Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> That of course was an exaggeration. But there are certainly similar laws in 
> countries with a Sharia basis in law, where it is (for example) obvious that 
> muslims are much more trustworthy in their testimony than non-muslims.

  And? What does that have to do with anything? I'm advocating equal rights,
and "muslims are much more trustworthy in their testimony" isn't.

> >> 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. 
> > 
> >   One could make that argument, but it's obviously ridiculous.

> Not ridiculous enough to keep the law from being passed in spite of 
> discrimination.

  And? Does the fact that in some countries discriminatory laws are being
passed somehow nullify my proposal of equal rights?

  I'm a proponent of equal rights precisely *because* in many countries
there aren't, even in many constitutional democratic ones.

> > *Claiming* that a law is equal and fair to everybody doesn't
> > automatically make it so.

> Somehow, you seem to think that your reasoning is common. It's not, really.

  I don't understand.

> >> The whole point of the constitution is to protect the minority from the 
> >> majority.
> > 
> >   I thought that the point was to give equal rights to everybody.

> Yes. Both. You give equal rights to everyone by protecting the minority from 
> the wishes of the majority.

  No, you give equal rights to everyone by protecting everyone equally.
If you give preferential treatment to some people, that's discrimination
and not equal rights.

> >> 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.
> > 
> >   But the problem I'm complaining about is that constitutional principles
> > *are* being violated with discriminatory laws which give preferential
> > treatment to some groups of people.

> Then you're not talking about democracy any more, or why a minority should 
> have more protection than a majority. What laws do you think are giving 
> preferential treatment to minorities, and how did they get on the books?

  For example, criticism of certain religions is punished more harshly
than criticism of certain other religions. Yes, it does happen here.

  The law doesn't make the distinction explicitly, but it's being
interpreted by judges as such. That's the injustice and discrimination.

> >   I never said that democracy should override basic human rights and
> > the principles of equality and freedom.

> And that's why minorities need more protection - because they're more prone 
> to having their basic rights overrun by the majority.

  No. That's why minorities need the *same* protection as everybody else.
They need to be equal to everybody else, not superior.

> >> But each individual member of the minority needs more ability that each 
> >> individual member of the majority in order to enjoy equal protection.
> > 
> >   I don't understand. A person is a person. Each person should be entitled
> > to the same rights and protection as any other person. Why should one
> > person get more protection than another? That would be discrimination.

> For the same reason we don't have straight pride marches, that rich people 
> don't need permission to sleep under bridges, that we never had a white 
> landowner suffrage movement, etc.   Maybe you just grew up in a place where 
> the *actual* abuses of the system are minute compared to other places.

  I don't understand.

  If there is, for example, a group of citizens with no right to vote,
a situation of unequal rights and discrimination is in place. After a
political campaign these citizens get their right to vote. Now they are
*equal* to everybody else, their right to vote is *equally* protected as
everybody else's. Now they are the same before the law. Exactly where is
the preferential treatment and the "more protection" part? Now every citizen
has the same right. The injustice of some citizens having more rights than
others has been removed.

  Homosexuals want the same right as everybody else to marry other adults.
Again, this is about equality, about getting the same rights, about getting
to the same level as everybody else rather than being discriminated, not
about preferential treatment and special protection. Where does preferential
treatment and "more protection" step in here? It's all about equal rights,
not about giving more rights to some people than others.

  What *would* be preferential treatment is if it was decided that to
"compensate" for the injustice of some group of citizens not having the
right to vote, it was decided that now they can cast two votes, while
everybody else keeps the right for only one vote. This would be "positive
discrimination" and "affirmative action". This would fight an injustice
with another injustice, trying to correct one wrong with another.

  That isn't being done with suffrage, obviously because it would be way
too blatant and ridiculous. However, it *is* being done with other matters,
and *that* is the injustice.

> In other words, being in the minority, the deck is already stacked against 
> you. So in the *enforcement* of the laws, one might give greater credence to 
> the claims that a minority was targeted by a majority than vice versa.

  I don't understand where this "credence" thing is coming from.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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andrel <byt### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> >> I think it is a common concept that a democracy has to do what the
> >> majority wants while at the same time protecting the rights of minorities.
> >
> >    While protecting the rights of *everybody* equally.

> Yes, that is what that means. Many people find it useful to stress it 
> this way to make clear that even in a democracy there are bounds to what 
> is acceptable to put into laws even if you have 50%+1 of the votes.

  The problem is that when some people stress that notion too much,
they start showing preferential treatment for some groups of people,
effectively discriminating others. When this happens to a politician
passing laws or judges passing verdicts, it's a problem.

  And yes, that *is* happening. It's not purely theoretical.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>   I don't understand.
>   Homosexuals want the same right as everybody else to marry other adults.

