Belgium Wants to Ban the Burqa

Translated from Der Spiegel

Summary: Bans on buses and trains, punishable by fines and even prison sentences: Belgium is seeking to restrict the public wearing of the full body veil. A parliamentary committee voted for a similar anti-burka-law - Muslims protest and warn of stigma.

Article: The Belgian Parliament has a burqa ban on the way. The ban could be the first in Europe. The Interior Committee of the House of Representatives unanimously approved the bill on Wednesday in Brussels, it now goes to the plenary. If approved, garments such as the burqa, the niqab, and the face veil will no longer be allowed to be worn in public. It's not just about the headscarf.

Without naming the burqa, the ban will apply to any person who hides in public, "her face fully or partially, or veiled, so that one can not identify them," says the draft. Specifically excluded are motorcyclists and firefighters - people who have to wear a helmet or mask because of work.

This is a bad trend. A couple of days ago, E.U. and Swiss representatives on the right were talking about banning minarets. We have France trying to ban headscarfs.

This demonstrates an obvious desire by some to attack Islam and a clear conflict between cultures that while living in the same cities are moving away from one another. This stems from the fact that many Muslims in Europe are not integrating into society. They are creating their own Islamic worlds and in some cases, trying to enforce Islamic law. Europeans see this and are understandably repulsed. But this is no reason to run off and oppress someone's religious or cultural freedom to wear a standard dress. Burqas don't hurt me and they do not hurt you. They certainly are not hurting European society.

Update: after further discussion I posted this on the European society and offensive dress.

The deeper question here involves women's rights...the right to be free from what some consider to be an oppressive costume and an attack on women's rights or the right of a woman to wear what she wishes for whatever reason. To delve deeper, how many women truly want to wear the burka? We really don't know. Lets not assume we understand the hearts and minds of Muslim women and lets not look down at these people as brainwashed souls.

I believe Muslims must take a hard look at their behavior in their new countries. It is a two way street and Muslims must pro-actively begin to integrate into European society in many of the ways that they have in America. They must understand that they have chosen to live in a new culture and can no longer pretend they are still in their own. Some behaviors must be left behind.

I believe Europeans and Americans must think twice about our assumptions in regards to Islam and its customs. When we attempt to oppress their religious freedom, we show how little regard they should hold for our own. When we assume what is best for their women, we show our past tendencies to oppress our own.

Our cultures will continue to collide until both sides begin to grow.

Cross posted at Wordpress

E.U Selling Torture Devices

According to Time magazine, the E.U. has been exporting torture devices to some of the most notorious countries in the world.

According to the human rights watchdog Amnesty International, businesses making these types of implements are flourishing in Europe and exporting their products in spite of an E.U. ban on the trade. In a report released earlier this month, Amnesty said firms in Germany, Spain, the Czech Republic and Italy were selling items like electroshock "sleeves" and "cuffs" capable of delivering 50,000-volt shocks, spiked batons and fixed wall restraints to at least nine countries, including Pakistan, China and the U.A.E. Amnesty, which co-published the report with the London-based Omega Research Foundation, says the companies are using legal loopholes to evade restrictions put in place after the E.U. passed a law in 2006 banning the sale of torture equipment.

One of the companies responded with:

Sirien makes products like electric-shock stun shields and S-200 projectile stun guns — devices that export manager Erwin Lafosse insists save lives. "If you want to ban electroshock pistols, then policemen will have to use firearms to defend themselves," he says. "The problem with Amnesty International is that they only see the bad side to everything. Yes, these can be used to torture someone, but so can all sorts of ordinary devices like knives, forks and spoons."

So is this a case of the media making big headlines on an non-issue or this is a serious problem that needs to be addressed?

Personally, I think this is a big headline about a small attention getting issue that pulls in the broader picture of the E.U. providing arms and technology to countries that have every intention of using them to kill people. The E.U. can point the finger at the US all it wants, but a quick look in the mirror will show that the US isn't the only hypocrite in the world.

cross posted at Word Press The Moderate American

Obama to Help Hurting Home Owners. Is this another bailout?

I wrote this a couple of days ago and thought it would be worth posting here. This is the link to the original article from The Washington Post and this is the link to the thread on The Moderate Voice

The article is about Obama's plan to bailout homeowners and the fairness of this bailout to people that were responsible enough to cut back their standard of living to not need a bailout. I wrote the following in the comments section.

The problem is that we were pretending to be an unregulated free market economy when we were really working under corporate socialism policies (a tax payer backed financial system). This crisis is where theory and reality finally collided and now we have to find a fair way to get out of it.

In theory, at least mine, we should have let the free market prevail and allow our financial industry to collapse. We couldn't because this most likely would have sent our country into another great depression....and not many wanted that. Now here we are on the other end with the people that took those terrible loans when they had no business acquiring a loan in the first place. Free market theory, and maybe morality, would say they should lose their homes, in the same way lenders should have lost their companies, for making irresponsible decisions. If we allow this to happen, we'll send thousands of families into bankruptcy and destroy homes values across the nation.

It appears to me that we have the same dynamics going on here on both sides of the crisis....punishment of individuals for making irresponsible decisions vs the immediate effect of that punishment on society as a whole. (I think we can all agree that the long term precedent of tax payer funded bailouts is a bad thing)

We decided to save the economy and only punish one company. Now we have to decide how much we want to save home owners and values...in the short term...and who should be punished. By bailing out these home owners, we are basically punishing people like the author (even though his home value might be helped by these bailouts).

It is hard to say we should be tougher on these home owners, especially considering that we are talking about "main street" people, not wall street who we just gifted billions of dollars. But it is easier to be harder on them because the immediate effect on society from people losing their homes is not as dire.

What is fair? It is hard to say...considering the place we started from was by no means theoretically consistent and a lot of people made a lot of money because of it.

Quick side note...
I think this is only a black and white issue for people that either support bailing out everyone or people that would have been okay with no bailouts and risking another great depression. If a person was okay with any kind of bailout for the financial industry, then I don't believe it is ideologically honest, maybe consistent is a better word, to be completely against helping irresponsible home owners.

cross posted at Word Press The Moderate American