Comments

1
That's a dandy idea for places in the world where this is feasible like the U.S. but Saudi Arabia simple doesn't have a culture amenable to public transport (for a whole host of reasons) and never will. Ask anyone who's lived there.
2
OK then, people can drive in Saudi Arabia but not anywhere else.
3
Well, people shouldn't even live in Saudi Arabia, not just women.
4
Oh, that just makes it all right then.

Not.
5
1: Saudi Arabia is building rapid transit metro systems in their 3 biggest cities, including the world's biggest public transportation project. Also, they're building intercity high speed rail. And they already built a monorail.

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/07/31/busine…

http://www.arabnews.com/news/567511

http://makkah-and-madina.blogspot.com/20…

http://www.fosterandpartners.com/es/news…
6
@5: easy to do when you have a massive stream of oil revenue. am I supposed to think they're progressive now?
7
no; in your ideal world corrupt cops and slimebag politicians would of course still need to have cars and guns to protect themselves from the former middle class.
8
I like how you troll, Mr. Mudede.
9
Driving is public transportation.
10
Which means that wealthy Saudi women have the right drive when abroad, but not the average woman at home.

You have to have enough money to leave the country, please male relatives who will allow you to leave.

Anyone lucky enough to immigrate permanently, would fall under the new country's laws.

But as it stands now, it's merely a sop to the wealthy and sophisticated who have the money to travel abroad, and who were able to get the ear of those in charge, and apply pressure.

As it stands now, the Saudi wealthy all hire drivers: one for business, and one for home to drive their women about, safely.

Which leaves the average woman shit out of luck.

11
You are such a fucking troll Charles or incredibly stupid. Not everybody lives in a dense city where the economics of public transportation work. If you like having limited bus service that might come by a stop every two hours or so, but typically not earlier than 7 AM or later than 7 PM (and even more limited on weekends), then you will come to understand what most people in the country face. Your convenient errands that you do by bus in Seattle that may take an hour would take four hours in a small town (and you'd be screwed if you missed the late bus).
12
5: All of Saudi Arabia has a GDP only about 40% more than just WA state. Even just our state or city could build rapid transit and high speed rail if we wanted to. Lots of relatively poor countries have built or are building rapid transit as well -- Uzbekistan, Algeria, Mexico, Bulgaria, Ecuador, Turkey, Vietnam... Along with essentially all rich countries as well. And dozens of cities in China, India, Brazil... And the east coast of the USA, Canada, and Vancouver. We're pretty unique in not valuing rapid transit.
13
@10
Yup. Totally so.
14
@11: Mudede has never been adept at understanding that there are people different from him, and in different situations.

At least he actually does take public transit, instead of his whole "everyone should live in micro-apartments but me" thing.
15
Yo if a lot more people started using and supporting public transit - there would be much more political will to improve and expand public transportation thus increasing the number of people with access to it. Considering over 50% of the world's population lives in urban areas and that number is projected to reach 70% by 2050*, I don't think it's valid to argue that public transportation just wouldn't work for most people because they don't live in dense enough areas. Obviously if you don't live in a real city you can stick to trucks, tractors, and horse trams ;)
Also, they do wonders with motorbikes in Vietnam - you wouldn't know it by looking at one but a motorbike is both a family sized vehicle and a cargo hauler. I think that should be the non-public transit automobile of choice in the countryside and city.

*UN Habitat (2006) State of the world’s cities 2006/07. Earthscan, London
16
I would not want to drive on the same roads as a woman whose only view of her driving environment is through a small black gauzy rectangle.
17
For the US specifically, 71.2% of the population lives in Urbanized Areas (UAs) of 50,000 or more people, according to the 2010 Census.
http://www.census.gov/geo/reference/ua/u…
18
#5

From the CNN photo essay:

Currently only 2% of commuters in Riyadh take public transportation. Unsurprising in a country where a gallon of gasoline costs only $0.50.


19
18: Their subway/elevated metro system just started construction. It will have 6 lines and 81 stations. I expect it will have more riders once it opens in 2019. Incidentally, that's 4 years before slow light rail opens to Bellevue.
20
@12 is correct.

We waste the money on drones to kill the Saudi terrorists with.
21
@19

And it will NOT work. They basically built it to be a copycat of Dubai, which is more developed and successful than Saudi (for a whole host of reasons). Again, ask anyone who lives there. Or any Saudi Arabians you know. Oh wait, that's right, all you have is Google as your informant. Idiot. Please do follow up in 2019 to see how successful it turns out. Please do. *eye roll*

@3

Your racism is astounding. How many Saudis do you personally know? Have you been to Saudi Arabia? Oh that's right, none and, no. As usual, you demonstrate your ignorance. Sitting on your fat ass reading, trapped in your white liberal bubble of America doesn't give you all the answers, dipshit.
22
@21, you know, no matter how bubbly my white liberalism gets, I am still pretty much guaranteed to never run across any members of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. And my wife is allowed to go about without a bag over her head, and even to drive a car.