I'm not going to be able to explain to you the thoughts I'm trying to express.

> Again, this is about equality, about getting the same rights, 

They *have* the same rights. At least, that's the argument.

You're starting from the presumption that you already know what "equal 
rights" means and that you're correct.

>   I don't understand where this "credence" thing is coming from.

I'm clearly not going to be able to explain it to you.

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

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> >   If the current situation is that some minorities are being discriminated
> > against, the solution is not to give them *more* protection than to the
> > rest.

> Are you saying that the current levels of protection are adequate?

  Why would I be ranting if I thought so? Some groups of people *are* being
protected more than others, and that's discrimination.

> > Two wrongs don't make a right. You don't fight discrimination with
> > more discrimination. The correct solution is to give them the *same*
> > protection as everybody else. That, by definition, removes the discrimination.

> Yep. And this is exactly the sort of thing affirmative action is supposed to 
> address.

  "Affirmative action" is just a buzzword meaning "discrimination".
Trying to counter-act discrimination (real or perceived) with even more
discrimination. That's not the way to go.

> And, again, "the same protection" prevents both rich and poor from sleeping 
> under the bridge, and prevents both gay and straight men from marrying other 
> men.

  I don't understand how you equal limiting people's freedom as "protection"
and equal rights.

  If a law does not apply equally to all people, then it's discriminatory.
"Apply" here meaning "has the same effect on", rather than "is being
equally imposed on".

> That's what you get in a democracy, sometimes even in a constitutional 
> democracy.

  Fortunately in a democracy the citizens have a way of correcting the
wrongs.

> I'm not saying that affirmative action is the right solution to problems 
> like this. I'm saying that this sort of balance doesn't naturally arise from 
> democracy, and that obtaining this sort of balance is therefore 
> non-democratic and implicitly supports those statistically discriminated 
> against more than it supports those statistically doing the discrimination.

  I get the feeling that somewhere along the line in this thread you misread
some post of mine where I mentioned "democracy". As if I had said something
along the lines of "democracy is a good thing because it automatically
removes all injustice and discrimination".

  I have nowhere said that. All I said was "democracy is a good thing
because it allows you to try to correct the wrongs you are seeing in your
society" (as opposed to some other more totalitarian forms of government).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> I'm not going to be able to explain to you the thoughts I'm trying to express.

  Maybe not. Perhaps you just don't understand what the situation here is,
perhaps because it's different there.

  The fact is that some groups of people are being treated differently
than others, judged differently than others for the same actions. For
example, criticism of one religion might not result in even an investigation,
while similar criticism of another religion can result even in jailtime
(yes, it has happened). Crimes committed by a member of one group of people
against a member of another group are being judged differently (by both
the media and the justice system) depending on the groups in question,
even though the crimes may be completely similar. Preferential treatment
is being applied to some groups of people, often at the cost of
discriminating others.

  The very concept of "freedom" has shifted its meaning in Europe during
the past decade or two. It used to mean that the government has no right
to limit certain basic rights of people. Nowadays "freedom" is more like
concessions and permissions granted by the government to the citizens.
It's not anymore "you are free to do this because the government has no
right to restrict it". It has become "you are free to do this because the
government allows you to". European governments are granting themselves
more and more rights to limit people's freedom at their own whim.

  As far as I understand, this is slightly better in the United States.
For example, the first amendment to the constitution says "Congress shall
make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the
free exercise thereof" and so on. It limits what the government can do.

  Not so here. The Finnish constitution has no such wording. It grants
people freedom of religion, but it imposes no restriction on the
government with respect to preferential treatment towards one religion
or another. In fact, there exists a state church in Finland (namely the
lutheran church), which gets special rights from the government that no
other religions get. It's thus the official state church of Finland.

  It's rather ironic that Finland is mostly a secular country (I think
something like over 85% of Finns are atheists) while the US is mostly
a christian country (with something like 90% of christians), yet the
*government* of Finland is a christian government (because of the
official state church) while the government of the US is a secular one
(because it doesn't have and cannot have an official state church).

  The freedom in the US goes even beyond that. If you, for example, burn
a Koran and a Bible in the US as a form of protest or social commentary,
and post a video of it to YouTube, that's completely legal and protected
by freedom of expression. However, do that here in Finland, and you *will*
get jailtime. This is no exaggeration. You will literally get sentenced
to jailtime.

