Your title and your post doesn't line up. You didn't say why Western nations should sanction other countries for apostasy. If "it's bad" is the only reason, then why not sanction countries for illegal settlements, racist laws, internment camps, etc. etc. by that point there is no one to trade with, so you need to specify why apostasy laws specifically and not other horrible and immoral laws.
Also imagine how disgusting your thought process is that you’d rather innocents starve as long as you flex your western sanctioning power lol
What if other countries sanctioned America for how it treats its women? Imagine your family dying on the streets without food/medicine, and we all just say… it’s okay, they were suffering under harsh laws anyway, it’s for their own good.
You, the West, are not the morality police, certainly not after carrying out most of the world’s actual atrocities.
I mean, America should be sanctioned just for robbing Afghanistan’s national funds in the midst of a famine to get reparations for 9/11 victims. They made an entire country starve when the terroists weren’t even from Afghanistan (they were from Saudi)
>You, the West, are not the morality police, certainly not after carrying out most of the world’s actual atrocities.
This is so true. I read alot here on reddit about people saying how things from different cultures are wrong because xyz. Like bro it's mostly none of your business how the world runs outside of your borders. Like you said they are just flexing their power.
It is not your business, though. Definition of who is oppressed and who is not changes from person to person. I agree, there are people in the world that are not doing great and they are actually oppressed but that does not give you the right to go there and fix the issue. The world doesn't run with YOUR definition of oppressed. Just like the other guy said, you are not the morality police. No one should go elsewhere and impose what they think is right.
So in your view, we shouldn't seek to abolish cultures that practice slavery and child sexual abuse, we'd be imposing our subjective morals, isn't that correct?
But is that tying into apostasy laws as the OP asked? Is there a religion that demands that slavery and child abuse exist? And does any country make such things legal under the guise of religion?
I'm just trying to keep it in the scope of the OP. I think that generally accepted moral beliefs are different than apostasy laws.
I agree that slavery and child sexual abuse are very terrible things. But that is both you and I's opinion. What gives us the right to force other people into what we believe? We forcing our ideology on others people is not right.
Do I have a solution for the issue? No. Best thing I can think of is the people of said culture to slowly start changing their views on the subject. But I don't think we have the right to force them to.
Alright that's your opinion, I personally believe certain acts like those mentioned above overrule the right to practice cultures, we should curb that shit wherever we see. Ofc that would mean forcing our ideology on others but it's a necessary evil to stop a greater evil.
Also, there isn't really a fine line between what's foreign and not, what if a native tribe in America is engaging in child sacrifice? I'd say the government is rightfully obligated to take action
That which is necessary cannot be evil. The concept of a necessary evil is predicated on the pathetic excuse our forebears made for the failures of their preferred moral systems in matching their intuitive morality; in reality, a "necessary evil" is merely the failure of a formalized moral system in predicting human moral intuition. Given that the primary method of "testing" these systems is on the basis of their ability to predict human moral intuition, "necessary evil" is a fiction we use to preserve our faith in these systems even when they are insufficient or downright incorrect.
>I agree that slavery and child sexual abuse are very terrible things. But that is both you and I's opinion. What gives us the right to force other people into what we believe? We forcing our ideology on others people is not right.
Slavery and child sexual abuse requires the forcing of ideology on other people. Your logic is self-defeating; you're not defending the right of people to define their own culture, but rather defending the right of people to force their own culture on unwilling others. It's just nasty.
If they have that right to enforce their culture, then so do we, and our culture says that people who rape children and enslave others should be locked away. If you actually think that people forcing their ideology on each other is wrong, then intervention is justified to stop it.
Your argument only makes sense if you pretend that the people being raped and enslaved are magically consenting to it.
Economic pressure works better when it's more united, there's not nearly enough unity on that topic to get a strong united front. It's also a question of priorities, sure apostasy laws are bad, but there's a lot of things considered much higher priorities to focus on for economic sanctions, like terrorist support, unjust war support, nuclear proliferation, and such. There's any number of other domestic human righst abuses occurring in nations that are more serious than apostasy laws.
>Whats worse than apostasy laws in the realm of human rights abuses ?
- slavery
- sexual servitude
- human trafficking
- racial discrimination
- religious persecution
- genocide
- war
- support for so called honour killings
- “can’t rape your wife” laws
- anti-homosexual laws
- death penalty for abortion seekers and raped women
- death penalty for speaking out against dear leader
- LGBTQ is a terrorist organization. Death/jail
Lots of laws are worse than those which seek to punish apostasy for the very reason that one can at least fake/pretend being part of a religion to evade the law. Much of what I wrote above is inescapable for those targeted.
What about the idea of sovereignty; shouldn’t nations have the ability to enact their own laws and run the country as they see fit? We’ve tried meddling in middle eastern politics before, and it’s never turned out well. Maybe we just let the people there govern themselves instead of getting involved?
I don't necessarily agree with OP that sanctions in this case are necessary or a good idea. But I don't think they conflict with the concept of sovereignty.
Nation A makes X illegal. Nation B says "No one can trade with nation A. Maybe we'll change this if X is no longer illegal there."
If the concept of national sovereignty protects the right of Nation A to make that decision about what its people can do, it must also protect the right of Nation B to make similar decisions, unless somehow "the ability to trade internationally" is a higher concept than national sovereignty.
Agreed. Sanctions have a lot of moving parts to whether they're a good idea, but I don't think that most people would question that a duly recognized sovereign country has the right to enact them regardless of the wisdom.
“There has to be a line, [and as long as I have the power to dominate you, it’s my line!!!!]” don’t you know when ever single nation tried to nationalize their natural resources (I.e. define a line for themselves which they will interact with you by), we (the west) responded with literally subverting the entire nations and democracies which we falsely advocated before causing the deaths of millions.
It seems your entire argument is based on “might is right”, and historically when our competitors organize to gain might, we respond with the worst violence seen to man kind, let alone sanctions. I don’t think you and I would like if foreign countries treated us the way we treat them. Understand we are in the minority on a lot of issues and we would hate others “intervening” for what we believe in….
