Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>>>   The law should be the same for everybody. 
> 
>> Sure. Let's make it the law that you can't criticize islam, and the penalty 
>> is death. Fair, right? Very democratic. The law is the same for everyone, 
>> muslims and christians and atheists alike.
> 
>   No, because because of several reasons:
> 
> - It obviously is against basic human and constitutional rights.

Constitutional rights are exactly what prevent *democracy* from doing this. 
That's precisely my point.

> - It's contradictory with freedom of speech.

Again, freedom of speech (at least here) is a constitutional right, not 
something decided by the democracy.

> - It puts one religion in a special position over all others.

But only because that's what the majority wants.

>   "The law should be the same for everybody" does not equal "any arbitrary
> law is ok, as long as it's applied equally to everybody". That's a rather
> cheap argument.

Then you have an odd view of democracy.

You asked why the minority needs special protection. Then you go to argue 
that my example is bad *because* the minority already has special 
protection, in the form of ...

>   A law must follow basic human rights, constitutional principles *and*
> be applied to everybody equally.

So if the majority votes for something that would take these rights and 
principles away from the minority, shouldn't the minority be more protected 
than the majority? The majority isn't going to take the rights away from the 
majority, so the protection really only applies to the minority.

In other words, if 90% of the country is muslim, you don't need protection 
against passing a law that says you're not allowed to be muslim. You need 
protection against passing a law that says you're not allowed to be christian.

In a country where 90% of the people are christian, you need to give more 
credence of the jewish man claiming discrimination than of the christians 
complaining about an "attack on christmas".

In the USA, the argument is often made that the anti-gay laws are applied 
equally to all: Neither gay nor straight men are allowed to marry other men. 
Or, as one great historical figure whose name I forget quoted: "The law 
prohibits both the wealthy and the poor from sleeping under bridges."

The whole point of the constitution is to protect the minority from the 
majority. If you assume your democracy already has a constitution that 
prevents that stuff, then you've already conceded my point, because a 
constitution is useless if it's a democratic document.

(Not dissimilar to anti-trust complaints, really.)

If your constitution has in it that the state religion is islam and everyone 
else gets discriminated against in the courts (i.e., Sharia law), then the 
whole "that's not how democracy works" argument falls apart.

>> Again, the point I'm trying to make is that a minority with less power needs 
>> more ability to defend itself than a majority with a great amount of power 
>> needs to defend itself against a small minority.
> 
>   I disagree. A minority needs the *same* ability to defend itself as the
> majority. Different rules and double standards are discrimination.

But each individual member of the minority needs more ability that each 
individual member of the majority in order to enjoy equal protection.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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