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Well, at least your honest in your belief that the government should punish people for expressing beliefs that differ from yours, simply on the basis that you disagree with those beliefs. I'd say that "authoritarian" would be a far more apt description of that philosophy than "anti-theist" but I guess prunes sell better if you call 'em "dried plums" instead.
Of course, repressive governmental action against specific religious faiths is at best counterproductive to the goal of secularizing society and at worst leads to both an increase in radicalized religious belief and a giant pile of dead bodies, but why let history get in the way of your grand designs?
At risk of utterly breaking an analogy which I specifically avoided because analogizing hasn't really improved discourse in this thread, I daresay the closer element would be to the outlawing rather than to the pamphleting (trivia: it is, actually, illegal to conduct or have sex-selective abortions in many states in India).
I'm not seeing how it might be acceptable to tell women what to do with their bodies in one case due to a perceived cultural fault but not acceptable in the other. Is it the minority aspect here that is the key difference?
I think that when we become dependent on absolutist statements in such gray contexts, I don't feel that answering those kinds of questions help anything.
I'd also like to point out I've only supported the sentiment behind the burqa ban, not the specific ban itself. I personally think the ban is ridiculously exclusionary, and would like it either removed entirely or expanded to address many other extreme forms of religious expression.
This is ignoring that at least according to two French government reports, many of the women wearing the burqa are recent converts to Islam or are doing so to provoke society or family. This suggests a good portion willingly chose it as much as any person can be said to willingly choose anything.
Do you have an actual point that you're trying to make that's relevant to this thread, or do you just have an axe to grind with the state of US politics that isn't really relevant?
...they did ban Burqas. That's what this thread is about.
Your over-simplification of my position is purposefully dishonest. That's not helpful.
My positions on religious expression aren't based in visceral feeling, they're based in factual observation and measurement of how fundamentalist practice is dangerous to its followers, their community, and the nation as a whole.
Kids in Michigan have new textbooks with Thomas Jefferson written out of history because Texas has a bunch of fundies on the board of education. My negative feelings regarding that phenomenon has no "basis in that disagree with those beliefs," it's that those beliefs are fucking harmful.
When I first read CP's post, it read to me like he was talking about a ban specifically noted in language to be against burqas, rather than going about it in the round-about manner of banning face-coverings.
Edit - And reading it again, I just realized I'm projecting that interpretation. derp
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OH GOODNESS ME!
Do you just read only the last part of my post all the time or are you just unable to understand my pearls of wisdom?
Did I say anything about the justness of this law? Did I express any fucking opinion on this law here? Was I actually even talking about this law outside of the added-on bit for great nuance?
Several points:
A.) You can admit you were wrong without adding several paragraphs with which I don't really disagree.
3.) Please for the love of Atheismo stop pretending like I ever claimed this particular law was a good idea.
?.) It is still a fucking net-win if we accept the incredibly uncontroversial position that people wearing a burqa voluntarily without any pressure are a minority.
Instead of some bullshit about how this hurts those who just really want to wear a burqa you could instead point out that those who are forced to wear a burqa probably aren't going to be helped very much because they are probably in an environment where such a ban means just sitting at home. (This is a far more interesting problem with which I don't actually disagree.)
That's a difficult question for me, however the advantages of having roughly equal numbers of men and women in the various age cohorts of a society are more readily apparent and less up to personal interpretation than the advantages of having no women being allowed to wear certain garments of clothing.
I do think that outlawing gender selection as a stated reason for abortion is thus more acceptable a use of governmental power than establishing the anti-burqa (or pro-burqa) fashion police, but if push came to shove I'd also agree that other governmental programs to improve the conditions of women and alter cultural perceptions of female worth might be a less coercive and perhaps more effective way of reaching the same goal.
And declaring a woman to be your property is not compatible with a free liberal democratic society either, which is what the Burqa's purpose is / has been for many muslims. Honor killings are cut from that same cloth; the girl or woman is told, as knuckledragger just elaborated, that they 'do as they wish' but that there will be nothing that won't happen to them if they show their faces in public or otherwise deviate from the wishes of the father or husband.
The clothing is just a symptom of the problem, though, so passing a law abolishing it is wrong-headed in many different ways. You seem to be toying with the idea that people could be encouraged to hang onto a superstition that promotes second-class citizenship for women and also to fully integrate themselves into a liberal society.
That won't work (for obvious reasons).
Was it when Thanatos declared Burqas to be a symbol of hate? 'Cause that was page 1.
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I'm confused. Wasn't I talking about female circumcision?
Yeah, I picked it as an example because its justification is pretty hard to contest, and I wanted to argue the principle behind the legitimacy of state action rather than the finer points of how equivalent a given analogy might be to burqas (see: first few pages of this thread).
