Religious Special Pleading

I'm no wiser as to what you are saying. Could you be clearer? If beating your child can get you 10 years in prison - is that a 'ludicrously bad' result? Should we therefore legalize beating one's children? Is there a limit to how much beating? No, I don't think that. I'm aiming for an outcome where children can have both a foreskin and parents. I think you've lost sight of the point. I was saying that I was trying to understand your position with regards to which practices should be explicitly exempted from that protection and why - that is, what should be prohibited and what should not and what criteria should be used. Therefore the answer 'Religious practices are protected by law....what is not explicitly prohibited by law is implicitly permitted.' does not address this. The only point of comparison is that they are religious/cultural practices. I assumed earlier that you would think human sacrifice would be something you would agree would be prohibited. That is, you think that 'religious/cultural practice' is insufficient grounds alone to justify permitting it. Thus, I am trying to ascertain by what criteria human sacrifice should be prohibited but circumcision allowed.The criteria so far given for prohibition have been:1) The practice is intended to prohibit other behaviour (eg., homosexual acts)
2) The practitioners or those that it is practiced upon object to some sufficient degreeHuman sacrifice doesn't necessarily meet these criteria. So either you have additional criteria you are using OR you are special pleading.Until you prove you have additional criteria by providing them, I can only assume special pleading must be the answer.

If you don't like their reasons, that's not an excuse for violating their freedom. No. There were no replies to that message. Yes. Your evidence shows that there is harm in some cases. You can not extrapolate some to all. So you think that justifies banning jelly beans?

If circumcising your children produces healthy and happy children up to 90% of the time, then depriving those children of their parents is a ludicrously bad result. The part that you can actually control is not taking their parents away from them. I think, "Religious practices are protected by law" covers that quite nicely. We already have laws that are working pretty well. Leave them alone. Since you're restricting the discussion to Western societies, there's no need to consider human sacrifice at all. There is no demand for human sacrifice, hence no need for prohibition. If a new sect arose that wanted human sacrifice protected, it would fall under existing laws. There would be no reason for new prohibitions. So, I'm in favour of the status quo - i.e. there is no need for new restrictions in a system that already works pretty well.

The only laws I'm looking to change are those in the 'West'. Europe and North America specifically. I have given information from those regions. Then why ask for numbers if you think they're not relevant? Well there you go - you have well over a million people. I'm not suggesting their views should be imposed on the 90%. I'm just saying the 90% shouldn't trample on the rights of the 10% just because they are the 90% Naturally. But they should also not have circumcision imposed upon them. Well now you know. Apparently it makes no difference, but I'm glad we got there. Their penis is their business, so to speak. Exactly. And I have no business forcing you to eat vanilla ice cream for the rest of your life. Right?So a parent who signs a contract with some agency whose job is to force feed ice cream to people will, 10% of the time, be imposing the wrong ice cream flavour on someone for the rest of their life. Which is bad. Why not wait until they can express an informed opinion about their ice cream choices and let them sign up for the ice cream agency of their own volition?I don't think the answer 'but God says Vanilla ice cream is mandatory' is sufficient justification for forcing that opinion on others. They are trying to circumcise those that will not want to be circumcised though. But only in certain circumstances. For medical procedures, that would be circumstances where a decision needs to be made for health reasons. Such as an infection. Option 1) Circumcise, Option 2) Antibiotics. That's when a proxy can be called to make a choice when the affected individual is incapable.You don't get to force penis enlargement, or mastectomies on people who can't consent just because you have power of attorney. If a mastectomy has some immediate therapeutic purpose, fair enough - but if it's just for cosmetic purposes, or because the person's ancestors had it done - it's not reason enough.

Unless it results in a steep decline of unhappy people overall. If America has 10 million men who are unhappy about their circumcision and it is banned and this number drops to 100,000 - the fact that a handful of parents, if that, are imprisoned sounds like a reasonable trade-off for 9.9million happier people being around in the US at any given time. I can also control the number of circumcisions that are carried out. It does not. It simply states what the current state of affairs is. But this is false for two reasons:1 - this is an example I am using to understand your position by having you explain why you think it should be banned where a demand may arise.2 - western nations take in refugees an immigrants with different cultural opinions. I'll take this as a final refusal to explain which acts you think should be prohibited and which ones should be allowed as you have resorted to telling me about what 'is' and have avoided what 'ought to be'.Two weeks ago (Message 229) I gave you a list of prohibited religious and/or cultural practices. You said maybe some of them should be allowed. I asked which and why. You tried a few angles but have ultimately fallen back to

Conclusion

You now retract the claim that 'in some cases, maybe they should be allowed', your argument that prohibition of religious/cultural practices is racial oppression is defeated. Therefore the defence in favour of circumcision is indeed special pleading.

