[MD] So cometh MOQ, what next?

[Case]

[Case] 
Does a society have a right to set standards of behavior and penalties for
non-compliance? Of course it does.

[Craig]
But do they have the right to set any standard & any penalty?

[Case]
Any society is a law unto itself. The only measure of moral rightness is the
continuation of the society. Aztec society had the right to build giant
pyramids, march 20,000 people up to the top and rips their hearts out by
hand. Various societies across the global have, at one time or another, seen
it as morally right to feast on their neighbors. 

In the late 1700's the framers of the US constitution saw it as morally
right to legitimize the sale and ownership of people of African descent. 

When Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence about self evidence
and all men being created equal he was not stating anything like "it is
obvious" that all men are created equal, because obviously, they are not.
Rather he was setting forth the axioms of colonial government. Much as
Euclid sets forth 13 axioms of geometry in his Elements. It is not obvious
that all men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable right.
These rights obviously are alienable. They had been alienated for all
recorded time and they continue to be alienated to this day in many places.

But all of this high flown talk about individual rights and the rights of
women and immigrants and children and strangers is really a modern luxury.
For the vast majority of our existence on this planet we have not had the
time or inclination to ponder such thing. All questions of "self evidence"
were of a different sort. People did not think about what they ought to do
so much as what they had to do.

[Arlo]
However, getting into this a little more I see a serious discrepancy
arising, and then is at first over the morality of society setting
restrictions on behavior, and second to be a differing set of expectations
over "immigrant conformity" with particular regard to Muslim customs.

To the first, I've argued that while society does indeed have a right, a
moral right, to constrain behavior, it does not have "carte blanche" right
to impose any restriction a majority may see fit (or a minority, as the case
may be).That is, just because its law doesn't make it moral law. And just
becaues a majority act a certain way, that is no moral justification for
passing a law to demand others act that way too.

[Case]
Society, whatever that may be, is able to continue to the extent that its
members comply with its standards. I believe that when the members accept
social standards willfully and joyfully the society is better able to send
its seeds into the future. To the degree that force is required to compel
conformity, energy is wasted and I suspect the society is on borrowed time.
Or as Lao Tzu says:

"When a disciplinarian does something and no one responds
He rolls up his sleeves in an attempt to enforce order.

Therefore when Tao is lost, there is goodness.
When goodness is lost, there is kindness.
When kindness is lost, there is justice.
When justice is lost, there is ritual.
Now ritual is the husk of faith and loyalty, the beginning of confusion.
Knowledge of the future is only a flowery trapping of the Tao.
It is the beginning of folly."

This suggests to me that if a society has to pass laws or use force to
compel compliance then the battle for morality is already lost.

[Arlo]
As to the Muslim, again I ask, does a small town Christian community have
the moral right to forbid a Jew from wearing a kippot? If not, why does it
have the right to forbid a Muslim from wearing a veil? Fear? Do we set
different standards, and is that a moral thing to do, for those whom we are
conditioned to fear and those whom we do not?

[Case]
Morality is not about what we can do or what we have a right to do. It is
about what we should do. I can't really imagine a Christian community doing
what you suggest but certainly they have right to do it under whatever code
the community agrees upon. Should they do this? I would say not. Why would
they do it? I suppose because they feel more kinship to Jews than Muslims.
Society is about consensus. When its members are in a state of consensus the
threat of force is irrelevant. Such a society does not feel threatened by
outsiders or by non-violent eccentric behavior. 

Notice Rebecca's comments about the lack of regulation of public nudity in
Ontario:

"In fact, there hasn't been a marked rise in the number of women who go
topless in public.  The social norm makes it uncomfortable.  It just means
that women won't be arrested for public indecency if they decide to bear
their breasts."

It is social standards the restrict nudity not law. We are much less
enlightened in the States where we seem to think that because something is
legal it is "right". As a result we have to run around figuring out what is
not right or what is threatening so we can make it illegal. We feel more and
more threatened by trivialities that if we ignored would just go away, like
Mohawks and nipple piercing.