Well, I certainly wouldn't want a bunch of Nazis oppressing me, if that's what you are hinting at.
I have no desire to let anyone force their culture onto others. That's why I do not support requiring people to speak English, I do not support burqa bans, nor do I support travel bans or immigration quotas.
Just so we can be perfectly clear, and there is no "slander," please describe your political beliefs as accurately as possible.
Last edited by Machismo; 2017-10-13 at 10:51 PM.
Their country. Their choice. If the majority want it, then so be it. It's democracy, is it not?
I have stated it very clearly. I have no desire to forcefully restrict anyone else's culture. I will also not allow someone to force their culture onto me, or onto others. I'm not sure how that is so complicated for you. People should be free to do what they want, so long as they do not harm others. Other than that, I have zero fucks left to give.
You seem to think that the only way to preserve your culture, is to force it onto others. That's a pretty damn authoritarian stance to take. It's also why I feel that you being an authoritarian national socialist (quite possibly an actual Nazi supporter) is pertinent to the discussion.
So, please state exactly what your political beliefs are, so that there is no ambiguity.
Define "doing harm".
See, the problem with "doing harm" is that harm depends on who you ask. For example, I consider it doing harm if someone were to ban beef, but a hindu would disagree with me. However, I'd like to ban dog meet, but the chinese person is going to disagree with me.
Since people with my ideals and culture form a majority in my country, our democratic process will emulate the culture of my people and restrict freedoms in certain ways, such as in eating dog meat, which is outlawed in Denmark.
Is that a restriction on freedom? Well, if we go by your definition that freedom means pushing everything down to the individual, then it is, but I think most people in the west would either say "It's not" or "It is, but it's worth it".
Cultural attitudes will permeate the democratic process. Laws will be made that don't restrict anything someone living under the culture would ever do, but someone living outside the culture might do it. If for some reason you have a huge problem with the laws in the community you have moved to, consider that they might not like your attitudes either, and consider whether you should really be there.
The constitution makes this very clear in any western country - you are free subject to judgement by the court as determined by laws written by democratically elected people. The only law that the democratically elected people cannot change without a referendum is the constition, which is what sets up these checks and balances in the first place and establishes that freedom, among other things.
Without some level of restriction, we'd have chaos. If anything a 'truly' free country is a bit of a fallacy. If such a place exists where I can express whatever views I want, no matter how hateful, without consequence and dress as indecently as I want, then please tell me where it is.
With that said, the wearing a burqa is hardly aggressive or hateful. I was only responding to your 'free country' comment. There isn't really such a thing, IMO. There are only countries with varying levels of restrictions.
How does beef cause harm? Defining harm really isn't that difficult. Sure, there's subjectivity when it comes to emotions, but physical harm is quite obvious.
The majority-rule belief is the quickest path to direct harm. It means the will of the majority can simply take away the freedoms of the minority. That's exactly how things like slavery get perpetuated.
The biggest problem we have, is the belief that we are justified in forcing our culture onto others. Sure, sometimes it is relatively harmless, but it often leads to severe oppression.
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That's simple, stop all three. It's entirely possible to oppose all three forms of authoritarianism. For some reason, you believe that the best way to avoid oppression is to oppress others. No thanks. I don't want any of them to force their culture upon me. It's not about picking the lesser of three evils, or forcing my own brand of evil onto them.
So, I'll let you answer the same question you asked. If all three sought to force their culture, what would you do?
Last edited by Machismo; 2017-10-13 at 11:15 PM.
I'll be honest. I do want burkas and niqabs to be banned. I think they're a very severe and restrictive form of dress for women and also completely unnecessary. But where does it end? Sometimes when I get cold in winter I want to cover my face just to keep warm. That will be seen as OK, but wearing a burka for religious or cultural reasons will be bad. It's a double standard. Nuns can dress quite restrictively as well... but nobody's going crazy about nuns.
I also wonder what'll happen to women in Denmark (or any Western country banning burkas/niqabs) who live in extremist/fundamentalist Muslim households - if they cannot wear face veils will they be forced to stay home because they can't dress "modestly" enough? They must be quite patriarchal households after all. But another part of me thinks if these families will not respect/adapt to Western culture they shouldn't be living in a Western nation. If I suddenly wanted to move to Saudi Arabia, I'd need to dress in abaayas and niqabs because that's custom over there. I wouldn't like it, but hey, when in Rome...
Hijabs are fine in my view... nothing wrong with hiding your hair. Some of the best dressed/most stylish girls at my university were Muslims too, they'd wear really nice clothes and just have hijabs... it's perfectly possible for girls to be fabulous dressers and feel good about how they look (which is important for confidence) without showing off much skin. But I think niqabs and burkas just look cumbersome, I can't imagine anyone finding them fun to wear, especially when it's hot. Luckily most European countries are pretty cold. But what if you wanna go eat at a restaurant? How do you eat while wearing a veil?
So yeah I'm in 2 minds about it all. I don't want to dictate what women should and should not wear, but I also wonder if women wear the burka/niqab because their fathers/husbands or other male relatives are telling them to do so. Obviously some women wear them by choice too. It's gonna be different for every woman but we can't go through every family and assess them and find out each woman's motive for wearing them either, it's not possible. Maybe by banning them your country will be sending a message of: "We will not tolerate burkas/niqabs" or maybe they'll send a message of "we will not tolerate Muslims." It's a delicate issue I guess.
Where are the liberals proclaiming Scandanavia as the shining example of tolerance and successful socialism now? If anything those countries are a testament to extremely selective immigration processes in the past resulting in a very homogeneous society of highly educated Caucasians. Same is true for Japan, it's about sharing similar values and not allowing outsiders to influence too much change.
So only physical harm matters, then? Slander, libel, destroying someone's reputation unfairly, cheating in an election system, filing fraudulent economic reports, and so on - these are all permitted because to not permit it is a violation of freedom, because it does not cause physical harm?
I think you've been listening to too many libertarian braodcasts, buddy. Life is more complicated than that.
On the subject of slavery, obviously slavery isn't freedom. However, under your rules slavery is perfectly fine. You say that anyone should be able to do whatever they personally want as long as it doesn't cause physical harm - so what you're saying is that it's okay for someone to sell their services for the rest of their lives in exchange for food and lodging? That is literally slavery.
My argument is that there should be laws above this person that actively prevents him from making this decision.
If we believe that something should be beyond the possibility of majority rule, which is a perfectly reasonable request, then we write it into a law that is specially protected under the constitution to make it something that cannot be changed unless a HUGE majority votes in favour of changing it, such as 80%, or even to make it impossible to change at all, ever, for any reason. In other words, changing that law would require a revolution, with all that that entails.
I agree with you that there should be laws like that, and slavery is a good candidate, but by doing this we've actually restricted the ability for someone to choose to sign away their work hours for life. I know that seems like a twisted argument, but it's nevertheless true. To broadly protect freedom, we must restruct it in some key ways.
As far as us forcing our culture onto others - look, I live in Denmark. In Denmark, the Danish rule. If you don't like how we rule it, you have the unequivical right to GET THE **** OUT. I don't give a ****. There are thousands of places all over the world where people agree with whoever you are, but it ain't here.