That's not what I was saying. What I was saying is that for every Iranian who experiences it as it as a state imposing religious laws on them, with no room for democratic participation, there are an unknown number of Iranians -- 1 or .5 or 2, whatever that number be -- who experience it as the state imposing the Divine Will, something that should not be democratically determined. It's not "the people vs. the state," it's "some people vs. other people."
--- On Wed, 6/24/09, shag carpet bomb <shag at cleandraws.com> wrote:
> But there are such marvelous passages explaining the
> backstory to the theocracy problem that the lifestyle-issue
> dismissers here are missing. they see it as the frippery of
> people concerned with superficial things, while Iranians
> experience it as a state imposing religious laws on
> them, with no room for democratic participation. God says it
> is so, with no power for people, no room for a civil
> society, no secualar space to say: yes, let's practice our
> religion, as our communities see fit, keep the state out of
> it.
>