Firstly, thank you for reminding me that I’m the author of those questions that I wrote to you.
Good to have that clarified.
The article presents a claim that Ilhan Omar has siblings with the family name of Said Elmi.
It tries to back this up with a game of connect-the-dots, making several leaps of logic, tossing in a generous dose of hyperbole, and using bold, assertive language.
What it doesn’t actually do is demonstrate that Ilhan Omar actually, factually has a brother named Ahmed Nur Said Elmi.
Unless you can point me to the part of the article where it conclusively establishes that connection.
Given your umbrage at the many “hypocrites” in this thread, I take it that you value honesty.
Could you then kindly provide your own honest answers to my questions?
The OP article itself does not touch on No.1, does not definitively answer No.2, and does not adequately address No.3 or No.4.
No.5 pertains not the article, but to your own remarks that Ohmar “married her brother to get him American citizenship, among other things”.
With regard to No.3 and 4, I’d like to point out the following statement from the article: “Ilhan and Ahmed married in 2009, presumably to benefit in some way from a fraudulent marriage,” which suggests that the author doesn’t even seem to know what that benefit was. (But we can be absolutely sure it was presumably fraudulent!)
It is not appropriate for the government to hold an opinion about whose beliefs should be derogated as “superstition” about “imaginary deities” and thus do not warrant freedom-of-religion accommodations.
Honestly, SlackerInc, you’ve really got your head up your ass about this. The government making accommodations for individuals’ religious practices (absent some conflict with a different compelling interest) without making judgements about the validity of said practices is a good thing. This is about preserving individual rights to the exercise of religious belief (however stupid you may think those beliefs are) against the practical incentives to automatically defer to the convenience and preference of the majority.
You personally are free to believe that other people shouldn’t believe in deities and to get all angry about the fact that they do, but you don’t have to shit all over the constitutionally guaranteed right to freedom of religion by whining that the government shouldn’t do anything to accommodate faith practices that you think are stupid.
:rolleyes: Oh well, if I can’t manage to drive any sense into your ass-embedded head on this subject, I can at least have some fun making you mad about it.
Your attitude here is that of a fretful toddler who automatically howls that he’s missing out or being treated unfairly if he sees anybody else doing anything that he’s not. What the fretful-toddler mind fails to grasp is that these accommodations and exemptions are constitutionally different from the freedom to follow whims or random desires to do something just for shits’n’giggles, such as wanting to wear a Lone Ranger mask to the bank. The government grants these exceptions to its standard policies in specific cases where an individual feels that they are obligated to deviate from the standard policy because of their religious belief. Respecting the constitutional right to freedom of religion requires treating such perceived obligations differently from ordinary shits’n’giggles whims.
You, SlackerInc, have the right to personally hold the opinion that a perceived religious obligation is no different from any old idle shits’n’giggles whim and therefore ought not to be granted any more deference than any other idle whim. But the government is constitutionally not allowed to hold that opinion or to regulate its actions by it.
Wanna know what’s really sick? The beliefs don’t even have to be superstitious to come in for protection. A Neo-Nazi adherent to the genocidal and non-supernaturally-believing World Church of the Creator successfully filed for religious discrimination when he was demoted from supervising employees of color after he was interviewed for a local paper and espousing racial war.
I think our laws on religious freedom are truly fucked, but not because of a hijab.
And I would contend that the WCOTC “creed” on racial issues is plenty superstitious, not to mention outright delusional, even if it doesn’t happen to involve belief in a deity.
Kimstu: Getting a better quality meal, that you yourself said is significantly more expensive, is not “shits ‘n’ giggles”. It is a material benefit to anyone who gets it, regardless of their religious views. Which is why that particular form of discrimination makes me much angrier than the others you listed. In fact, the one about Native Americans and eagle feathers does not bother me at all. I see that as their right not because of religion but because of ancestral heritage and the land that has been stolen from them.
Who said that kosher and halal prison meals are “better quality” than the regular prison fare? Not me. I said it would be expensive to serve them to more than a small portion of the prison population, because the mere fact of having to source multiple types of meals instead of just one type for everybody makes it more expensive.
The point of providing kosher/halal meals to religiously observant Jewish or Muslim prison inmates is not to give them any “material benefit” in the form of “a better quality meal”, but simply to accommodate their perceived religious obligation to follow their faith’s dietary restrictions.
