the key to your question–well, to my answer at least–is when.
I have carried a moderately large knife onto a plane. It was pre-9/11, and I always carry a Swiss Army knife on my key chain. The one I carry now has a puny 2" blade. The one I used to carry was closer to four: just about the span for my palm, which, for whatever reason, used to be the rule of thumb for acceptable blade length on airplanes.
Pre-9/11, you would have thought that common sense would dictate that knives on planes was a bad idea. The idea may have been sensible, but it certainly wasn’t commonly held, or often thought about. Now we know better. Knives on planes are now a pressing and substantial concern, and therefore rightly prohibited. So just like the gate keepers, once upon a time, I probably would have said ok. Now I wouldn’t.
Obviously, it’s not going to take a catastrophe of like magnitude to demonstrate that kirpans represent a pressing and substantial concern. How could such a threat ever be demonstrated in advance? I don’t know. A sufficiently reasonable, clear thought experiment may do it. Evidentiary support would be nice. As it is, now, I’m unconvinced, and more importantly, the Supreme Court is unconvinced. When I am convinced, I’m change my position.
Is the mere fact that human nature is unpredictable and the kirpan a deadly weapon enough? Enough for what? Reasonable constraints, certainly. That’s simple prudence and doesn’t upset the apple cart. An outright ban? No, I don’t think so. But, if the majority feels otherwise, so be it. However, when it is determined that even reasonably secured kirpans are not permitted in public (not talking about schools here), I want to see legitimately owned and secured firearms prohibited as well. After all, which is poses a more substantial and pressing concern to more people, a ceremonial blade or a firearm?
you’ve expressed a desire to be “free from religion.” I remember in Gr. 5, classes still began with the Lord’s Prayer. Students who were uncomfortable with that were given a choice of going through the motions, or leaving the class for a time. They were compelled to leave, or act contrary to the dictates of their conscience. It was wrong. This school board instructed the boy to disregard an important tennet of his religion, or stay at home. That’s wrong, and the particular tennet hasn’t (yet) been found to be so outrageous or contrary to the public good as to merit an outright ban. Both sides were working towards a perfectly reasonable accomodation until one side decided to play the heavy. They lost. To tell the truth, I believe that everyone lost: a reasonable accomodation would have been better of all.
You raise the issue of accomodating religous headgear. You don’t like it. Would you have also decreed that the French should not have been able to maintain their system of civil law, or use their language in official transactions because the English majority didn’t like it at the time? Does it matter that they were one of the founding nations? Will it still matter when native Mandarin speakers outnumber native French speakers?
Accomodation is a process and virtue that made the country happen in the first place. It was instrumental in attracting immigrants–the Doukhabors and Hutterites provide two minor examples–when the country desperately needed boots on the ground, and continues to be a strong pull for many migrants. 90 years ago, the “you don’t (or won’t) fit in so we don’t want you” line of reasoning was used to drive away 350 East Indian immigrants–mostly professionals with much needed skills in upstart B.C.–on the Komagata Maru. That was more than just dumb and wrong: shooting ourselves in the foot just to spit in their eye.
Lines like, “Accept that or don’t apply” simply slam the door on good people. I haven’t noticed a surplus of good people, so why would we do that? As you say, “The police force has real problems to deal with.” So does broader society. So what’s the benefit in fighting this kind of rearguard action?
Here you went clear off the rails. The federal, provincial and municiple governments are the country’s largest employer by far. If there is a pattern of discrimination against any citizen it is a major isssue.[/quote] I’m not a big fan of affirmative action programs. I’m even less of a fan of racial profiling (which I’ve made clear elsewhere), and I have strong issues with cultural rights being assigned on the basis of race (one of the great weaknesses of multiculturalism). But I’m willing to look at the broader picture and ask whether or not visible minorities get less than a fair shake at private sector jobs, and whether or not a few more spots in public sector jobs balances the broader equation. Does it? I don’t know. To tell the truth, at this point I’m not worried about it. I don’t do resentment all that well.
porcelainprincess, critical mass certainly is important in shaping immigrant communities, but it’s not of disproportionate consequence. You wouldn’t want 30,000 Arab Muslims descending on your sleepy city of 30,000? Ok. I wouldn’t want the population of my home town to double overnight either, even if all of the immigrants were sexy single swimsuit models. Well… maybe in that case, but otherwise? No.
