Michael Lynch has a terrific article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed – about liberalism and passion and communitarianism, and truth, commitment, relativism, Rawls and comprehensive liberalism, and the fact that liberals do in fact have actual commitments, that they can argue and defend with passion.

Social conservatives have long argued that progressive liberals, in trumpeting individual rights, ignore traditional communities as a source of value…But as the neocons are well aware, traditional family values frequently clash with liberal values…Some traditional communities are rife with intolerant oppression — precisely the sort of thing that enlightenment liberalism is presumably meant to combat. Surely liberals needn’t tolerate intolerance.
Walzer valiantly attempts to deal with that concern. But in the end, his principle

Well at least some people are fighting back. I sure do hope they succeed.

Placard-waving women protesting against the “Talibanisation” of Pakistan demonstrated outside the national parliament yesterday after a mob attacked female runners. The attack has spurred worries about the growing influence of Islamic extremists.
A week ago baton-wielding men threw petrol bombs and torched vehicles at a mini-marathon in Gujranwala…

Which was one of the first to allow women to participate. Can’t have that. Women are things, sluts, devils, son-factories, and on all those counts they must not be allowed to – well, do anything, really.

“This has got to stop,” said a protester, Aisha Shaukat, outside parliament yesterday. “These mullahs want us to just stay home,

So what is going on here? Why is this issue not on the radar?

David Hadley asks:

…within these oppressive religious regimes – in this case strict Islam – there is a form of sexual apartheid too. Where women don’t even get the luxury of being even second-class citizens. Which makes me wonder why none of the left-wing ‘progressive’ media are calling for sanctions and boycotts of these regimes.

Surely it is a great cause for them to rally behind, isn’t it?

Karl adds:

there’s that post-colonial guilt thing going on. Women’s rights, gay rights, individual rights–they’re all so modern and western. They’re all undermining those fragile traditional cultures and turning everyone into atomized consumers who exist without real purpose

And a little more again, about that conference at the UN, because Azam sent me the link to this Commission on Human Rights report, and it has more detail than the news articles. You should read it.

Ms. Azam Kamguian from Iran was the first speaker in the session on ‘Infidels and Apostates’. She started by describing her own experience; growing up with an all powerful and pious father. The temptation to subordinate her being to God was very strong but when she was an adolescent she decided that she did not need religion to tell her who she was. “Even though I left Islam, I had to live with it”, she stated.
According to an extremist interpretation of