Posts by B Jones
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Hard News: Making it up on smacking, in reply to Moz,
Was my paraphrasing of that quote incorrect? Could you restate it to make my error clear?
Fair point. It might be splitting hairs a bit, but "not an acceptable solution to anything" isn't quite the same in my mind to "it is never ok to forcibly sterilise anyone". The first phrase has a sense of utility - what problem are you trying to fix, and is that an appropriate way to achieve that - and an implication that the "anything" is a subset of real problems that exist today. The second is an absolute statement of rights under any possible circumstance.
As I've illustrated above, in our current legal and ethical system it is an acceptable solution to a small range of life-threatening health problems in an emergency situation. But we weren't talking about that, then, and the "anything" I originally intended was limited to a criminal justice/social dysfunction context.
I'm looking forward to hearing your argument as to why chopping hands off thieves is preferable indefinitely imprisoning them. Or why forced sterilisation is different to chopping off hands. Because at this stage it sounds like the argument of someone who thinks that forced sterilisation can be achieved by a waving of hands rather than inpatient surgery under anaesthetic.
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Hard News: Making it up on smacking, in reply to Moz,
But faced with a flat “it is never ok to sterilise someone” argument
Where? That's not the same as noting that forced sterilisation is generally considered a human rights violation.
I thought it easier to establish that there are conditions under which sterilisation is a good idea.
Again, where?
I'll make it easy for you and provide some actual examples of unconsented sterilisation there's room to be ambivalent about. The easiest is someone is having a placental abruption or similar obstetric emergency, is bleeding profusely and will die without a hysterectomy and there hasn't been an opportunity to seek consent. Harder is someone who doesn't have the capacity to make their own medical decisions but will suffer if they keep a working reproductive system, in the eyes of the people who make their medical decisions for them. Moving along the continuum, some people might think it's justified if a patient has such health issues they'll put their life in danger if they have further pregnancies, but it's still wrong if the patient hasn't consented to the procedure. It sails firmly into wrongness territory when it's applied as a punishment rather than a harm minimisation strategy, and when there are other, less harmful strategies that minimise the harm. Is that utilitarian enough?
I'm not sure what point there is having a representative government if nothing they do is democratic unless it would pass a plebiscite.
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Hard News: Making it up on smacking, in reply to Moz,
I am bemused that you consider indefinite imprisonment less an abuse of human rights than sterilisation, despite both being severe violations according to bodies like the UN.
I haven't said anything about indefinite imprisonment, but it's worth noting that at least it can be undone. Restricting someone's liberty comes into a different category to permanently changing their body. I don't support castration for rapists, either.
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Hard News: Making it up on smacking, in reply to Moz,
I think it’s enough of a grey area that both sides are reasonable.
So why is forced sterilisation considered a gross abuse of someone's human rights, then? The sort of thing governments around the world apologize for? Taking away a repeat abuser's kids at birth is most comparable to being banned from ever owning pets, and that happens. Giving someone an operation without their consent and permanently removing one of their bodily functions is like chopping off people's hands for theft.
I'm assuming you're referring to female sterilisation, since that's mostly what people mean in this discussion. Perhaps it would be easier to imagine why people would have a problem with that if there had been a century of appalling history of the state and/or medical profession tinkering with men's bits without the owner's consent.
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Hard News: Making it up on smacking, in reply to Moz,
If you accept that
That's one hell of an if. I'd hope that in this day and age, only a very small minority of people would think compulsory sterilisation is an acceptable solution to anything.
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Hard News: Making it up on smacking, in reply to Kimberley Verburg,
it's a play for dominance and doesn't sound particularly healthy.
That's a feature, not a bug. It's no coincidence that authoritarian worldviews go hand in hand with authoritarian parenting practices. Authoritarian communities invest a lot of energy in the latter - see Babywise/Growing Children God's Way, To Train Up A Child and so on. Undermining parents' ability to exercise absolute power in the home undermines the ability of an authoritarian worldview to replicate itself.
There are two groups of parents subject to this discussion - the larger group who lose their rag from time to time, and those who consider physical punishment to be a crucial parenting tool. It's the latter leading this debate, using the former as cover.
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The reason was that up until the law change there were lawyers who felt they served society well by arguing that their client should be protected from being thrown in jail by that Section of the law.
Lawyers do serve society by arguing that their clients should be protected by the protections the law says they have. Did then, still do. You can't blame lawyers for working within bad law. Blame the people who made the law, or read it and thought it meant they could thrash their kid with the household implement of their choice. Blame the juries who agreed with them.
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Smacking is a subset of assault. Focussing on the mildest end of the spectrum is a rhetorical way of justifying the more serious end. Kissing your adult partner without their consent is also a subset of assault, but that isn't any sort of a decent argument that domestic violence laws are too harsh and should be repealed.
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I picked the laphroiag after all. Sorry :-) I'm at my dad's for Christmas and while I'm not really partaking at the moment, my dad got his other whiskies out, mostly blends, and we had a comparative tasting, finishing with my bottle. It came off as whisky, slightly nicer whisky, even nicer whisky, what the hell's that? It's like the tears at the back of your throat after your house burns down. I like it.
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So, um, anyone got any good recommendations for a tinbum whisky neophyte?