Justin Trudeau's government drops controversial niqab appeal

[gcomeau]

15. Feel free to enjoy it as much as you want...

I will answer point by point, but I will express upfront a doubt I have about your stance:
are you 1- playing with concepts to see if you can win a debate 2- willfully oblivious to the real intentional danger radical islam poses, or 3- defending all free speech however dangerous it might be.

I never bother "playing with concepts to see if I can win a debate". Pointless waste of time. I only respond to discussion threads when I have something to say, I don't respond just to see if I can entertain myself with some kind of rhetorical competition.

And I am certainly a long way from oblivious to the dangers posed by radical Islam, however I will point out again that you are begging the question by characterizing anyone wearing a niqab as "radical" in a sense that is synonymous with dangerous. Radical in the sense of conforming to a cultural/religious practice that is in my mind stupid and insulting to the dignity of women, sure. But that is a totally different issue... and one where once again my opinion that it is insulting to women does not entitle us to dictate wardrobe choices TO women any more than some idiot fundie Christian thinking women wearing bikinis is insulting to women entitles them to have the government force women to over up at the beach if they don't want to.

And the question begging applies again with your "no matter how dangerous" description of the speech in question. you are assuming that her motivations are dangerous without ever having established it by appealing to gross generalizations.


Moving on...

(1)

You have not advanced your argument. So the numbers are "alarmingly high" in western countries... with "alarmingly" being defined as significantly below 50%.

So... you have referred again to a statistic we have already referenced. But you cannot apply statistics to individuals to determine their personal beliefs and motivations however. You simply do not know whether this woman falls in the "wants Sharia law for everyone" camp or not, and simply the act of wearing a niqab does not tell you that. You are simply assuming it. And that is a far cry from sufficient justification to have the government enforce your views on the wardrobe of other people. Especialy considering that EVEN IF SHE DID want Sharia law for everyone peacefully expressing an opinion is not an actionable offense!

(2)

Wearing the niqab is not obligatory for SHIA.

For Sunni, it depends on which tradition you follow. For somel of them yes it is considered obligatory.

And lots of things are "not always" done for harmless reasons. That is not an argument that justifies the government dictating her wardrobe in a situation where nobody has suggested she is some kind of physical threat to anyone around her. If she was she would never have been allowed to immigrate in the first place!


(3)

Saying that the niqab is a statement that stoning people is ok is like saying wearing a cross is a statement that.... well... stoning people is ok. Since that's in the bible too.

Not that simple. The KKK was created for the one and sole purpose of racial persecution. Islam, for all that I find the entire religion to be absurd and am of the opinion the world would be better off without it... is a little more complicated than that.