Quote Originally Posted by RandBlade View Post
For umpteenth time nobody here is as far as I can see claiming the burka, despicable as it may be, should be banned.

As for the claim that women chose to dehumanise themselves "of their own free will", do you always consider Stockholm Syndrome a justification for what leads to it? There is nothing free about it.
Man, I'm a left-leaning doctor and all-round busybody living in the prototypical "nanny state" but the stuff you guys are saying, that's too much paternalism than even I can stomach. I live in a society where we can't even compel women in abusive relationships to leave said relationships, or compel most people with borderline substance abuse problems to get help. How the hell do you think I'm going to be able to justify, within the ethical and legal framework generally accepted by most members of my society, the presumption that people don't really know what they really believe or what they really want--even though they might say they do--and that we should use the law to get them "help them" to do what we know they secretly want to do? It's just not gonna fly. No woman ever really wants to be a stay-at-home mum or work part-time in order to manage all the unpaid housework, no child ever really wants to be religious and so on but I'm fairly sure I'm usually going to have to pretend they do if they say they do.