Asylum For Blood-Feuds-Affected Person -- Lawyer Recommandation

[CogentCom]

[...] In the narrative, "eternal recurrence" is just a hypothesis put forward by the author. None of the exhaustive arguments, axioms, theorems, syllogisms, etc., required to prove or support a "philosophical" theory, are ever given either here, or any other works of Nietzsche. Eternal Recurrence is just an idea, a concept, thrown at us much like a ghost story. [...]

I wonder whether even such axioms as the the ones that follow would be accepted by this person as "proper foundations" for a system of thought

Axiom 1: Things which are equal to the same thing are also equal to one another.
Axiom 2: If equals be added to equals, the wholes are equal.
Axiom 3: If equals be subtracted from equals, the remainders are equal.
Axiom 4: Things which coincide with one another are equal to one another.
Axiom 5: The whole is greater than the part.
Postulate 1: It is possible to draw a straight line from any point to any other point.
Postulate 2: It is possible to produce a finite straight line continuously in a straight line.
Postulate 3: It is possible to describe a circle with any center and any radius.
Postulate 4: It is true that all right angles are equal to one another.
Postulate 5: It is true that, if a straight line falling on two straight lines make the interior angles on the same side less than two right angles, the two straight lines, if produced indefinitely, intersect on that side on which are the angles less than the two right angles.

It is often and erroneously asserted that Euclid's parallel postulate is equivalent to Playfair's axiom, named after the Scottish mathematician John Playfair, stating that "Exactly one line can be drawn through any point not on a given line parallel to the given line." This axiom is actually more powerful than Euclid's parallel postulate, as it assumes that a single parallel line exists. This does not follow from Euclid's postulate. In fact, it is possible to develop spherical geometry without contradicting the parallel postulate, as it does not assert that the lines will not meet again on the side of the obtuse interior angles. Euclid himself believed he had shown in his Proposition 1.27 that parallel lines exist independently of the parallel postulate, which would have ruled out spherical geometry. However this proof depends on an implicit assumption made in Proposition 1.16 which Euclid does not appear to have recognized. This assumption along with the parallel postulate are together equivalent to Playfair's axiom.

Some of the other statements that are equivalent to the parallel postulate or to Playfair's axiom appear at first to be unrelated to parallelism. Some even seem so self-evident that they were unconsciously assumed by people who claimed to have proven the parallel postulate from Euclid's other postulates. Here are some of these results:

- The sum of the angles in every triangle is 180°.
- There exists a triangle whose angles add up to 180°.
- The sum of the angles is the same for every triangle.
- There exists a pair of similar, but not congruent, triangles.
- Every triangle can be circumscribed.
- If three angles of a quadrilateral are right angles, then the fourth angle is also a right angle.
- There exists a quadrilateral of which all angles are right angles.
- There exists a pair of straight lines that are at constant distance from each other.
- Two lines that are parallel to the same line are also parallel to each other.
- Given two parallel lines, any line that intersects one of them also intersects the other.
- In a right-angled triangle, the square of the hypotenuse equals the sum of the squares of the other two sides (Pythagoras' Theorem).
- There is no upper limit to the area of a triangle.

However, the alternatives which employ the word "parallel" cease appearing so simple when one is obliged to explain which of the three common definitions of "parallel" is meant - constant separation, never meeting or same angles where crossed by a third line -- since the equivalence of these three is itself one of the unconsciously obvious assumptions equivalent to Euclid's fifth postulate.

Two alternatives to the parallel postulate are possible in non-Euclidean geometries: either an infinite number of parallel lines can be drawn through a point not on a straight line in a hyperbolic geometry (also called Lobachevskian geometry), or none can in an elliptic geometry (also called Riemannian geometry). That other geometries could be logically consistent was one of the most important discoveries in mathematics, with vast implications for science and philosophy. Indeed, Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity shows that the real space in which we live is non-Euclidean.


The parallel postulate in Euclidean geometry states, for two dimensions, that given a line l and a point P not on l, there is exactly one line through P that does not intersect l, i.e., that is parallel to l. In hyperbolic geometry there are at least 2 distinct lines through P which do not intersect l, so the parallel postulate is false. Models have been constructed within Euclidean geometry that obey the axioms of hyperbolic geometry, thus proving that the parallel postulate is independent of the other postulates of Euclid.


