Explain to me why you think context will change the meaning puritanical nanny-statism?
Well why don't we wait for Glenn to provide the context. Or better yet since you seem to keep jumping in for him why don't you provide some actual evidence on the subject. He used it as an example to support his original post in this stupid thread so evidence shouldn't be hard to come by.
Fine I’ll change “puritanical” to the more accurate “overbearing moralistic busybody fuckheads” instead. Happy?
So you think France is so strict about secularism that they spend a ton of money on private Catholic schools? If France really were so secular, they would not use public money to fund private schools that do not teach evolution.
While all of that is true, it still does not change what some of the arguments were that got it pushed through. Again, if the French were so pro secularism, then why do they spend so much money on religious institutions?
No. You are clearly not understanding. It would be the motivation behind that rule. If plastic bags were banned to reduce pollution that would be different than banning them because plastic is deeply immoral and anyone who uses it is a horrible person.
Explain to me why you think context will change the meaning puritanical nanny-statism?
France's concern with keeping religion out of public life, to an extent that becomes actively anti-religious rather than merely not-pro, is well-known. That you've dug up some obscure aspect of educational funding doesn't change that. Of course, if there's any religion that has the power to go head-to-toe with France's secular ethos and wring concessions from the state, it would be the very one whose power (and abuse thereof) led to much of that anti-theist backlash in the first place. I trust you aren't suggesting that funding a deeply conservative religion is another sign of the 'left wing' determining French policy?
You can argue that up is down and black is white all you like, but the French ban on the veil, while, in my opinion, seriously mistaken, is not a 'left wing' policy, nor is it strictly 'nannying'. Nor is it 'puritan' really. Are you saying the ban on other religious symbols in state schools (e.g. Christian crosses) is also 'nannying'? These sorts of rules are imposed for the good of 'society', or even for the state, any alleged benefit for those affected by them tends to be a post-hoc justification.
Er, OK, but that's a counterfactual, i.e. the plastic bag ban (or levy, really) is motivated by the former, not the latter. Incidentally the plastic bag levy here was campaigned for very strongly by the Daily Mail, due to its editor being upset by bags littering his picturesque English village. I thought it was a bit tokenistic myself, but it seems to have worked out OK.
I do think there are outbreaks of paternalism/maternalism(?) by liberals. But generally insofar as they do that, it's because liberals aren't really on the left or that they are too concerned with placating the right. Now when the _actual_ left gets power they do indeed seem to end up bossing people around rather a lot, but it's still not 'nannying' or 'puritanism', it's class hatred and a desperate attempt to make the theory work.
I am not involved in your stupid cloud discussion. I am trying to discuss Glenn's real world example and if it is actually a valid one. Hint: it isn't.
What example do you believe he gave?
Isn't it weird how the crowd that insists that marijuana is a dangerous drug, or that the government should be involved in what consenting adults do behind closed doors, always claim that liberals are the puritanical nanny staters?Banning plastic shopping bags is now puritanical
No. You are clearly not understanding. It would be the motivation behind that rule. If plastic bags were banned to reduce pollution that would be different than banning them because plastic is deeply immoral and anyone who uses it is a horrible person.
I was thinking of the one in CA, but works either way.
Liberals protect people from themselves, Conservatives protect society from sin. Both have a bad habit of limiting individuals. When a law is passed to protect people from themselves, its nanning. When the Left protects people from doing something that they think is harmful but is not, its puritanical.
I am saying that they banned it because they feel religion is something people need to be protected from. It could be right or left. The person I talked to from France was deeply Left and her argument was that it protected women from sexist culture.
Except that these plastic bag bans are, in fact, entirely about reducing pollution.
I don't see anyone here calling for an absolute ban on all plastic products. Just for a ban on the wasteful use of a few plastic products that cannot be recycled or safely disposed of.
Yet again, that is only true insofar as liberalism is not in itself 'left'. Generally even liberals, certainly left-leaning liberals, are concerned with protecting people from more powerful people. If they are reduced to merely 'protecting people from themselves' that's generally sign they are right-wing liberals or exist in a political context where the right is dominant. It's not the defining characteristic of 'liberals'.
In fact I think your determination to interpret attempts to protect people from others as attempts to 'protect them from themselves' is a reflection of the slightly myopic nature of the libertarian world-view, where you can't even see certain forms of power because you insist on seeing only autonomous individuals.
Liberals do get it wrong sometimes, absolutely (recently had a row with one over the idea of compulsory bike helmets). But you are presenting a crudely drawn caricature rather than looking at reality.
Also you aren't even entirely fair on conservatives. 'Protecting society from sin' isn't a universal trait of such, 'conservatives' are defined by distrusting change, and above all, thinking the 'traditional, time-tested ways' are likely to be a better basis for society than theories based on reason. That stance is not always manifested in terms of talk of 'sin'.
That the French left shares the predominant hyper-secular ethos of France generally doesn't make it a left wing policy. The person you spoke to was justifying a wider French attitude with the arguments that she felt comfortable with, but as that stance is not common on the left outside of France, it suggests she was motivated by that French culture rather than the left-wing justifications she gave.
And as I said, I think the niqab (and even hijab) is seen by many in France as an aggressive political symbol and hence a marker of the advance of a threatening political movement. The women being 'protected' by a ban, in that view, are not particularly the women actually wearing it now, but the women whose interests are threatened by the spread of such a political movement. Which is not 'nannying', its political warfare.
pfft. The British aren't European. Not even they believe that any more. The "left" in the UK is very similar to the "left" in the US, mostly because they share the same language and consume the same media. That's why this PMV character thinks that apology for Islam is a liberal position and that the French shouldn't be trying to discourage religious nonsense and sexism.
Isn't it weird how the crowd that insists that marijuana is a dangerous drug, or that the government should be involved in what consenting adults do behind closed doors, always claim that liberals are the puritanical nanny staters?
Anyway, I used to be lukewarm on the plastic bag issue, but then I walked the beach at Hana, HI.
Just wondering, Slow....did you ever get a satisfactory answer to your homework question? I know how much you hate doing independent research.....hurts your head too much, I get it.
And to follow up the above, what grade did you get on the essay you wrote from this thread?
pfft. The British aren't European. Not even they believe that any more. The "left" in the UK is very similar to the "left" in the US, mostly because they share the same language and consume the same media. That's why this PMV character thinks that apology for Islam is a liberal position and that the French shouldn't be trying to discourage religious nonsense and sexism.
Not really. Both groups would love to have power to tell people what to do. It's something seen over and over. What surprises me is when people get power and then constrain it to improve individual freedoms.