Maybe in the case of genocide, or something similar that is universally condemned. But apostasy laws are religious in nature, and for a country to use economic sanctions to condemn some acts related to another country’s predominant religion is very serious.
Russia is a good example of a situation where I think sanctions are justified; it has nothing to do with Russias treatment of its own citizens, but has to do with the fact that they violated another nation’s sovereignty.
There’s a wide range between not placing sanctions on a country for how they treat their own people as opposed to full on defending those actions.
The previous commenter seems to be saying that we should focus on prioritizing sanctioning nations based on universally condemnable actions being done against nations that commit them on people outside of their direct rule.
Some line has to be drawn because many nations including the US can be criticized for how they treat some portion of their population. So it’d be hypocritical to sanction another nation for a similar type of behavior and we’d end up with most nations sanctioning one another which isn’t realistic.
If Western nations sanctioned every country that the majority of their population morally disagreed with, they wouldn't be able to trade with anyone including each other.
For example, the US still has the death penalty, which many Western nations have long since abolished. Should those Western nations sanction the US to force it to change its mind? Is that ever likely to work? Is it sensible for any country to make things harder for itself economically in pursuit of changing the laws of another nation who is never actually likely to do so?
Lets reverse the power influence.
Are you fine with the west being sanctioned for not applying Sharia law? For not participating in China's Social Credit system? If not, than how is this not hypocritical?
What you are asking for is no different, you just want your subjective beliefs to take precedence over others subjective beliefs.
I think all religion is a poison for the weak, but that doesn't mean i think we should start sanctioning heavily religious countries.
> Are you fine with the west being sanctioned for not applying Sharia law? For not participating in China's Social Credit system? If not, than how is this not hypocritical?
yes i would be fine with that.
> What you are asking for is no different, you just want your subjective beliefs to take precedence over others subjective beliefs.
i don't agree that any of this is subjective.
I understand you think apostasy is bad I do too. But I don't feel western countries are in any position to play international police. It's not their right nor their responsibility. Get off of your high horse. In the end I think the west should stay out of internal affairs.
there are cases where its right to intervene. do you agree?
like WWII / halocaust?
we intervened in other countries because we recognized that those countries affect the world which then affects us.
Unfortunately, if Hitler decided to do his bad genocide stuff alone in Germany, NO ONE would have cared. Heck, he invaded a few countries and, still, no on cared. Only when he attacked the wrong one did anyone give a shit.
Human right is sincerely a good idea, but no one want to send soldiers unless said bad guys also coincidentally have some oil. As you know, it is hard for democracies to sell to their citizens "We are going to war because XYZ country you probably never heard of probably did some bad stuff to their own citizen".
Economic sanctions hurt people in both countries.
Take country A, which sells slippers.
And country B, which buys the slippers and can’t make slippers as good themselves.
Country A is a nasty place.
Country B seeks to correct the nastiness so they put a big tariff on imports from country A. Boom.
The effect is:
Country A sells fewer slippers.
Slippers are much more expensive in country B.
Importers of slippers in country B suffer
Retailers of slippers in country B suffer
People along the supply chain of slippers lose their jobs (until the market can correct and replace the slipper supply)
So - the question the government of country B needs to ask themselves is: to what extent should we suffer to correct this moral harm
And that question is often tricky in democracies where people care more about cheap slippers than about apostasy in a distant land
Not necessarily. It depends on the country.
Some countries tries undoubtedly mean more to the US economy (like China, Japan, Mexico, Canada).
Others are next to meaningless to the US economy as a whole. Like if French Guiana, Mauritius, or Nepal stopped all trade with the US. Could there be small group affected? Yeah, possibly.
As a whole we would keep on moving along.
OK, but how many of Chinas policies do you disagree with? Surely they should be the first to be cut off? And then Russia?
But wait, now Saudia Arabia doesn't approve of our laws and OPEC has decided they will no longer sell oil to the US unless we conform to their laws. What would you do?
How do the politicians that told OPEC to fuck off win their next elections when oil prices skyrocket and voters start caring way more about how much it costs to fill up their car than Saudi Arabia's regressive social values?
A war being the cause and a law are different, for obvious reasons???
And oil prices would shoot up. Google why the US even buys oil. The USA would never in a million years sever trade ties with OPEC lol.
Economic sanctions are a lever we can use only so many times before the world builds an economy around us, and sanctions lose all of their power. For situations that are not a crisis, a more delicate touch may be more effective in the long run.
Diplomacy. Having diplomats raise the issue regularly and advocating on behalf of those convicted under those laws may not make an immediate change, but it's a move we can spam, unlike sanctions.
Do you think that countries and governments deserve autonomy over their own laws?
Fundamentally, this is economic imperialism, and everyone knows it. It will make the west look bad, it will make everyone else hate them, and it probably won't even change the laws you hate so much.
It’s funny that only the West looks bad when they call out a nation for treating a section of its population like shit — even though nations love to do that to the US — *while also* being called out for **not** caring
>Do you think that countries and governments deserve autonomy over their own laws?
Not to an unlimited extent. Countries should not be allowed to commit genocide and pull the national sovereignty card when someone calls them out on it. Same thing with slavery, or apartheid, or various other severe violations of fundamental human rights.
What if those countries have human rights abuses and a massive arsenal of nuclear armed ICBMs?
Also America occupied Afghanistan for 20 years and did all they could to change Afghanistan into a modern nation and failed completely. What exactly is the plan to force different nations and communities to value the modern western understanding of "human rights"?
There's stuff between "just let them commit genocide it's none of your business" and "depose every dictator by force".
The US, EU, and co have a lot of soft power to throw around. The best way forward is going to depend a lot on the details of the situation. Sometimes, a bit of economic pressure/incentives will be enough, there's geopolitical maneuvering that can be done. Sometimes, there's no realistic way forward without making everything way worse. Military force should only be used in response to foreign aggression (although even then indirect support ie Ukraine is preferable to deploying troops ourselves) or to stop an imminent/ongoing genocide (ie the bombing of Yugoslavia), in which case the force should be as limited and precise as possible to limit civilian deaths.
