>> ^Yogi:

>> ^hpqp:
>> ^Yogi:
I like the idea of governments in the 2000's deciding people can no longer have a culture. Good for them...hey next maybe you should ban any sort of national identity.

Yeah, it's like how in Spain the great latino-macho culture is being suppressed by stricter you-can't-beat-up-your-wife laws...

That kinda proves my point...just because a woman wears a burka doesn't mean it's not their choice or that they're getting beaten every night. Last I checked not too many Spainish women wear burkas.
There's a lot of misinformation and reactionary BS going around these days. I say you let them do what they want unless they're hurting someone...forcing society into a dress code is stupid.


...or how to miss the satirical point entirely.

There are some elements of a people's/religion's "culture" that we should be eagerly trying to be rid of. While I agree that this is above all a populist legislation, especially when it is by far not the worst religion has to "offer" in the west (e.g. why are there no laws banning circumcision on minors?), it does not hamper a muslim woman's capacity of showing her religious affiliation: nothing prevents her from wearing a hijab.

As for all the apologists in the room, can you think of any reason why a woman would want to be covered from head to toe in sacloth? Now can you think of a reason that does not have to do with:

a) hiding a hideous difformity, or
b) submitting to the (patriarchal) rule of bronze-age customs?

>> ^hpqp:

>> ^Yogi:
I like the idea of governments in the 2000's deciding people can no longer have a culture. Good for them...hey next maybe you should ban any sort of national identity.

Yeah, it's like how in Spain the great latino-macho culture is being suppressed by stricter you-can't-beat-up-your-wife laws...


That kinda proves my point...just because a woman wears a burka doesn't mean it's not their choice or that they're getting beaten every night. Last I checked not too many Spainish women wear burkas.

There's a lot of misinformation and reactionary BS going around these days. I say you let them do what they want unless they're hurting someone...forcing society into a dress code is stupid.

@dannym3141 I follow you and basically agree. Free speech is important to protect whether the speech itself is popular or not. And it certainly isn't "illegal" to express any personal opinions, as backward or bigoted as they may be; whether expressed in a calm way or even full of ranting vitriol -- Fred Phelps' bunch comes to mind.

That being said, this is a school. The teacher doesn't have the power to arrest anyone, and they have to make quick disciplinary decisions about what things promote the best learning environment for everyone in the room. Students don't have free speech in a way equivalent to society at large by any stretch of the imagination: most schools have a dress code that forbids clothing with "offensive" words or ideas, and a student in any school is highly likely to be A) kicked out of class or B) suspended if they start including the word "fuck" in their speech as would be standard in any R-rated movie.

I think a teacher needs to have some leeway to make decisions about things in real time, and to be able to remove a disruptive student from the classroom if necessary. If a student says that they don't support black people, muslims, gay people, or whatever, it doesn't really matter if they made the statement in a calm and articulate way; what is important is that it is likely to create a disturbance that disrupts the learning environment for everyone else. Having a teacher boot them out of a class for making such a statement isn't necessarily a violation of their free speech rights.

>> ^NetRunner:
That was basically my question to you. I gave an example where the implicit social expectations, and legal expectations were completely different, despite both being privately owned.

So it's the old "It's the law!" argument, I see. Your reasoning for making the comment "privately owned public property" is because the laws are already in place that distinguish commercial from residential, and therefore there's a legal expectation. Yes, because it's the law. Much like the war on drugs already sets a legal expectation.

Your social expectations you mention had to do with a business opening their doors to the public where a private home owner wouldn't. That's an absurd distinction. First, in a business, it's not open to the public, it's open for customers. They may permit them to browse their goods, but sometimes businesses have requirements before you enter such as a dress code or admission fee. And also locking your doors at night "constrains freedom", right? I mean, doesn't the black customer have a right to come into the white storeowner's shop?!

