Citizenship vs. hijabs/niqabs/burkas. Fight!

Yes. And you do. Well, at least the bottom half of your face is bearded all the time.

The naked rambler, who had a beard, used to insist in making his court appearances in his natural state. The judges kept slapping contempt of court orders on him for it.

It seems like these judges are very picky about what people must or mustn't wear.

But come on Steve, put your pants on. You're frightening the horses.
 
It's Trudeau you should be thanking. He did his best to drag some aspects of Canadian law and society kicking and screaming into the modern era. It's a shame we can't dig him up, revive him, and let him straighten things out again, since I have very little hope that the current batch of politicians can do it.

Trudeau, much as half of Quebec want to pretend otherwise on a daily basis, was in fact a Quebecer and rather a product of the time and place. :p

That's the thing about Quebec. We're rather paradoxal. Half the time we're busy kicking religion out of government, working on how to legalize assisted suicide before the Supreme Court told Harper to do it, and being the first place in the world to ban discrimination against gays, one of the first to ban

And the other half we're writing charter of values, refusing to hear women in court because they're wearing hijabs, and nitpicking anglos over the exact size of lettering on their signs.

And often it's the exact same people for the exact same reason. (Take a people that have raised gender equality AND public secularism into the founding values of their homeland. Throw a hijab - or worse a niqab...or for that matter a Catholic bishop who think women should be having kids and caring for them...at them. Sit back and enjoy fireworks).
 
Oh I understand the concept of trends but you're not making a good case for it here in regards to Islamophobia and the idea that this will end up in expulsions, mass imprisonment and massacres of Muslims if the trend goes unchecked. People in this thread who have no bias against Muslims have brought up valid reasons why others would have a problem with this. I have no doubt some very anti-Muslim people have used this to further fuel their prejudice but you seem to be more concerned with liberals taking their side on this debate. You neglect to consider how western democracies have laws which protect religious freedom and civil liberties. We've seen a roll-back of this in regards to spying on citizens at least in the US (we're actually talking about Canada in this case) but you'll have to work harder to convince me that it's going to end in severe persecution of Muslims.

Where were those laws during the Red Scare? That was during a time when means of governance and enforcement were not as advanced as they are today. The possibility exists. History doesn't simply repeat itself, but precedent is significant, especially when the conditions may turn out to be very similar, with mass paranoia and intolerance taking hold of public discourse.

I think you just don't know enough to have an educated discussion on such matters.

NovaKart said:
I'm not playing a game here. If you're going to display such smug condescending arrogance then have something to back it up with.

It's obviously not a literal expression.
 
Where were those laws during the Red Scare? That was during a time when means of governance and enforcement were not as advanced as they are today. The possibility exists. History doesn't simply repeat itself, but precedent is significant, especially when the conditions may turn out to be very similar, with mass paranoia and intolerance taking hold of public discourse.

Governance and enforcement were not as advanced as they are today. Yes, and that's exactly why the illegal acts that occurred at the time would be less likely to happen today. This is especially true when talking about the first Red Scare which happened before the ACLU existed. You might also mention that the incident about niqab at the citizenship ceremony occurred in Canada, not in the USA.

I think you just don't know enough to have an educated discussion on such matters.

You really need to drop the arrogant attitude. You're not as smart as you think you are.
 
Governance and enforcement were not as advanced as they are today. Yes, and that's exactly why the illegal acts that occurred at the time would be less likely to happen today. This is especially true when talking about the first Red Scare which happened before the ACLU existed. You might also mention that the incident about niqab at the citizenship ceremony occurred in Canada, not in the USA.

Call me pessimistic, then, because I don't think the existence of things like the ACLU automatically means a liberal democracy cannot be perverted. Hell, we've seen enough examples of how American democracy, or at least American liberalism, can be helpless before abuses of power, for example in the War on Terror and War on Drugs.

You are also still not grasping the idea of trends, especially in a globalised context, if you think that what's happening in Canada does not have any relation to what is happening elsewhere.

I think we can call it a day here.

NovaKart said:
You really need to drop the arrogant attitude. You're not as smart as you think you are.

And you know that because...?
 
Call me pessimistic, then, because I don't think the existence of things like the ACLU automatically means a liberal democracy cannot be perverted. Hell, we've seen enough examples of how American democracy, or at least American liberalism, can be helpless before abuses of power, for example in the War on Terror and War on Drugs.

I agree that it's theoretically possible but we haven't really seen any evidence that mass deportations, pogroms, etc. are at all likely to happen. Perhaps in Europe with far right fascist parties but not in North America.

You are also still not grasping the idea of trends, especially in a globalised context, if you think that what's happening in Canada does not have any relation to what is happening elsewhere.

I disagree with your analysis, it doesn't mean I don't understand it. You're talking about a very minor incident in Canada. When you discuss globalized trends it doesn't mean you should throw away localized context and talk about it like all of this is going on in the same place and has the same significance.





And you know that because...?

Because in this forum you consistently have a nasty condescending arrogant attitude that comes across in your posts which causes me to think you have an inflated sense of your intellect. I'm not saying you're unintelligent, far from it, but I think you probably overestimate yourself in comparison with others.
 
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