But the numbers argument doesn’t really hold up. Ever been to Steveston, just across the river from Vancouver? Huge Japanese community. Outremont, Que? Hasidic Jews. Places all across the prairies? German. All of those communities, despite maintaining a critical mass, are well-integrated. Sure, unlike the others, the Germans don’t really stand out all that much unless you know what you’re looking for, but stand out or not, they’re as Canadian as anyone else. And yet, fear of ‘hoards of Huns’ on the prairies led directly to internment camps during WWI. Fear of the ‘yellow peril’, brought on more internment camps–for the Japanese that time–in WWII. And for the kicker, prejudice against Jews led to turning away of a boatload of refugees during WWII, some of whom ended up gassed. All that harm, sprung from all that fear and prejudice, and for what? Looking at those communities today, what was the point? They’re as Canadian as anyone else. So why?
What makes the Muslim case any different? From what I’ve seen of Montreal–where the Muslim population now outnumbers the long-standing Jewish population, and where I was frequently mistaken for an Arab Muslim–the process of integration is following the same, sometimes bumpy road. So–other than the fact that today’s immigrants aren’t setting up independent, isolated communities, but are thrown right into the the mix with everyone else–what’s different? What makes this fear right when the others were so clearly wrong?
[quote=“porcelainprincess”. But ten, twenty or thirty mosques with their concomitantly large population of Muslims agitating and getting city hall to allow them to blast the call to prayer five times a day so that you can hear it wherever you live?
Gawd no. This is already happening in Detroit. Limit the numbers and you avoid critical mass, making issues such as this easier to handle.[/quote]
Really? I haven’t seen anything in the U.S, news about problems stemming from this. Please enlighten me.
Not arguing with you, just that the U.S. is a large country and not every story is going to make the national news. hat have you heard?
You prove my point. The multicultural ethic has us bent over backwards so far that we have now banned prayer but allow knives to be carried into schools for religious purposes. How insane is that? One would hope that multiculturalism would carry us forward, away from the dictates of religious dogma. In this case it seems to have done the opposite.
A police officer’s hat is part of his uniform, something that is required because it makes him recognizable as a police officer. If someone
[quote=“trebuchet”][quote=“porcelainprincess”] But ten, twenty or thirty mosques with their concomitantly large population of Muslims agitating and getting city hall to allow them to blast the call to prayer five times a day so that you can hear it wherever you live?
Gawd no. This is already happening in Detroit. Limit the numbers and you avoid critical mass, making issues such as this easier to handle.[/quote]
Really? I haven’t seen anything in the U.S, news about problems stemming from this. Please enlighten me.
Not arguing with you, just that the U.S. is a large country and not every story is going to make the national news. hat have you heard?[/quote]
If you don’t think having to hear the call to prayer five times a day is a problem, then bully for you. I think it’s a big problem.
I was in Java last year and I was amazed at what an omni-present thing the call to prayer is. Booming loud and intimidating as hell, at least to me, at least in the beginning. Whether it’s purpose is to drive non-believers away or not I don’t know but I can guess that would be the effect in a lot of instances. Muslims probably argue that it is not a lot different from church bells and they have a point. Church bells should be banned too.
Jaboney – thanks for posting the actual law and the test, since I don’t follow Canadian law that was very informing. Under the law as written and the Oates test, I think your analysis is spot on.
However, I don’t particularly favor the Canadian writing of the law. Perhaps its just my American-ness coming out, but I tend to like the 1st amendment phrasing where its written as 1) a restriction on government (as opposed to a guaranteed right). and 2) it has the twofold restriction that Congress can’t prohibit or recognize and establishment of religion. IMO #1)having a guaranteed right is ill-advised because inevitably “guaranteed” rights will at some point conflict, and the two part statement forces the courts to walk the line between establishing and prohibiting religion – a clause that admittedly sometimes leads to sticky situations – but forces the court to “walk the line” so to speak, between the two.
