Yes, and it is when 'natural rights' collide when we need to make decisions. You see, various 'natural rights' tend to conflict from time to time. Such as a homosexuals 'natural right' to exist freely and a Muslims 'natural right' to kill homosexuals.
There may be a natural right to believe homosexuals should be killed, but no natural right exists to kill them. That's just silly. See, this is why I don't think we'll ever agree on this-- you just have a fundamentally different understanding of what rights are, the difference between a right and a liberty, and the legitimate authority of the state than I do.
I don't think this really qualifies as oppression.
Yes, you've made it quite clear you don't think preventing the free exercise of religion is oppressive. Your idea of oppression is pretty obvious to me right now: Oppression=when people do oppressive things that personally bother Pheds, Legtimate exercise of government authority=when the government does oppressive things that Pheds personally approves of.
Actually I agree with you: I think anybody should be able to use drugs as much as they like. Just not in the street or in school.
School, I'll give ya-- as I stated upthread in a reply to Ex-Hindu there are certain institutional rules which apply in schools or workplaces which should not be general laws of civil society. But the street-- if they are clean and discreet about it and dispose of their needles in a proper manner, then why not?
Yes, and in that respect the Netherlands is spending millions of Euro's trying to integrate and emancipate women from Islamic countries: with very little success. Why? Because their men will only allow them to go to cooking or langauge classes is there are no men present.
Then they need to get a divorce and the state should provide them with all the resources to do so safely and keep their children. But it's up to them, not the state, to make the decision, difficult as it may be.
What do we do? Ban men from entering such class rooms / facilities. Yes. We infringe upon the rights of men to facilitate backwardness. Why? Because the politically correct establishment hand in hand with heavily subsidized organizations do not want to say: this is how we do things in this society and this is how you can integrate.
Don't get me wrong, Pheds. Just because I don't want the government restricting religious or cultural practices does not mean I want them pandering to them either-- quite the opposite, in fact. And yes, I do believe that is an infringement on the men's rights to gender equality and free association.
Instead we limit ourselves to pandering to a bunch of barbarians and laying low, hoping that one day they stop importing cousin-brides from the Atlas mountains 'because they aren't yet corrupted by Dutch culture'.
You can ban them from doing that. It's is a nation's sovereign right to secure its borders.
But not in the street? Why not if it is their religion to smoke? (I agree with the statement though, just for the record)
Sure, I think people should be able to smoke in the street.
And not in schools? Why not? It's their natural right to do so! (I agree with the statement though, just for the record)
I addressed this above. Institutional rules are different from civil or criminal laws. While rights against the government exist in both, there is a little more leeway for regulation in the former.
Well I support neither. Strange that you would allow assault weapons to be carried around on the streets but not heroin.
As I clarified above, I do not oppose the use of heroin in public provided it is done safely, discreetly and cleanly. Furthermore, you do not need to carry heroin to defend yourself.
In my state (Pennsylvania) open carry of firearms is entirely legal without a license except for Philadelphia, however you can get a concealed carry permit anywhere in the state (including Philly) and only felony convictions and certain misdemeanor convictions (like drugs or domestic violence) will prevent you from obtaining the license-- I have four arrests on my record and I qualify for a license.
Now Philly has a very high murder/gun violence rate (between 300-400 a year), but almost none of them are committed by someone legally carrying a firearm (it happens once every few years) and I've never heard of anyone in the state being shot by someone who was openly carrying that wasn't a cop. So, actually, in this state at least, the fact someone is openly carrying a firearm may make you
feel unsafe, but that feeling would be irrational. It's much, much more likely you will be assaulted by someone who has their illegally purchased and possessed firearm stuffed in their pocket.
Well, I guess that's the crux of the matter...isn't it my natural right to be comfortable and feel safe too?
No-- and that's a dead give away that someone does not understand the concept of natural rights. You have a right to be safe, you don't have a right to
feel safe. And you certainly have no natural right to be comfortable.
Just because people use religion as an excuse to do certain things shouldn't my natural rights count for something?
