Burka ban

Pro-rights for Burka + Anti-rights for public nudists = hypocrisy.

Simple as. Disfavour for public nudity is simply a cultural taboo, same as disfavour for the Burka (ignoring the security issue). Nudity isn't some grotesque, "objectively" wrong act, such as killing, it is just something that as a society, we chose to frown upon, some indeterminate time ago. Why are the libertarians not opposed to this "crime against freedom"?

Both of these issues lie on opposing ends of the same spectrum, yet we, as a society choose to make one end illegal while the other is not?

On the one hand, we have a mindset that people cannot dress a certain way for fear of offending, yet on the other hand, these same people cannot apply that thinking to just one more style of dress. Why not one more? Why not one less? Why not get rid of all these bans on dress?

You cannot have it both ways. Either we live in a society where laws are made that constrain the more extreme fashions of dressing, or we don't.

Your choice.

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robindch wrote: »

However, as some posters might confirm, there are various underground religious movements within China which reject the claim of the state to be the ultimate authority, a position which the religious movement typically reserves for itself and its belief system. Again, much as our Nigerian friend and his 13-year old wife have done.

Now, now. In your new-found enthusiasm for supporting Chinese government policy, you don't have to share in their mischaracterisation and demonisation of minority groups.

The underground religious movements in China do not claim to be the ultimate authority. They acknowledge the right of the State to legislate in most matters (eg economic & political issues, the military, police, import regulations etc). However, what they also maintain is that the rights of the State do not extend to dictating what churches should preach, or what books people should be allowed to read in the privacy of their own homes, or how people should pray. And, in this respect, they are in agreement with the United Nations and most civilised people who agree that such things are basic human rights that should not be subject to State interference.

Also, it is a complete falsehoosd to claim that such groups set themselves up as the ultimate authority. They want the right to choose for themselves what they preach, or how they pray, or what they read, but they most certainly do not see themselves as having any right to dictate to others in those matters. Rather they argue that these are matters for each person's individual conscience.

I appreciate that you have an ideological commitment to paint religious people in the worst light possible - but it makes you sound like the kind of parodies of atheists that many in this forum protest against. It's bad enough that a persecuted minority should be denied their human rights by a vicious totalitarian regime. It is, however, worse again when someone like you describes them as setting themselves up as the ultimate authority when they simply want to exercise the same basic human rights that you enjoy in this country.

All I'm demonstrating with the Nigerian case is that religious people do have a tendency to believe themselves above the law, as you yourself conceded at some point last year

If you want to argue that people should always obey the law in all circumstances, then that is up to you. The Nuremburg trials didn't feel that was actually a valid position, but maybe you know better than them.

But I still think you do yourself, and this forum, a great diservice by comparing people breaking totalitarian laws that restrict freedom of speech and assembly (basic human rights recognised by the UN) with paedophilia.

Heck, I guess by that kind of logic that Schindler was like Jack the Ripper in that he thought it was OK to break the law. :rolleyes: