Really? I have read about a good number of politicians like Nicholas Sarkozy who are equally stupid, despite their so-called sophistication.

Frankly, I think that Sarkozy should have kept his damn mouth shut. He has no business insisting that a group of citizens not behave in a certain manner (wearing burkas) that is not a threat to him or the state. He doesn't even know whether all Muslim women are subjugated into wearing burkas or not. Instead, he makes an assumption based upon his own bigotry and stupidity . . . and insist that these women behave like "all" French women for their own good. Like they were children. In the end, he has behaved in the very way that he has accussed the Muslim community of behaving.

Oh, and I speak from some experience. Until a few years ago I believed in God. This was not by “choice.” Rather, from a very early age I was told nightmare-inducing stories of Hell. I was literally brainwashed by my parents.

Given these observations, you're hardly a neutral observer of whether someone else has "freely" chosen their religious beliefs/actions. It's fine, I do this sort of thing myself. For example, I can't believe anyone, in good faith, actually likes soy milk. Because I've had it, and it's disgusting. So the people who claim to like it are just trying to be cool, or they've been indoctrinated by their parents or …

See, that's the problem I have with claims like that. It extends far beyond religious belief, and encompasses all belief. In that sense, it sounds like you don't believe any liberty is possible.

You could say that of every law. Any generally applicable law restricts the freedom of some. There is no such thing as Perfect Freedom.

Even in anarchy, there'd be restriction of freedom. It might be de facto, but it'd be there. Heck, we have seen Anarchy, State, (Non) Utopia in many African countries. No government. Just "private" collectives (of tribes).

Would, on net, a society be more free if the freedom of some were restricted? Often, yes, that is indeed the case.

Now you might say that some actions are legitimate. Yet I've never found the distinction between physical and mental compulsion to be persuasion. I think that libertarians tend toward bookishness, and thus too easily are willing to create the No Physical Harm principle.

I might add you are also glossing over the difference between Muslim women in Muslim countries with Muslim women in Western countries, and effectively treating their experiences as fungible. Some honor killings aside, they are not.

And you are treating them similarly. So I guess we should both be stoned to death.

But I am not treating them are entirely the same.

Still, how many of these Western Muslim women are converts? They just decided, upon age of maturity, to subjugate themselves to men? That doesn't fly with me; and I doubt it does with you, too.

Rather, children were subjugated at birth, and indoctrinated into a state of submissiveness. Thus, they are not Muslim by any definition of "choice."

Oh, and I speak from some experience. Until a few years ago I believed in God. This was not by "choice." Rather, from a very early age I was told nightmare-inducing stories of Hell. I was literally brainwashed by my parents. I didn't reach Christianity in adult hood. So to say that, as a 27-year-old (when I finally rid myself of the nonsense), I "chose" to be a Christian would require you to ignore, well, pretty much my entire life. And, most importantly, my formative years.

Give me a kid and I can make that kid believe whatever I want him or her to. I could turn a kid into a scholar or a whore. To then look at the adult and say, "You choose to be a whore!," again, simply ignores what actually occurred.

Now, as a Western white male, I could finally choose to believe (or not) in God. I wasn't worried about getting beaten up. Unlike a woman, I wasn't inculturated into a world of total submissivness or closed-looped thinking.

Thus, yes, it is indeed contra reality for us as Western white males to speak of the free "choice" all of these Muslim women have made.

Not at all. I could have formulated the issue in any number of ways. Would you rather discuss a philosophical issue with someone who has a Western worldview, or a Muslim worldview. That would indeed be a meaningful distinction. As would be a "Christian worldview" from a "Western worldview."

There is a rich literature in this. Poke around Google Scholar or Google Books or something. It's almost like you're arguing that there is no such thing as Western culture, which is highly amusing.

Now, that's not to say that a person with a Western worldview would not be a Christian or Muslim. I am simply noting that these are indeed distinctions that we would recognize in any other context not involving playing debating games.

A Western person would, e.g., be more open to reason than an Evangelical Christian or Muslim.

