If a law should apply, it should apply regardless of how people feel about following it. If the law infringes on liberty, it should be repealed.
The concept was originally one I could get behind as I believe initially it was to avoid religious persecution, but look at all the dumb shit we’ve experienced from religious groups in the last decade or two - but especially during COVID. Sucks to see the Christian community so resistant and spiteful in the face of saving lives because they just couldn’t get with the program.
Isn’t it depressing how many things that sound like reasonable accommodations for different people are either twisted into something negative or were designed that way from the start?
Exemptions to do things in private settings that don’t impact others is one thing, but using religious exemptions to allow discrimination is completely wrong. Honestly, if the exemptions negatively impacts someone else for any reason it should not be am exemption.
It’s insane. It’s like the idea behind communism a everybody works towards a greater whole where nobody is supposed to be fundamentally better or more powerful than the rest of their brethren in the commune. Then we see every example of communism in the world and go “Oh… Well that’s fucked up”
Exactly.
There’s a massive fucking difference between “usually we don’t allow weapons here, but Sikhs wearing a kirpan is fine” and “we’re giving you carte blanche to discriminate because you claim your faith demands it”, and exemptions almost universally exist because of the latter. If we as a society have decided that discrimination is wrong, then you don’t get to claim “But I really need to discriminate because God demands it.” You either abide, or you don’t get to open the business/school/whatever.
And that goes especially for people like public servants and medical professionals. If your faith says that you can’t serve all people equally, then find a new fucking job.
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Plenty of Christian groups pull that shit too - just look at the food company Sanitarium and how they avoid paying their fair share of taxes simply because they spend money on “advancing religion”
But tax evasion is part of my deeply held beliefs
as a Scientologist!
A bigger problem is the “religious” exemption from vaccines.
We have that covered in my country.
You can refuse to be vaccinate. No need to justify; your choice, you’re cool.
However…
If you opt for not vaccinate your children, then your children can not go to school. Any school. And although you can homeschool, nevertheless you are required to have your children enroled at your local school, in order for them to have formal evaluations and follow ups. But because the children are not vaccinated they don’t meet the requirements to enroll at a school, as they pose a threat to other children by possibly carrying diseases with high contagion risk.
And if your children don’t go to school, you’re criminally responsible for it, as it is considered gross negligence.
So…
And getting a medical exemption is a very hard task, as the medical professional attesting it is mandated by law to prove why a child or individual can not be vaccinated. If demonstrated false, if gets very ugly for the physician.
Religious exemptions don’t go very far here. Even JWs can’t do a thing if one is carried to an hospital in a life or death situation and doctors need to admnister blood or plasma: saving a life comes first. And if they refuse life saving procedures, they do it at their own responsability and are required to sign a term of responsability.
The logic here, boiled down, is: do whatever you want with your life, as long you do not trample others.
And it works.
My problem with laws is that people rarely pay attention to their growth and creation, and if they do, it’s often with the intention of adding more.
There never was supernatural laws, yet people still largely want to regulate how their neighbors dress, marriage approval, etc. I really don’t think religion came from the sky, I think it absorbed what people already wanted. And I think there are modern-day meme systems that are just as much a force as any classic easily-identified religion from 1500 years ago or older.
“Religious exemptions” are just conservatives doing exactly what conservatives do: setting up one set of laws for one class of citizens and another set of laws for everyone else. Try denying two Christians their marriage certificate in the name of Lord Satan, or refusing to make a cake for Christians because you don’t believe in Christianity, or any number of the other freedoms they’ve claimed for themselves. Not only will you not be offered the same rights the Christians have, but when they get violent you’ll be told you brought it on yourself.
Separation between church and state goes both ways. The church should not be allowed to control the state, and the state should not be allowed to control the church.
Don’t all laws, by definition, infringe on liberty?
Good laws infringe on liberties of individuals or small groups to ensure greater liberty for all.
E.g. you can’t go around murdering people so that other people have to liberty to live. We limit CO₂ emission so future generations do not suffer from the freedom limiting consequences of climate change. We require royalties and enforce copyright so that people can choose to be an artist without fearing for their income.
Bad laws inhibit the freedom of many while giving it to few. E.g. copyright for 70 years after the death of the artists benefits only the few rights holders of popular old works.
The struggle of a good government is to find the sweet spot for difficult positions. E.g. how long should copyright last? Which music volume should be allowed at night so that people can party, but others can sleep?
Define liberty for me, please.
I can do whatever I want, with or without guns, whenever I want, preferably in a giant truck, and if gas is over 4 USD/gallon, that is communism.
You’re technically free to do whatever you want. Murder, steal, go over the speed limit… Laws only establish fines and penalties if you’re caught.
Laws should be applied with science, clear and definitive data, and the expert opinions of highly trained individuals in fields relevant to specific laws.
Medical, accessibility, and specific circumstantial exemptions should be the only kind we allow.
If you’re blind, you shouldn’t be required to read a non-braille sign to access a public space. If you’re old and have bad knees, you shouldn’t have to take stairs to walk into a courthouse. If a boulder is covering the otherwise completely empty single-lane street you’re driving on, you should be able to carefully drive around it - even if the road has rules saying you must stay in the correct lane…
Otherwise, your made up sky wizards - whom ancient con-men conjured up out of thin air as a means to convince and manipulate otherwise exploited masses to obey their rule without question - should not mean you get to ignore laws designed to ensure safety, minimize infringing upon the rights of overwhelming majorities, and accommodate reasonable circumstances.
Additionally, there should be severe penalties (like license suspension or revocation) for professionals of any kind offering bullshit cover for people who just think the laws should not apply to them… like “mental health pets” that shit on airplanes for assholes who just think they should be able to bring their furry friends with them anywhere they go regardless of existing applicable laws.