Well, I guess now that you understand you were wrong about it, you can cool off. Presumably you can now also stop being angry about some Muslim women getting exemptions on acceptable-clothing rules for driver’s license photos, since that doesn’t provide any “material benefit” either.
[watches with interest as SlackerInc frantically tries to reach into his ass to scratch his head for mental stimulus in making up a reason why being allowed to wear a headscarf in a driver’s license photo should be considered more of a “material benefit” than being allowed to wear a turban during basic training]
I said that one makes me angrier, not that the others don’t make me angry.
I’ll refrain from the temptation to parallel your ass/head metaphor and simply point out that you apparently need some schooling on economies of scale. So I will attempt to quickly bring you up to speed, but I’m sure we can find Wikipedia articles or a Khan Academy course for you if needed.
First, there is no dispute that it is more expensive to handle multiple types of meals rather than just one—unless the second type is so much cheaper that the increase in logistical difficulty is offset, which is particularly unlikely if the newly added meal is only given to a small percentage of the population.
But this is not relevant to our little debate, because we were talking about the distinction between allowing the special meals to be served to a larger portion of the prison population versus only those who qualify for them based on their religious affiliation.
Assuming that either way, the group getting each type of meal would have to register as that type in advance to avoid the need to make extra food that will go to waste,* and accepting your claim that the Halal and kosher meals are not inherently any more expensive (something I doubt given that gourmets use kosher salt regardless of their religion, and requiring detailed rules for the slaughter of meat and so on makes the process more expensive), it would actually be cheapest if the groups getting each type of meal were roughly equal in size. So if there are three possible meal types, roughly 33% each. Better yet, reduce the logistical costs by offering only Halal or kosher meals and make those who are unaffiliated with Islam or Judaism choose from one or the other.
But of course the reality is much more likely to be what was strongly implied in your previous post. These religions require meals created from ingredients of higher quality than the dreck served to most prisoners, and they just can’t afford to serve such good food to everyone.
I have spent a night in jail, and the mattresses and pillows were very uncomfortable. If I ever find myself sentenced to a prison term, I will clearly have to work to develop a religion that requires the adherents to use feather pillows and SleepComfort mattresses. :dubious:
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*Knowing your debate tendencies, you are likely to be tempted to try to wiggle out of this jam by saying you did not share that assumption; but that is honestly weaksauce, so I’d have more respect for you if you did not grab for that desperation gambit.
Hey, I saw that in Orange s the New Black! It must be true.
Correct. The penalty for whatever their crime was does not include an unconstitutional “Screw your religion, we’re going to make sure you can’t practice it”. And just because they committed a crime does not mean that they’re permanently in a state of not practicing their religion. I don’t hear a lot of complaining about a prison chaplain serving the needs of the Christian prisoners.
Hmm. I’m wondering now if certain posters would freak out if someone dressed in a nun’s habit were to enter a bank.
Hey, if you would rather be angry about an imaginary injustice than understand the constitutionally mandated justification underlying it, that’s your choice. Knock yourself out.
You’re forgetting that the logistics of keeping track of who gets what meal, how to deliver the correct number of each to which location, how to deal with accidental mixups, etc., becomes more complicated, and hence more expensive, if the groups are roughly equal in size than if one group is a tiny minority.
You’re also forgetting that if any reason for preferring one meal over the other(s) is considered just as valid as a religious dietary restriction, then inmates are equally entitled to re-register for a different meal type if they subsequently change their mind about their preference for any reason. That would end up being more expensive too.
Exactly. And even if kosher/halal prison meals did end up using more expensive “higher quality” ingredients than regular prison fare, it still wouldn’t be unconstitutional or unjust to provide them for only Jewish and Muslim inmates. Because the intent of the accommodation is to allow them to practice their religion, not to provide them with higher-quality food.
Moreover, if, say, observant Hindu or Jain inmates request vegetarian meals that are on average cheaper than regular prison fare because of the lack of meat, they are not being unfairly shortchanged. The purpose of the accommodation has nothing to do with the intrinsic cost or quality of the food being provided.
Well, that would be taking shallow-minded sulking to a pretty extreme level, but I’m confident you’re capable of it.
Again, I’m not opposed to having those meals be an option as long as any prisoner can avail themselves of that option. In practice, most of them probably would not, as long as some effort was made to make the regular meals palatable.
If the prison chaplain is getting paid by the taxpayers, you’re damn right I’ll complain about that. If it’s just some volunteer from the church in town, then fine by me.
