Posts Tagged ‘law’

Dark day for Ireland

Friday, January 1st, 2010

Starting today, blasphemy is a crime in Ireland. Which is really confusing. After all these scandals concerning the catholic church in Ireland, you’d think the Irish would want to cut themselves some slack. Anyway, Atheist Ireland has began a campaign to have the law repealed with publishing 25 blasphemous quotes by famous people. (You can also find them here.)

Here’s one I like, lucky number thirteen:

13. Bjork, 1995: “I do not believe in religion, but if I had to choose one it would be Buddhism. It seems more livable, closer to men… I’ve been reading about reincarnation, and the Buddhists say we come back as animals and they refer to them as lesser beings. Well, animals aren’t lesser beings, they’re just like us. So I say fuck the Buddhists.”

Good luck to Atheist Ireland. I hope they find a way to cast off this shame – and all the feebleminded politicians who are responsible. Surely, even the most devout should be firmly against this absurd and dangerous violation of their freedom of expression.

The criminalization of a disease – revisited

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008

I was just thinking about my previous post on this topic, and it occurred to me that one of the consequences of the proposed law is a ban of all people who appear anorexic from all media.

After all, when a news-station uses a very thin anchor, does it not follow that it promotes anorexia? Notice that it does not even matter if the person is, in fact, anorexic. The appearance of very thin people on television validates and enforces the unhealthy body image of all anorexics.

Nevertheless, this law does seem unjust to me. Why target only extreme thinness? Why even target extreme thinness? Is not extreme fatness a bigger problem in the western world? Wouldn’t it be more appropriate, and more effective for the general health of the people, to criminalize the promotion of obesity? We’d certainly have to ban commercials for plus-sized fashion, fast food, super markets – anything plus-sized or super-sized for that matter. No more Roseanne on television. No more Pavarotti. Surely, there are enough regular-sized people out there who can do the job.

Perhaps, we should consider criminalizing the promotion of all extreme body-images. People who are too tall, let’s say. Did you know that some people willingly submit themselves to unnecessary orthopedic surgery to add a few inches to their height? It happens. Surely, that can’t be right. But what can they do when they see that people prefer taller partners, taller people get the “higher” positions etc? Why doesn’t anyone notice how tall those extremely thin models are?

There goes diversity. (Freedom must have left earlier.)

The criminalization of a disease

Tuesday, April 15th, 2008

From Times online:

Promoting extreme thinness will become a criminal offense punishable by a jail sentence under a government-backed law that was tabled yesterday in France to combat anorexia nervosa.

See also:

I am lost for words, so let me borrow some:

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

These wise words are often, mistakenly, attributed to Benjamin Franklin (see wikiquote.)