Thursday

 

Rationality

As someone who really believes that people are in principle and in actual practice persuadable by reasonable argument, even in some of their most fundamental belief, this Christian-Science Monitor article is very reassuring. It provides a welcome contrast to the vitriol of many blogs and other political commentators, and to our governments policies of dealing with detainee's by extraordinary rendition. For those who aren't going to read it, it's about a Yemeni judge who has argued the meaning of the Koran with many people convicted of terrorism, and has an astonishing rate of convincing them that terrorism is strongly disapproved of by the Koran. Extraordinary rendition is the fun practice of sending detainees to countries where we know they'll be tortured because, you know, torture is good policy.

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