Pageant contestant disqualified over strange circumstances.

[Malorn]

Meh.

[Firefly]

I know what it is, thanks.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by WildGunsTomcat

As distasteful as it might be to you, yes, that bigot has rights.

And his rights end where those of others start.

He can say whatever he wants as long as he is not physically harming anyone.

Technically... no. Take slander for instance. In most of Europe vigilante type stuff like publishing suspects' pictures or even full names is not allowed. Let alone phone numbers and provide other tools by which (potential) purpetrators can become victims.

Yes, felons have rights to protect too... Even pedophiles (regardless of the physical harm most people would wish them).

But in Canada, I guess harm to someone's ego is the same as physical harm. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but your words put you in jail.

Inflicting mental harm is an offense according to human rights. Though mere insults are not, structural, hate mongering language does more than just physically harm. It can cause people to create paranoia and stereotypes towards people with specific visual or other properties. That can eventually lead to bodily harm.

On another note. Things like stereotyping stimulates inferiority complexes. Your gang wars? Your... "gangsta" hip hop culture? A lot of those people are self-inflicting and self-affirming those stereotypes and wasting their potential of human beings, because they actually believe that's what they are, or should be. It's not exactly beneficial to society to allow stereotyping.

The question though is, which nations hold the largest racial extremist groups? Those where it's okay to be openly discriminating? In Germany right wing extremists try to intimidate people out of entire villages to slowly create racist communities. You honestly think that will stop at words?

If I were you, I'd be more than a bit upset that you got severe racial segregation and racial gang creation occuring in US prisons. Something not true for most other countries.


But yes, Voltaire on free speech. Just a shame free speech is abused so much. Like freedom of religion it is often used as well to propagate hate or to prey on the weak through sektarian cults (mass suicides, Japanese metro gas attacks). The way these rights are abused until they lead to mass violations of the human rights of others is despicable. Attempting to stop the spreading of lies and hate, eh... Would have less problems with that.


It's ironic though that right wing Americans always cling to freedom of speech and other freedoms, after having created the huge anti-Communist manhunts before and being one of the last nations to give blacks similar rights. Even today their voting rights are often sabotaged in certain states and you even have a law that every voting law has to be double checked by Washington because certain states are untrustworthy.

And the USA is backwards compared to Canada how exactly?

Considering the above, don't get anyone started on that.

[WildGunsTomcat]

Originally Posted by Figment

And his rights end where those of others start.



Technically... no. Take slander for instance. In most of Europe vigilante type stuff like publishing suspects' pictures or even full names is not allowed. Let alone phone numbers and provide other tools by which (potential) purpetrators can become victims.

Yes, felons have rights to protect too... Even pedophiles (regardless of the physical harm most people would wish them).



Inflicting mental harm is an offense according to human rights. Though mere insults are not, structural, hate mongering language does more than just physically harm. It can cause people to create paranoia and stereotypes towards people with specific visual or other properties. That can eventually lead to bodily harm.

On another note. Things like stereotyping stimulates inferiority complexes. Your gang wars? Your... "gangsta" hip hop culture? A lot of those people are self-inflicting and self-affirming those stereotypes and wasting their potential of human beings, because they actually believe that's what they are, or should be. It's not exactly beneficial to society to allow stereotyping.

The question though is, which nations hold the largest racial extremist groups? Those where it's okay to be openly discriminating? In Germany right wing extremists try to intimidate people out of entire villages to slowly create racist communities. You honestly think that will stop at words?

If I were you, I'd be more than a bit upset that you got severe racial segregation and racial gang creation occuring in US prisons. Something not true for most other countries.


But yes, Voltaire on free speech. Just a shame free speech is abused so much. Like freedom of religion it is often used as well to propagate hate or to prey on the weak through sektarian cults (mass suicides, Japanese metro gas attacks). The way these rights are abused until they lead to mass violations of the human rights of others is despicable. Attempting to stop the spreading of lies and hate, eh... Would have less problems with that.


It's ironic though that right wing Americans always cling to freedom of speech and other freedoms, after having created the huge anti-Communist manhunts before and being one of the last nations to give blacks similar rights. Even today their voting rights are often sabotaged in certain states and you even have a law that every voting law has to be double checked by Washington because certain states are untrustworthy.



Considering the above, don't get anyone started on that.

And see, I'm gonna be honest...

1. tl;dr seriously

2. You're from Canada. Therefore: I don't care.

I don't live in your backwards country, I live in the US where the business owner/private financial backer still has a say.

And thank God for that.

Phew.

Edit: Also, I'm not a right winger. Not that you'd truly know what that meant anyway. It's just a term you people use when someone disagrees with your viewpoint. I'm actually a voting Independent. Go Ron Paul!

[Vash02]

Originally Posted by Quovatis

Laws were passed in the 1960s to make sure commerce and public places did not have discrimination. There is no law in the US forbidding discrimination in private matters. And yes, it does work. That's why the KKK doesn't have millions of members and their rallies aren't shown on TV with tons of sponsors.



Nobody is forcing the advertisers to sponsor the program. The event isn't providing a service or product. The TV is, yes, but the carriers of that program aren't allowed to discriminate.

erm, the people who organised the pageant sold the TV broadcasting rights to the carrier and therefore making a money off of their endeavours. Hence they are a business.
Miss Universe Canada is actually a business by the way people.

[WildGunsTomcat]

Originally Posted by Vash02

erm, the people who organised the pageant sold the TV broadcasting rights to the carrier and therefore making a money off of their endeavours. Hence they are a business.
Miss Universe Canada is actually a business by the way people.