And this never happens in my neighborhood:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Mecca_…

I am neither anti-Arab nor anti-Muslim. In fact, the biggest threat to Muslim culture worldwide is the hateful regime in Saudi Arabia, who have among other things deliberately destroyed many examples of Muslim heritage both in their own country and out of it:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/…

http://archnet.org/system/publications/c…

Saudi Arabia has the worst human rights record of virtually anyplace on earth. Fuck 'em. That's not racism, that's human decency. Saudis are capable of it, but not in their own godforsaken toilet of a country, which is ruled by literally the Worst People on Earth.

Seriously, you're going to defend a place that doesn't allow women to drive cars? In 2014?
23
@22

Racist bigot, spewing hate against other countries you have NO experience of. Gee, I'm so impressed.

And confirming once again that you have never interacted with a Saudi Arabian. Ever. I'd like to see how that goes. And there are plenty in Seattle (which, of course, you wouldn't know). What, are you going to walk up to them and tell them how totally fucked up their culture is? That it's not "humanly decent" in their "godforsaken toilet of a country, which is ruled by literally the worst people on earth."? No, of course not, because you're a typical, passive-agressive phony Seattle asshole who will smile to their faces to appear "progressive" to your white buddies and then go home and write a diatribe on the internet about how fucked up they are. Get a life.

No place is "all good" or "all bad". That's the typical blank-and-white thinking that goes along with being a conservative, dipshit. *gasp* Grab your panties! Ignorant, uneducated people paint the world with such broad brush stokes. Yes, ignorant people like YOU. Go back to your white lib circle of yes-man clutching your copies of Mother Jones with all your tired predictable opinions. It's easier than actually learning something.
24
@23, I've known a few Saudis. Didn't like them. They were too aggressively libertine, drunk all the time, trying endlessly to screw American girls whether they were willing or not. Your average Saudi thinks all American girls are whores, literally prostitutes for money. But that's not really their fault; it's how they were raised. It's not Saudis I hate, it's the godforsaken country they come from and the godforsaken Royal Family that rules it. Put a Saudi in the USA or even a country like Tunisia or Lebanon or France for a few years, and they'll be all right -- unless they're princes. Most of them are; it's the princes who have the resources to travel. There are thousands upon thousands of princes in the Saudi Royal Family, 15,000 according to some estimates, all living high in the West on stipends. They're all worthless, like all princes everywhere.

You're bright enough to know all this but you have your idiotic notions to preserve, notions that allow you to casually ignore the rights of women, who are not people in Saudi Arabia. Or the many slaves who live there -- 300,000 in 1962, when slavery was outlawed, but probably more now.

Slavery, absolute monarchy, women as property -- yeah, tell me more about your paradise.

I haven't read a copy of Mother Jones in twenty years.
25
Also: the Sauds aren't a race, they're a family. A mafia, really. I never said anything about a race. It's not coincidental that Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world named after a family. The Sauds are a far greater menace to Arab people than they are to us. Look at all the Arabic culture they have willfully destroyed.
26
So, for those of you who are keeping score, we have:

My argument - widespread slavery, women as property (and not allowed to drive or go out of the house without a bag over their head), absolute monarchy, 14th-century attitudes, massively declining standard of living because it is entirely based on wastrels living on the proceeds of oil, extremely dubious terrorist connections, the world's most divided society, spend most of their energy tracking down Islamic culture around the world and destroying it, replacing libraries and masterpieces of Islamic art with blank white concrete walls.

Your argument - "not all bad". What, nice beaches? You like dates? Or Rolexes?
27
@23 - I know a Saudi, a gay one, who luckily had the resources (and an incredible amount of patience) to eventually get a visa to the United States. He loves his country but didn't want to be executed. He was so terrified of that possibility, he didn't have sex until he got to the USA - not even when he travelled to Bahrain or the UK. I know this because I talked, chatted, and facetimed with him thru his entire visa application and approval process. The man lived in constant fear for himself and his friends.

So do you know any Saudis? Can you tell me why so many people are desperately trying to live anywhere else but there?

Corollary: Do you have any redeeming qualities about yourself at all or are you just an America-hating asshole?
28
@Fnarf,
Greetings from Chicago. I'm here on emergency as a member of my family passed away.