Your distinction here between legal and social expectations contrast what you say later: 'It's about taking away your "freedom" to put a blanket ban on people on the basis of race, group, or class.' Here again I've argued private land owners should have that right, even if I think it's awful. But Democrats want to argue a moral yarn about private property isn't private because of some social or legal expectation. But when you show how private companies need to limit private spaces (bathrooms, admission entry, dress code, etc.), the Democrats then have to play verbal hopscotch to ensure they take into account how an actual business needs to run. It's lame. Which brings me to the next response...

>> ^NetRunner:
I gave an example where the line between public and private is blurry, you gave one where it is less so. I said a couple posts back that I believe there's a spectrum of ownership. Some objects, when owned, are clearly close to the libertarian ideal in terms of the benefits of ownership.

But who decides? This is another Democratic fallacy. You guys want a Utopia and want to meddle in all aspects of human life, but you're never practical about it. Your rules are more complicated than mapping the genome.

>> ^NetRunner:
I mean, that's the argument you're making here. On a Metro bus, discrimination is morally wrong (why?), but on a Greyhound bus, discrimination is the business owner's moral right, and should be enforced by the police if uppity negroes get it into their heads that they're people too.

Here again the Democrats believe the civil rights movement boiled down to a resistance against private business owners. Segregation was a much larger issue in America than that. Blacks were treated differently in armed forces, they weren't allowed to hold government jobs like policeman and firefighters, they were forced to go to substandard segregated public schools, and the corrupt justice system wouldn't give them a fair trial.

But that won't stop the Democrats from blaming private business for the civil rights movement. Damn history when you have political opinion.

We should'nt require a civil rights act in a free society, but the pressures of racism in a community government proved to embolden the democratic voice of the people much like the gays in California were recently silenced because of your precious democracy.

I get what you're saying, but I still think what he's proposing necessarily forces people to make value judgments that are beyond science. While science can find evidence of empathy in the brain it can't tell us whether such empathy is necessarily good or bad. Say there is a society that is more "empathetic" than another society and that first society is more materially well off. You can't jump to the conclusion that empathy is good for survival, because there are hundreds of variables that affect the wealth of a nation and furthermore correlation does not necessarily mean causation. It could very well be the case that being materially well off creates a more empathetic society (or creates the conditions that allow such a society to arise). Or it could just be a total fluke.

That's what I found unclear in his speech--how exactly is science making value judgments? Science is providing facts about the world, but it still requires human consciousness to interpret those facts in a meaningful way. And people will interpret the facts differently and this will lead to conflict (global warming, the various string theories, etc.). How that conflict is resolved (whether with words or guns, for instance) will depend on a lot of things--including the values of those participating in the conflict. So it seems like a Catch-22 to me. You're using science to try to come up with value judgments about things, but in order to do that you have to make value judgments about the data you've collected. You're right back where you started.

Changing topics a bit here, I find his argument about the Muslim dress code frivolous. He is specifically cherry-picking by using Taliban-style extremely fundamentalist Islam as representative of all Islamic beliefs. It is true that certain Islamic governments have created laws to enforce a power divide between men and women but it is equally true that not all Muslims share this view and that Islamic countries vary widely in what is considered appropriate dress. The Koran itself admonishes both men and women to be modest in their dress and actions. Obviously certain Islamic scholars have ignored the "men" part and focused on the women in order to pursue their own agendas and strengthen their own power. Sam Harris blames religion for this but I blame human nature. It doesn't matter whether we are talking about religion, a political ideology, law, or any other organized system--there will be humans in the world who will attempt to twist and exploit it to their own advantage and to the disadvantage of those they don't care about. The crusade against religion that people like Dawkins and Harris are waging is, in my opinion, a waste of time. If you really want to change the world, find a way to change fundamental human nature.

