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Liberalism and the niqab
Virtually every British commentator on Jack Straw and the veil issue has said that of course people have the right to dress as they like. Which means that the right to dress in any way imaginable is not contingent on the dress being religious. It’s simply a human right, proceeding from one’s desires. Indeed, as Britain’s multicultural minister Ruth Kelly has opined, a Muslim woman’s choice to wear a head covering has a stronger claim on our respect if it is based on the woman’s free individual choice rather than on a religious requirement. So, if I visited my congressman’s office with a paper bag over my head and two slits for the eyes, just because I felt like it, I would have the right to do so, and if the congressman asked me to remove it, well, he might have the right to do so if he felt personally uncomfortable about my wearing the bag (human desire and preference being the disposer of human rights), but he would not have the right to state as a general proposition that people should not visit their congressmen with paper bags over their heads. That’s liberalism, taken to its logical conclusion, as articulated by one British columnist after another. And all us conservatives on this side of the Pond thought that the Brits were not systematic thinkers.
Of course I left out the “but” from my analysis of the liberal belief in total freedom, and Howard Sutherland supplies it:
So we have the right to dress just as we like. Would these Labour ministers then allow me to wander about London wearing a t-shirt saying “To Save Great Britain All Moslems Must Leave”? I think not… Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 08, 2006 04:43 PM | Send Email entry |