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So you assume the veil had a nexus with "rejecting the authority of the state", but of course you have no evidence that in reality this plays a role in a relevant degree.

Eurogreen lives in France and has expressed his support (and even a relative climbdown) for the French pursuit of the secular state.

So arguing from the French point of view, the headscarf will automatically have a nexus with rejecting French authority in their public schools - as long as the community that wishes to wear the headscarf openly connects it to an expression of religion.

I feel that the argumentation on this thread, which is getting to the point of going in circles, suffers from making proper distinctions about considered frameworks. Katrin can rail against ban on headscarves, but for France this ultimately entails a rejection of the French Jacobin groundwork and the secular state. She could question or reject that as well, on grounds of her interpretation of human rights, but tough, that's not for her to change as long as people interpret differently - and people in France (and ET) clearly do. Shouting 'you're wrong about it!' won't help. You get Gallic shrugs in return, and the French are exceptionally skilled at that.

by Bjinse on Thu Feb 6th, 2014 at 07:10:41 AM EST
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The ECtHR is going to decide on that. Will the French shrug that off too?
by Katrin on Thu Feb 6th, 2014 at 07:19:26 AM EST
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Not likely.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Feb 6th, 2014 at 07:20:52 AM EST
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of course, on the verdict of the court. :)

Although I don't know about more ECHR court cases specifically on headscarves in French schools. Which one do you mean? There was this of course, which was a clear victory for France. And this one is still running, but that is related to the burqa ban, not headscarves at public schools.

by Bjinse on Thu Feb 6th, 2014 at 08:03:34 AM EST
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Right, I am mixing that up with the case of the face veils. Don't know which ban is more abusive anyway.
by Katrin on Thu Feb 6th, 2014 at 08:32:49 AM EST
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No, the burqa law will be repealed if it is condemned by the European court. It was a political gimmick in the first place.

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II
by eurogreen on Thu Feb 6th, 2014 at 08:38:11 AM EST
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for France this ultimately entails a rejection of the French Jacobin groundwork and the secular state.

Of course. Ultimately Katrin wants a rejection of the secular state. Hence the exotic hair-on-fire insinuations about 'atheist privilege', and the framing of any disagreement as a personal attack.

This is what theists do. They don't want any higher authority than the one they claim for themselves. Secular authority is 'totalitarian' and 'oppressive' by definition.

This is SOP, and shouldn't surprise anyone with experience of theocratic politics.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Thu Feb 6th, 2014 at 09:50:07 AM EST
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In a thread already close to providing more heat than light, I find it unhelpful to speculate on the motives of other participants.

What we can say for certain is that Katrin argues a position which is inconsistent with the maintenance of the secular state. Whether this is due to accident, sinister designs on the secular state and rule of law (yes, the two go inextricably together), or merely irrelevant collateral damage in pursuit of a different objective considered more important is neither something which can be divined from the position argued nor particularly pertinent to the discussion.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Thu Feb 6th, 2014 at 02:59:36 PM EST
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What we can say for certain is that Katrin argues a position which is inconsistent with the maintenance of the secular state.

And that's why I said 'theocracy.' Because for all practical purposes, that's what theocracy is - a move to dismantle the secular state and its aspirations[1] to a level ground for all participants, and replace it with ethical and judicial systems that privilege religious traditions over secular ones.

Let's have the Wikipedia definition:

Theocracy is a form of government in which a deity is officially recognized as the civil Ruler and official policy is governed by officials regarded as divinely guided, or is pursuant to the doctrine of a particular religion or religious group.

Arguing that policy should allow a religious group to have privileges which aren't available to other participants meets that definition, don't you think?

And considering we've been insulted as 'atheist fundamentalist sectarians' and 'Stalinists', and it's been insinuated that no one in this discussion has any real interest in progress or basic human rights - purely because we don't immediately accept an argument that pretends to be about human rights, but is clearly really just an argument for theological privilege based on a very selective view of what human rights actually mean in practical politics - I think the comments have been more restrained than they might have been.

Which definition of theocracy did you think I was using?

[1] Well - former aspirations, anyway.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Thu Feb 6th, 2014 at 05:46:41 PM EST
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Arguing that policy should allow a religious group to have privileges which aren't available to other participants meets that definition, don't you think?

No, it doesn't. There is a difference between arguing that religious groups should be accorded some undeserved prerogatives and privileges, and arguing that religious doctrine should be the deciding factor in all, or even most, lawmaking and jurisprudence. In the same way that there is a difference wage labor and chattel slavery.

There are many perfectly habitable half-way houses between "not secular" and "theocratic." The US is not secular. Saudi Arabia is a theocracy.

I think the comments have been more restrained than they might have been.

Tu quoque was a weak argument in third grade, and it's not gotten better since.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Thu Feb 6th, 2014 at 07:25:32 PM EST
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I must also most strenuously object to the insinuation that Katrin is a theocrat.

Words have meanings, and turning words like "theocrat" or "fascist" into common terms of abuse is Unhelpful.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Thu Feb 6th, 2014 at 03:14:53 PM EST
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Oh, but Katrin allies herself with theocrats <ducks>

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Fri Feb 7th, 2014 at 10:23:24 AM EST
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