One thing I have found funny with the right is that they'll use one set of irrational but somewhat consistent arguments for the dogma they have been fed, but they won't apply the same irrational views to other things - so they can almost sound like liberals on issues that aren't part of the 'right-wing agenda'.
Talk to a right-winger generally about the world is flat or world is round 'issue', and they'll pretty much sound like a liberal - science has settled it, anyone who disagrees is a crazy, and so on. But hit on an issue part of the agenda - say, evolution - and many will spew just that irrational type of position.
It's even the case about issues on which they do or don't accept the right-wing dogma - so an 'economic right-winger' might sound like a liberal defending evolution from the 'crazies', but he'll turn around and argue like a crazy when it comes to, say, defending austerity as the only good policy for the debt.
I say that as background to a point: that there's an analogy between our left wing and right wing, and our right wing and middle eastern radical fundamentalists. Middle eastern fundamentalists actually exhibit many of the same traits and flaws as our right wing just - just more extreme (usually), but our right doesn't understand that so they sound like liberals while criticizing the same type of things about middle eastern fundamentalists that they defend for their dogma.
Muslims generally will be more observant religiously than our right. Church once a week? Try mandatory praying five times a day. Right-wing is against pot? Muslims will add caffeine and alcohol (Mormons say 'I've been trying to tell them that for years'). The right has a bit of an anti-woman streak (just this month, Arkansas Republicans in total control of the state since 1874, made a point to vote for a bill opposing the Equal Rights Amendment, just because), but Muslim fundamentalists have some far larger issues with women, including of the 'she got raped, which shamed her family' and 'a woman can never be alone with or touched by a man not her husband' type issues. Right-wingers might casually defend the use of force for their 'side' too much, but some Muslim extremists will routinely trick teenagers into suicide bombing for really being willing to use force. That's why I say, some Muslims extremists are in many ways very much like stronger versions of our right-wing. Same arguments on steroids.
In other words... right-wingers here will sort of thoughtlessly but loudly express a desire for extreme measures against criminals. 'Don't get to vote for life, that's fine', 'throw away the key', 'could care less about inhumane conditions' from space to cleanliness to overcrowding to food to medical care, 'if they don't like it they shouldn't have broken the law', and many aren't too shy to view prison rape as a 'who cares' issue, and generally they just don't give a crap about any prisoner 'rights' or 'abuse' issues.
That'll be the argument between the 'left' and the 'right' here. But then why you take the Middle East's measures that seem extreme, the right wing doesn't have that as part of their agenda, and criticizing Muslims is far more important than adopting their arguably even harsher law enforcement measures - so suddenly they argue the opposite and sound like liberals, while criticizing Muslim system 'extremes'.
That's why they'll express outrage and shock at the 'barbarity' of beheadings - I can't say how many times I've heard people on the right mention 'they BEHEAD people' in disgust as their entire case to 'prove' the barbarity of Muslims - while they support other forms of capital punishment here, not having any issue with an inconsistency in the 'values'.
Things like the whole 'chopping off a hand' use the exact same type of argument the right uses to defend things here - but the right will reverse itself and argue like liberals how that's 'barbaric' in many cases (some on the right will actually be more consistent and defend it).
So to wrap up the point I'm trying to make, defenders of the middle east practices could use the same arguments the right does to defend them - and the right would't probably get they were the same arguments. In defending the paralyzing as ounishment, try this argument from someone in the middle east I'll suggest:
'You say we're barbaric for paralyzing someone who willfully paralyzed someone else in a crime as punishment. You are the barbarians.
First, our values in ouir religion tell us it is right - an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. You are hypocrites ignoring the religious teachings to say you know better.
Second, what is really barbaric is NOT punishing such crimes enough. That encourages criminals to do them more.
So you will cry and weep over one criminal being punished as the bible says he should, but you don't care how many more innocent people are paralyzed by criminals because you did not use the correct amount of punishment for the crime being commited. And the proof of this is in the statistics of crime in our societies.
What are the rates of theft, of rape, of violent attacks in the United States - one of the most violent countries in the world - and in our country, with far lower crime rates?
So our system is actually the MERCIFUL and just one - for one paralyzed person you don't have by not using it as punishment, you have many more paralyzed people in more crimes by criminals. And you call having many more innocent people being hurt better than our system and say ours is barbaric? Yours is the barbaric system - your crime statistics show its barbarity.
You try to claim one is more than many - in blindly defending your system and telling lies about the effectivenes of ours'.
Now, that' a lot BETTER argument than the right usually makes, but it uses the same basic types of argument they do in their better arguments.
But most on the right will sound like liberals disagreeing with it. It's just funny how that works. But it's not unexpected - irrationality can be inconsistent.
(I guess I should mention that you can go to the other extreme - someone way on the other side could suggest that the best criminal justice punishment for all crime is for the criminal to have to hug the judge and be released, because that will teach them mercy and kindness and they might learn from that why committing crimes is wrong - and pretty much everyone on the left would disagree with that, using many of the same arguments as those on the right do to say 'that's ridiculous'. So the flaw isn't just in the argument - but the degree and accuracy of how it's used. There's really not that much rational difference in the argument between saying to punish a rapist or manslaughter with one year in jail or 4 years or 15 years or 25 years. Just at some point people go from 'that's too little' to 'that's too much'.)