  Yes, I know that some people will argue that "well, that's proper
because you can't do that". The only thing I can say to that is that
I disagree. Burning a bunch of paper should not be a crime. It's paper.
Last time I checked, burning paper is not illegal.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 22-12-2010 8:05, Warp wrote:
> andrel<byt### [at] gmailcom>  wrote:
>>>> I think it is a common concept that a democracy has to do what the
>>>> majority wants while at the same time protecting the rights of minorities.
>>>
>>>     While protecting the rights of *everybody* equally.
>
>> Yes, that is what that means. Many people find it useful to stress it
>> this way to make clear that even in a democracy there are bounds to what
>> is acceptable to put into laws even if you have 50%+1 of the votes.
>
>    The problem is that when some people stress that notion too much,
> they start showing preferential treatment for some groups of people,
> effectively discriminating others. When this happens to a politician
> passing laws or judges passing verdicts, it's a problem.
>
>    And yes, that *is* happening. It's not purely theoretical.
>
Indeed preferential treatment (but not discrimination*) is happening and 
that is as it should, reread e.g.Darran's posts to understand why.

Last night I was thinking of starting this thread from scratch, perhaps 
it is more logical do do it here.

-------------------fresh start-----------------
Assume you have a village in a hypothetical country with two 
highschools. A: a general one with 40 student per class in an old 
building in the middle of town. And B: one with one staff member per 10 
students, a sporting facility, a laptop computer for every student etc. 
It turns out that most students from A go and work in a factory or on 
the land, only 10% go to a university and on average perhaps only one of 
them to a high ranking one. From B 60% go to a university half of them 
to a good one.

The yearly fee per student is just the total cost (salaries/maintenance) 
divided by the number of students. It turns out that B is 5 times as 
expensive as A. You, me nor anybody else is surprised that the net 
effect is that only kids from middle and high income parents are going 
to university.

Someone proposes that that is not fair and also intelligent kids from 
poor parents should have a chance to study. That there should be a 
passing exam for school B and that the fees should depend on the income 
of the parents.

Somebody else complains because this is preferential treatment and 
discrimination of the rich as their chances to go to university will be 
lowered.

Moral of the story: In a society with different social groups you can 
either have equal treatment or equal chances.

Observation: most, if not all, civilized countries go, at least 
officially, for equal chances.

------------------------------
*) The goal of a non-discriminatory society is often worded as: treat 
equal cases equal, and non-equal cases non-equal. What you seem to 
advocate is a much more rigid interpretation: treat all cases equal 
regardless of whether they are equal or not.

Post a reply to this message

On 22-12-2010 3:17, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> On 12/21/2010 12:13 PM, Warp wrote:
>> Darren New<dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>>> Put it this way: if your hate speech targets only people too poor to
>>> afford
>>> lawyers, how likely are you to be forced to stop?
>>
>> That's a question of economy, not a question of human rights.
>>
>> I thought even in the US all people are entitled to legal counsel
>> regardless of income. (Also, I don't know how it's there, but here if
>> you win you don't pay anything. The loser pays the winner's lawyer fees.)
>>
> Entitled, yes. Best, effective, or even timely, not so much. A lot of
> them won't work probono, and the ones that do often have *massive* case
> loads, or work for organizations that are pretty much constantly
> vilified for being too liberal, activist, or not on the side of the
> assholes and ethically defective (i.e., the ones with money, power, and
> therefor, on the "right side", in the minds of those with similar money
> and power).

I remember in one of the documentaries of that most objective source 
Michael Moore that there was a county in the US where none of the 
probono case ever went to trial, they were all settled by plea bargaining.

> It doesn't do you a lot of good if you have to wait 3 years for a trial,
> because Snoop Dog's appointment to argue whether or not his latest Ho
> get the TV or not is ***so much more*** important than a civil rights
> case, or the injury done to someone living in subsisted housing.

I know a Yen Ho, Head of the Cardiac Morphology Unit at Imperial College 
London and Royal Brompton Hospital in London, I can only assume you are 
not referring to her.

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> I'm not going to be able to explain to you the thoughts I'm trying to express.
> 
>   Maybe not. Perhaps you just don't understand what the situation here is,
> perhaps because it's different there.

Yes, we have all that stuff here. Indeed, some of it is written into law in 
the form of affirmative action.  Certainly it's almost impossible here to 
get a hate crime by black people against white people prosecuted as such. 
And of course any bashing of gays is not only seldom prosecuted but indeed 
often lauded.

>   The very concept of "freedom" has shifted its meaning in Europe during
> the past decade or two. It used to mean that the government has no right
> to limit certain basic rights of people. Nowadays "freedom" is more like
> concessions and permissions granted by the government to the citizens.

Same here.  "That's a privilege, not a right."

>   As far as I understand, this is slightly better in the United States.
> For example, the first amendment to the constitution says "Congress shall
> make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the
> free exercise thereof" and so on. It limits what the government can do.