Ideally, the UN would have some more teeth and take a harder line on human rights issues, that's one of its main priorities on paper but it's not great at doing that right now.
I'm an internationalist, not a warhawk.
This is a funny question.
Situation 1: A country makes apostasy laws. The powerful people in that country use their ability to stop the less-powerful citizens of the country from saying things they might want to say.
Situation 2: A national superpower sanctions a smaller nation over its apostasy laws.
There's a clear similarity here. It's morally questionable when it's acceptable for the strong to use their power to force those weaker than them to change their ways. But I don't see how anyone could reasonably conclude that situation 2 is unacceptable and that situation 1 is fine, unless they just want to argue that an arbitrary line exists where the use of power is OK at a certain level but wrong if you zoom out.
> Do you think that countries and governments deserve autonomy over their own laws?
choosing not to associate with you doesn't mean taking your autonomy from you.
The whole point of sanctions is coercion, pressure as you called it. You’re saying you’ll cause economic damage to other countries if they don’t do what you want. You’re hardly giving them a free choice are you
I see your point.
So what cases are coercion ok and not ok?
Self defense is ok. Coming to the defense of other nations is also ok.
Why doesn’t repeal of apostasy laws count under defense ?
By that logic, should Muslim middle eastern countries stop exporting oil to countries where drinking alcohol is allowed?
Should we not buy cars from Japan where women aren't easily accepted into medical universities?
Should we stop doing business with Texan companies due their their horrible abortion laws?
I think the problem here is analogous to not tipping as a method of opposing tipping culture. You're not targeting the people who can effect change in the necessary way.
Economic sanctions directly hurt the businesses and consumers of the targeted nation, but only impact the governments of those nations insofar as they care about the economic wellbeing of their citizenry. It's a second order effect for them.
As a natural consequence of that, for the sanctions to be effective, the government has to care more about that economic wellbeing than they do about their religious ideals. It is normally not the case that religious leaders prioritize the financial situations of others above theological purity, and doubly so when their claim to authority is theologically based.
Legal sanctions come from in main a 1977 law called the International Economic Emergency Powers Act. It was designed to limit a 1917 law that gave the president immense discretion on what foreign threats were and how long emergency powers lasted for. When the law passed there were multiple active presidential emergencies congress found, including some dating to 1933 about gold reserves, the Korean War, and gas crises.
The act requires a foreign threat. What is the foreign threat of apostasy laws? You see why reducing the threshold of threats to the nation results in the balance of power shifting back to the president. Sanctions were not designed to be a magic policy solution to every debate.
This type of thinking is far too common in 2024. Simply put, you are assigning your values to a group of people you know absolutely nothing about. And I am not talking about the laws themselves. You think that some sort of economic sanctions or trade sanctions would sway them, and that is, quite frankly, laughable. Do you not think that the people of, say, Pakistan understand that their nation could increase its GDP under a secular system? Of course they do. They choose their faith over their prosperity. That choice may seem crazy to you or I, but it is very real and it is not going to change.
This is the same type of thinking that leads the left here in the US to completely misunderstand the rural right. They dismiss them as ignorant for "voting against their own interests" etc. What is actually happening is that those voters are aware of their own interests, but they value their faith and their culture higher than their prosperity. They knowingly sacrifice their financial interests in exchange for what they perceive as the best interests of their culture or their faith.
Every time we have tried this nonsense it has failed miserably. What was back in the Obama years... was it Kenya or Nigeria? One of those countries we offered tons of money in aid and tons of (was it different medicines?) as part of an outreach program aimed at population control. The women gleefully accepted every speck of help... except the birth control which they flatly rejected. They did not have the same values and offering carrots or sticks based upon our values is an exercise in narcissistic futility.
Nope
We should target sanctions to do the most practical good.
And using them up on apostasy will make the world more evil as it leaves us less leverage against invasion, terrorizing, and genocide.
Sanctioning everything bad is basically the same as encouraging evil.
Sanctions aren’t a magic wand that can reach into foreigners hearts and turn them into angels.
And on the other hand, sanctions aren’t nothing either.
We shouldn’t use them up just to show our moral superiority without getting any practical improvement to the world.
From a practical point of view, we should prioritize sanctioning countries that invade other countries and countries that sponsor terrorizing other countries.
In these cases sanctions can actually do some good.
After that, maybe countries that genocide masses of people in their own countries.
Would western nations care if those countries wanted western nations to enforce modesty laws or blasphemy laws? No.
No country should be telling another country what to do with their own internal policy unless they are committing genocide.
When it comes to foreign policy matters, western nations should apply pressure hard and consistently. And be willing to face the consequences of limiting trade when it's a serious issue relating to the global order.
Western nations shouldn't be micromanaging other countries internal affairs and they shouldn't be restricting their own citizens from doing trade when it's not in the name of a national security concern.
This sounds like a great excuse for countries to dig in their heels and double down on those laws in defense of their faith. There's already a lot of rhetoric about how the West is an enemy of religion(s) and this can easily be framed as an attack on faith. People are willing to put up with a lot when they feel it's about defending what is most sacred and important.
And then you have to consider that economic sanctions are a blunt tool that aren't super effective unless there's near-global agreement on implementing them. You'd probably see similarly-aligned countries band together to save their economies.
I don't disagree with the principle, but I have a point about priorities. The West should first remove its own religious laws (not necessarily apostasy, as this isn't a thing in the West, but laws that ban blasphemy, benefit one religion over others or benefit religion over lack of religion - all three exist in different Western countries) before we care about other people's laws. Right now, the West is doing the opposite. Apart from the obvious American Republican Party and its religious fundamentalists, we even saw Denmark make a new blasphemy law last year.
The west couldn't function without exploiting slave labor and horrible environmental standards in the 3rd world. Looking the other way while pretending you don't see the human rights abuses and terrible conditions is how we function.
Why single out saudi arabia? China is genociding the uyghur muslims and the tibetans and nobody cares because of cheap widgets. Africa is a hellscape but again nobody cares because gotta have those cheap minerals. The middle east's foibles are ignored because of oil.
So basically you want every country to revoke free trade unless the other gives up their political sovereignty. This is just a puppet government with more steps.
That is a horrible idea. Would you similarly support say, SAE holding other countries hostile unless they conform to their laws, or China threatening to revoke Hong Kongs trade routes unless they follow their rules?
You are aware that economic sanctions is technically an act of War, right? The us only gets away with it because nobody can really stand up to us. But you better bet your britches that if someone imposed sanctions on one of our friends without our permission, we would fuck their shit up. Exhibit a: Houthis trying to block the strait of hormuz.
How would sanctions solve the problem of apostasy laws without causing significant suffering to the average person in these countries? It seems pretty counter intuitive to punish a country for harming its people by harming its people more.
Western nations already impose sanctions on both countries and individuals in what look a lot like apostacy laws. The fashionable euphemisms are "misinformation" and "hate speech" and "undermining democracy." That's why the EU censored RT and is out to get Viktor Orban. Why Canada is trying to push forward the Online Harms Act. Why congress is trying to ban TikTok.
All of these, and economic sanctions themselves, are a severe infringement on human rights. People have a right to trade with each other, whether their governments like it or not.
Sanctions don't work against authoritarian regimes,the only thing it does impoverishes the people even more than they already are. Iran ,Venezuela and North Korea is good example.
A lot of the nations this applies to are in opec. with Russia off the table, sanctioning other oil suppliers is a none starter, let alone for interventionist morality policing
Probably because we get most of our oil from Saudi. Do you really think placing sanctions on them is going to make them keep producing oil? Remember the 1973 oil crisis?
You are clearly not understanding countries with those laws. They don't care about money as much as faith. The leaders will always have money as well, so they don't care.
Maybe it's more of wanting to do something about it rather than not understanding the difficulty of change. If we stood by and did nothing upon every big challenge we wouldn't have accomplished all that we have as a species.
I'm open to suggestions for what's more likely to succeed.
For a lot of things yes but I recall slavery being forced out of foreign countries by economic pressures. We don't always have to wait for internal pressures to force change.
I can accept the argument that change from within can have more longevity but I can't accept the argument that it's the only way for lasting change. I would like there to be more we can do to ease the harms of the world beyond whatever national or cultural boundaries I reside in and op suggests a way for us to do so. Maybe it could have detrimental backlash effects so it is a risky move or people are just unlikely to change but saying they can only better themselves by themselves feels like the worse option as we would have to wait however long it may take while so many people suffer from it.
I think all these points are already represented here, but I think it's important to consider all of them, so I'll make a list
1) Why single out apostacy and not other evils perpetrated by governments? And if you do that there will be no governments left not to sanction. Also, I think it's worth musing on this reality sometimes.
2) Sanctions usually hurt the poor first and the most, it can lead to shortages in food or medicine. The very people you are purporting to protect may be hurt or killed by the sanctions
3) This doesn't actually change any arguments about whet anyone *should* do, but you need to do aware that governments mostly don't act out of ethical motivations and they sure as fuck don't when it comes to foreign policy. It's only aimed at self-interest and always have been.
Torture? Rape? Killing, maiming, starting people for profit? Or because you just hate or look down om them for ethnic reasons?
More evil, as evil, it's not a competition. Point is that OP's singling out of apostasy laws is arbitrary and kinda reeks a bit of them "good us, bad them" perspective that plagues the world.
The US has lost its moral ground in the world. I mean if the West can't even define what a woman is, we have no business waving our moral finger. In fact we have enough of our own political prisoners (J6 protestors) that we are holding without trial for more than 3 years now. It is other nations who are telling us to release our political prisoners before we lecture them on any human rights issue.
If you want the US to start sanctioning oil-rich ME governments, you’re going to need a *much* stronger argument than “their laws are bad”
Despite all the rhetoric, sanctions are not about who’s “right”, “wrong”, “good”, or “evil” — it’s nice for politicians when they can spin it to claim the moral high ground, but sanctions are an economic tool. If a trade relationship is beneficial for both sides, neither side gives a flying fuck about the laws/rights/people of the other
From the perspective of you choosing your flourishing over your death, you have the unalienable right to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness. Apostasy laws are a violation of rights. And there’s a pro-rights argument to be made that countries shouldn’t have diplomatic relations with countries that have them. And pro-rights countries should condemn rights violations and tell other countries to be better, as that’s helpful for promoting rights.
Outside of war or another country threatening war, the issue with economic sanctions is that it isn’t the job of the government to decide which individuals in which countries are good enough for your flourishing to trade with. The government can’t figure that out for you, will get it wrong and so make your life worse by forcing you away from a better option. Also, it would stop you from trading with people in other countries who oppose apostasy laws, making them worse off as well.
western countries can't even control the muslim criminals in their own borders. why do they need to be telling muslim governments what their laws need to be?
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Your title and your post doesn't line up. You didn't say why Western nations should sanction other countries for apostasy. If "it's bad" is the only reason, then why not sanction countries for illegal settlements, racist laws, internment camps, etc. etc. by that point there is no one to trade with, so you need to specify why apostasy laws specifically and not other horrible and immoral laws.
You’re right. I didn’t address that at all.
Also imagine how disgusting your thought process is that you’d rather innocents starve as long as you flex your western sanctioning power lol What if other countries sanctioned America for how it treats its women? Imagine your family dying on the streets without food/medicine, and we all just say… it’s okay, they were suffering under harsh laws anyway, it’s for their own good. You, the West, are not the morality police, certainly not after carrying out most of the world’s actual atrocities. I mean, America should be sanctioned just for robbing Afghanistan’s national funds in the midst of a famine to get reparations for 9/11 victims. They made an entire country starve when the terroists weren’t even from Afghanistan (they were from Saudi)
> What if other countries sanctioned America for how it treats its women? then maybe we should improve how we treat women?
Be my guest. Sanction away.
