Raistlin

This came up on facebook a while ago, but for whatever reason I decided not to make an EoEO thread about it. I just realized it was worth a blog post, considering I saved it as a text file and just need to copy/paste. Here you go!

A while ago, an old high school friend of mine made the following Facebook post:

”Just found a very good article detailing the pros and cons of banning islamic veils. The religious freedom arguments are strong, and a ban would be hypocritical, given our founding principles. Unfortunately, I agree with the author that it is probably necessary for Western countries to follow Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, and most recently Syria in enacting some kind of burqa/veil ban. Give it a read, it's worth a few minutes.”

Ban the Burqa - Claire Berlinski - National Review Online

I considered that an astonishing argument for a self-labeled libertarian to make. I read the article and found it to be less surprisingly drivel. I did not even realize this was an issue; have I been under some rock somewhere? Anyway, my response:

Originally Posted by Me

What sort of libertarian are you? =P

The author basically says "yes, all principled and logical arguments are against bans" and then says "but burqas must be banned because otherwise cities in my hypothetical nightmare won't be safe to walk...." Yet she pointed out just prior to that the security and anti-coercive arguments are spurious because there are already laws against them. Yet there aren't already laws against the alleged violence against non-veiled women? The doublethink is almost impressive.

She does nothing to show why burqas must be banned. She offers NO evidence, only that the burqa represents a "cancerous" ideology; in essence, she wants it banned because she disagrees with a political ideology that so subjugates women -- which I strongly disagree with as well. And I am happy to support the prosecution of anyone who violates the rights of others, regardless of the religious justification. But just expressing that ideology in a non-violent, victimless form? Free speech is not there to protect the mainstream, which doesn't need protection; in its only meaningful form, free speech protects the people everyone hates.

I don't know about western Europe, but I am happy to say that there is absolutely no way any such law will pass Constitutional muster in the US.

Originally Posted by Him

Free exercise of religion does not trump the rule of law. As a libertarian, wouldn't you concede that the law only protects my rights so far as exercising them does no harm to others and does not expose them to extrordinary risks to which t...hey did not consent?

Christian fundamentalist wackos can't handle venomous snakes with kids in the church, Druids can't perform human sacrifices, and Muslims can't enforce the more stoneage portions of sharia regardless of whether the other parties consent in any of the above circumstances.

I think her point is in the definition. It does no good to talk about religious freedom when the veil's cultural function is to define what a woman is rather than who she is.

Since it is practically impossible to determine who veils herself under duress and who does not, my first impulse would be to assume everyone who wears one is doing so voluntarily, but whether or not you choose to define yourself as chattel is immaterial. In a free society you aren't, and advertising otherwise does no good to anyone.

You've been to France. You know how homogenous their society is. When faced with an unassimilated, largely Turkish population whose favorite sport seems to be rioting in the streets and burning cars, their options are limited. These guys have little chance of ever becoming frenchmen for a variety of economic and cultural reasons. Faced with that reality, there must at least be an attempt made to assimilate them into european culture or risk their becoming a permanently disenfranchised minority.

You just can't have EU style open immigration and a welfare state. We would both prefer the dismantling of the welfare state, but realistically it is France we're talking about. They have to assimilate their immigrants or they will go bankrupt. They have to ban public veils to help assimilate their immigrants.

Originally Posted by Me

But what EVIDENCE is there that that will actually happen? There are plenty of Muslim immigrants in the US who don't riot in the streets, and we have among the most broad free speech protection in the world.

The author's only "point" is that… the literal ideology behind Islam is scary. Only too true! But she gives NO evidence of actual, imminent harm. None. The only thing she points out is that the spread of this ideology is bad -- and this would be somehow halted if the religion itself was forced to halt. Given the retarded riots after every cartoon of Mohammed is published, you don't think this would result in just MORE violence?

Of course I agree that the law only protects rights to conduct that don't harm others. But there's no evidence that: 1) wearing a burqa actually harms others; 2) that banning the burqa would prevent any such hypothetical harm; and 3) that there isn't a less invasive and prejudicial means of preventing that (again, purely hypothetical) harm. Why should I believe any of that?

I need a lot more than that to favor the government suspension of free speech for one particular form of non-violent expression and the persecution of a religion. And I'm an atheist.