Hell yes, if I don’t get to wear a baseball cap, then they shouldn’t get to wear their Handmaid outfit. (Although my impression is that nun’s habits are as passé as the weird little caps nurses used to wear.)
I don’t know why this is so hard for many people to understand. It’s somewhere between amusing and annoying that in the third decade of the “new atheism”, so many seemingly otherwise educated people cannot seem to grasp that many of us atheists are opposed to all religion and especially any preferential treatment for the religious. You totally get it when we are trying to keep the Ten Commandments out of the courtroom or Biblical creationism out of the classroom. But for people like Sam Harris, Bill Maher, Richard Dawkins, and the millions of people like me who agree with those guys, it’s ALL bullshit. We don’t draw some line and say “Many Muslim people are brown, so we’re not against Islam.” It doesn’t work like that. Still against it, just as much as we’re against the most ignorant, inbred southern Baptist. “There was a Holocaust, so we’re not against Judaism, that smacks of anti-Semitism.” No, sorry. If you walk around on a sunny summer day with a black coat on, and leave your apartment complex elevators running up and down automatically on Saturdays so you don’t have to push any buttons, you are a ridiculous dumbshit and I am going to make fun of you.
Nor do we give Western Christianity a pass. It’s just that religious people in the West have increasingly made their practices compatible with secular society. If Muslims and orthodox Jews eventually follow the same path and drop all the dumb rules and stick with religion being something they do in their free time without oppressing women or gays or freethinkers, that’s their business. Until then, I’m going to fight against their bullshit tooth and nail.
(patient sigh) But that would amount to effectively declaring that the government recognizes no difference between religious observance of dietary restrictions and any other reason for picking one meal over another. In other words, it would be placing religious belief on the same footing, accommodation-wise, with any individual preference no matter how trivial or casual. The government is not allowed to do that, because it would infringe the right to freedom of religion.
Look, SlackerInc, the reason the courts interpret the constitutional requirement of religious accommodations in the way they do is not because nobody before you ever managed to think of the argument you’re making. The party who’s missing the point here is not the entire US judiciary, it’s you.
The explicit specification in the First Amendment of religious practice (including the practice of atheism) as something that individuals have a fundamental right to puts religious practice on a different footing from the broader category of individual personal preferences. If the government were to declare that free exercise of religion will be accommodated only to the extent that any other type of personal preference is accommodated, it would be violating the First Amendment.
SlackerInc, I don’t know how I can make this concept any simpler for you. You have a constitutionally guaranteed right to practice your religion. You do not have a constitutionally guaranteed right to obtain your personally preferred type of meal in a prison cafeteria just because you like that type best. Therefore, the government must accommodate prisoners’ religious observance of dietary restrictions, but does not have to accommodate their personal meal preferences based on non-religious reasons. See?
:rolleyes: It’s not other people who are having difficulties with understanding in this particular discussion: it’s you. Yes, we totally get it that you personally believe that religious observance should not be privileged in any way over any other type of personal preference. You are fully entitled to hold that personal belief. But the government is constitutionally prohibited from setting its policies in accordance with such beliefs, no matter how much you wail about how angry and sick and appalled etc. it makes you that the government enacts and abides by policies for religious accommodation that follow in a totally reasonable and logical way from the First Amendment
(another patient sigh) It’s not that we educated people (including many of us educated lifelong atheists) don’t grasp that you are opposed to all religion and to any preferential treatment for the religious. It’s that you don’t grasp that the First Amendment’s specific guarantee of free exercise of religion requires governmental accommodation of that stuff you’re opposed to.
Because those are “Establishment Clause” issues that for some reason you manage to be less wilfully ignorant and obtuse about than the “Free Exercise Clause” issues currently under discussion. Yes, you are correct that imposing religious content on governmental activities such as judicial practice and public education violates the Establishment Clause and is therefore unconstitutional.
However, you seem stubbornly incapable of understanding that the elimination of governmental accommodations specifically targeted to religious practice would violate the Free Exercise Clause and would therefore also be unconstitutional. I repeat, SlackerInc: you’re the one with the comprehension problem here, not those of us trying to explain the Free Exercise Clause to you.