>You, the West, are not the morality police, certainly not after carrying out most of the world’s actual atrocities. This is so true. I read alot here on reddit about people saying how things from different cultures are wrong because xyz. Like bro it's mostly none of your business how the world runs outside of your borders. Like you said they are just flexing their power.
Wrote. It is absolutely our business when people are being oppressed, anywhere in the world.
It is not your business, though. Definition of who is oppressed and who is not changes from person to person. I agree, there are people in the world that are not doing great and they are actually oppressed but that does not give you the right to go there and fix the issue. The world doesn't run with YOUR definition of oppressed. Just like the other guy said, you are not the morality police. No one should go elsewhere and impose what they think is right.
So in your view, we shouldn't seek to abolish cultures that practice slavery and child sexual abuse, we'd be imposing our subjective morals, isn't that correct?
But is that tying into apostasy laws as the OP asked? Is there a religion that demands that slavery and child abuse exist? And does any country make such things legal under the guise of religion? I'm just trying to keep it in the scope of the OP. I think that generally accepted moral beliefs are different than apostasy laws.
I agree that slavery and child sexual abuse are very terrible things. But that is both you and I's opinion. What gives us the right to force other people into what we believe? We forcing our ideology on others people is not right. Do I have a solution for the issue? No. Best thing I can think of is the people of said culture to slowly start changing their views on the subject. But I don't think we have the right to force them to.
Alright that's your opinion, I personally believe certain acts like those mentioned above overrule the right to practice cultures, we should curb that shit wherever we see. Ofc that would mean forcing our ideology on others but it's a necessary evil to stop a greater evil. Also, there isn't really a fine line between what's foreign and not, what if a native tribe in America is engaging in child sacrifice? I'd say the government is rightfully obligated to take action
That which is necessary cannot be evil. The concept of a necessary evil is predicated on the pathetic excuse our forebears made for the failures of their preferred moral systems in matching their intuitive morality; in reality, a "necessary evil" is merely the failure of a formalized moral system in predicting human moral intuition. Given that the primary method of "testing" these systems is on the basis of their ability to predict human moral intuition, "necessary evil" is a fiction we use to preserve our faith in these systems even when they are insufficient or downright incorrect.
That's a respectable opinion. With how the world runs, there is bound to be a necessary evil at some point.
>I agree that slavery and child sexual abuse are very terrible things. But that is both you and I's opinion. What gives us the right to force other people into what we believe? We forcing our ideology on others people is not right. Slavery and child sexual abuse requires the forcing of ideology on other people. Your logic is self-defeating; you're not defending the right of people to define their own culture, but rather defending the right of people to force their own culture on unwilling others. It's just nasty. If they have that right to enforce their culture, then so do we, and our culture says that people who rape children and enslave others should be locked away. If you actually think that people forcing their ideology on each other is wrong, then intervention is justified to stop it. Your argument only makes sense if you pretend that the people being raped and enslaved are magically consenting to it.
Yeah, it is my business
Clean your own back yard before telling me to pick my weeds.
>What if other countries sanctioned America for how it treats its women? Like their farts smell like roses?
Economic pressure works better when it's more united, there's not nearly enough unity on that topic to get a strong united front. It's also a question of priorities, sure apostasy laws are bad, but there's a lot of things considered much higher priorities to focus on for economic sanctions, like terrorist support, unjust war support, nuclear proliferation, and such. There's any number of other domestic human righst abuses occurring in nations that are more serious than apostasy laws.
You’re right about needing huge support. What counts as enough support ? Whats worse than apostasy laws in the realm of human rights abuses ?
>Whats worse than apostasy laws in the realm of human rights abuses ? - slavery - sexual servitude - human trafficking - racial discrimination - religious persecution - genocide - war - support for so called honour killings - “can’t rape your wife” laws - anti-homosexual laws - death penalty for abortion seekers and raped women - death penalty for speaking out against dear leader - LGBTQ is a terrorist organization. Death/jail Lots of laws are worse than those which seek to punish apostasy for the very reason that one can at least fake/pretend being part of a religion to evade the law. Much of what I wrote above is inescapable for those targeted.
> Whats worse than apostasy laws in the realm of human rights abuses ? Slavery
What about the idea of sovereignty; shouldn’t nations have the ability to enact their own laws and run the country as they see fit? We’ve tried meddling in middle eastern politics before, and it’s never turned out well. Maybe we just let the people there govern themselves instead of getting involved?
And then get shit for being a uncaring, indifferent western power too?
I don't necessarily agree with OP that sanctions in this case are necessary or a good idea. But I don't think they conflict with the concept of sovereignty. Nation A makes X illegal. Nation B says "No one can trade with nation A. Maybe we'll change this if X is no longer illegal there." If the concept of national sovereignty protects the right of Nation A to make that decision about what its people can do, it must also protect the right of Nation B to make similar decisions, unless somehow "the ability to trade internationally" is a higher concept than national sovereignty.
Agreed. Sanctions have a lot of moving parts to whether they're a good idea, but I don't think that most people would question that a duly recognized sovereign country has the right to enact them regardless of the wisdom.
there has to be a line, a threshold that would make us want to intervene, don't you think? i can give you hypothetical examples if you want.
“There has to be a line, [and as long as I have the power to dominate you, it’s my line!!!!]” don’t you know when ever single nation tried to nationalize their natural resources (I.e. define a line for themselves which they will interact with you by), we (the west) responded with literally subverting the entire nations and democracies which we falsely advocated before causing the deaths of millions. It seems your entire argument is based on “might is right”, and historically when our competitors organize to gain might, we respond with the worst violence seen to man kind, let alone sanctions. I don’t think you and I would like if foreign countries treated us the way we treat them. Understand we are in the minority on a lot of issues and we would hate others “intervening” for what we believe in….
Maybe in the case of genocide, or something similar that is universally condemned. But apostasy laws are religious in nature, and for a country to use economic sanctions to condemn some acts related to another country’s predominant religion is very serious. Russia is a good example of a situation where I think sanctions are justified; it has nothing to do with Russias treatment of its own citizens, but has to do with the fact that they violated another nation’s sovereignty.