Yes, but it's a constant on-going battle. If you wear a T-shirt into a 
government building that implies you're an atheist, you get kicked out. When 
an atheist or muslim puts up a display next to the christmas tree in the 
city hall, it gets broken and stolen and nobody will investigate the crime.

And the first amendment is pretty much the only one that people really pay 
much attention to any more. You can forget the rest of the rights, both 
explicit and implied. And forget anything not specifically written down and 
just listed as "oh, and anything not listed here is also a right."

>   The freedom in the US goes even beyond that. If you, for example, burn
> a Koran and a Bible in the US as a form of protest or social commentary,
> and post a video of it to YouTube, that's completely legal and protected
> by freedom of expression. However, do that here in Finland, and you *will*
> get jailtime. This is no exaggeration. You will literally get sentenced
> to jailtime.

The first amendment is really one of the very few that are well-protected 
here. It's stuff like assault, habeus corpus, the government accusing your 
money of a crime and then taking it because it can't take the stand in its 
own defense, locking up people for no reason, deporting brown people who 
were born here because they don't speak english, etc etc etc.

But sure, you can *complain* about it.

>   Yes, I know that some people will argue that "well, that's proper
> because you can't do that". The only thing I can say to that is that
> I disagree. Burning a bunch of paper should not be a crime. It's paper.
> Last time I checked, burning paper is not illegal.

And this is exactly my point, that I can't seem to explain to you.

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

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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>>>   If the current situation is that some minorities are being discriminated
>>> against, the solution is not to give them *more* protection than to the
>>> rest.
> 
>> Are you saying that the current levels of protection are adequate?
> 
>   Why would I be ranting if I thought so? Some groups of people *are* being
> protected more than others, and that's discrimination.

You have missed the irony in my comment.

>>> Two wrongs don't make a right. You don't fight discrimination with
>>> more discrimination. The correct solution is to give them the *same*
>>> protection as everybody else. That, by definition, removes the discrimination.
> 
>> Yep. And this is exactly the sort of thing affirmative action is supposed to 
>> address.
> 
>   "Affirmative action" is just a buzzword meaning "discrimination".
> Trying to counter-act discrimination (real or perceived) with even more
> discrimination. That's not the way to go.

That's what it is. But it's more trying to counter-act the effects of 
earlier discrimination by discriminating in the other direction. It is an 
open argument as to whether this is good or bad.

>   If a law does not apply equally to all people, then it's discriminatory.
> "Apply" here meaning "has the same effect on", rather than "is being
> equally imposed on".

Sure. Except here's the rub. Affirmative action is an attempt to "have the 
same effect on" instead of being "is being equally imposed on."

Take for example forced "desegregation".  For a number of decades, it was 
illegal in the USA for black students to attend the same schools as white 
students. Black people, who were undereducated and thus poor because they 
used to be slaves, were forced to attend the schools that the black 
population could afford to pay for, which were thus of lower quality than 
the white schools.

Then a law is passed saying "black kids get to go to the same schools as 
white kids." OK, all fixed now, right?

No, of course not.  The black kids still can't afford to go to the wealthy 
schools, and racist white town members will reduce the amount of money going 
to schools where the black kids are trying to go and spend it on the white 
kids. Teachers will not pay any attention to the few black kids wealthy 
enough to come to their classes, and flunk them out at every opportunity so 
they don't have to have black kids mixing with the white kids.

But hey, we eliminated the discrimination, right?

>> That's what you get in a democracy, sometimes even in a constitutional 
>> democracy.
> 
>   Fortunately in a democracy the citizens have a way of correcting the
> wrongs.

More often than not, around here, the democracy causes the wrongs rather 
than correcting them. That's my point.

>   I have nowhere said that. All I said was "democracy is a good thing
> because it allows you to try to correct the wrongs you are seeing in your
> society" (as opposed to some other more totalitarian forms of government).

I'm saying that this sort of wrong is caused by unconstrained democracy. 
Problems of inappropriate discrimination are caused, pretty much by 
definition, when a large number of people decide that some small number of 
people shouldn't be judged on their individual merit. It happens when 
there's a majority that's inappropriately asserting their opinions over a 
minority. I think the more democratic your society, the more likely that a 
minority of 10% of the population is going to get shit upon.

Hell, in California, gays used to have the right to get married in the 
constitution, and it was the democracy here that removed that right from the 
constitution.

Indeed, I can't really think of any time when an actual law was passed 
through the democratic process in the USA that significantly reduced the 
effects of prejudice, except maybe women's suffrage. Getting rid of slavery 
took a civil war. Getting rid of other kinds of prejudice is generally done 
by the courts interpreting the constitution, which was created in far from a 
democratic process.

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

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andrel wrote:
> probono case 

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

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

Post a reply to this message