Given this posting about SA women drivers' allowance and your comments, it begs a question. Do you believe America as a society 'hates women'? I'm curious.
29
And yet Seattle liberals have no problem when the Mohammedans demand the Seattle public pools accommodate their religious fundamentalism and ban men from swimming.
30
Where was Fnarf's outrage when Seattle's Mohammedans demanded and got men banned from our pools to satisfy fundamentalist religious edicts that women be covered and hidden?
31
Religious conservative fundamentalist accepted right here in Seattle:

By KOMO Staff Dec 20, 2012
SEATTLE -- The city announced plans Thursday to begin hosting women-only swimming sessions at four local pools.

The program, which will begin in March, is meant to serve women who, "because of cultural, personal or religious reasons, cannot swim in a co-ed environment," according to the city.

The women will pay standard swimming fees and the program will be held at traditionally slow times for swimming. During the sessions, staff will cover the windows and only female lifeguards will be on duty.

While this is a new program for the city, it's not the first time single-gender swimming has been offered at Seattle pools. A previous program used grant money to rent the pools for women-only swimming times, but that money has dried up.

According to the city, the program will largely serve Muslim women, though orthodox Jews and various other women are expected to participate.

The pools hosting single-gender swimming times will be Meadowbrook, Medgar Evers and Southwest pools. The program will also be extended to Rainier Beach Pool in fall 2013.
32
Can hear the crickets? That's the sound of white Seattle liberals hypocrisy when it comes to fundamentalist conservative Mohammedans demanding and receiving sharia laws right here in Seattle. Apparently women do need to be protected from men and are responsible for anything that happens if they don't protect themselves.
33
I've heard the streets of Beirut r very dangerous ont he weekends because Saudi women finally get to play with cars, which r awesome

I suck at drivinv
34
Unregistered: I never got this 'liberals support sharia law' thing, although it seems to get a lot of traction among fox viewers. Dinesh dsouza famously pointed out that right wing Christians and conservative Moslems have much in common and could cooperate to enact social policy.
35
Do you support allowing Mohammedans to have their own religious pool hour in Seattle on the public dollar?
36
Someone may've said it already, but Saudi women are absolutely allowed to drive while abroad already. I teach ESL to college kids, many of whom are Saudi women, and I'd say it's about 50/50 ladies who get drivers' licenses and those who just rely on their husbands or taxis. And it's not *just* wealthy women who are abroad now (though they are still the majority) , because the King Abdullah Scholarship Program has been sending tons of young Saudis to colleges outside the country, including middle-class and rural men and women who made good enough grades.
37
@fnarf --- It sounds like the Saudis you met sucked, but that hasn't been my experience with them as a group at all. It's not "just the princes" who have the resources to travel, the KASP has sent lots of Abdullah Q Publics abroad (specifically here and the UK, b/c that's where the most prestigious schools are) for STEM field BAs, MAs, and Phds.

And I wouldn't cast too many stones about slavery--lord knows that even though it's illegal in the US (just like it is in the KSA) we there are still thousands of slaves here.
38
@29-32- HAHAHAHA! I enjoy how much that hurts you. I used to have a joke that armageddon actually IS coming soon... in the form of gay marriage and legalized drugs, a Christian worst nightmare but great progress for the rest of us.
@Fnarf- Wow, that was a great history lesson!
39
@ 37 is correct. plus social pacification via civil service patronage has hooked up a lot of people with the means to widen their horizons
40
"in the form of gay marriage and legalized drugs"

I supported both. I don't support allowing religious fundamentalists take over Seattle public pools so Mohammedan men can force their women to hide. I'm consistent like that. It's Seattle liberals who aren't.
41
@40: You can't even understand the words you yourself are posting:

Your rants: "Mohammedans demand the Seattle public pools accommodate their religious fundamentalism... religious fundamentalists take over Seattle public pools" in order to "have their own religious pool hour in Seattle on the public dollar"

The news release you quote @31: "Women-only swimming sessions at four local pools... the women will pay standard swimming fees and the program will be held at traditionally slow times for swimming... the program will largely serve Muslim women, though orthodox Jews and various other women are expected to participate."

So let's break it down: Four pools will offer women-only swimming for a few hours a week. The women who attend will pay the same as any other member of the public. It is expected that women from various religious and cultural backgrounds will participate.

Yes, definitely, a stealth Wahhabi regime has taken over the pools. The freedom of men to swim in four pools at two o'clock on Thursday afternoon has fallen. Full sharia law is the obvious next step.

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