"About 75% of the American people favour the criminalization of partial birth abortions"
I doubt your statistics are accurate, but in any event they are irrelevant to whether or not oppression of a woman's body may be rationally justified. The breakdown of people who do, or do not favour criminalization of abortions was not being disputed, so your comment is extraneous, gratuitous, and irrelevant. I could tell you that the Christian Presbyterian Church supports Full and Complete access to ALL medical abortions WITHOUT criminalization, but my comment would likewise be irrelevant to the discussion.
"There is no "vast majority of people" blah blah blah"
Well, I said the vast majority do not ("seems to fairly describe the vast majority of people who believe that a woman is not a chattel to society"), and you said ALL people do not. Hardly a huge disagreement. I had considered the long history of patriarchy in sexual and property matters. I had considered the religious conditions of the past and the present. I had considered the fact of women's liberation which goes on apace today. You have heard of it and do understand what it is about, I presume??
Thank you, but I think I will prefer my characterization that a minority of people consider women chattel; and you may keep your certainty that "NO ONE" does! Your statement is extreme and there are countless examples to show that it is (like most extreme and ultimate statements) as wrong as wrain.
"The State may compel you to give a blood or urine sample in a criminal investigation"
I am afraid you are misunderstanding the idea of "an absolute right to ones body". The social contract with the State permits rational people to allow legal exceptions to being touched under stringent conditions. This is not a violation because it is done by agreement to follow reasonable laws. The fact that I have sexual intercourse does not mean my absolute right to my body has been violated, no more than my giving a DNA sample violates my right unless it is done illegally.
Also, an absolute right does NOT mean that anyone has absolute POWER to prevent violation. I can prove to the Court that you owe me $10.00 to an absolute certainty (given the limitations of human comprehension). This does NOT mean that I will get the $10.00. So if you do come up with an example of violation, this will not speak to the point of the right, which is rather decided conceptually by reason--and is not sacrosanct in practice.
"The State is in the morality business, upholding those values that affect the good order and well- being of society."
OUCH. You are an American citizen, and you have the nerve to say that? Your forefathers fled from State imposed moral dogma and gave their lives in the revolution so that people could be free to choose their own moral persuasions as autonomous individuals--protected by a Constitution which sets out and succeeds in limiting the role of Government to that of regulating society such that fundamental rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are safeguarded and given pre-eminent value. You have a lot of nerve to counsel for the State's involvement in morality. You will not be surprised to know that I am repulsed by your disdain for your Constitution and your insensitivity to your history,
History reminds us of the countless ideologues who established their morality police from Catholicism to Communism--causing slaughter and wars as they "cleansed" society of "evil". Those who think they know what is best for others will of course always be pleased to have the State reflect moral legislation provided it is part of their own hidebound ideology. But I bet they would be quite pissed if it was that of some other ideological group.
ANY moral legislation by the State ensures that one or more religions are being favoured at the expense of others since ALL religions are fundamentally characterized by moral dogma and values. The State has no business in the personal moral choices of people except when they violate the rights of others in society. The State is to represent ALL people equally. It cannot do so when it favours the moral values or religious beliefs of some over others.
The only hopeful thing I can take from your incredible insensitivity to the rights of your fellow citizens is that this is the first indication from you (at least so far as I am aware) that you believe morality to be a non-religious commodity.
"Morality Police"??? The Founding Fathers would have gone back to England and begged for asylum. Now, I'm curious: would these Morality Police overrule what was being taught at mommy's knee?
The State is NOT in the morality business. The State is there to reflect the common interests of her individual members and to make and enforce laws which regulate their behaviour with regards to one another such that fundamental rights are preserved. When I say it is not in the business of morality, I mean it ought not to adopt any particular religious dogma. The idea of "morality" is usually linked to one or another religious sect or movement to which the State ought to maintain a discreet neutrality. I agree that the State must preserve order. But to say that the State is in the morality business is to mock the Constitution and to discredit the people who fashioned it to protect the individual from the moral coerciveness of others.
America should repeal the last of her morality laws, and allow her citizens to act with moral choice rather than blind obedience or disobedience to some "State" morality. After all, if the State is in the morality business, then there is nothing to prevent the State from acting like this:
I wonder how many would feel comfortable living here?
iranexpert.com
Iran: New 'morality police' units generate controversy
"Over the past month, Tehran residents have watched a new group of uniformed men begin patrolling the capital's streets in black four-wheel-drive vehicles. The men have severely beaten several young people, but until this week, there was no official word on just who the uniformed men are.
Now, the Iranian police department has officially announced they are a new morality force to combat what they call social corruption among the young.
The new men in uniform have attracted a lot of attention in Tehran since they started driving around the streets in their black four- wheel-drive vehicles about four weeks ago.
One reason they were noticed was that their cars -- unlike many official vehicles in the capital -- were shiny and new, indicating that they were some kind of elite force. Another reason was the way they were dressed: with black berets to match the color of their cars and -- according to some witnesses -- not just small arms but a grenade strapped to the waist.