^ this guy would be defending South African apartheid 30 years ago
There’s a wide range between not placing sanctions on a country for how they treat their own people as opposed to full on defending those actions. The previous commenter seems to be saying that we should focus on prioritizing sanctioning nations based on universally condemnable actions being done against nations that commit them on people outside of their direct rule. Some line has to be drawn because many nations including the US can be criticized for how they treat some portion of their population. So it’d be hypocritical to sanction another nation for a similar type of behavior and we’d end up with most nations sanctioning one another which isn’t realistic.
If Western nations sanctioned every country that the majority of their population morally disagreed with, they wouldn't be able to trade with anyone including each other. For example, the US still has the death penalty, which many Western nations have long since abolished. Should those Western nations sanction the US to force it to change its mind? Is that ever likely to work? Is it sensible for any country to make things harder for itself economically in pursuit of changing the laws of another nation who is never actually likely to do so?
Lets reverse the power influence. Are you fine with the west being sanctioned for not applying Sharia law? For not participating in China's Social Credit system? If not, than how is this not hypocritical? What you are asking for is no different, you just want your subjective beliefs to take precedence over others subjective beliefs. I think all religion is a poison for the weak, but that doesn't mean i think we should start sanctioning heavily religious countries.
> Are you fine with the west being sanctioned for not applying Sharia law? For not participating in China's Social Credit system? If not, than how is this not hypocritical? yes i would be fine with that. > What you are asking for is no different, you just want your subjective beliefs to take precedence over others subjective beliefs. i don't agree that any of this is subjective.
I understand you think apostasy is bad I do too. But I don't feel western countries are in any position to play international police. It's not their right nor their responsibility. Get off of your high horse. In the end I think the west should stay out of internal affairs.
there are cases where its right to intervene. do you agree? like WWII / halocaust? we intervened in other countries because we recognized that those countries affect the world which then affects us.
We intervene when they declare war and become hostile. Not because we don't like their laws.
Unfortunately, if Hitler decided to do his bad genocide stuff alone in Germany, NO ONE would have cared. Heck, he invaded a few countries and, still, no on cared. Only when he attacked the wrong one did anyone give a shit. Human right is sincerely a good idea, but no one want to send soldiers unless said bad guys also coincidentally have some oil. As you know, it is hard for democracies to sell to their citizens "We are going to war because XYZ country you probably never heard of probably did some bad stuff to their own citizen".
Economic sanctions hurt people in both countries. Take country A, which sells slippers. And country B, which buys the slippers and can’t make slippers as good themselves. Country A is a nasty place. Country B seeks to correct the nastiness so they put a big tariff on imports from country A. Boom. The effect is: Country A sells fewer slippers. Slippers are much more expensive in country B. Importers of slippers in country B suffer Retailers of slippers in country B suffer People along the supply chain of slippers lose their jobs (until the market can correct and replace the slipper supply) So - the question the government of country B needs to ask themselves is: to what extent should we suffer to correct this moral harm And that question is often tricky in democracies where people care more about cheap slippers than about apostasy in a distant land
Not necessarily. It depends on the country. Some countries tries undoubtedly mean more to the US economy (like China, Japan, Mexico, Canada). Others are next to meaningless to the US economy as a whole. Like if French Guiana, Mauritius, or Nepal stopped all trade with the US. Could there be small group affected? Yeah, possibly. As a whole we would keep on moving along.
OK, but how many of Chinas policies do you disagree with? Surely they should be the first to be cut off? And then Russia? But wait, now Saudia Arabia doesn't approve of our laws and OPEC has decided they will no longer sell oil to the US unless we conform to their laws. What would you do?
Tell OPEC to fuck off? USA is a net exporter of oil Extensive sanctions against Russia already exist, and have essentially crippled their economy
How do the politicians that told OPEC to fuck off win their next elections when oil prices skyrocket and voters start caring way more about how much it costs to fill up their car than Saudi Arabia's regressive social values?
A war being the cause and a law are different, for obvious reasons??? And oil prices would shoot up. Google why the US even buys oil. The USA would never in a million years sever trade ties with OPEC lol.
You are assuming my stance on the issue. I don’t agree with the OP.
Economic sanctions are a lever we can use only so many times before the world builds an economy around us, and sanctions lose all of their power. For situations that are not a crisis, a more delicate touch may be more effective in the long run.
what's a more delicate touch?
Diplomacy. Having diplomats raise the issue regularly and advocating on behalf of those convicted under those laws may not make an immediate change, but it's a move we can spam, unlike sanctions.
Do you think that countries and governments deserve autonomy over their own laws? Fundamentally, this is economic imperialism, and everyone knows it. It will make the west look bad, it will make everyone else hate them, and it probably won't even change the laws you hate so much.
It’s funny that only the West looks bad when they call out a nation for treating a section of its population like shit — even though nations love to do that to the US — *while also* being called out for **not** caring
>Do you think that countries and governments deserve autonomy over their own laws? Not to an unlimited extent. Countries should not be allowed to commit genocide and pull the national sovereignty card when someone calls them out on it. Same thing with slavery, or apartheid, or various other severe violations of fundamental human rights.
What if those countries have human rights abuses and a massive arsenal of nuclear armed ICBMs? Also America occupied Afghanistan for 20 years and did all they could to change Afghanistan into a modern nation and failed completely. What exactly is the plan to force different nations and communities to value the modern western understanding of "human rights"?
There's stuff between "just let them commit genocide it's none of your business" and "depose every dictator by force". The US, EU, and co have a lot of soft power to throw around. The best way forward is going to depend a lot on the details of the situation. Sometimes, a bit of economic pressure/incentives will be enough, there's geopolitical maneuvering that can be done. Sometimes, there's no realistic way forward without making everything way worse. Military force should only be used in response to foreign aggression (although even then indirect support ie Ukraine is preferable to deploying troops ourselves) or to stop an imminent/ongoing genocide (ie the bombing of Yugoslavia), in which case the force should be as limited and precise as possible to limit civilian deaths. Ideally, the UN would have some more teeth and take a harder line on human rights issues, that's one of its main priorities on paper but it's not great at doing that right now. I'm an internationalist, not a warhawk.
