We electrocute people to death, or sometimes inject them with various poisons. Doesn't seem too materially different in that regard.

It's not materially different until you consider the "crimes" that those people committed. In most normal places, that's usually something very severe such as murder which is one of the worst crimes a human individual can commit. Can you say the same of Saudi Arabia and its executions?

Obviously I don't think so, but just saying "they behead people!" seems a bit disingenuous.

> But yeah the real problem is words being thrown around about a nation that still beheads people.

How are being beheaded or executed with lethal injection different? They are one of the few states that retain the right to kill their own people left today, among the US, Japan, Iran, Belarus, China, etc. Further, Saudi Arabia is a kingdom, not a nation. Its political system was installed by the occidentals after WWI.

For women, yes, they have less rights de jure, but de facto, we don't know that very well. After all, different people have different cultures, and if we do not respect that, where is the demos in democracy then?

In terms of fundamentalism, Saudi Arabia is practically ISIS, if ISIS made it and decided to buy off the West instead of fighting...flogging for bloggers, death penalty for adultery, Christianity, etc. If someone doesn't respect your culture but views it as an evil to be eradicated, at least within their borders, saying so seems perfectly democratic. In fact calling it like you see it, fact-based discussion are part of the essence of democracy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/21/opinion/saudi-arabia-an-is...

People pointing fingers at the wrong folks for something like 9/11 for political purposes is more of a problem than offending a culture that doesn't respect our culture or basic human rights.

(Suing Saudi Arabia over 9/11 does seem like opening a can of worms, and there sure are a lot of anti-Muslim bigots in this country. But whataboutism should have a limit. You can tolerate a religion and still say some things people do in its name are effed up and not consistent with democracy and human values)

Great article, and if you really follow it to its logical conclusion, it all ends in buckets of money, and who gets to keep them.

Are you kidding? Women clearly have less rights than men. They can't drive, vote, or be seen in public without an abaya, a floor-length black nondescript robe.

Additionally restaurants, banks, and other places are segregated by sex.

"For women, yes, they have less rights de jure, but de facto, we don't know that very well. After all, different people have different cultures, and if we do not respect that, where is the demos in democracy then?"

What a bunch of bullshit. You respect a culture that enslaves, rapes, and murders its women out of pleasure? You think that's somehow a "culture" where women might be treated equally? Or are you just pandering to the idea of absolute cultural relativism as if there are no morals to be had in the world (some would call this trolling)?

Saudi Arabia is a disgusting "culture" and society. Defending their barbaric, primitive, idiotic practices is almost as equally disgusting.

I am an absolute cultural relativist, and I do think that there are no morals preset.

The culture of theirs is sure unbearable to you, and to me (I'd be beheaded for atheism before I could ever talk about women there), but its their problem. And when you utter the words barbaric, primitive, idiotic, be sure that you can logically answer the question: to whom?

And stop confusing the state with the people, and making blanket statements.

Great Scott. Pray tell, who are you and me? If it's "their" problem, do you mean the enslaved people? If you are a absolute cultural relativist, what are you even doing here, talking with people? You are alone, your own island. Witnessing a murder, you are totally indifferent? "That's not my cup of tea but as long as they murder someone I don't care much about, who am I to judge?" You scare me way more than ISIS does.

Lol. Ok. I just assumed such a position is only taken seriously by freshmen philosophy students.

The U.S. is not a Democracy; it is a Federal Republic, so demos is not applicable to the U.S. Yes, capital punishment is capital punishment, however, I don't know of a mentally-ill woman, or man put to death for a possible self-defense killing in the U.S., but I have not researched it fully. Murder is different than killing by law. The point is that Siti Zaenab Bt. Duhri Rupa, the Indonesian domestic helper who allegedly killed her employer's wife in Saudi Arabia had ZERO chance of a fair trial. The execution was carried out without informing the Indonesian government, or her family. I have worked in SE Asia and I have been to Qatar and Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and stories of domestic helpers being abused by employers there are typical, and numerous. I would wage the employer's wife abused her, and she may have had some mental illness, or at least it should have been made as a case considering the evidence, but NO, she being a woman, a foreign woman, stood no chance. I have turned down job offers in the countries I have mentioned, because I do think their cultures are not current with human rights as most nations at least profess them nowadays. For the record, I am against capital punishment, so I don't even want to debate the difference between lethal injection or beheading, but emotionally, having seen a broadcast of the beheading without knowing what I was watching at first, was shocking in the manner it was staged and carried out.

Plenty of mentally ill people put to death in this country: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/02/texas-executi... https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/AMR51/003/2006/en/

See also Atkins v. Virginia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atkins_v._Virginia

Thanks for pointing that out, and I'll have to look at it, but the death penalty is not for killing in self-defense; it is for murder. My point was that whether she was mentally ill or not, she was being abused, and acted in self-defense. The mental illness becomes a secondary factor to show self-defense crossed over to killing rather than avoidance or restraint.

About half the people shot and killed by police in the US have a mental illness.

The main difference between Saudi Arabia and other countries you mentioned is that Saudi Arabia executes people for atheism.

I do not really think that execution is justified by its reason. So execution for atheism or execution for treason etc., all count the same: A political system killing the very people it is supposed to serve.

Not all wrong things are equally wrong.