A triangle immersed in a saddle-shape plane (a hyperbolic paraboloid), as well as two diverging ultraparallel lines.

[edta]

I fled to US because of a blood vendettas. I damaged family honour, we are Muslim and I fell in love and married a Catholic without family permission. My brothers have sworn they will kill us and our two children. It is the law of the place where we lived. They have already killed my brother-in-law. These are strict, codes of laws governing marriage, birth, death, hospitality and inheritance, which has been handed down orally through the generations and used as a system for administering justice, in territories historically remained isolated from central government law.

Do you think we'll be given asylum in the US? We've already filed but are not sure whether we'll be approved or not.

What a drag! I read some time ago about this Turkish woman who basically was saying that the notion of a sexually active woman is as utterly taboo even there, as it is in far more fundamentalist Muslim countries, like Pakistan, for instance. The process of Turkish accession to the European Union may well require a wholesale modernization of the country's attitudes to women and freedom of expression. Case in point, a high number of people living in Turkey today regard virginity as crucial and would not contemplate the idea that their daughter might have sex before marriage!!! In some cases, this morality may well be utter hypocrisy -- after all, many sexually active young women visit some back-street doctor for a bit of "corrective" surgery before marriage -- yet, for the majority of Turkish women losing her virginity means a lot.

[burka]

Honor killings like the ones you're describing are also reported in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. A 16-year-old girl was killed by her own family, for instance, when some years later the girl walked out on her bogus husband that she had been pre-arranged to marry in order to split with a boy she wanted to marry originally. She was stuffed down a well, with her neck been broken. Her parents walked the streets with their heads held high cuz the family honor has been preserved.

Another young woman was lured to her home having been told she was forgiven. Her brother pulled out a knife and killed her. A crowd of some 100 people danced in the street, cheering him as a hero and a real man. Her brother had thought over his decision, but eventually he did it because the community pushed him to. Otherwise he'd be regarded as a small person.

The typical killer is usually the father, husband, or brother of the victim (teenage brothers are chosen as they'll go to jail for a short time). While the victims mostly women, the males involved in the "crimes" should die as well. In general, the accused females are killed first, giving men the opportunity to go away. At the same time, the "marked" men can escape death by paying monnies to the family of the female victim -- this evolves to an "honor killing business" between tribes, police and negotiatiors. There are also some rumors about males having killed other men in murders unrelated to honor issues who then will kill a female of their own family to cover up the initial killing.

[39729]

Wow, a very interesting expose, burka!

[al so]

Hierarchical, authoritarian institutions tend to be self-perpetuating, because growing up under their influence creates submissive/authoritarian personalities -- people who both "respect" authority (based on fear of punishment) and desire to exercise it themselves on subordinates. Individuals with such a character structure do not really want to dismantle hierarchies, because they are afraid of the responsibility entailed by genuine freedom. It seems "natural" and "right" to them that society's institutions, from the authoritarian factory to the patriarchal family, should be pyramidal, with an elite at the top giving orders while those below them merely obey. Thus we have the spectacle of so called "Libertarians" and "anarcho" capitalists bleating about "liberty" while at the same time advocating factory fascism and privatised states. In short, authoritarian civilisation reproduces itself with each generation because, through an intricate system of conditioning that permeates every aspect of society, it creates masses of people who support the status quo.

So basically the nuclear family, as the base unit of consensus society, with its attendant "oedipal miseries," a response to the "agricultural revolution" with its imposed scarcity and its imposed hierarchy has to be abolished? I've read some authors advocate the more primal and more radical model -- the band.

The typical hunter/gatherer nomadic or semi-nomadic band consists of about 50 people. Within larger tribal societies the band-structure is fulfilled by clans within the tribe, or by sodalities such as initiatic or secret societies, hunt or war societies, gender societies, "children's republics," and so on. If the nuclear family is produced by scarcity (and results in miserliness), the band is produced by abundance -- and results in prodigality. The family is closed, by genetics, by the male's possession of women and children, by the hierarchic totality of agricultural/industrial society. The band is open -- not to everyone, of course, but to the affinity group, the initiates sworn to a bond of love. The band is not part of a larger hierarchy, but rather part of a horizontal pattern of custom, extended kinship, contract and alliance, spiritual affinities, etc.