The elite force's trappings immediately gave rise to all sorts of popular speculation regarding its function. Some rumors suggested they were paratroopers specializing in antiterrorism and even that they were bomb experts, trained in spotting and defusing explosives.
But the activities of the new force -- which numbers several hundred men -- seemed to have little to do with safeguarding the public against violent threats. Instead, they appeared mainly interested in chasing down young people who were listening to music or, in the case of young women, wearing makeup or less than full-length outer garments over their clothing.
At the end of last month, passers-by were horrified to see a group of the new policemen catch a young woman dressed in a knee-length white outer coat that was a little short of the standard length prescribed by the Islamic Republic's female dress code. The dress code is intended to ensure females maintain a modest public appearance in accordance with religious values.
One eyewitness, who gave his name as Hussein, described the attack "They are in green uniforms, they have a grenade at the waist, submachine guns, black berets and new black Toyotas. One of them stopped a woman who was wearing a short, white overcoat, criticized her for her makeup, then kicked her so hard between the legs that blood spattered and turned the coat red. One searched her pocket while another grabbed her head and banged it on his car window and her blood was smudged on the window. Then he released her, but told her to wipe the blood off the window of his car."
This week, the police department officially informed the public as to the identity of the new patrolmen. Hassan Zakeri, the public relations chief of the Iranian police department, told the evening "Etelaat" newspaper that "60 special patrols have been formed to deal with obvious offenses in society."
He said that the new force is concentrating on arresting drug addicts and cracking down on people who harass women and exhibit un-Islamic behavior. Un-Islamic behavior includes males and females who are not related walking in public together, parties, listening to music, and drinking alcohol -- all punishable by fines, jail terms, or flogging.
That makes the elite force -- whose name is simply "the Special Units," or Yegan-i Vizhe -- the newest group among an already large number of volunteer, semi-official, and regular police organizations that concern themselves with enforcing public morality.
These range from vigilantes affiliated with the Ansar-i Hezbollah group -- who roam through parks and shopping areas to upbraid and sometimes beat unrelated couples -- to quasi-state units tasked with the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice which raid house parties and arrest guests. They also include police tasked with inspecting public places like restaurants to assure no parties are held or music played there.
But if one more addition to the already large number of morality patrolmen in Iran might seem unremarkable, the deliberate high visibility of the new force, and its violence, have made it immediately controversial.
Late last month, the reformist daily "Noruz" called in editorials for official explanations as to why the new force was created, what its precise responsibilities are, and how it will carry those out. The paper also questioned the need for the police to arrest "every day in every district [of the capital] tens of young people" over laws on dress and behavior, and warned that such actions risk alienating the youth.
The critics have also included reformist members of parliament and, according to some reports, the Intelligence Ministry, which has asked the police to withdraw the Special Units from Tehran's streets.
Some observers in Tehran say that the criticism seems to be having some effect. Nemat Ahmedi, a Tehran lawyer, says that in recent days the new force has become less visible on the streets, possibly in response to the outcry. "It didn't take even a month before their public presence was reduced because they invade people's privacy, they had to have a warrant of arrest from a judge and [without the warrants] there was the possibility of skirmishes. Officials such as parliamentary deputies [and from] the Supreme National Security Council got involved, and [top security official] Sardar Ghalibaf was made to answer to criticisms."
The presence of new special forces charged with enforcing public order is particularly sensitive for reformists because their deployment comes as part of a continuing hard-line-led crackdown against reformist demands for greater political and personal freedoms.
That crackdown has seen the closure of scores of reformist papers including, this week, an appeals court upholding a lower court's banning of the largest reformist paper, "Noruz." It also has revived what many reformists see as the objectionable practice of public floggings and hangings. In one dramatic case last summer, some 45 men arrested for drinking alcohol or accompanying women other than their relatives were flogged publicly in scenes seen by thousands of families driving out of the capital to weekend recreation spots.
The emergence of the new, highly motivated Special Units also underlines the fact that hard-liners -- who control the country's Judiciary and security forces -- can continue to draw on large numbers of young people in the society who have conservative values and are willing to crack down on those who seek change.
Lawyer Ahmedi says some early rumors that the new Special Units were recruited from non-Iranians or among sons of particularly economically deprived families are unfounded. He says that, instead, they appear to be drawn from the hundreds of thousands of draftees and university graduates who enter the military each year and stay on with the security forces, which provides secure employment.
"I think this is just a rumour that they are from other countries. They are Iranians. They are draftees, they enter at age 18 and they serve in the army. We have a young society, there are people and families that are pro-military and would like their male children to join the military when they enter the job market."
The need to find a secure job is increasingly important because some two-thirds of Iran's population is under 30 but the country's socialist-style economy is not growing fast enough to generate sufficient new jobs. The British weekly "The Economist" reported last month that some one million Iranians enter the labour market each year, but there are jobs for less than half of them. Unemployment is unofficially estimated at 18 percent and rising." |
