Why should an adult be forced to wear a helmet if he doesn’t want to? Who’s being hurt besides that individual?
Society is being hurt. Society will have to foot the medical bills. Society will have to support that individuals dependants, if they are incapacitated.
No one is trying to control what someone believes or stop them believing it. Yet believing in mythological creatures and expecting everyone to cater to your beliefs when decisions have to be made isn’t logical.
No one is forcing anyone to wear a helmet. People need to understand that helmets are a requirement to ride a motorcycle. Like functioning brakes. Unless you intend to argue that people shouldn’t be forced to have brakes as well?
What instance of religious accommodation in modern America is making an undue burden on society at large?
First off, you’re contradicting yourself. Requiring a helmet most certainly IS forcing somebody to wear a helmet.
And not having brakes can lead to an accident that will cause harm to others, so other people have a reasonable claim to require brakes. Not wearing a helmet is only going to hurt the person not wearing the helmet. Apples and oranges.
Agreed, which just underlines the point that the greater the benefits a society extends, the greater the infringement of personal liberty.
But, it’s an easy fix. Amend the law. “Sikhs can ride without a helmet, but any injury or loss of wages that result will not be picked up by the government.”
Stem Cell research
Abortion
Equal rights for LGBT
Sex Education
Education in general
Tax breaks for churches
Quality of politician elected due to their ‘belief’ in the supernatural rather than their actual capabilities.
Crusades in the Middle East.
Easily trillions of dollars worth of burden.
No, I’m saying that a helmet is part of the motorcycle no different than the brakes. You can’t ride a motorcycle without it. Don’t ride a motorcycle if you don’t want to wear a helmet.
The lawyers would love that one. e.g. ‘What percentage of damages were caused because a helmet wasn’t worn?’
“Society is being hurt” by allowing people to ride motorcycles for fun. Society will have to foot the bill of the inevitable injuries that will occur.
Fact is, every such activity is a trade-off: a certain amount of risk, versus a certain amount of freedom.
Reasonable people could draw the line in different places. While drawing the line at requiring helmets is a reasonable compromise, it isn’t the only reasonable one. A good case could be made for banning motorcycles-for-fun altogether, or alternatively, allowing motorcycle riding without safety equipment - depending on one’s tollerance for risk vs. freedom.
The “keep the status quo unchanged of society will suffer” argument is just another example of “status quo bias”.
This is of course nonsense. A person can easily ride a motorcycle without a helmet - it is not analogous to riding without brakes.
Done all the time, though different jurisdictions do it differently - the term is “contributory negligence”.
[Quote=ITR Champion]
Can you cite anybody who has actually said that God will protect Sikhs’ skulls in an accident, or were you just making that up?
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So your answer would be ‘no’, then.
[Quote=ITR Champion]
How much extra gets spent on their healthcare? Is there any evidence that the amount is nonzero?
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[Quote=Uzi]
The evidence clearly says that you are less likely to sustain injury if you wear a helmet. I’m not going to spend time looking for evidence that Sikhs somehow are immune from following the trend.
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That also looks like a ‘no’.
[Quote=Uzi]
None that I care about at the moment I’m writing this. I’d be doing something else otherwise. Surely there are more important things for you to do than argue with someone who says that laws should pertain to everyone equally
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Drawing the line at a reasonable place is precisely the point. Most reasonable people would agree that banning motorcycles, like banning boats or banning private aviation or banning convertible sports cars or any other well established form of recreation, would be an unreasonable intrusion in a free society. We do, however, have laws governing safety requirements and safety standards in all of those activities. That includes personal protection requirements like seat belts in cars and helmets when riding motorcycles.
In both those cases and many others there have been extremist types trying to fight the government on it, but I think most reasonable people would agree that failing to adhere to minimal reasonable safety standards, which you referred to in a later post as “contributory negligence”, could be more simply described as just “stupid” – that is, there is big risk incurred for absolutely no benefit. That’s why a free society, exercising reason, has chosen to pass such laws. And that’s why we are all obliged to obey them. And that’s why the Sikh exemption on helmets, justified by religion, is stupid. So is being allowed to bring a lethal knife to school just because it happens to be a religious symbol, which I cited earlier. “Stupid”. A very good word to describe just all about all such religious exemptions.
So, allow people to ride without helmets. But then everyone is allowed to, not just those whose religion says they can. And if there is a law that says you must ride with helmets, then everyone must with no exception for those whose god says they should get a pass. Whether you agree with the law isn’t really relevant as you have every opportunity to get it overturned based upon how your freedom to have your head smashed open is being violated by ‘the man’. But if your argument is that god says you can’t ride with a helmet, then, as I said before, bring your god to the courtroom to testify for your case. Otherwise, you’re stuck with using some form of rational argument and then having it judged on its merits like the rest of us have to do.
Yes, we have such laws. An in BC, those laws exempt Sikhs. Evidently, the good folks of BC have chosen to draw the line differently than you, or I, would prefer.
My point is that there is no hard and fast right answer to such questions - which is why they are political decisions, made through legislatures, and not the same in every place.
There are many examples I could pick of different places allowing or banning different activities - many of which I, personally, disagree with (the US gun laws for example seem bizzare to me; also, drug laws). However, not being a God or a dictator, the only way to change such matters is through the ballot box or by persuading voters- simply calling everyone who would place the line differently from me “stupid” is a tactic that would get me, or you, exactly nowhere.
See the above, for example. Note that in the BC case, you would be the one “fighting the government”, as you are in the position of arguing that the existing law is “stupid”.
I personally find riding motorcycles unacceptably risky, and I don’t ride one. Why should I “pay” because others think differently and risk injury for that? Answer this, and you may have your answer as to why Sikhs get to ride in BC without helmets.
Hint: it has something to do with how other people, that is, people who are not you define “benefit”. You don’t see the benefit of wearing a turban; I don’t see the benefit of riding a motorcycle at all! Which is, no doubt, why you don’t wear a turban, and why I don’t ride a motorcycle.
The pressing question of course is whether our definitions of “benefit” should be imposed on other folks. Make a good argument, get the legislature to agree with you, and it can be … subject to constitutional protections, of course.
But you will get no-where making such an argument by simply asserting that, because you do not see a benefit in some activity, it therefore does not exist. Benefits can be purely subjective - like the feeling of enjoyment from ridiing a motorcycle, or the feeling of belonging from wearing a Sikh turban.
What the heck are you talking about? How is any of that an example of “religious accommodation” that puts trillion-dollar burdens on America?
Crusades? Ended many centuries before the USA was founded. If you’re instead referring to all the wars that Obama is currently waging in the Middle East, it’s up to you to explain why that’s a “religious accommodation”.
Tax breaks for churches? Non-profits are tax free, whether religious or not. The tax breaks for churches are certainly a net benefit for society.
“Education in general”? That’s a religious accommodation? There wouldn’t be any education if religious people weren’t specifically allowed to provide it? I know that public schools suck, and that religious folks are more educated than the non-religious. But even so, I don’t quite grasp your argument here. How does education place a trillion-dollar burden on America?
Equal rights for LGBT? Suppose we compared gay rights in America to a country like China where religion is suppressed by the government. Where would the situation be better?
Etc… Nothing on your list provides any justification for your claim that religious accommodation puts a trillion-dollar burden on society.
Unnecessary. The BC law quite clearly states already that Sikhs are exempt from wearing a helmet.
Elsewhere in Canada, in Ontario for example, as I have already said upthread, such an exemption does not exist. A Sikh attempted to argue in Court he ought to be exempt. He lost, because while a helmet requirement infringes on religious freedom, such an infringement is justified by public policy.
You have yet to work your head around the fact that both of these outcomes are okay.
Correct, I have yet to understand why laws specifically made to cater to someone’s religious beliefs are okay.
Fundamentally, as I believe Malthus has been trying to say, it’s because the people who write the laws think it is okay, and there’s nobody to tell them otherwise.
(E.g. The voters? They agree with the lawmakers, generally. The courts? In these cases, they agree with the lawmakers.)
Essentially, there is no totally neutral and objective basis for any laws. They are matters of policy, determined by politics - which takes into account such matters as the subjective desires of the population voting for the politicians that enact the laws. These freedoms usually come at some sort of cost or price.
Some people value the freedom of riding a motorcycle, or owning a gun, or whatever. Others value the freedom to wear the symbols or garb of their religion or ethnicity.
The laws can, and do, vary depending on which freedoms people find compelling - restrained always by (a) other people’s competing freedoms, and (b) consitutional protections that restrain lawmaking.
Now, you yourself would assign zero value to wearing religious garb, and that’s cool. What you cannot do, however, is insist that others assign zero value to wearing religious garb. You get one vote. A person wishing to wear religious garb, likewise, gets one vote.
So, if you are outvoted by those assigning value to wearing religious garb, you have to make some sort of argument as to why a law passed accomodating them either (a) infringes on your rights somehow, or (b) ought to be otherwise unconstitutional. Likewise, if those valuing the wearing of religious garb are outvoted by the likes of you, they have to do the same - complain that their rights have been infringed, and/or that the law is unconstitutional.