Ironically, I believe this is the true purpose of religion--to encourage us to change our base desires or harness them for use towards a greater good. For me, whether a God or gods actually exist is irrelevant. If religion can help people to overcome their own innate self-destructive or selfish tendencies and work together for the good of humankind, then it is a useful tool. But all tools can equally be used as weapons. That doesn't mean you get rid of the tool, though. The problems of religion that both Harris and Dawkins talk about aren't problems with religion per se but with how certain people have interpreted religion in ways that are self-serving. I don't think religion needs to be destroyed. But I do agree with Sam Harris that we need to be vigilant against those who would use religion--or any other organized system for that matter--in order to pursue their own ends, and we need to be willing to call a spade a spade and not keep silent for fear of being considered ethnocentric. That's why I have no problem criticizing the Taliban's interpretation of the Koran and Islamic law. It seems to me to be a thinly veiled grab for power and dominance that uses religion as its cover. I could say the same thing about the drive to ban gay marriages in the U.S. or a host of other issues. My point is that these things are not representative of religions as a whole but instead are examples of discrete individuals (mis-)using religions to further their own agendas.

Sorry for writing so much. Took me a while to sort out all my thoughts on the matter. If you made it this far, thanks for reading.

>> ^mgittle:


I don't think it's about majority vs. minority happiness the way you make it sound. It's not 51% vs. 49%. If you accept his argument at the end regarding the father killing his gay child out of "love", then you must accept that there exists a type of love/empathy that is healthy for a vast majority of a population.
For example, in Turkish, there are two words for love. One is the type of love one feels for their parents, siblings, close friends/community. The other is more like passion/infatuation and would never be used for family/friends. We lack this basic word-based distinction in English, so the idea of love often gets strangely twisted between the multiple types and sometimes requires convoluted explanations of one's feelings. This distinction is important because I believe the former type requires empathy to feel, and the latter type is more instinctual and does not require empathy.
Therefore, if you can argue that empathy is a good survival trait because it creates a stronger nation/culture/etc, then there must be scientific evidence for empathy in the brain and evidence that certain individuals lack empathetic brains for whatever reason.
I don't think he's arguing that "good for the majority = good for everyone" is something that works 100% of the time. Clearly, personal freedom is important, but when personal freedom/morality encroaches on the freedoms of others (such as his argument that culture forces "voluntary" body covering, or the aforementioned father-killing-gay-son argument) it is no longer a good thing for anyone involved.

>> ^Matthu:
What if the teacher is a man? What if there are no female teachers nearby? I know, we'll hire a woman specifically to I.D. anyone who has issues with a man seeing their face. That's reasonable accommodation.

No, that's a waste of money to accommodate some insane dogma.

It's not any more a violation of her rights than it would be a violation of the rights of a student who was afraid of bright lights to refuse to dim the lights in a classroom. She's partaking in services that involve other people, and therefore doesn't get to dictate all the terms. She can wear whatever she wants / do whatever she wants at home.

Also, if a female goes to certain Muslim countries while NOT wearing some full body covering, she'll get assaulted by police because of it. That's way worse than a school dress code. It's a symbol of the oppression of women because in many countries they still do not have the choice to not wear it.

>> ^xxovercastxx:
So you're very tolerant except of Muslims, foreigners and other cultures? Don't set that bar too high, now.
>> ^rougy:
Hard call for me. I'm all for tolerance, but I do remember a college professor forcing all of the guys to take off their ball caps in his class.
I also can't stand fundamentalist religions of any sort, especially the type that subjugates women, which I believe Islam does with these sorts of dress codes.
I'll also say that in western cultures, the concealment of the face is usually associated with criminal activity.
I kind of think...if a person wants to live their lives in such a backwards manner, how can they really expect to be treated otherwise in a modern, western, 21st century world?
I mean, fuck! A couple of Britons are going to jail in Dubai (I think) for kissing in public. Given that kind of social intolerance, I'm not going to get all worked up about this one just yet.



So my hat is douch-baggery and her face-hiding scarf is sacred?

I'm very tolerant. If you've looked at my words and trace them henceforth you might agree. But I have little patience for fundamentalists.

And I'll tell you why: because when the tables are turned, the fundamentalists will never afford the "secular world" the same tolerance that we afforded them.

