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on Questioning Police Policy
Reply to socialjustice Pt I: A person who doesn't want to live the day out poses a particularly knotty problem because of the phenomenon of "suicide by cop." In other words, one way of committing suicide if you find you don't have the nerve to do it yourself is to force someone else to do it for you. How to do that? Well, you behave so as to bring cops to the scene and then you either begin to harm someone, threaten to harm someone, or APPEAR to begin to harm someone. I seriously doubt if a "properly trained mental health professional" could make the situation safer for the innocent parties involved, which has to be the police's main concern when confronted with someone who doesn't want to see the day out. I have little hope that someone the suicidal individual doesn't know is going to have much effect by reminding them that things might get better, that people love them, and so on. And how to do that without placing people in further potential harm is another interesting question.
posted 3 years, 3 months ago
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on Questioning Police Policy
Reply to socialjustice Pt II: Police are on patrol all the time, so there is going to be a lag time between when they get there and the "trained mental health professional" gets there, possibly in many cases after being rousted out of bed. So, much of the time it's going to be up to the cops to deal with the situation. Even in situations where the cops make a mistake, such as when a person APPEARS to be reaching for a weapon but has none, that may actually have been done to provoke the police into action. Waiting for a "trained mental health professional" to arrive turns out to be one of those dreamily impractical and silly solutions to line up along with "shoot him in the leg." A person with a gun who's been shot in the leg still probably has a gun. But of course this leads to further silliness like "shoot the gun out of his hand." I think except in cases where cops pretty clearly executed someone, we need to make their job easier rather than harder by stopping all this second guessing.
posted 3 years, 3 months ago
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on Religious Clothing in the Classroom
Reply to Slak Pt II
Slak wrote: Most likely, the school is going to make you take it off because it is accepted as a religious symbol regardless of your belief. I do not see how this poses any issues.
My reply is: It does if the purpose of the law is to prevent proselytizing. No proselytizing, then the law should not apply.
Slak wrote: As far as not wearing headgear goes... Tell me the difference between a man not wearing a hat and a man not wearing a hat because it is his religion.
My reply is: Tell me, how can you tell the difference between a teacher wearing a headscarf because it is required by her religion and one whosimply likes headscarves.
Slak wrote: Or a man wearing shorts and a man wearing shorts because his religion forbids pants. You can't tell the difference, and that's the point.
My reply is: And as you can see by my point, you stepped into my trap. Simply because a woman is wearing a headscarf, you can't see into her brain to tell if she's a muslim or not.
Slak wrote: Personally, I value Freedom of - and Freedom from Religion equally. Mainly because they are both expressly given in the Constitution, and the rights of the state (teachers) should never trump the rights of individual citizens (students). Ever.
My reply is: Our country was founded by people running from a society attempting to control their religion. That was the pilgrims. Later on, our founding fathers (the ones who wrote the Constitution) were quite obviously more concerned with allowing people to practice their religion than with preventing people from expressing it.
A woman in a headscarf teaching math may be giving a reminder of her faith, but I really can't understand how that oppresses students any more than if her clothing reveals she likes pastel colors or tweed.
This is all a lot of looney left silliness, except that it's oppressive of a religious minority.
posted 3 years, 3 months ago
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on Religious Clothing in the Classroom
Reply to Slak Pt I
Slak wrote: You side with religious minorities, but do you side with minorities that most religions oppress? The example scottmil gave is homosexuals. Should homosexual students have to be reminded every day that their teacher (most likely) believes they are evil?
My reply is: I side with freedom of thought, expression, and speech. I have to put up with jokes about bald guys or old people, both things I AM and do not CHOOSE to be. Why should homosexuals get better treatment than I do? BTW, you charicature the religious view of homosexuals. In most cases they feel homosexuals are wrong (sinful) not evil. Evil is unredeemable.
Slak wrote: As far as people wearing headscarves because they think they are cool goes... Schools can set dress codes. If the headscarf is religious, it has to come off by law.
My reply is: Perhaps you missed the theme of the show, which was whether the law should change.
Slak wrote: If it is not religious, then you are at the mercy of the dress code.
My reply is: Assuming there is one. If the state Supreme Court finds that the dress code is intended primarily to oppress religious expression, well they might invalidate the law. This isn't like the case of the Islamic woman who refused to uncover her face for her driver's license. In this case, there would have to be something more important than our freedom of religion.
posted 3 years, 3 months ago
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on Religious Clothing in the Classroom
If we're going to keep anyone who believes strongly that there is only one way to do something out of the classroom, that is going to be monumentally intrusive. I'm an atheist, but I side with religious minorities because "There but for fortune go I." It would be wrong for a math teacher to preach Islam, but to say that she or he can't look Islamic violates both our Free Speech and our Freedom of Religion. I raised this issue before: suppose a teacher wants to wear a headscarf but she is NOT Islamic. If we forbid her to do that, then what about a religion that FORBIDS headgear of any kind? Will we then require those teachers to wear hats to class because not wearing headgear is an expression of religious faith? I see the freedom TO practice one's religion (or irreligion) as far more important than any freedom FROM it. I'm no friend of Islam: I have plenty of problems with their beliefs and practices, but let's keep our society free.
posted 3 years, 3 months ago
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on Religious Clothing in the Classroom
Okay, suppose someone wants to wear the Islamic headscarf but they aren't Islamic. She just thinks it looks "cool." So, she's wearing the headscarf, she'd NOT proselytizing, she's NOT making any sort of religious statement, it has NO religious significance. I guess as long as it's simply clothing and not religious clothing it'd be okay to wear it then? That doesn't make sense.
Now, I'm starting a religion in which shirts and pants are required attire for boys. Now, I guess boys won't be allowed to wear shirts and pants to school. They'll be coming to school in swimsuits and bathrobes.
If you want REAL separation of church and state then the state should stay out of this, neither recommending nor forbidding any sort of attire on religious grounds.
posted 3 years, 3 months ago
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