean climate change and so on.

archibald wrote:In other news, and arguably more on-topic:

(apologies if this has already been cited)

Indian man to sue parents for giving birth to him
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-47154287

Someone dedicated an entire thread on the story a couple of weeks ago.

archibald wrote:

surreptitious57 wrote:
She has not actually expressed any remorse

Just on that she has in the video interview I posted

She had to be asked twice so I am sceptical of how genuine her apology is
And she very clearly is not in favour of gay rights despite saying otherwise

She also wants to teach the Koran to her child while practising British values
For some one who left here to go to Syria those two things are incompatible

She is sad and lonely because she is on her own and sees zero reason to remain there
But before her husband was captured she was absolutely fine with the life she chose

She is trying to express remorse so she can return here but that is simple ulterior motive
And when someone displays such a motive then that is primarily what must be examined

However making her stateless as Sajid Javid did yesterday is not the ideal solution to the problem
He apparently wants her to claim citizenship from a country she has never been to [ Bangladesh ]

For once I agree with Donald Trump : the governments of these nationals should accept responsibility for them
She was / is a British citizen so therefore it is for the British authorities to decide her fate and not anyone else

Does Sajid Javid really think the Bangladeshis will give her automatic citizenship with absolutely no questions asked ?
What about the other 23 000 potential jihadists that are living here ? Are they all going to be made stateless as well ?

Hermit wrote:

archibald wrote:In other news, and arguably more on-topic:

(apologies if this has already been cited)

Indian man to sue parents for giving birth to him
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-47154287

Someone dedicated an entire thread on the story a couple of weeks ago.

Ah. Thanks. Makes sense that it would have been picked up before. I will read that thread. I think I have given my reaction quite thoroughly here in any case.

I might even copy my post to that thread. Though it seems somewhat relevant here too, possibly more so than the story about the IS teenager (though that is relevant too, in some ways).

Alan B wrote:The more I hear quotes from her the more I'm reminded of Mandy Rice-Davies: "Well, she would say that, wouldn't she." Because she could be in a situation that to say anything that would even suggest that she would have regrets or a change of heart about ISIS and its doctrines, could result in her being killed.

Independant

Shamima Begum and her newborn baby have been moved from a Syrian refugee camp after they were “threatened”, her family’s lawyer has said.
Tasnime Akunjee said the teenager and her son were removed from the Al-Hol camp in the north of the country due to “safety concerns around her and her baby”.

Hmmm!

Having Babies. An Endless Right or an Abused Privelege?

For me, it's neither.

Rights are something humans contrive, usually from sound ethical reasoning, and bestow upon citizens of a society. Privileges are just a special, often more restricted form of a right.

Having babies/reproduction is something that essentially all living things do. It's no more a right than breathing, or metabolizing, or growing. I don't think it's something that can be decreed or forbidden without tyranny being involved.

However, there's no doubt that there are too many humans for the world to sustain given modern consumption and its impact on the environment. So what can be done?

Well, there's the Rosling-esque idea of education; that's not just education about the ecological impact of human flourishing, but education in the sense of creating prospects, of life goals, of ensuring women have access and liberty to use birth control and to partake in education and work.

There's political (dis)incentivization, where people can be rationally confident their fewer children will survive, where they will have access to needs, to education, to reasonable lifestyles, and where the elderly will have a social security net that doesn't require their adult children supporting them.

Unfortunately, all political scenarios are fraught with economic privilege. It's relatively easy (given no concern for tyranny) to make having more than 2 children economically undesirable through policies that increase costs or take away benefits from having more, but then setting that bar high enough to impact the wealthiest is disproportionate for lower earners.

And that problem also affects the educational component because our societies are founded on poorer people being in greater abundance than richer people, where the greater numbers of lower income work for the few higher earners. We can't envision a society, at present, where everyone's a rich employer, because then who would they employ?

It's all a catch-22 - I think all we can hope for is that current birth-rate trends continue and that humanity reaches a stable population while technology catches up to limit and manage our impact on the environment. It's the Star Trek appeal, but the only way out I can see is technological, not ethical or political.

Combination of technological and ethical simply because there is no way to know technological future. I've heard people saying .. we do not have to worry, change our behavior, because technology will solve ... to that I say, let's play it safe.

tuco wrote:Combination of technological and ethical simply because there is no way to know technological future. I've heard people saying .. we do not have to worry, change our behavior, because technology will solve ... to that I say, let's play it safe.

I'd say, albeit pessimistically, that we've got more certainty about a technological future than a universal ethic. The problem is that we have to save all of us including those who don't believe we need to save us from ourselves. It's back then to tyranny or Star Trek.

I dont call for universal ethics. I call for lower consumption. Little things like, don't leave lights on even if your electric bill is not an issue. Don't drive everywhere even if your gas is cheap. Don't throw away food even if you can get fridge filled with a click on the internet. Recycling .. etc. Those are things, in my mind, which do not impose tyranny on anyone. Those are just habits, at least to me.

Spearthrower wrote:

tuco wrote: It's back then to tyranny or Star Trek.

They're not mutually exclusive.

Tyranny of logic? That's a bitch indeed.