So what? The world is full of people who think various other people’s religious beliefs are bullshit. That doesn’t change the fact that the First Amendment, by guaranteeing an individual right to practice of religion without governmental interference, constitutionally obligates the government to provide accommodations for religious practice. If you and Sam and Bill and Richard don’t like it, you are free to assemble your “millions of people” and change the Constitution to be more in line with your principles. Have fun.
You are free to “fight against” anybody else’s practice of their religious beliefs in any legal and constitutional way you can, if that’s what floats your boat. But when you ignore the clear implications of the First Amendment for government accommodation of religious belief in favor of ranting and raving about how terrible it is that the government provides such accommodations, you just sound like an idiot.
Well, except for the bits you’ve arbitrarily decided that you’re fine with for illogical reasons, such as the government granting exceptions to wildlife protection regulations to allow practitioners of Native American tribal religions to use eagle feathers. You’ve decided to consider that particular accommodation okay because you wilfully choose to disregard what it’s legally about, namely, enabling free exercise of religion.
In law, though, it’s exactly the same sort of “preferential treatment for the religious” that you get so mad about when it’s a matter of, say, a devout Christian or Muslim obtaining a no-photo driver’s license. (And Native American theological notions about the eagle being sacred because of its physical and spiritual closeness to God and what have you aren’t any less “bullshit”, from a rational-materialist standpoint, than beliefs that God doesn’t want believers to eat pork.)
Kimstu, we are talking past each other because of an “ought” versus “is” disparity. I will grant that it is partly my fault because I didn’t make it clear enough, but I am making a philosophical argument about how a government of any modern, advanced country ought to work, not an argument about the current nature of the actual legal jurisprudence around a 230-year-old document written by a bunch of slaveholding deist men wearing powdered wigs. A document which applies to less than 5% of the world’s population.
My sister and her mother are Canadian citizens, and if I were one too, I would make the same argument even though Canada does not have the same constitution or Bill of Rights. Same if I lived in France or Norway or wherever. (If OTOH I lived in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, I would have more pressing concerns—like getting the hell out of Dodge and trying not to get flogged or hanged in the meantime.)
So, you know, First World problems. But still important to me and other “New Atheists” who have the luxury of not having to worry about more basic existential threats.
Anyway, if you go back and look at your most recent posts with their repeated incantation of the First Amendment, maybe you can see, in light of what I just explained, how irrelevant that legalistic argument is to me (except, in practical terms, when it can help achieve my goals). I haven’t reread all my posts in this thread to check for sure, but I do feel that when I was writing them I tried to avoid talking about the Establishment Clause and that type of thing and instead to hew more to fundamental principles of political philosophy. But it’s entirely possible that I slipped into Constitution-speak here or there. If so, I apologize for muddying the waters.
Uh-huh. Well, let’s hope that from here on in your focus on the “fundamental principles of political philosophy” will help you avoid sounding like you don’t even understand the difference between the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause. Or seeming so startled and shocked to learn that the Free Exercise Clause requires various government accommodations for religious practice that wouldn’t seem at all surprising to somebody who’s actually familiar with “Constitution-speak”.
In any case, I think we’re all clear now on your position that you think the First Amendment ought to say something different from what it says. What do you think its wording ought to be in order to conform to your “fundamental principles”?
“Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Most “establishment” issues are covered by this. We can fight prayer and Creationism in schools district by district, and vote with our feet.
:dubious: How do you figure that removing the Establishment Clause altogether “covers” the “issues” it’s no longer there to address? What’s to stop Congress from passing a law the next day declaring that the United States is officially a Christian nation and all the money henceforth will bear the message “We Love Jesus”?
Individuals could still use their freedom of speech and the press and assembly and petition to complain about such an establishment of religion, of course, but it’s totally valid constitutionally if the First Amendment no longer enjoins separation of church and state. I’m not really seeing how such a setup will make you and Sam and Bill and Richard happier than the current state of affairs.
It also wouldn’t do jack-shit to guard against religion-based special “privileges” of the sort you’ve been objecting to, since legislatures can also write laws along the lines of “Non-Christian prison inmates are hereby required to be given inferior meals in the hope it will help turn their hearts to Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ”, with entire constitutional impunity.
LOL, that’s a pretty good argument (I have always said you are a wily debater), but I think something like that would run afoul of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
Who said that kosher and halal prison meals are “better quality” than the regular prison fare? Not me. I said it would be expensive to serve them to more than a small portion of the prison population, because the mere fact of having to source multiple types of meals instead of just one type for everybody makes it more expensive.