I don't hate her. I hope she learns French, but more importantly I hope she learns how to take off that stupid fucking mask.

I do not apologize for that thought.

So you're very tolerant except of Muslims, foreigners and other cultures? Don't set that bar too high, now.
>> ^rougy:
Hard call for me. I'm all for tolerance, but I do remember a college professor forcing all of the guys to take off their ball caps in his class.
I also can't stand fundamentalist religions of any sort, especially the type that subjugates women, which I believe Islam does with these sorts of dress codes.
I'll also say that in western cultures, the concealment of the face is usually associated with criminal activity.
I kind of think...if a person wants to live their lives in such a backwards manner, how can they really expect to be treated otherwise in a modern, western, 21st century world?
I mean, fuck! A couple of Britons are going to jail in Dubai (I think) for kissing in public. Given that kind of social intolerance, I'm not going to get all worked up about this one just yet.

Hard call for me. I'm all for tolerance, but I do remember a college professor forcing all of the guys to take off their ball caps in his class.

I also can't stand fundamentalist religions of any sort, especially the type that subjugates women, which I believe Islam does with these sorts of dress codes.

I'll also say that in western cultures, the concealment of the face is usually associated with criminal activity.

I kind of think...if a person wants to live their lives in such a backwards manner, how can they really expect to be treated otherwise in a modern, western, 21st century world?

I mean, fuck! A couple of Britons are going to jail in Dubai (I think) for kissing in public. Given that kind of social intolerance, I'm not going to get all worked up about this one just yet.

please follow the dress code, women are to wear knee length dresses at work

i love chomsky.
and for those of you who think a teacher will not get pressured or terminated for promoting free- thinking and teaching skills to help foster that ability.think again.
i tried teaching in public schools and among the myriad of useless,banal and utterly foolish rules and regulations i.e:dress code,no earrings,cover my tattoos.
i had to deal with a curriculum that literally dictated not only what i taught but HOW i taught.
so what did they need me for?
anybody could read from a book and pass out assignments and take attendance.
NCLB is the greatest abomination in public education and creates not smarter students but the opposite.
thats why i only teach in alternative education.
or did.....trying to get into teaching in the prison system.
it has been a year.things do not look promising.

I've had chin hair since highschool. When I look at dress codes I always check to see if they address that. If they do, I promptly tell them that "My Wife Likes it".

That usually shuts them up, and my wife likes it. Yea, so you know what? Fuck you and your cartridge razor shaving mustaches.

Don't even get me started on that bullshit 17 dollars for a razor blade replacement bullshit.

I support Wet Shaving!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaving

I can understand dress code for some things... work, nice restaurants... but this is a fucking plane. Why should you put on a suit to be stuffed into a chair for a couple hours? First class might be less stuffed than coach, but it's still just a chair.

>> ^Sarzy:
>> ^rychan:
I thought that "jump suit" meant some type of skydiving outfit, which would indeed be awkward on a commercial flight.

Yeah. I believe his outfit was a track suit, not a jump suit.


I was curious so I just looked this up. 'Jumpsuit' originally referred to sky diving attire but later came to refer to any one-piece. It's pretty common to hear track suits referred to as jumpsuits, though.

>> ^demon_ix:
Followup: The cop seems to have bigger problems. He once shot his ex-wife's new husband 24 times, and managed to claim self defense... He's currently in prison on rape charges.
So, what we're saying here is that "police defending their own" allowed this man to commit murder, rape and assault on a minor.


>> ^ReverendTed:
What's the common thread in these police assault cases?
The common thread appears to be putting people with barely a highschool diploma and no experience that provides them the ability to cope with stress into positions of ultimate authority and then blindly defending their behavior as part of a 'code'.

it looks to me like the cop thought he had a weapon , there is no logical way to assault sum one like that in a school , the cop is going to know there r cameras so its well strange ,

if its actually the cop doing it for the dress code reasoin its mental lol.