So you would agree then that people with no expertise should have no say in governance? That the only people who have the right to vote should be people that have attained some degree of expertise, and they should only be allowed to vote in the areas that they have expertise in?
Nowhere in his comment did he make that statement or say anything to indicate he believes in limiting voting.
Bingo. Thanks @NovaPrime.
I actually am really big on letting EVERYONE vote. If laws affect you and you are a citizen of a country, and you aren’t a very young child, you should be able to vote. Felons, teens, almost everyone.
I think teens should be able to vote on legislation that would help curb school shootings. I don’t care that their brains aren’t yet fully formed. If that’s specific to your own belief, then you can’t also think the 85 year old geriatrics with Parkinson’s being served pudding in nursing homes are cognitively more capable or whose vote is more valid than that of a 14 year old who rides their bike to and from school every day. I think felons should be able to vote on principle. Nelson Mandela was locked away for 20 years by his political enemies. If your political enemies can take away your right to vote through imprisonment, then they certainly will. The only recourse is allowing all to vote. Otherwise eventually there is no legal means of removing someone willing to lock up you and all others who support the same causes you do.
I’m all for requirements for doing things that - if done irresponsibly - harm others at a mass level. Like driver’s licenses. Like flying a plane. Like buying a gun. We should have the same gun purchasing requirements that countries like Japan have. But you shouldn’t have to - say - “pray to God” before being allowed to have a driver’s license. There’s no scientific reason anyone could legitimately prove why that would need to be done that would somehow result in a better outcome for society.
Voting, done irresponsibly, harms others at a mass level. Take, for example, Trump cultists.
Speech, done irresponsibly, harms others at a mass level. Take, for example, Stormfront.
Religion, done at all, harms others at a mass level. Toke, for example, every goddamned one of them.
You’re doing the Thor Hammer elevator argument. Determining where the line for responsibility falls is not a perfectly clear argument.
Voting, done irresponsibly, harms others at a mass level. Take, for example, Trump cultists.
Taking away voting overall harms at a more massive level. Making requirements for voting provides far too easy a method for despots to remove who they want from polls.
Speech, done irresponsibly, harms others at a mass level. Take, for example, Stormfront.
There is no free speech in an absolute sense - not in the U.S. or really anywhere else. In the US, we DO have laws that regulate speech already to a degree where mass harm is (hopefully) prevented - hence yelling “fire” in a crowded theater is usually not ok to do. And even where it isn’t “regulated” - there are none-the-less real world “consequences” for many violations of speech norms. Calling someone the “n-word” is a great way to lose your job, get punched, etc.
Religion, done at all, harms others at a mass level. Toke, for example, every goddamned one of them.
…And I think we might agree on religion. 😅
Taking away voting overall harms at a more massive level
Debatable. I think that most people want a tyrant as a ruler, as long as that tyrant that does what they believe is just/fair. That’s why Trump cultists support Trump; he was hurting the people they wanted to hurt, and the rule of law was irrelevant to them. Hitler and Mussolini both gained power through elections, so I don’t you can safely say that voting is always the lesser of two evils.
Likewise, dictators aren’t necessarily harmful, although they often are. But it’s not requirement. You could argue that it would be authoritarian to forbid people from deadnaming people, using racial slurs, or otherwise being assholes, and it would be. But it would be pursuant to a greater good, i.e., letting marginalized people feel safe®.
In the US, we DO have laws that regulate speech already to a degree where mass harm
Not really. The ‘fire in a crowded theater’ is a myth, and it was a non-binding opinion that supported the idea that opposition to the draft (in WWI) was not protected speech. That decision was largely overturned by Brandenburg; the superceding decision said that speech was not lawful if it incited to imminent unlawful action. Lying for political gain is absolutely covered by 1A rights; look at George Santos. He’s going to get in trouble for fraud and campaign finance violations, not all of the lies he told to get elected. Or MJT, the pedophile Matt Gaetz, Barbie Boebert, etc.
Fraud is illegal. Defamation (slander, libel) are covered under tort law, and are not criminal. Keep in mind that all the harmful things repeated by Fox talking heads about the election and Dominion Voting Systems was not criminal, despite the harms they did to society; that’s why it required a law suit instead of DoJ involvement.
Obscenity is illegal presumably because the creation of obscene materials requires real harm being done to someone or some thing. (Although there was the case of Boiled Angel, but that was likely a loss for the artist because he couldn’t afford to fight it in right-wing courts.)
Calling someone the “n-word” is a great way to lose your job, get punched, etc.
You’ve just hit the critical distinction. It’s legal to call someone a racial slur, but it’s not socially acceptable. (Nor should it be!) My workplace can absolutely tell me that I can’t carry a gun when I’m on the job, and if I violate that rule, they’ll fire me. If I pull a gun on someone while I’m on the job, I’ll get fired, and if I’m not legally justified in doing so, I’ll also lose my carry permit and be criminally prosecuted.
The distinction here is what the gov’t can dictate, and what a private group can dictate. Facebook can censor your speech because–rightly or wrongly–they own the platform that you’re using for speech; the gov’t can not. (Fun fact: a gov’t official using an official gov’t account on Twitter or Facebook generally can’t ban you from interacting with that page, because that would be gov’t censorship.)
Its seems at the least a religious exemption should result in the law being scrapped. If for some reason one person does not have to do it then no one should.
I agree with you wholeheartedly.
So we should be able to force Muslim and Jewish inmates to eat pork in prison simply because that was the cheapest thing the state could foist on them that week?
Quakers and Mennonites should be forced to sign up for the draft?
I don’t think as much actual policy is based on rationality, science, and evidence as you think it is. Even the non-religious exemption stuff.
