France wants to prevent students from wearing religious garb...

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by Radagast
You are far too quick to leap in with a sarcastic comment.

You can view it as sarcasm - I think it is legitimate to look at how free French society truly is.

I shall, however, explain what I meant. I agree that America is an entirely different case- but she is not a yardstick. She may well be a beacon of tolerance and equal love but her principles sometimes cannot transfer to other, older nations with, and here's the important point, older problems.

What older problems is France dealing with? The only thing they are dealing with - as is the rest of Europe is their intolerance to outsiders and the feeling of hegemony of their society.

Did you read the article a while ago about France protecting its language from outside influences? That French is becoming less and less spoken?

Yes I did. I had posted things about that in the past and I think that is ridiculous. Languages are living things and just because less people speak it in the world, doesn't mean they have to protect it from outside infulences. One of the things that France has been upset with for a very long time is that their language isn't the official language of the world like it used to be. That is a completely different problem than accepting words like e-mail and so forth into the language. The English language is far more expressive because we do take words from outside languages and aren't affraid to. France went so far as to require all french websites to be in french - even though roughly 90% of all people using the web speak english.

I can understand wanting to lock everything down and preserving French. What is more dear to a nation that its language? Tolkien once said that everything about a nation can be told my its language.

I would think the principles of which the country stands for. France claims to stand for freedom. It seems to be freedom just as long as everyone is the same.

I am not a plenipotentiary for France so I cannot speak entirely for her but surely every nation holds its values as superior over that of others? Don't you force immigrants to make an Oath of Allegiance?
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Actually - we do NOT force them to take an oath of allegiance. But if they want to become American citizens - they have to choose to become Americans and that means upholding our VALUES of FREEDOM and anyway - it's an oath to defend the United States, not give up their culture. It doesn't even say they must fully learn our language, although they need a rudimentary understanding English and they have to learn how our government works and our history. That is hardly infringing on their religious or cultural freedoms.

You hold your values of tolerance superior, surely, over the values of let's-all-hack-the-infidels? Surely you hold your values superior over the those of the 11th September terrorists? AND please note- by that sentence do not assume I hold the terrorist values to be true to all Muslims and so forth.

That is like saying who is better - a murderer rapist or sister theresa.

My point boils down to the fact that when one comes to a nation you should meld in. You say you are 100% American, don't you jerseydevil? Your Polish or whatever ancestors considered themselves American. So too should French Muslims consider themselves French. true to French values- which react with horror to the wearing of veils.

Why should they react in horror to the wearing of veils? It's a type of clothing, It is part of their religious belief. How is the wearing of a veil infringing on the freedoms and rights of others in France?

As to nuns and their habits that's I good point and one which has caught me out a bit, I must say. But I suppose that is a different case- because, by definition, they voluntarily became nuns, they therefore chose to wear the habit [they have very bad habits, by the way, those nuns ] whereas the veil is forced on them.

That is a stereotype "the veil is forced on them" - not everyone is it forced on. The two girls who were suppended were JEWISH who converted to islam and CHOSE to wear the veil. How was it forced on them? Also - parents force their children to do a lot of things. many parents - god forbid - FORCE actually FORCE their children to go to church. Maybe the state should come in and dictate to parents how they can raise their children.