Also there have been demonstrated to be other ways around the problem of educated population. Divide them against other classes of the population for example. Or subsidize and encourage non-productive people.
And even if everyone was educated and wanted better, how would they ever vote for more individual rights and freedoms if the suppression of those rights is the only thing keeping them safe from other groups in their country?
All authoritarian societies have their priesthoods, knighthoods, police forces, scribes, etc., or their modern equivalents, essentially a small middle class afforded more wealth and more rights than the peasantry.
Couple this with the fact that educated people often buy into authoritarian ideologies. At least that’s what I’ve seen. If there is any legitimate basis behind American anti-intellectualism this is it.
Controlling how people dress sounds pretty authoritarian to me. The fact that it's currently not acceptable to enter a bank with a covered face would indicate a law banning it in all public locations is not needed.
Taking rights away from people labelled as terrorists is a pretty standard way for governments to control viewpoints. It gives them the power to add any group they don't like to a list, and deport/imprison them with minimal judicial process.
I don't know enough about surveillance of minors to comment on that one.
>Controlling how people dress sounds pretty authoritarian to me
You're making it sound like under these rules, the government can force you to wear GAP jeans instead of Levi Strauss, when in reality the government has always enforced laws on public attire in public to preserve decency and security.
Otherwise it would be tyrannical since I'm not allowed to go naked in public or wearing the loincloths and Tribal Penis Gourd of my ancestors near schools.
Similarly, burkas are a security risk in public since people could hide and smuggle weapons under that, or there could be men hiding underneath using it to enter female only spaces like bathrooms and changing rooms, or so much more nefarious cases.
Then on top of that, you also have the cultural and optics aspect, that burkas are a symbol of a backwards oppressive culture that's incompatible with western progressive liberal and feminist values that the west cherishes or at least pretends to.
You're throwing a bunch of straw man arguments out, which makes it a lot of work to actually respond to this whole post.
Rights are always on a spectrum with a large amount of grey area.
> burkas are a security risk in public since people could hide and smuggle weapons under that
This is silly. Everyone wears coats in the winter.
> there could be men hiding underneath using it to enter female only spaces like bathrooms and changing rooms
Is this actually a concern? AFAICT this isn't happening, it's just something that could theoretically happen, which doesn't make it a reason to decrease people rights. That would be another standard tactic for pushing authoritarian laws.
> Then on top of that, you also have the cultural and optics aspect, that burkas are a symbol of a backwards oppressive culture that's incompatible with western progressive liberal and feminist values that the west cherishes or at least pretends to.
This seems valid, but I'm pretty hesitant to force my cultural values on people. It hasn't gone well historically.
>Is this actually a concern? AFAICT this isn't happening
How do you know it isn't happening if their faces and bodies are always covered? Did you undress all of them to check?
> it's just something that could theoretically happen
Welcome to the real world where a lot of laws are made to cover things that could happen precisely so that when they DO happen, there's a law ready to enforce. Why? Because if something CAN happen, it WILL definitely happen.
> but I'm pretty hesitant to force my cultural values on people.
I'm not. You come to my house, you follow my rules, you come to our country you follow our values, simple. If you want to live in the west and benefit from the western system that brings you free education, healthcare, justice, financial opportunities, welfare, freedom of speech, then you must follow the western values that built that system you came here to enjoy. Otherwise if you want to live like in Afghanistan, then go live in Afghanistan, not in our country.
Otherwise if you allow one flavor of imported oppressive cultures out of suicidal empathy, just so you don't "force your values on other people", then why not allow domestic oppressive cultures too, like fascism, nazism, communism, antisemitism, sexism, homofobia, etc? Why open your doors and only tolerate the foreign imported ones?
>It hasn't gone well historically.
Then you need to go back to the schools you went to and ask for a refund, because historically it definitely has. The federal government forced their values over the confederacy via war in 1865 and the US of today is better off from it. Allied powers forced their values over the Axis in WW2 and the world was better off from it. So many historic examples why you're wrong.
> I'm not. You come to my house, you follow my rules, you come to our country you follow our values, simple
I wish it was this simple, so badly, but that strategy has been tried many times before and it always ends in violence. First off, who is "our"? Is it the majority? That leaves every minority group vulnerable. Is it the most powerful (it usually is)? That leave everyone screwed. It all seems great, until you end up as a target. This is why we base our systems of rights to more universal, and not based on our ethnicity.
For example, some of the historical opinions of my fairly recent ancestors: All Jewish people should be dead; ditto for Homo/Tran-sexual; also the Irish; black people aren't humans; the middle east should be owned by Western Europeans, and if not, designed to minimize the chances of them forming successful nations; same for Africa
Seeing this as bad assumes you think hurting other people is bad, which I do. If you don't agree, then there isn't much to discuss, you are entirely correct withing your framework
> Otherwise if you allow one flavor of imported oppressive culture so you don't ":force yurt values on other people" why not allow domestic oppressive cultures too, like fascism? Why only tolerate imported ones?
Where I'm from being a Nazi is completely legal. We tolerate both. There is still an ongoing discussion about where to draw the line, but the standards are always higher than wearing clothes that you don't like. Germany may not tolerate Nazi's for obvious historical reasons.
I would recommend "They Thought They Were Free" for a more of a look into this. It's an interesting book.
Edit: This is not true, almost all laws are passed to deal with a situation that is already occurring.