I’m missing something though. Why do you think that the two part statement forces the courts to walk the line between establishing and prohibiting religion? The law is written to enable people to pursue their own ends (religious or otherwise, within reason), but not to promote any particular end.
Church bells ring once a week on Sunday. They are also not as obnoxious to western ears (in spite of our official policy of multiculturalism, Canada is a western country, remember?) because we are accustomed to hearing them. Which ties into my next point:
Canada is a western nation founded on Judeo-Christian principles and cultural norms. It doesn’t matter how much the Christian far right love to point this out as well, because it’s true, and is the reason that people want to immigrate here in the first place. (Before the airhead lefties want to object, think about it for a moment…those principles and cultural norms were the bedrock upon which the societies we have today, with their concomitant freedoms, etc., were built–slightly indirect, but still true.) Which ties in to my next point:
Like all western nations (though slightly less so for the USA), the veritable force of post-enlightenment reason has driven our societies toward securalism in the public sphere. Not that many church bells even ring anymore. Allowing any cultural group to invade the public sphere with the totem of any religion (much less a backward one as Islam) is utterly, utterly flabbergasting to me.
How do you define invasive? Here’s how I do it:
a. Calls to prayer lasting one minute each five times per day heard all over a town or city.
b. Too many women covered up. I’m comfortable going to the supermarket and seeing the odd family with a women covered from head to toe, but I would never want to live in a neighbourhood where the majority of women were covered, and I strongly believe that we should limit the chances for this to happen. Why? Critical mass. Did you hear the story about the Islamic school in Chicago with a girls basketball team? Naturally, no humans with dangly bits between their legs are allowed to watch them play because the girls aren’t covered from head to toe. Problem is, there are only four such schools with teams in the city, and they want to play other teams for more competition. In order for this to happen, the other teams would have to prevent any humans with dangly bits between their legs from watching (includes dads, brothers, grandpa, etc.). The school supervisors are sympathetic that principals of public schools might not be able to arrange games like this, but still, the very fact that this is beginning to happen is disturbing in the extreme. And what happens when you have critical mass? Should this kind of thing become normative in even more regions North America? Allah forbid!
c. Okay, let’s not mince words: I don’t want to live in a society with too many damn Muslims! Okay? There, I said it. I don’t like their religion, and don’t want to be anywhere near it. They’ve already got their countries. I want this one.
d. About native Canadians and Americans and the Europeans’ treatment of same, before the fine whines start that they only wanted this one too: Without justifying the brutalities that the Europeans visited on them (mostly due to germs, but still, not nice), they were not a monolithic whole in any way, shape or form. There was no such thing as “Indian culture”: that’s a post European-invasian creation. Global population and various pressures were such that “discovering” the Americas and “colonizing” them were inevitable. From a moral and ethical standpoint, the resulting societies are far and away better in just about any metric you can name than were the brutal societies that existed here prior to the arrival of the Europeans. And they can thank their lucky stars it was the Europeans who came here, and not representatives from other empires. How many treaties do you think Attila the Hun would have signed with them? How about the Ottomans?
(Okay, I know I’m ranting. I think I need to get back to work.)
Welll by my reading of the Canadian rule, the court seems to be able to error on the side of sanctioning given religious practices. In general terms I don’t see this as a bad thing, but I think taken to its end, you have a situation where the most demanding religion will win out. Inevitably there are certain clashes between religions (or religion vs. nonreligion) that each want their beliefs to be reflected by the law. In such a situation, the majority wins out might pass laws that don’t necessarily forbid the practice of another religion, but do essentially impose thier own practices on the others (the prayer bells example earlier might make a good illustration). In such a situation, I think the rule against respecting an establishment draws a line that says how far is too far.
Church bells ring once a week on Sunday. They are also not as obnoxious to western ears…[/quote]
Tell that to Nietzsche, hell tell it to anyone who isn’t a christian soldier in our enlightened west… Personally speaking as a militant agnostic (I don’t know and neither do you!), I slightly prefer non-judeo-christian religious displays, at least it’s not the same old shit, but strange new shit.