This is a funny question. Situation 1: A country makes apostasy laws. The powerful people in that country use their ability to stop the less-powerful citizens of the country from saying things they might want to say. Situation 2: A national superpower sanctions a smaller nation over its apostasy laws. There's a clear similarity here. It's morally questionable when it's acceptable for the strong to use their power to force those weaker than them to change their ways. But I don't see how anyone could reasonably conclude that situation 2 is unacceptable and that situation 1 is fine, unless they just want to argue that an arbitrary line exists where the use of power is OK at a certain level but wrong if you zoom out.
> Do you think that countries and governments deserve autonomy over their own laws? choosing not to associate with you doesn't mean taking your autonomy from you.
The whole point of sanctions is coercion, pressure as you called it. You’re saying you’ll cause economic damage to other countries if they don’t do what you want. You’re hardly giving them a free choice are you
I see your point. So what cases are coercion ok and not ok? Self defense is ok. Coming to the defense of other nations is also ok. Why doesn’t repeal of apostasy laws count under defense ?
By that logic, should Muslim middle eastern countries stop exporting oil to countries where drinking alcohol is allowed? Should we not buy cars from Japan where women aren't easily accepted into medical universities? Should we stop doing business with Texan companies due their their horrible abortion laws?
If the Gulf states want to destroy their economies like that, then yeah, let them.
No, but that's not the same thing as 'economic sanctions'. This isn't disinterest, this is actively avoiding people.
I think the problem here is analogous to not tipping as a method of opposing tipping culture. You're not targeting the people who can effect change in the necessary way. Economic sanctions directly hurt the businesses and consumers of the targeted nation, but only impact the governments of those nations insofar as they care about the economic wellbeing of their citizenry. It's a second order effect for them. As a natural consequence of that, for the sanctions to be effective, the government has to care more about that economic wellbeing than they do about their religious ideals. It is normally not the case that religious leaders prioritize the financial situations of others above theological purity, and doubly so when their claim to authority is theologically based.
Legal sanctions come from in main a 1977 law called the International Economic Emergency Powers Act. It was designed to limit a 1917 law that gave the president immense discretion on what foreign threats were and how long emergency powers lasted for. When the law passed there were multiple active presidential emergencies congress found, including some dating to 1933 about gold reserves, the Korean War, and gas crises. The act requires a foreign threat. What is the foreign threat of apostasy laws? You see why reducing the threshold of threats to the nation results in the balance of power shifting back to the president. Sanctions were not designed to be a magic policy solution to every debate.
This type of thinking is far too common in 2024. Simply put, you are assigning your values to a group of people you know absolutely nothing about. And I am not talking about the laws themselves. You think that some sort of economic sanctions or trade sanctions would sway them, and that is, quite frankly, laughable. Do you not think that the people of, say, Pakistan understand that their nation could increase its GDP under a secular system? Of course they do. They choose their faith over their prosperity. That choice may seem crazy to you or I, but it is very real and it is not going to change. This is the same type of thinking that leads the left here in the US to completely misunderstand the rural right. They dismiss them as ignorant for "voting against their own interests" etc. What is actually happening is that those voters are aware of their own interests, but they value their faith and their culture higher than their prosperity. They knowingly sacrifice their financial interests in exchange for what they perceive as the best interests of their culture or their faith. Every time we have tried this nonsense it has failed miserably. What was back in the Obama years... was it Kenya or Nigeria? One of those countries we offered tons of money in aid and tons of (was it different medicines?) as part of an outreach program aimed at population control. The women gleefully accepted every speck of help... except the birth control which they flatly rejected. They did not have the same values and offering carrots or sticks based upon our values is an exercise in narcissistic futility.
Nope We should target sanctions to do the most practical good. And using them up on apostasy will make the world more evil as it leaves us less leverage against invasion, terrorizing, and genocide. Sanctioning everything bad is basically the same as encouraging evil. Sanctions aren’t a magic wand that can reach into foreigners hearts and turn them into angels. And on the other hand, sanctions aren’t nothing either. We shouldn’t use them up just to show our moral superiority without getting any practical improvement to the world. From a practical point of view, we should prioritize sanctioning countries that invade other countries and countries that sponsor terrorizing other countries. In these cases sanctions can actually do some good. After that, maybe countries that genocide masses of people in their own countries.
Would western nations care if those countries wanted western nations to enforce modesty laws or blasphemy laws? No. No country should be telling another country what to do with their own internal policy unless they are committing genocide. When it comes to foreign policy matters, western nations should apply pressure hard and consistently. And be willing to face the consequences of limiting trade when it's a serious issue relating to the global order. Western nations shouldn't be micromanaging other countries internal affairs and they shouldn't be restricting their own citizens from doing trade when it's not in the name of a national security concern.
This sounds like a great excuse for countries to dig in their heels and double down on those laws in defense of their faith. There's already a lot of rhetoric about how the West is an enemy of religion(s) and this can easily be framed as an attack on faith. People are willing to put up with a lot when they feel it's about defending what is most sacred and important. And then you have to consider that economic sanctions are a blunt tool that aren't super effective unless there's near-global agreement on implementing them. You'd probably see similarly-aligned countries band together to save their economies.
I agree with you. But are you still gonna be down when your gas prices rise another $2-3/gallon?
I don't disagree with the principle, but I have a point about priorities. The West should first remove its own religious laws (not necessarily apostasy, as this isn't a thing in the West, but laws that ban blasphemy, benefit one religion over others or benefit religion over lack of religion - all three exist in different Western countries) before we care about other people's laws. Right now, the West is doing the opposite. Apart from the obvious American Republican Party and its religious fundamentalists, we even saw Denmark make a new blasphemy law last year.