In fact in our society many forces are working -- largely invisibly -- to phase out the nuclear family and bring back the band. Breakdowns in the structure of Work resonate in the shattered "stability" of the unit-home and unit-family. One's "band" nowadays includes friends, ex-spouses and lovers, people met at different jobs and pow-wows, affinity groups, special interest networks, mail networks, etc. The nuclear family becomes more and more obviously a trap, a cultural sinkhole, a neurotic secret implosion of split atoms -- and the obvious counter-strategy emerges spontaneously in the almost unconscious rediscovery of the more archaic and yet more post-industrial possibility of the band.

The very fluidity and temporality of networks created proves to be one of the fortes, instead of a downside, of the arrangement indeed.

[GSSG]

[...]There are also some rumors about males having killed other men in murders unrelated to honor issues who then will kill a female of their own family to cover up the initial killing.

Interesting twist!

[Bence J.]

[...]There are also some rumors about males having killed other men in murders unrelated to honor issues who then will kill a female of their own family to cover up the initial killing.

Interesting twist!

"Twist," GSSG?!

[cen]

Here it is a course related to the thread's subject

http://cgi2.www.law.umich.edu/_classschedule/aboutcourse.asp?crse_id=030026

[vignette]

Here it is a course related to the thread's subject

http://cgi2.www.law.umich.edu/_classschedule/aboutcourse.asp?crse_id=030026

Interesting, cen, I did not know such a course existed in the first place!

[y s a]

[...] In some cases, this morality may well be utter hypocrisy -- after all, many sexually active young women visit some back-street doctor for a bit of "corrective" surgery before marriage -- yet, for the majority of Turkish women losing her virginity means a lot.

Actually the state should pay for sexually active women to revert to virginity (or at least pay for an operation that will allow them to give the impression that they are virgins). France does, even though France is such a militantly secular nation that hijabs are banned in school, and even though the only women interested in "hymenoplasty," as the procedure is known, are Muslims for whose intended husbands their non-virginity will be a deal-breaker. Dr. Bernard Paniel is an obstetrician-gynecologist for France's public health system, and over many years has become the go-to guy for Muslim women who need to be "mended" before their wedding night, or face the wrath of their shamed, traditionally-minded grooms and the probable annulment of their marriage.  Dr. Paniel "mends" about 30 broken hymens a year with a simple procedure that can be performed with a local anesthetic. He considers himself the "oil in the machine" that allows tradition to carry on, and is teaching the procedure, which he learned as a visiting doctor in a Tunisian hospital in the 1960s, to his younger colleagues. Dr. Paniel doesn't issue "virginity certificates" as some of his colleagues do, but perhaps just as controversially -- and resulting in the same effect -- he does provide his patients with vials of blood to produce on their wedding night. It is an understatement to observe that such (in our culture) medieval-era proofs of virginity -- blood on the wedding night sheets displayed to witnesses -- is utterly outmoded, a relic of pre-enlightened times in Judaism and Christianity. But the continuing, and consequential fixation with virginity amongst observant Muslim men is a reality, and the practice of hymenoplasty has now become a legal and political hot chestnut in France.

For in April a court in the northern French city of Lille annulled a marriage between a convert to Islam and a French woman of North African provenance on the grounds that her husband had discovered on their wedding night that she was not a virgin. It is expected that the ruling will encourage Muslim men with retrograde views of women's obligations to believe the state supports their perspective. This will escalate demands for premarital virginity inspections, which in turn will up the demand for hymenoplasties. The verdict was only made public two weeks ago, and it is causing a ferment of denunciation. Last week 150 members of the European Parliament denounced the ruling as an act of "serious regression." Those who stand to lose the most from the ruling are modern Muslim women. The Muslim women's rights group "Ni putes ni Soumises" (neither prostitutes nor submissive) claim surgeons performing the intervention have overstepped their professional bounds. Illustrating this well-taken point, gynecologist Jacques Milliez, head of the ethics committee of the London-based International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics, admits that he routinely issues certificates attesting to the "virginity" of his patients, and says many other colleagues do as well, whether the women are sexually active or not. Sihem Habchi, the group's president,  asks: "Does it really help? Doesn't it just bolster this tradition and this hypocrisy?" Dr. Milliez justifies his actions on the grounds that he is saving women from being ostracized by their communities. Nevertheless he is worried about the effects of the ruling and is organizing a "summit" around the procedure's ethics to be held in October.