Bottom line: As a rugged-individualist westerner type, I say “Keep it fair or fuck your religion.” If your god-damned church can be waking me up with a hangover, so can that other asshole’s church.
Tell that to Nietzsche, hell tell it to anyone who isn’t a christian soldier in our enlightened west… Personally speaking as a militant agnostic (I don’t know and neither do you!), I slightly prefer non-judeo-christian religious displays, at least it’s not the same old shit, but strange new shit.
Bottom line: As a rugged-individualist westerner type, I say “Keep it fair or fuck your religion.” If your god-damned church can be waking me up with a hangover, so can that other asshole’s church.[/quote]
As a non-militant agnostic who is sympathetic to your sense of militancy (but hey, I’ve got family members who go to church–I’m happy to bow my head as they say grace before a meal, no problem. Furthermore, I have relatives by marriage who are Muslim–I’m happy to not have pork served at communal meals, and they are happy to respectfully remain quiet while the Christian grace is being said), I don’t think you’re being completely honest or serious. Sure, my travels in Muslim countries were interesting and involved lots of “strange new shit,” but the experiences were fun because they were over there. Fun for a while, but as I get older and reevaluate many of the precious notions forced upon me in my university classes back in the day, I’ve come to realize what a damn good thing we’ve got going here. “Western Civ has got to go?” Over my dead body!
And as I said, there aren’t too many church bells going off in Ontario anymore anyway, though I can’t speak for the US or the UK. And public expressions of Christianity are already being severely limited and/or challenged in the western world–why allow Islamic religious expressions to fill in the void? This is what I find f’ucking batty!
By the way, Jaboney, I appreciate the contributions you’ve made to this thread, but I just wanted to get in a quick dig:
[quote=“Jaboney”]Quickly, because I’ve just gotten home and have to run…
[quote=“porcelainprincess”]After all, ask any 70 year-old if, thirty years ago, they would have believed you if you’d told them that in the year 2006 the Supreme Court would make it okay for only certain people to bring weapons to school. They would have laughed in your face. Impossible!
Did you catch that “only certain people” that I italicized? Yep. Think about that one, Jaboney. In all your rhapsodizing over the veritably catholic and non-discriminatory nature of this ruling, you’ve overlooked the, erm, supreme irony at work here: Not everyone gets to take weapons to school.[/quote]
I’m sorry, where’s the irony? The policy is multiculturalism, not panculturalism.
Take that up with the bogeyman. Western civ does NOT christianity equal. The legacy of the Freethinkers is decidedly western, as is more modern god-less concepts like existentialism.
I will happily sit through any PRIVATE prayers if it means I’m getting grub and I don’t have to say anything I don’t believe. What I don’t want is any kind of (state sanctioned) favoritism or discrimination towards christianity, islam, satanism, atheism, anything. (I’m opposed to state recognition of marriages gay and straight, because I think marriage is a religious institution.) Muslim girls can’t wear head scarves in parts of our enlightened west, yet a christian prayer was offered at my public high school graduation. I just haven’t had the experiences to lead me to concede that christians got it so bad, or that they are much beyond other faiths in the tolerance dept.
You’re free to think I ain’t being honest, but I assure you I am as serious as a heart attack. Incidently, none of this was picked up in the ivory tower, but as a religious minority in small-town america, before heading to college. School actually mellowed me quite a bit on this front. About Canadia I would only say that if christians there are forbidden from ringing churchbells, while muslims can broadcast calls to prayer it’s total bullshit. I would like to see some documentation, first though.
porcelainprincess, I’m not trying to be a prick, or provocative. But the only inequality you’ve demonstrated is your own unequal tolerance for putting up with displays of faith. You want to get in a quick dig? You’re digging quite the holefor yourself.
You don’t want “this one” for Christendom, nor for reason and the Enlightenment, but only for the familiar. Church bells don’t offend western ears but the call to prayer does? Come on! Church bells ring once a week? LOL. Three doors down from grandma’s, they toll the hours.
