On 10/9/07, David Strauss david@fourkitchens.com wrote:
George Herbert wrote:
On 10/9/07, David Strauss david@fourkitchens.com wrote:
The fact that the voters chose to penalize Alexandria lightly for human rights issues only came to light *today*.
You claimed to have noticed, but not said anything, earlier in the process, because you felt that nobody would possibly vote for Alexandria because the violations were so self-evident and overwhelmingly disqualifying.
The time for you to intervene in standards for judging WM2008 selection, and argue against Alexandria on that basis, was then not now. For any reasonable interpretation, you were neglegent in not doing so then if this was such an important issue to you.
Negligent? You should look up the definition of that word. If anyone would be negligent, it would be someone voting on the locations without being aware of the human rights records.
The human rights issues in Egypt have been brought up by others. Are you saying I can't speak because others brought up the issue, just not me?
You can speak all you want. You are insisting on the right to overturn the completed and announced selection process on your personal judgement and factors, however, which is a completely different story.
If this was important, then you should have spoken up earlier, when there was time to factor this into the criteria, or ask Alexandria to withdraw gracefully or prepare a statement on the issue or some such.
This is like coming up after the jury aquitted OJ and saying "Oh, Wait, I saw him kill them! I didn't say anything because I was sure you'd find him guilty anyways! Can you retry him and put him in jail now?".
There is a little less finality or legality associated with a WMF selection, but it's the same fundamental problem. If you had an issue, then you should have brought it up at the time that selection criteria were being discussed. It's perfectly reasonable to conclude that your silence then has largely mooted the point now.
If this were "...but they're really cannibalistic genocidal monsters!..." then I can see overturning anyways, but you're arguing that the jury simply failed to account for critieria in a manner you prefer.
I am all for gay rights. I was extremely happy for the lesbian couple who I lived next door to, who got married in San Francisco while it was briefly legal. And I support the law changing to let them re-do it in the future.
I am all for freedom of politics and religion, and I agree that Egypt's government is in some important ways oppressive and unfree.
But I don't have a problem with vacationing in Egypt, or going to a conference in Alexandria. Neither of those things endorses Egyptian honor killings, abuse of gays/lesbians, or political oppression. I suspect that liberal Egyptians want more western contact, not less.
The line you want to draw is all of in the wrong place, for the wrong reasons, and too late.