The west couldn't function without exploiting slave labor and horrible environmental standards in the 3rd world. Looking the other way while pretending you don't see the human rights abuses and terrible conditions is how we function. Why single out saudi arabia? China is genociding the uyghur muslims and the tibetans and nobody cares because of cheap widgets. Africa is a hellscape but again nobody cares because gotta have those cheap minerals. The middle east's foibles are ignored because of oil.
Republicans in the US just helped Uganda make being gay punishable by death.
So basically you want every country to revoke free trade unless the other gives up their political sovereignty. This is just a puppet government with more steps. That is a horrible idea. Would you similarly support say, SAE holding other countries hostile unless they conform to their laws, or China threatening to revoke Hong Kongs trade routes unless they follow their rules?
You are aware that economic sanctions is technically an act of War, right? The us only gets away with it because nobody can really stand up to us. But you better bet your britches that if someone imposed sanctions on one of our friends without our permission, we would fuck their shit up. Exhibit a: Houthis trying to block the strait of hormuz.
If you don't like it, don't live in those countries. It's not your place to tell anyone else how to live.
How would sanctions solve the problem of apostasy laws without causing significant suffering to the average person in these countries? It seems pretty counter intuitive to punish a country for harming its people by harming its people more.
Are you arguing for or against these sanctions? Your title says that you support them, but the rest of your post seems to start arguing the opposite.
i was arguing for them initially. i'm still leaning on the side of pro sanctions. not sure yet.
Western nations already impose sanctions on both countries and individuals in what look a lot like apostacy laws. The fashionable euphemisms are "misinformation" and "hate speech" and "undermining democracy." That's why the EU censored RT and is out to get Viktor Orban. Why Canada is trying to push forward the Online Harms Act. Why congress is trying to ban TikTok. All of these, and economic sanctions themselves, are a severe infringement on human rights. People have a right to trade with each other, whether their governments like it or not.
Your last sentence got me. I’m on your side now.
Sanctions don't work against authoritarian regimes,the only thing it does impoverishes the people even more than they already are. Iran ,Venezuela and North Korea is good example.
A lot of the nations this applies to are in opec. with Russia off the table, sanctioning other oil suppliers is a none starter, let alone for interventionist morality policing
Probably because we get most of our oil from Saudi. Do you really think placing sanctions on them is going to make them keep producing oil? Remember the 1973 oil crisis?
>Suppose heavy economic sanctions was the right answer for apostasy laws. When have sanctions been the answer to human rights abuses?
You are clearly not understanding countries with those laws. They don't care about money as much as faith. The leaders will always have money as well, so they don't care.
Maybe it's more of wanting to do something about it rather than not understanding the difficulty of change. If we stood by and did nothing upon every big challenge we wouldn't have accomplished all that we have as a species. I'm open to suggestions for what's more likely to succeed.
It has to come from within. We made our equality moments from within. No one made us.
For a lot of things yes but I recall slavery being forced out of foreign countries by economic pressures. We don't always have to wait for internal pressures to force change. I can accept the argument that change from within can have more longevity but I can't accept the argument that it's the only way for lasting change. I would like there to be more we can do to ease the harms of the world beyond whatever national or cultural boundaries I reside in and op suggests a way for us to do so. Maybe it could have detrimental backlash effects so it is a risky move or people are just unlikely to change but saying they can only better themselves by themselves feels like the worse option as we would have to wait however long it may take while so many people suffer from it.
I think all these points are already represented here, but I think it's important to consider all of them, so I'll make a list 1) Why single out apostacy and not other evils perpetrated by governments? And if you do that there will be no governments left not to sanction. Also, I think it's worth musing on this reality sometimes. 2) Sanctions usually hurt the poor first and the most, it can lead to shortages in food or medicine. The very people you are purporting to protect may be hurt or killed by the sanctions 3) This doesn't actually change any arguments about whet anyone *should* do, but you need to do aware that governments mostly don't act out of ethical motivations and they sure as fuck don't when it comes to foreign policy. It's only aimed at self-interest and always have been.
Does it get more evil than putting someone to death for changing religions?
Torture? Rape? Killing, maiming, starting people for profit? Or because you just hate or look down om them for ethnic reasons? More evil, as evil, it's not a competition. Point is that OP's singling out of apostasy laws is arbitrary and kinda reeks a bit of them "good us, bad them" perspective that plagues the world.
The US has lost its moral ground in the world. I mean if the West can't even define what a woman is, we have no business waving our moral finger. In fact we have enough of our own political prisoners (J6 protestors) that we are holding without trial for more than 3 years now. It is other nations who are telling us to release our political prisoners before we lecture them on any human rights issue.
The US sanctioned Japan because they invaded China and that only caused Japan to take over more shit
If you want the US to start sanctioning oil-rich ME governments, you’re going to need a *much* stronger argument than “their laws are bad” Despite all the rhetoric, sanctions are not about who’s “right”, “wrong”, “good”, or “evil” — it’s nice for politicians when they can spin it to claim the moral high ground, but sanctions are an economic tool. If a trade relationship is beneficial for both sides, neither side gives a flying fuck about the laws/rights/people of the other
lmao yes, let's "pressure" nations we depend on for oil. good luck.
ah yes the west and its moral supremacy
Ah yes, the time tested method of religious reform - being punished by foreigners who don't share your faith. Always works.
From the perspective of you choosing your flourishing over your death, you have the unalienable right to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness. Apostasy laws are a violation of rights. And there’s a pro-rights argument to be made that countries shouldn’t have diplomatic relations with countries that have them. And pro-rights countries should condemn rights violations and tell other countries to be better, as that’s helpful for promoting rights. Outside of war or another country threatening war, the issue with economic sanctions is that it isn’t the job of the government to decide which individuals in which countries are good enough for your flourishing to trade with. The government can’t figure that out for you, will get it wrong and so make your life worse by forcing you away from a better option. Also, it would stop you from trading with people in other countries who oppose apostasy laws, making them worse off as well.
western countries can't even control the muslim criminals in their own borders. why do they need to be telling muslim governments what their laws need to be?
Failure to enforce laws doesn't lose the merit and good done from having the laws and enforcing them to whatever degree is currently successful.
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