And this?
That kind of attitude tests my own limits. Remind me, what’s the line at which we cease to tolerate intolerance? How far is too far? Is it a mosque? Two? Any sign of ‘foreign’ religiosity? Too many strange signs? gasp Is it Vancouver? Is a 40% Asian population in a major city too much? Should I, not wishing to offend, therefore not return with my SO? Should my whiter-than-white cousin and her brown Muslim husband leave, or just him? How about their kids? I understand where you’re coming from. When my cousin told her mother about the nice Indian Muslim guy she was dating, my pathetic aunt’s response was, “Oh no! You know how I feel about those people!” My cousin laughed in her mother’s face. What a great reaction.
Don’t worry. My aunt got used to her new son-in-law. He’s comfortably familiar now, and all of the old idiocy has faded away. Give it time and half a chance… or wait until one of your kids brings a nice Muslim boy or girl home…
[quote=“s.b.”] Bottom line: As a rugged-individualist westerner type, I say “Keep it fair or fuck your religion.” If your god-damned church can be waking me up with a hangover, so can that other asshole’s church.[/quote] Amen! I’ll drink to that.
[quote=“Jaboney”]porcelainprincess, I’m not trying to be a prick, or provocative. But the only inequality you’ve demonstrated is your own unequal tolerance for putting up with displays of faith. You want to get in a quick dig? You’re digging quite the holefor yourself.
You don’t want “this one” for Christendom, nor for reason and the Enlightenment, but only for the familiar. Church bells don’t offend western ears but the call to prayer does? Come on! Church bells ring once a week? LOL. Three doors down from grandma’s, they toll the hours.[/quote]
Yes, I have an unequal tolerance for displays of faith. And what of it? Is that supposed to be some kind of insult? Don’t tell me you actually believe that all faiths/cultures are created equal!
And how exactly is my stance contradictory with an adherence to post-Enlightenment thinking? How could a preference for western culture to Islamic culture possibly be “digging a hole for myself” outside a fem. lit. seminar (a bizarre situation in and of itself)?
That kind of attitude tests my own limits. Remind me, what’s the line at which we cease to tolerate intolerance? How far is too far? Is it a mosque? Two? Any sign of ‘foreign’ religiosity? Too many strange signs? gasp Is it Vancouver? Is a 40% Asian population in a major city too much? Should I, not wishing to offend, therefore not return with my SO? Should my whiter-than-white cousin and her brown Muslim husband leave, or just him? How about their kids? I understand where you’re coming from. When my cousin told her mother about the nice Indian Muslim guy she was dating, my pathetic aunt’s response was, “Oh no! You know how I feel about those people!” My cousin laughed in her mother’s face. What a great reaction. [/quote]
Blathering incoherence. You clearly don’t understand where I’m coming from because you’re too lost in a fog of feel-good bullshit. You’re unwilling to deal with real and pressing questions of immigration and how it impacts society. To be a prick about it.
Let me turn around and ask you your question: “How far is too far?” Should there by no regional limits on immigration? Is everything just completely hunky-dory? Just let them all in? What are your thoughts on the problems Europe are having?
Here’s an even more pointed question: How would you, as a cartoonist in Vancouver, say, like to have had 12 Muslim men come to your 12-year-old daughter’s school looking for her? Eh? To have had thousands of Muslims marching through the streets of Vancouver calling for the death of cartoonists, the end of Western civilization, etc.? To live in a neighbourhood in Vancouver in which your wife and your daughters fear to walk the streets alone because they’ve been taunted and harrassed for dressing “provocatively,” and other women have been attacked? It’s not happening in Chinese Vancouver, because the Chinese are not beholden to a medieval religion at odds with the post-enlightenment West.
I already said I don’t mind two mosques in the nearby city of 300,000 people. But I honestly would be disturbed if there were 20. Or 40.
You honestly wouldn’t mind raising a family in an American or European city that was 70% Muslim? Calls to prayer five times a day? Can’t buy pork? Girls not dressing to standard harrassed all the time? No problem, eh?
