Saudi Arabia beheads female activist in public (unverified)

[Karpatsky]

If you’re against beheadings, you’ll want to protect your country from the influence of beheaders, while encouraging anti-beheaders in other countries. “Actually, conservatives are the REAL postmodernists” isn’t going to catch on.

And if you're a nationalist, you have to respect "national cultures" and that different people's have different ethics, deserve different standards of human rights etc. You're not allowed to criticise other countries because of the stupid nonsense that is "sovereignty", something dreamt up by national elites that enjoy exploiting their captive populations without criticism.

I don’t think it’s that people deserve different standards of human rights, but that people are best organized according to the ethical system they consent to; even if that ethical system seems morally bankrupt, trying to force a different one on them is necessarily going to make you a tyrant. It just makes practical sense to focus on human rights within your own community - and that implies that you would be wary of outsiders whose values differ from yours.

Consent is meaningless and immeasurable in such autocratic and repressive societies. The 'tyranny' of the liberator is subjectively but definitely better than the real tyranny of the oppressor. Some values shouldn't be tolerated, especially when they infringe on the rights of others.

[Karpatsky]

Consent is meaningless and immeasurable in such autocratic and repressive societies. The 'tyranny' of the liberator is subjectively but definitely better than the real tyranny of the oppressor. Some values shouldn't be tolerated, especially when they infringe on the rights of others.

I’ll grant that nations with the means to do so ought to intervene in order to put a stop to genocide or some similar humanitarian disaster, but are you seriously suggesting that NATO should invade Saudi Arabia and imprison its royal family?

Morally and ideally speaking, yes. There are of course pragmatic concerns, but they must be separated from the moral concerns so to not lose our moral compass to political necessity, as so many have.