Of course they should.
Or those of my sister who lives in a neighbourhood where she's being called 'whore' and 'slut' for not wearing a hijab?
Can't that be handled with ordinary harassment laws? In fact, if your sister wears, say, short skirts and high heels the harassment is unlikely to stop just because of niqab or even hijab ban, unless you pass a law saying all Muslim women have to wear short skirts and high heels too.
Personally I think those bastards need a severe beat-down.
Perhaps. But it is a law we democratically agreed upon.
Okay, but it's still stupid. Democracies pass utterly stupid laws all the time.
Why would that matter? Why would my personal religious belief system allow me special privileges?
It's not a special privilege it's a
right to express your beliefs (religious or otherwise) in any manner that does not directly and immediately violate the rights of another. I don't think you're ever gonna get this.
As I said: in my country you cannot wear Nazi uniforms, Bacalavas, Police Uniforms or run around naked in the street. France is probably not much different. I see no hypocrisy in a Burqaban in that respect.
In my country you can wear Balaclavas or Nazi uniforms. You can't go around naked in public, but I addressed that upthread, and you can't wear a police uniform as this is immediately hazardous to public safety as well as being a form of fraud.
WTF? This has got to be the most nonsensical argument in the world. Because some people do not agree with Islam and hence 'attack' it Islam needs to be granted special privileges?
Again, these are not privileges, they are rights.
Do you also feel that Republicans should be granted special privileges because GWB was under constant attack from politicians and newspaper columnists? If not why not?
If he wanted to parade around naked in a balaclava with a Nazi armband in an area no children would be present as some sort of political demonstration, sure, that his
right, not privilege, to do so.
You are playing word games here - unless you would agree that cutting of the hands and feet of thiefs - which is also an expression of religion - is merely 'expressing a belief' and should be protected/
God you are being dense here for someone who is obviously very intelligent-- let me repeat, as you seem to have missed it the last hundred fucking times I've said it-- violating someone else's rights is not itself a right. To put it another way-- your rights end where mine begin. Killing homosexuals is not a right. Physically forcing a woman to wear a burqua is not a right.
But choosing to wear a burqua is a right-- and if her husband demands she wear it, in a Western country at least, she can divorce him, and if her community or family demands it, she can leave them too-- and again I'm all for having the state give her all the resources and protection to do so. It is a difficult choice to make for many of these women, that's for sure, but it is still a choice, and until they say "fuck this, I ain't wearing this bullshit", the state has no legitimate authority in a free society to force her to remove it. If she stops wearing it and her husband beats her-- lock the fucker up for assault and for violating her civil rights. If the kids in the neighborhood call her names every day, have them charged with harassment. If she no longer feels safe in her community, pay for her to move. But the one thing the state cannot and should not do in a free society is make choices for this woman.
That's quite literally a pathetic argument and also not true. Islam wasn't spread because Muslims were at the constant receiving end of the stick. Muslims take great pride in their ability to conquer and dominate. I am pretty sure that the number of people killed in the name of Islam far (and that's by rather huge number) outstrips the number of Muslims killed because of their religion. Muslim armies didn't exactly reach Andalusia and western China slaying and converting 100s of 1000s of people by passing out candy and singing Kumbaya.
But even if that had not been the case: just because a group as whole has been treated bad in the past doesn't mean we need to exempt them from laws and regulations in our present time and situation. Should a person who happens to be black get a lesser punishment when he gets caught because 400 year of slavery probably contributed to his lesser social status and hence his higher chance of ending up on the wrong side of the law?
I think not.
I don't like apartheid - or any other form of racism or as we should call it in this case 'positive bigotry.'
So by your logic, Muslims oppressed other religions, so that makes it okay for us to oppress them? Besides, you are acting as if I only meant oppression against Muslims when I meant oppression against members of various faiths, and I think that's your problem in not understanding why such a ban would be religious oppression by the state-- it is you, not I, who think Muslims are special and deserve "special treatment"-- albeit of the negative variety.
Topic: French Hijab Ban Rears it's Head Once Again