I did read the paragraph. As for local Iranian leftests supporting Khomeni's regime why is that surprising? Again any Iranian patriot would support it even if they were not a devout Muslim. People usually close ranks when their nations are under threat. Many conservative westerners also defend western nations even if those nations are completely opposite to their beliefs. Why is that surprising it's pretty obvious almost everyone is a patriot and likes their homeland.
Your personal anti-western ideological bent aside, what was patriotic about it? Who were they defending it from? They "defended" it from the Shah successfully, who had his own fault, but what did it get them, an islamist shithole, in which many of those patriots got murdered. Not a patriot victory as i see it.
The only thing that would require explanation is why western foreign leftests would support a nation that is ideologically opposed to them.
You of all people should be able to understand that. Leftists put ideology over nations, reason, common sense, hell, in their ideology nations are in fact something to be dissolved and sooner rather than later, as far as they are concerned if there are to be any "tribes" in human cultures, it should be the class classifications they promote, some even come with their very own flags already, obviously different from national flags, and it's for a damn reason.
Nope that's not true. Israel does not help us foreign policy wise, people complain about Western Europe being free riders. But the Europeans in NATO offer us so much more at least NATO members sent troops to Afghanistan with us, and a few of them also went into Iraq with us. Israel did not help us at all. In fact our alliance with them is harmful to us. We gain one ally of questionable worth, and we gain the dislike of multiple other nations. There are two groups of people that like Israel the first is corrupt parasites like Dan Crenshaw. And the second group are useful idiots and heretical false Christians like Evangelicals who don't know the Bible and think Jews are the chosen people.
Since when are you so knowledgeable as to what benefits US-Israel relationship has or doesn't have that you expect me to just take your claim at face value?
And it's not like the establishment types shy away from talking about those in more than fluffy terms about muh democracy or judeo-christian civilization, they also like mentioning material and security matters directly.
Read this groundbreaking study of the numerous, oft-ignored benefits of the special bilateral relationship between the United States and Israel.
www.washingtoninstitute.org
Fishing for actual sympathy of the islamic world by USA of all places was always a delusional desire, Barbary Wars, ever heard of those? Alliances with France and UK and all their baggage...
Oil quarrels...
And then there are the obvious cultural differences. So it's not "gain the dislike of multiple other nations", it's "give multiple nations who already dislike you one more reason to dislike you".
It's not a fringe position, most of Europe does not consider Israel their greatest ally. You are Polish aren't you? Shouldn't you know that?
Greatest ally, that indeed goes to far. A minor ally, or partner at least? That would be a lot of them. But we are talking about degree, not the nature of the relationship.
Then again, USA has closer relations with Israel than most of Europe too, so that adds up.
Yes so the point is that beating Russia was not a victory of "western civilization" since either Russia is part of western civilization or modern western nations don't even fit the criteria for being part of western civilization. America's empire beating Russia's empire is not a defeat of leftism.
ATP is right that western civilization is a mix of the cultural legacy of Greece and Rome, along with Christianity. Both of them used to be Christian and descended from Rome and Greece culture. Now they are both secular.
Yeah, in my neck of the woods you would get a lot of controversy about Russia being part of western civilization, specifically after their history with Mongols left its mark there.
Yes the side we supported were the ones with the bacha bazi boys.
Why did they still exist in such numbers after Taliban ruled the place in the 90's, nevermind earlier history? Come on, you don't live in Afghanistan, you don't have to believe the Taliban propaganda.
As for rainbow flags? Are you dumb? Do you think we dislike the gays because they wear rainbows? No that's not why we oppose them. We are against men having sex with men and women having sex with women. Japan is perfectly ok with those sorts of actions.
I reject your assertion of existence of just 2 possible social attitudes to them.
I don't care about gays. I don't want the state and society to waste resources seeking them out and imprisoning or killing them.
Likewise, i also don't want the state to turn them into some degenerate priesthood\celebrity class to be idolized, glorfied and celebrated in front of the public whether it likes that or not.
What do you call such set of views that reject both of these positions?
You could call me and also many places outside of Abrahamic religion "third position" on the homo question.
As for the flags, don't play stupid. When communists march under their red flag, people don't oppose them because they are bulls and the red color ires them.
It's because what the flag and people marching under it imply and symbolize.
It's the same with the rainbow flag.
Christianity lost political power then yes, but most people were still Christian, so the loss was not immediate.
What socially and politically means to be "Christian" varies in time and geography in such massive terms that a Christian in Sweden may have more in common with a Shintoist in Japan or atheist in Greece in terms of politics and lifestyle than with a Christian in Uganda.
Christian political power prevented people from leaving Christainty and the start of liberalism however.
Don't think so, that age was in fact the golden age of liberalism, when it developed the very reputation that made it worthwhile for leftists in America to turn it into a skinsuit a century later.
There are a few thoughts on why this is I've talked before about how maybe repression causes degeneracy when people stop being repression.
en.wikipedia.org
Here is a political example. Assad's father publicly massacred a city and it quelled rebellion. Ironically Assad was more liberal and gentle than his father, and once you oppress a people you have to continue oppressing them because once you let up the grip then they will take more than you give.
Hey, i know that example, and it's surprisingly related to this discussion in a very different way than you think. The Hama rebellion was not against "repression" or exploiting the supposed liberalism of Assad.
It was a plain ol' islamist uprising, as we hear of them in Middle East quite often, both under more and less liberal leadership. They didn't want more freedom and liberalism, they wanted a specific, probably more severe kind of repression and different people in charge of it. So stop trying to bullshit people with stretched examples.
Something similar happened in France before the revolution since Louis the 16th was actually quite gentle and was not brutal like previous kings. The same with Russia with Tsar Nicholas the 2nd he was soft compared to Alexander who was able to maintain power.
Again, you are trying to bend historical events you know little about to support your pet theories.
The Ottomans were already declining when the Europeans started the enlightenment. The Ottoman fall was not caused by "advanced" europeans. The advanced technology of Europe merely allowed Europe to dominate the former Ottoman lands easier AFTER it fell apart.
So? Many empires had their rises and declines without falling, without the massive disruptive advantage Europe had with enlightenment, this could have gone any possible way.