I would suggest neither argument is, or ought to be, successful. A Sikh wearing a turban on a motorcycle doesn’t offend your rights; likewise, a Sikh insisting on wearing a turban on a motorcycle cannot claim his rights have been infringed without valid cause - there is a valid public policy argument as to why he ought to be made to wear a helmet.
Pretty boring, huh?
I agree with that. But this is “Great Debates”, and the debate we’re having is whether practices that we can both agree are stupid and harmful should be protected by law simply because some label them as religiously based. Your position seems to be that we should, simply because a majority wishes it so. I don’t actually think that’s true, as opposed to various vocal religious minorities wishing it so, but even if it is, it shouldn’t matter, because courts have frequently ruled in favor of reason over religious extremists in such matters as abortion and gay rights. Why not just have one principle instead of this ad hoc ongoing mess – a principle which simply says that laws must be rationally based, and that no defense can be made on the basis of religion, or on the basis of “because I feel like it”, or on the basis of “because I’m insane”? Those three things are all logically equivalent.
That question has already been answered. As a free society we should be able to engage in any reasonable recreational activities we like, but as a rational society we have the responsibility to enforce requirements for reasonable safety. Likewise in a free society I don’t care what someone wears on his head, whether it’s a turban or a rubber chicken. The question is what to do when it doesn’t fit inside a helmet.
So how come I understand exactly what he’s talking about? Which is the fact that every single one of the things he mentions has been an issue taken up by religious fanatics who have influenced public policy to the detriment of society.
Yes, damn that Obama for starting all those wars! Especially when he invaded Iraq in 2003 for no reason – probably the worst thing Obama ever did!
Obama’s other problem was ignoring the Presidential Daily Briefing that warned that bin Laden was “determined to strike in the US”, because Obama was too busy being on vacation and clearing brush down at his Texas ranch, thus allowing 9/11 to happen and precipitating the war in Afghanistan. Obama then needlessly prolonged the war by diverting resources away in order start another war in Iraq, which diversion also allowed bin Laden to escape. It wasn’t until George W. Bush was elected in 2008 that the wars started to wind down and bin Laden was finally tracked down. (This brief historical account brought to you from a distant planet called Bizzaro World.) 
BTW, back here on earth, your guy Bush actually used the work “crusade” in reference to his Middle East wars.
Non-profits are tax free because they justify their non-profit status as being in the public interest. Churches are tax free because they’re churches. And that last sentence is your unsubstantiated opinion. I think a much better case could be made that churches are a net detriment to society, especially to the degree that they meddle in social issues.
Pity that your only cite for that last claim is a blog, and that the blog mostly cites studies about children and things like the grades they get in public schools. Perhaps one should consider post-secondary education or, even better, the correlation with adult intelligence instead, because what you’ll find is a vast preponderance of studies showing that religious folks are less intelligent than the non-religious.
Because policies aren’t based on “rationality”. None of them are. They are based on “policy”, which ultimately derives from what people want - not some abstract quality like “rationality”.
Why invent a whole new system of government - just because what other people want annoys you?
The case of gay rights etc. simply illustrates the process I outlined above: laws based on “policy” have to survive constitutional-type attack. Ruling that (say) gays can’t get married cannot survive constitutional attack, because they infringe on people’s rights; so they can’t survive.
In contrast, you wish to abolish laws that can survive constitutional attack, because they don’t satisfy some test of “rationality”. I don’t agree that this ought to be a test. People can pass laws that are totally irrational - as long as they do not violate rights.
Huh? This doesn’t make a lick of sense! Why should people have the freedom to ride a motorcycle for fun in the first place? How is that “rational”? You simply assert this as an obvious matter of freedom (" As a free society we should be able to engage in any reasonable recreational activities we like"), but this is conclusory.
If one is willing to allow the risk of recreational activities that are, statistically, bound to maim a large number of participants, why is it not equally “rational” to allow them to enjoy the freedom of having their hair blowing in the breeze, or wearing a funny religious headgear?
In short, why is it “rational” to allow risk X for pure enjoyment, but completely “irrational” to allow risk Y?
The answer I think is that this is a matter of interest-balancing: people have a legitimate interest in having fun; that interest is balanced against safety. Another legitimate interest is in wearing funny headgear. That, too, must be balanced against safety. Where that balance falls is a matter of “policy”, not “rationality” - that is, different jurisdictions - equally “rational” - might legitimately come to different conclusions as to where the balance ought to lie.
“Rationality” really has little to do with it. There is nothing either “rational” or “irrational” about wanting to ride a motorcycle for fun, or wanting to wear a religious hat. They are merely subjectively important to some people.