Their reasons are irrelevant if the practice is causing unnecessary harm. Which it is, as I've shown. If it was done just for fun, it would also be wrong. If it was done for no obvious reason at all, it would be wrong. In this case it's for religion. I've shown harm in ALL cases. Bloodshed, pain, stress and in some cases further complications and death. Of course, until the jelly beans were shown not to cause harm. Would you allow them to continue to be sold?

I was challenging your claim. As it turns out, if you narrow the focus of your claim far enough, it has some validity. And they're not. The 90% who aren't complaining had nothing to do with the circumcisions of the ones who are complaining. Nobody is imposing circumcision on anybody else. No, my penis is not your business. My child's penis is my business. We've been through that. We don't leave other decisions until the children are ready. That would be irresponsible. You think circumcision should be an exception. (Special pleading?) Others don't. First, it doesn't matter what you think is sufficient justification. Individual rights are protected whether you like it or not.Second, nobody is forcing anything on anybody. parents are making decisions for their children.

You haven't shown that the supposed harm outweighs the good. You can insist until the cows come home that millions of Jews and Muslims have been "harmed" by circumcision. As long as they disagree, your insistence is worthless. Of course. There are thousands of products on the shelf that have been "proven harmful". Tobacco is a prime example. Few people think that banning it is a reasonable response. Sugar, fat, cholesterol, glutin.... Read the ingredients on any package. Everything is harmful. That's why we give warnings. Warnings are a reasonable response. Prison is not.

They're just the ones that organise and carry them out. Actually, that's quite significant. In the case of neonatal non-therapeutic circumcision, that's exactly what is happening. As I said, their penis is their business. Yes we do. I've listed a number of such decisions multiple times. Nope. I think non-therapeutic circumcision should be treated like any other cosmetic surgery. It does matter, obviously. It is the protection of individual rights I am arguing for. Parents can decide to force something on children. They're not mutually exclusive.

You mean you wish you could. So far, our Charter of Rights and Freedoms stands. I'm not aware of any immigrants who want to practice human sacrifice. I can keep repeating it as long as you can keep asking: I don't believe in prohibition. I'm in favour of the status quo. If we change it, we should move forward, not backward.

Nope. The law still protects us from your opinion.

Could be interesting....

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A mother whose baby son was in so much pain after he was circumcised that he could not wear a nappy is taking legal action against the doctor who carried out the surgery without her consent. She said the law should give boys the same protection as girls get from female genital mutilation.

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Somebody needs to be held accountable for what they are doing to little boys, she told The Sunday Times.

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Genital cutting: In the UK, a mother sues a doctor for circumcising her baby son without her consent

In so far as this is true:

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The part that you can actually control is not taking their parents away from them.

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It is also true that I can control how many circumcisions are performed. Try to keep the scope of the statement in mind. Your awareness is immaterial. Which is it? Are you arguing for the status quo, which includes prohibition of a variety of acts - or are you against prohibition and thus against the status quo? Thus you are in favour of prohibition, in certain cases. Namely, the list of cases of prohibited acts I've already provided. As if 'forward' was an objective criteria. I argue that we should move away from the ancient practice of skinning children's genitals and that this is a movement forward. I'm afraid it does matter what I regard as sufficient justification - I am a voter and a participator in this discourse. I am not contending my opinion alone overrules the law. Obviously

If that was true, why wouldn't you use your awesome powers to stop them entirely? Then maybe you can list some for us. As I said, "If we change it, we should move forward, not backward." Don't be obtuse. I'm in favour of the status quo but if we do make changes it should be to remove prohibitions rather than add them. As I have said, I am not in favour of circumcision. If we stopped circumcising, that might indeed be an "improvement" of some sort.But it ain't gonna happen.People are going to drink alcohol and prohibition isn't going to stop them.People are going to do drugs and prohibition is not going to stop them.People are going to have abortions and prohibition is not going to stop them.Even if reducing the number of circumcisions is a step "forward", disrupting happy families by depriving children of their parents is a huge leap backward into a very dark past. And yet you claim you can control how many circumcisions are performed.