> Welcome to the real world where a lot of laws are made to cover things that could happen precisely so that when they do happen, there's a law ready to enforce.
>but that strategy has been tried many times before and it always ends in violence
Then don't import people of divergent/adversarial cultures who aren't willing to integrate into your country and are only there to extract the monetary benefits of your society without conforming to the laws, customs, social contracts, cultures and obligations that society requires.
If you only accept people who gladly accept your culture and values, there is no violence. History has proven this yet it seems like uncharted territory to some people. "you mean putting the fox in the hen house ends in violence?!"
>First off, who is "our"? Is it the majority?
It's the amalgamation of culture, history, collection of laws, constitution, 'Volk Geist' and the voice of the democratic majority of the citizens of the country where you choose to emigrate that compose the concept of "our country", which you need to accept when you choose move somewhere, or GTFO. You can't move to a different culture and expect them to accept your alien values that might go against theirs. Their values hold precedence over yours.
> That leaves every minority group vulnerable
No it doesn't, this is just an empty appeal to emotional manipulation.
In most western democracies, minorities and legal immigrants have the same human rights and equal access to healthcare, education, justice system, etc as everyone else so they're not "more vulnerable" just because they can't wear a burka in public. To receive those rights, it requires them to accept and conform to the laws and values of the society they chose to move to, like the law of not wearing burkas for example, or the law to tolerate LGBT people. Not wearing burkas in public is not making the wearer more vulnerable. On the contrary, foreigners wearing burkas in public makes the locals feel uncomfortable and vulnerable in their own country.
>For example, some of the historical opinions of my fairly recent ancestors: All Jewish people should be dead;
You see, since all your arguments are just empty appeals to emotional manipulation or moving the goalposts from laws banning burkas to somehow being similar to genocide of jews, I will stop the conversation here since you're clearly arguing in bad faith. I've already covered all your points with arguments, there's nothing more I can add. If you want to accept them fine, if not, also fine. Good day.
To play devil's advocate, isn't it illegal wear a swastika in Germany? How is wearing a burqa, a symbol of female oppression any different?
Freedom of religion only goes so far, because the culture of the host country takes precedence. To take it to the extreme, if there were a religion where part of standard practice involved assaulting women and children, we would obviously limit those practices.
The ban on swastikas in Germany is an authoritarian law, it's just one which is popular enough there that there isn't enough support to repeal it despite it being an unambiguous constraint on speech.
Non-consensual violence is prohibited because it directly harms other people. Face coverings don't directly harm anyone and laws that exist only for the government's convenience are authoritarian laws. There are ways to investigate bank robberies even if the robbers are wearing masks and in fact a law against masks is fairly ridiculous because anyone willing to break the law against robbing banks would be willing to break a law against wearing a face covering, so such laws only afflict innocent people.
>The ban on swastikas in Germany is an authoritarian law,
With this type of logic, all laws authoritarian then, like speeding laws, theft laws, and anything else that prevents you from doing what you want to do becomes authoritarian.
“Expression” is a bit of an overloaded word here. Carrying a swastika is considered similar to hate speech. Just like you cannot just make death threats in the U.S., even though you are just “expressing” yourself as long as you do not carry out the threat. Not saying those are exactly the same, but there are limits to expression, and spreading hate against large swathes of people is considered like that in Europe. Especially because that kind of speech can at some point turn into actual physical violence against the groups in question.
Threats aren't illegal because of their information content, they're effectively evidence of intent to commit violence. It's like confessing to a crime. You're being punished for the crime, not for the admission, but you admitting to it sure makes it easier to prove.
You and the parent both made good points. In Germany a swastika might be seen as more of a direct threat of specific action than other places. That makes it more sensible to classify as a threat.
That's the argument authoritarians use when they want to censor something. The problem with it is that it proves too much. Do we also get to apply it to symbols of communism because of the millions of people who died under Mao, or the US flag because of slavery? What about that book Marx wrote that led to all the horrors under the USSR; can't displaying books also be symbolic?
You don't want the government to have the power to decide things like that. It's better that they censor nothing.
While I 100% agree that there are wage issues, the question with housing is why it's growing faster than general inflation.
House prices seem to be increasing fastest in places with high incomes. This leads me to believe increasing incomes wouldn't solve this particular problem.
This opinion sets up corporate consolidation as the cause of all issue in the US. I don't think it makes sense for that to be the null hypothesis that needs to be disproven.
For this specific issue, homebuilding, and construction in general, are very regional businesses. There just aren't a few giant homebuilders controlling the industry across the nation.
There are certainly some antitrust issues with rentals, but they don't seem to be nearly as widespread as the housing issue in general.
I don't think the punching down vs up lense is a particularly effective way to analyz this issue. Nor do I think its easy to figure out who's "down" and who's "up".
> Claiming that not getting sunlight is the same as smoking is pure garbage.
So you're throwing out a whole study because it didn't cover a specific confounding variable you thought of, than stating a claim with no evidence backing it up?
That's pure garbage.
They specifically call this out in the abstract.
> We obtained detailed information at baseline on their sun exposure habits and potential confounders.
Incorrect, yes, but to be fair .67% and 2% occupy the same "wow, that's a large proportion of the economy" order-or-magnitude band of surprise (for me). Obviously not as charismatic/sensational, but still significant and surprising (to me).
I'm also hopeful that the requirement for a well educated workforce will nudge societies towards more freedom than the historical norm.