Diversity's Oppressions

[Universe Prince]

Lanya, at one time, slavery was agreed on as good and needful. So what is your point? Is it your suggestion that without some sort of majority consensus imposed on everyone, your neighbors would start enslaving each other?

[Lanya]

Lanya, at one time, slavery was agreed on as good and needful. So what is your point? Is it your suggestion that without some sort of majority consensus imposed on everyone, your neighbors would start enslaving each other?

Well, it's already been done.  We don't have to make that law again. 
But look at the things that we could not do in the 1950s: No right of girls to have equal athletic programs in high school, thus very few women's college athletic scholarships. 

We had to make a law. Title 9.

Some countries sell children into sex slavery.  We have laws against that. 

We used to not recognize that women could even be raped by their husbands.  So yes, I think it requires a majority consensus imposed on everone, to safeguard some that otherwise would live lives of horror and desperation.

[Lanya]

"Because we are not born agreeing on what is good and needful, nor do we die at great age haveing learned all."

I don't consider this a good justification of slavery.

It wasn't meant to be. It was meant to be a justification for laws banning it.

[Universe Prince]

But look at the things that we could not do in the 1950s: No right of girls to have equal athletic programs in high school, thus very few women's college athletic scholarships. 

We had to make a law. Title 9.

Did we really have to make a law? Or that just the way it happened? You seem to be assuming that no change would have occurred without the law. Is that what you think?

Some countries sell children into sex slavery.  We have laws against that.

Yes, that sort of slavery is a non-consensual violation of rights.

We used to not recognize that women could even be raped by their husbands.  So yes, I think it requires a majority consensus imposed on everone, to safeguard some that otherwise would live lives of horror and desperation.

You think safeguarding people requires imposing a consensus with which you agree. If the "religious right" were to grow in political power and began to force their moral consensus on you and me and everyone else, would you be so supportive of a majority consensus imposed on everyone?

No one is suggesting we don't need laws. The point is that we don't need laws or a consensus about everything someone decides is good and needful. If some group of people want to live in a communist commune where everything and every individual's life is owned by all in the commune, why should they be stopped? If a group of people decide they like Gorean values and want to form a group where men are dominant and women are submissive, what is that to you or me? They are no less human beings than we are. We have no special authority to demand that others live as we say.

You see a society around you with whose values you mostly agree, and you are, apparently, assuming that it is only so because you have laws. It's easy to favor imposing moral judgments on others when those judgments are your own or similar to your own. People seem to forget that they complain when the tables are turned. Laws against slavery prove we need a majority consensus? Hardly. Some people think we need laws against homosexual marriage. And however much you think laws against slavery protect society, those people also think they are trying to protect society.

That we have laws does not prove that we need each of those laws. Having a majority consensus and laws imposing such does not guarantee freedom from slavery or abuse. It can, in fact, result in exactly the opposite. Once upon a time, in a land not so far away, there was a majority consensus about persecuting people who were Jews. Once upon a time, there was a majority consensus that enslavement of the Negroes was a perfectly acceptable thing to do. Right now, in parts of the world, there is a majority consensus that women are inferior to men.

While I admire and agree with your desire to protect people from slavery and abuse, I do not agree that having a majority consensus is some magical thing that makes violation of human rights go away. And having a majority consensus does not give one authority over everyone else who dissents from that consensus.

[The_Professor]

"We used to not recognize that women could even be raped by their husbands."

Could not or didn't? Is this a physical (It physically occured" or a legislative "Is it against the law" issue? And, how do you prove since this since any wives probably do not report it? How do you realisitically attack this issue? Education? I know of someone who says her husband raped her several times  in the middle of the night because she wasn't interested in sex because she said his general attitude "stunk". Did this really happen? Where is the proof? How far do we go just based upon an accusation? Is trust of the provider of this information versus trust ofthe alleged abuser an issue? If so, how much? Whom do you believe, without concrete medical evidence? Is it against the law anyway? et al.

Well, I am DEFINITELY NOT in favor of rape of any kind! That being said, is this a law? If so, then perhaps we need to evaluate how closely we want to legislate matters within your individual home. Not out in society at large, but in your bedroom.


As a example, do I agree with homosexuality? Nope. Do I think we should have anti-homosexual video systems to assure it doesn't happen in someone's home, NO.

[Lanya]

"We used to not recognize that women could even be raped by their husbands."

Could not or didn't? Is this a physical (It physically occured" or a legislative "Is it against the law" issue? And, how do you prove since this since any wives probably do not report it?
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http://www.vawnet.org/DomesticViolence/Research/VAWnetDocs/AR_mrape.php

[The_Professor]

Excellent research, Lanya. I am so glad progess has been made in this area.