Right....and in the US that business has the right to refuse service to anyone.

Apparently not in Canada though...which is terrifying on multiple levels that you wouldn't understand.

Oh well, I'm done with this thread. The arguing over human rights aside, it has nothing to do with my country so I don't really care.

Peace.

[Quovatis]

Originally Posted by Vash02

erm, the people who organised the pageant sold the TV broadcasting rights to the carrier and therefore making a money off of their endeavours. Hence they are a business.
Miss Universe Canada is actually a business by the way people.

ok, but they didn't (and can't) say that only TV broadcasters that have no transgender employees may purchase the rights.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by WildGunsTomcat

And see, I'm gonna be honest...

1. tl;dr seriously

2. You're from Canada. Therefore: I don't care.

I don't live in your backwards country, I live in the US where the business owner/private financial backer still has a say.

And thank God for that.

Phew.

Edit: Also, I'm not a right winger. Not that you'd truly know what that meant anyway. It's just a term you people use when someone disagrees with your viewpoint. I'm actually a voting Independent. Go Ron Paul!

1. tl;dr is not an argument.

2. I'm dutch. DUTCH. EUROPEAN. Btw, we got predominately liberated by the Canadians, not by you lot who decided to sit and wait in Belgium to eat waffles. (edit: ) j/k. Love you guys, but be reasonable. Canada and Canadian systems have a lot of merits over the US, as they have minus points like any other nation. To think of the US as the bestest thing ever though? No, not really...

Actually, you are pretty far right wing. Especially if you vote Ron Paul. Do away with FBI, CIA and a lot of other things? It is you who lacks a good idea what is left, since you haven't been exposed to it. Socialists like labour parties are left (larger government, large responsibility for its citizens, not so much control, but caring). Liberals are right wing (small government, more personal responsibilities, employer oriented). Left of the socialists are the environmentalists and pacifists (strict governments to enforce responsibility) and left of that the communists (huge government, more control by "the community" over the individualists - worker oriented). Right of the liberals are the populists (who also often share socialist values, but are often more self centered, nationalist/patriotic and in the extreme cases flirting with xenophobia) and then there's the traditional conservatives.

Liberals are on the right side of the political spectrum. I'm a progressive liberal, you also have conservative liberals. You are a religious, conservative liberal yourself, with the emphasis on religious because it determines your world views and frame of reference. Smack down in the middle between liberals and labour is the dutch democrat/republican party, which is basically a bit of a progressive liberal-labour-environmentalists, but mostly pro-republic party. Nobody really knows what their point is.

In the Netherlands, the closest one gets to your political spectrum and world views is the 2% SGP (reformed) party, representing our Bible Belt communities. However it, like the CDA and CU have a lot of "family"-themed political views that are somewhat closer to the centrum and even in between liberals and socialists (state helping families, particularly LARGE families). Beyond that, they are more conservate. The SGP though is extreme in that they are for instance against women suffrage and very dogmatic in their principal thinking (working on sunday). I don't think there's any party in particular in the Netherlands that can be quite compared to the Republicans. Those are more of a cross between conservative liberals, populists and strong religious conservatism, after all.

[Vash02]

Originally Posted by Quovatis

Your gender is determined by the presence or absence of the Y-chromosome in your DNA. Injecting yourself with estrogen and turning your penis inside-out doesn't change that fact.

Wrong, women can have the Y-chromosome. The SRY gene in the Y-chromosome (dont even need that) makes one step in developing a male. A defective SRY gene in a Y-chromosome makes a woman or a inbetween like the contestant.

[Quovatis]

Originally Posted by Vash02

Wrong, women can have the Y-chromosome. The SRY gene in the Y-chromosome (dont even need that) makes one step in developing a male. A defective SRY gene in a Y-chromosome makes a woman or a inbetween like the contestant.

Ok, it's the presence of the SRY gene. That doesn't really change what I said. Gender is determined at the DNA level, not by hormones or sex changes. I'm not aware of the specifics of the contestant's genetics, but most sex-changes are done to perfectly normal XY, and XX-chromosomed people. I mean the SRY gene doesn't turn a penis inside-out. The olympics bans anyone with the SRY gene from participating in female events, as that's the general scientific definition of gender.

[Malorn]

Meh.

[Firefly]

Originally Posted by Malorn

A topic I might bring up later in its own right is how the Right/Republicans in America can re-brand itself and adjust to a more secular society. I think the prevalence of the religious right compromises the message of the Republican party and steers them away and distract people from the bigger themes like individual responsibility, free market economics, and small government (thus more freedom). I see the Republican party in dire straights in the future if it can't course-correct itself and get back to its roots.

I think if clergy starts preaching politics they should start paying taxes and we should abolish the whole myth of separation between church and state.

[Quovatis]

I think churches should not be tax exempt, period. They are given favoritism already under the US system. There's no good reason for churches not to pay taxes. But that's getting a little off-topic.

[Vash02]

Originally Posted by Quovatis

Ok, it's the presence of the SRY gene. That doesn't really change what I said. Gender is determined at the DNA level, not by hormones or sex changes. I'm not aware of the specifics of the contestant's genetics, but most sex-changes are done to perfectly normal XY, and XX-chromosomed people. I mean the SRY gene doesn't turn a penis inside-out. The olympics bans anyone with the SRY gene from participating in female events, as that's the general scientific definition of gender.

No matter how much you want to make it black and white, it isnt, sorry.

[Quovatis]

Is there any evidence this contestant has abnormal genes or a disorder? If so, I missed that fact. Not that it really matters. The organizers can disqualify anyone they want, as they are a private organization.