Ironically, the author, in part, agrees with me. She said if that if burqas aren't banned, then they should be condemned and stigmatized. I agree completely. Burqas and any such irrational form of subjugation SHOULD be condemned: so speak out and condemn them. The best response to bad speech is more speech -- not the government stepping in to judge what political/religious speech (not promoting violence) is worthy of protection. There is a huge step in between societal condemnation and criminalization which the article linked together but gave zero support for taking that giant leap.

Originally Posted by Him

Free speech is somewhat curtailed in many european nations. Germany has nothing of the sort, and most of the "human rights" organizations in other countries have very neatly emasculated any concept of liberated expression. If we are looking... at a fashion accessory as speech, let's take a moment to dissect what this one is actually saying;

1.) I am a devout muslim woman.

(or I forgot to wash my hair today, or my ears were cold)

2.) I either prefer a high degree of modesty in my dress or have male family members who insist that I act as though I do. (no problem so far)

3.) This garment defines my role as submissive and unequal to men.

4.) In accordance with the standards of my community I am dressed appropriately to ward off what my religion percieves to be the inexorably rapacious nature of men. (wait a minute...)

5.) Acting as a kind of "uniform", this garment separates me from legitimate targets for the ire of the aforementioned self-defined rapacious men in my community. In this case, those targets are impure slatterns whose lack of modesty does not fit my community standard.

6.) (extrapolating here) Because modestly dressed women wearing headscarves are explicitly defined as not-for-raping, those immodestly dressed women not wearing a headscarf...are.

Originally Posted by Me

I know most European countries don't have such stringent free speech protection. I would argue strongly that they should. Germany is a particularly bad example; the UK is another.

Your list about the thought-process of the burqa is accurate.... I'll even concede to all of it for the purposes of this discussion. But that doesn't justify your conclusion; it is still a non-sequitur. The fact that the burqa is a (small) part of an oppressive ideology is beside the point. Some radical Christians are also very oppressive (see: Fred Phelps). Until something they do directly causes violence, it should be protected speech. An expression of bad views does not, in and of itself, directly cause harm worthy of criminalization.

There are also already laws prohibiting rape and physical violence. "Parts of Islam are bad" is not remotely evidence that burqas CAUSE harm or that prohibiting burqas would prevent that harm (better than current laws against causing that harm).

It all comes down to ideological prejudice, which in no way should be performed by the government. Definitely speak out and try to change things, but it should be by voluntary interaction and outreach, not coercive force.

At this point I was ready to give up, as I was now mostly repeating myself and he had yet offer any reasons beyond “Islam is bad” or any reason for why burqas themselves were causing any of this harm. But I still checked his response:

Originally Posted by Him

I likewise would prefer a program of voluntary interaction, but if there are no volunteers, I'm not going pretend the culture clash isn't still there. If we were operating in a vaccuum I would agree with you totally, but the evidence of coe...rsion and injury exists in every country where hardline islamists have influence over social policy. Iran has morality police that issue regular ass kickings for tight clothing or trendy haircuts, Saudi Arabia still crucifies people as a form of capital punishment, Marituania has essentially institutionalized slavery. I'm not going to parrot that "terrorists hate our freedom" nonsense, and there are great aspects of middle eastern culture that western society can benefit from importing, this just is not one of them.

At this point I had the thought of trying to advance a more practical instead of ideological argument:

Originally Posted by Me

Again, I agree with you entirely that there is evidence of coercion and injury as a result of extremist demagogues. I have not even attempted to debate the harm of a remotely strict following of Islam, which unfortunately has significant support. What I still don't see, however, is evidence that the burqa, in and of itself, actually causes any of this harm, or that banning the burqa would prevent any harm.

If anything, don't you think such measures from Western countries would just result in MORE violence? And then you give these subjugated women the devil's choice of being arrested or being ostracized (or worse). This is not the way to go about stopping this sort of violence, and I can't see this as doing any favors for the people this sort of law would ostensibly be trying to protect.

The author of that article inadvertently pointed out the correct way to go about this change: by speaking out. By encouraging open and free discussion and exchange of information. Adding government force behind it is not only unnecessary, but likely only to cause more harm (big surprise there).

Europe is becoming an even scarier place if stuff like this can be even seriously contemplated.