Good morning.
- Slavery, it seems to me one problem is that slaves historically did not always vacate all of their rights, e.g., in the Roman era slaves still had some legal protections.
- Government intrusion in healhtcare and innovation. More here.
- A lie from the left, noted.
- Seven? Uhm, eight! Let’s get back to eight.
- Expiration dates.
- Social security.
- Communism sucks, would be the answer.
- Online resources for the Christian (for Lent?).
- Schooling and cost.
- Highlighting liberal hypocrisy.
- Government largesse.
- A book noted.
- Taxes, two posts … here and here.
- FDA and a theory of power.
Slavery, it seems to me one problem is that slaves historically did not always vacate all of their rights, e.g., in the Roman era slaves still had some legal protections.
I’m against banning burqas as such a ban would violate the freedom to exercise one’s religion and I don’t think they clearly rise to the level of harm as female circumcision or a Jehovah’s Witness’s refusal to allow her child a lifesaving blood transfusion. But, while I don’t think government has a right to ban the burqa, and while I don’t agree it rises to the level of slavery, I’m extremely uncomfortable with the notion that all the women, and especially girls, are “consenting.”
The blogger writes “that if some women are being coerced into wearing the burqa then it is the coercion that needs to be targeted by the law” but how could the law target that? Yes, obviously, if a woman approaches a police officer or social worker and asks for protection against her husband’s coercion, fine, easy case. But what about all the cases when the women are afraid — afraid not just for direct repercussions, but for ostracism from family and community, repercussions against her family, etc?
And then there are those women who actually do consent. They consent after a childhood of indoctrination and shelter from the outside world, but they consent. The law can do nothing for them. The state can’t insist that it knows what’s good for her better than she does.
The fight against the burqa and religious extremism in general should be waged, but the government is the wrong tool. The right tools? The usual. Education, education, education. Educated women are less likely to go for that garbage (although there are of course exceptions.) They are less likely to let their children be indoctrinated into a (sub?)religion of male domination. And they are more capable of supporting themselves.
We (not U.S. Gov but we who oppose this sort of thing) should be supporting education and assimilation. Public schools are the main weapon — not that they should explicitly oppose Islam or any other religion, of course, but simply by educating people. And exposure to non-Muslim or non-extremist peers is priceless. Finally, pop culture. Religious people complain incessantly about it for good reason — it really is a threat to them. McDonalds and Hollywood are doing more to fight radical Islam than all the missiles and bullets and leaflets and soldiers in the world. You get a kid hooked on McDonalds and t.v. and movies and that kid’s not going to be a Muslim extremist.