Can you honestly say there really is no line for you? Are you really such a studmuffin of multiculti principles that you’d be just as happy living in Cairo as Vancouver? I’m not talking about parachuting in for a year as a foreign journalist or shit like that. I’m talking about raising a family, not being able to leave cause you’re tied to a job and you can’t sell your house. You’re in Cairo for good.
It’s all okay?
How far is too far? Exactly. You’re not interested in the question. I am.
I agree with you to a large extent, but I think going so far as to not allow anything that can be linked to a religious purpose might be a little too far. Marriage is obviously linked to religion, but I think it’s something that serves a legitimate non-religious purpose. I think the same is true of most Western laws that deal at all with morals or ethics. Although almost any ethical or moral idea that the law recognizes can be traced back to a Christian movement of some type, but most of the ones that are still around serve independent purposes (for example laws against fraud). I’d draw the line closer to laws that purely or predominantly promote religious purposes.
Anyway, nice chatting with everyone, I’m going to duck out of this one for a while. (though i’ll make sure and check to see any reponses)
[quote=“porcelainprincess”]Yes, I have an unequal tolerance for displays of faith. And what of it? Is that supposed to be some kind of insult? Don’t tell me you actually believe that all faiths/cultures are created equal!
And how exactly is my stance contradictory with an adherence to post-Enlightenment thinking? How could a preference for western culture to Islamic culture possibly be “digging a hole for myself” outside a fem. lit. seminar (a bizarre situation in and of itself)?
[…]
Okay, let’s not mince words: I don’t want to live in a society with too many damn Muslims! Okay? There, I said it. I don’t like their religion, and don’t want to be anywhere near it. They’ve already got their countries. I want this one.[/quote]
I absolutely believe that all faiths are equally in the dark. All cultures get some things right, some wrong. Objectively, some get it right more often than others. Like you, I prefer to live in some places rather than others. Like you, like most everyone, those preferences are based on familiarity, on habituation. Informed choices could be made on the basis of broad knowledge, but on most issues, most of us are simply too ignorant to do so. There’s no shame in that; we can’t be informed on every issue. When it comes to everyday life, that’s not a big deal.
But you’re contending that immigration–specifically Muslim immigration–constitutes a real and pressing concern of significant social impact. And yet, you’re arguing from emotion, unfamiliarity and distaste. The Enlightened response would be to seek out information for rational analysis, to overcome habitual preference in order to reason clearly.
I’ve provided three examples of ‘critical mass’ communities once felt to be at least as dangerous to Canadian societies as you contend Muslim communities now are: the Germans, Japanese, and Jews. MY question remains: how is this situation any different?
YOUR questions: “How far is too far?” Should there by no regional limits on immigration? Is everything just completely hunky-dory? Just let them all in? What are your thoughts on the problems Europe are having?
Too far is when the state prescribes religious ends rather than proscribing interference in individually chosen ends. Too far is when individuals are permitted to dictate the ends of others, or unduly interfere impose their own ends.
Regional limits on immigration? To what end? Again, consider the communities cited above.
Is everything completely hunky-dory? Is it ever? Get specific; provide evidence; work through it rationally.
Let them all in? “Us and Them” is a fabulous Pink Floyd tune. In political/theological/social discourse, it’s vile. ‘Them’ who? How long do ‘they’ remain ‘other’? Till granted citizenship? 5 years? 10 or 20? A generation? What’s the key?
What are my thoughts on the problems Europe are having? Those societies don’t have our experience with immigration and integration. There are similarities, but their difficulties are not ours; their fears need not be ours.
Your “even more pointed question” is “blathering incoherence.” How would you enjoy someone confronting you in public and demanding that you set aside your cherished convictions? Blah, blah, blah… don’t answer that. Such questions amount to emotional provocation and have no place in post-Enlightenment rational discourse. But now I’ve answered your questions, care to answer mine? How is this situation any different than the three I’ve cited?
About Canadia I would only say that if christians there are forbidden from ringing churchbells, while muslims can broadcast calls to prayer it’s total bullshit. I would like to see some documentation, first though.
