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Comment by happyscrappy | Hacker News Reader

You can handle female genital mutilation with grace and magnanimity?

We warned you that we would ban your account if you didn't stop doing this (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178800), and you haven't, so we've banned your account. If you don't want it to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10603582 and marked it off-topic.

Why is whoever that was getting an announcement and i got hellbanned? Kinda serious question, because the comment in question was deleted

I don't know what you're referring to. If you want to supply the context, we're happy to answer, but it would be better to send this to hn@ycombinator.com.

You can try to understand the conditions that beget such practices and work to alleviate them.

Well said.

What if the conditions that beget such practices are a religion? Then what do we do?

The guidelines for commenting on Hacker News ask you to avoid bringing up flamebait topics without having anything new or interesting to say about them.

That's not intended as flamebait. I think it's a legitimate question. What if a religion is the root cause of this behavior? What are the appropriate steps to take at that point?

I'm not condemning Islam necessarily and certainly not Muslims but I think we need to stop dancing around and confront the issue of what an ideology is teaching. Is it appropriate for our world? If it isn't what do we do about it?

Sorry but "Is the second largest religion appropriate for our world?" is a flamebait question whether you intend it to be or not.

Per the guidelines, it would be totally okay to talk about it if you had something interesting to say about it, but you don't.

"Lots of people are doing it" is never a good argument.

That aside, I find the hypocrisy of _your_ flaming of my post and general lack of content... amusing.

Unless you are actually a moderator, I'd feel better if you kept your moderation to yourself.

> If it isn't what do we do about it?

I don't think there's anything new to understand here. Outlaw it where we can, conduct diplomacy to try to get countries that don't outlaw it to outlaw it. War is a last-ditch option, one that I don't think should be off the table, but we need to go into it clear-headed with a sane understanding of what we can and cannot accomplish.

The Middle East is practically defined by war. Bringing more of it to that region isn't really going to do anything.

I actually think of Isreal as a model to work off of. Build bastions of Western ideals in the region and let the locals decide for themselves which ideology they want to be a part of. Isreal's main problem in this regard is how they treat the Palestinians, but I'm optimistic that they'll eventually work it out. If Isrealis can figure out how to adopt welcoming stances to non-Jewish immigrants, they could become an even bigger magnet for youth than the terror organizations.

> The Middle East is practically defined by war.

Which was brought by the Western nations since WWI.

So anything politically incorrect is "flamebait"?

Do Muslims in the West practice female genital mutilation? I was unaware.

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-18900803

"Estimate that there are 66,000 victims of FGM in England and Wales and warns that more than 24,000 girls under 15 are at risk. More than 2,000 victims of FGM sought treatment in London hospitals alone in the past three years."

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/06/female-genita...

Muslims in the West are bound by Western jurisprudence.

If Muslims in the West got the legal system they* sought (polls indicate the majority support lawful recognition and enforcement of sharia law), it's a good bet that they* would start.

* = note, I know I am generalizing millions of people here, and a sizable proportion of the Muslim population is not applicable here.

I'm not an expert on the subject, but according to Wikipedia... yes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_mutilation#Dist...

Well, there's an easy answer for that case. There are laws against it. Not a perfect answer, but we don't have perfect answers for anything.

Some do. Pedantically, the cases I'm referring to are literally "Muslims in the west" (and perhaps fundamentalist) rather than "Westernized" or moderate Muslims. There's certainly no absolute generalization to be made though, in one direction or the other.

There's not really a religious basis for FGM. The practice predates Islam in the Muslim countries where it's popular, and in certain places is more commonly practiced by Christians than Muslims.

That is only partially true. A casual Google check shows there is a religious basis for FGM.

http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Qur'an,_Hadith_and_Scholars:Female...

That's an incredibly biased source; I wouldn't quote it in a reasonable discussion.

I don't know. The quotes are referenced. It's irrelevant anyway as there are no shortage of religious references to the practice.

Female genital mutilation doesn't actually have anything to do with Islam, as Reza Aslan points out in this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yV0QXO6YfzA

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