The point isn't about the pragmatic merits of prohibiting burqas, which I freely concede are largely imaginary; I am arguing for the right of the state to enforce restrictions in principle.
This is a highly controversial position.
Not seeing the grey here.
Nor am I seeing how upholding a woman's right to choose her clothing or an asshole's right to say assholish things threatens the foundation of the Republic. We have become progressively more lenient when it comes to freedom of speech. As I had mentioned before, imminent lawlessness is now the legal standard which is even more restrictive on government action than the previous 'clear and present danger' or 'fire in a crowded theatre' standards. Yet today our politics and government are the healthiest they've ever been in our history. How am I wrong? How are we at some new existential threat because some people are wearing headscarves outside of winter? Bear in mind that I'm not talking about if there are needs for immigrant outreach and assimilation into the broader mainstream as that does not get addressed by banning particular forms of clothing.
Good Article about Burqa bans.
CP is being a Libertarian all up ins and actually backing you guys.
Of course he doesn't let that get in the way of blaming you liberals for banning gambling in the mall or something.
Conflating all religious belief with fundamentalism puts you well into, if not well beyond, the realm of being purposefully dishonest. Claiming that governmental sanction against a specific group should be based on assigning the guilt for the behavior of the most extreme members of that group to the entire group as a collective whole is monumentally unjust.
People have a right to use those to!
And the rest of us have the right to stare, glare and ask "So... what's with the obvious 'I am a giant bigot' sign?" and tell them the ideas represented by those symbols are inappropriate and wrong.
In this very specific case, the gravity of the former's motivation is in no real way interchangeable with the latter.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8568000/8568024.stm A quarter are willing converts to Islam so any decision to wear the veil can't be blamed on how they were raised.
...What's the problem of declaring a Burqa to be a symbol of hate? The garb, traditionally, is for use as declaring a woman a piece of property. Perhaps 'hate' isn't exactly the right word, but it's sort of splitting hairs - it certainly leads to a lot of hateful things.
Seriously?
Like, the woman wearing a burqa because they just like it without even knowing about religion telling them isn't a minority??
If the practice predates Islam, is not required by the Islamic texts and is not being done for reasons of religious observance, how does this equate to infringing on their religious freedoms?
For my part it was when we got into the "its ok because I'm right" garbage.
No, but 'willing' takes on a new connotation within certain contexts. I might be 'willing' to convert to Christianity if I were fleeing my country's regime and wound-up in a ghetto where anyone who does not convert mysteriously disappears overnight.
And I just don't see how the contexts are similarly applicable. I don't believe nor am I arguing for individual liberty uber alles as the basis for my disagreement with the burqa ban or similar. I agree with you that the State has a legitimate role in creating laws that abridge individual rights/liberties under certain circumstances. My argument is that the State has to cross over a pretty high bar in order to justify restrictions and so forth. I also believe that this requirement should be on a sliding scale depending upon the subject. Issues of free speech, freedom of expression, and freedom of religion should force any attempt at curtailing them to be excessively high because it doesn't really infringe upon anyone else's rights (you do not have the right to not be offended) and because of my conviction that an open marketplace of ideas is necessary for a democracy to thrive.
To complicate matters more and make even worse analogies that aren't really analogous: There is no library large enough nor with a budget big enough to contain the entirety of published works. This means that they have to decide on what to collect and what to keep out and balance it with the principle of open access to the world's knowledge. The difference between selection and censorship is very fine. It is also extremely important.
Expound upon this please.
Citation needed.
I haven't seen any reports on increased incidence of crime or threats or what have you amongst the populace that wears burqas. Aside from, of course, the fact that anyone now wearing a burqa is by definition a criminal.
Religion is not coercion. If you want to occupy some rhetorical position in which it's taken as accepted fact that all religious women who want to wear a veil are victims of religion and need to be liberated from that, then I have no interest in continuing this conversation.
It'd be a symbol of oppression, but not hate.
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And the obvious solution to address this very real concern is clearly not education, outreach, public policy driving integration with other socio-economic and ethnic groups, promoting or assisting with assimilation, or anything else.
It's banning a piece of clothing.
The instigation of the burqa (nay, the overwhelming volume of all personal religious expression) has originations outside the decision-making process of the bearer/wearer.
This isn't the same thing as the personal liberties in play in saying something stupid or offensive. The former can be treated as an expression of personal freedom, but odds are extremely likely that act has a foundation in projected misogyny from that person's family, significant other, and/or community.
Why do you wear a crucifix as jewelry, out of curiosity? I never understood that practice.
Is it out of ignorance for what the device was / is used for?
Again, this law covers all clothing that covers the face, not just the burqa.
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