Well, now. I thought Norway and Sweden were democracies. Why are Muslim women not speaking out there? Come to think of it, why are Muslims in general not speaking out there?

A tidbit from the Economist a while back:

In Scandinavia, the land of Volvos, traffic fatalities are very, very low. But alcohol consumption is very high.

In southern Europe, traffic deaths are very high, but alcohol consumption (despite wine-drinking culture) is very low.

Conclusion? Scandinavians follow (traffic) rules scrupulously, but they are depressed as heck and drink silly while southern Europeans are happy (probably from the sun), but do not follow (traffic) rules and die like ants in car accidents.

Cute, eh?

This is silliness. The reality is, if a guy is around, a woman will usually ask him to assemble the furniture. If this sort of thing is the measure if "sex descrimination" then we really are living in societies where politics has lost its meaning.

It would be a lot more meaningful, on the other hand, if a political leader would defend fathers who really are being raped by governments that have institutionalized a process of driving fathers out of their children's lives.

The idea that corporations like Ikea can make an important contribution to democracy by the way in which it manipulates the gender images appearing in its publications probably is silly. But a concern for the cultural attitudes that support democracy is not.

Foreign policy "realists" are often criticized for cultural condescension in arguing that Islam and democracy are fundamentally incompatible. The "neo-conservative" version of this condescension seems to be the view that they are compatible, but only if democracy takes root in the Middle East first. The latter is a curious position, for one would expect the transformative powers of the democratic experience, if there are any, to show up first in the places where Islam and democracy have had the longest association--and that would be western Europe and Turkey. The historical record, at least so far as Europe is concerned, is not encouraging.

There is surely plenty of work to be done without waiting for whatever successes attend the rescue efforts of George Bush's foreign policy in the Middle East. Can't we do better than the silly gestures recommended by the prime minister of Norway or the exclusion policies advocated by the right-wing parties of Europe?

The hypocracy of the left's the-government-should-stay-out-of-the-Terri-Schiavo controversy is perfectly illustrated by this situation. Does anyone think any leftist organization will respond to IKEA by saying the government has no place telling IDEA how to run it's business. Seems the only thing leftists think government should have no say over is killing family members.