Somewhat relatedly to my earlier point. Were these contracts the product of "free choice." I highly doubt it:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-bofa30-2009jun30,0,6339542.story?page=1

Sure, I could say, "They signed the contract. Ergo, freedom!" Yet that would require one to ignore the actual reality of the contract.

To the thousands of algerians woman whose throats were lacerated during the 90's civil war because not enough veiled they chose to live, to the millions more today in conservative islamic societies,who live under this cultural and religious slave chain there is an argument to be made about this piece of cloth as an uniform ( a liitle bit like the KKK uniform)

So, to the many victims , whose possibilities in life were restrained and in two many cases obliterated, because of this fascism in new clothes, to know that in certains societies the presssure is on the fundamentalist , is somewhat a victory, and not a pyrrhus one.

I do believe that the next great challenges facing us are not really islamic based.
Something like the domestication of the sun's energy, the colonisation of mars, or some sciences based developpment.
But who knows, the futur is not written .
Qui vivra verra

For example, "court" is a concrete institution, but "worldview" is pseudo-analytical blather. Swapping the one for the other when you're called out for wielding meaningless generalities doesn't rebut; it concedes.

I might add you are also glossing over the difference between Muslim women in Muslim countries with Muslim women in Western countries, and effectively treating their experiences as fungible. Some honor killings aside, they are not.

Comments like these are cute. People feel especially clever when making them, and reading leather bound books. I read some essays by Charlte Forte. He claimed that there is no such thing as categories. That there is no difference between water and land. As a general principle, yes, we shouldn't overly categorize things. Categories are indeed hard to define. Still .. step off of the island into the water…. see if you don't notice a difference.

If I said: You are facing charges for a criminal offense. You have the following choice:
A) Trial in a "Western" court system;
B) Trial in a Muslim court.

We all know damned well which you and everyone else would chose.

So, yeah, I can play clever games with categorization. It's not especially hard.

Though, as I'd say to Forte, "Just jump into the middle of the ocean and tell me there's no difference between water and land," I'd tell you to go assert your rights in a Muslim court. See if you don't notice a difference between the Western way and the Muslim way.

Now is when I'll wait for a "clever" response like, "Well, maybe if I were on trial for rape I'd want to be tried in a Muslim court!" Har, har. Consider me so totally PWNED.

We all know damned well that there is a meaningful distinction between the Western world and Muslim world. We can all play games and pretend there is no difference. Which is fine with me. I've been known to troll, too. Difference is…. I know the difference between when I'm trolling and when I'm spewing pseudo-intellectual bullshit!

LOL. No. More like: "These women live in a culture where, if they wear their seat belts, they will be beaten. Perhaps their children will be taken from them. Perhaps they will be removed to Saudi Arabia. Therefore, to spare them the drama inherent to their repugnant culture, we will demand that all persons wear seat belts."

Somewhat relatedly: Much to the chagrin of libertarians (and thus they never discuss it) smoking bangs have been very successful. Even the bar owners who "had their rights trampled" tend to see the smoking bans as a net positive.

Often what appears to be paradoxical is not. Reality is really weird sometimes.

By telling Muslim women that they can’t chose to wear a burka because we don’t believe their choice is free, France is proposing to elevate the concept of false consciousness — long a statist justification for totalitarianism — to a legal principle.

This reminds me of the argument for seat-belt laws, but lacks even the cause-and-effect-of-higher-taxes-for-everyone argument. It's purely a "you-know-not-what-you-do" argument.

If I understand the empiricist argument correctly in this situation, your response to

By telling Muslim women that they can’t chose to wear a burka because we don’t believe their choice is free,

is "yeah, their choice isn't free, empirically speaking." Is that right?

I personally think there's a qualitative difference between consequences of physical violence, and consequences of shame, expulsion, isolation, etc. But I certainly can't trust that a central government will always see the two as separate and distinct. And if the mantra is "protect the people, even from themselves", in which direction do you think they'll blur the line?

The concept of "worldview" is likewise vague to the point of uselessness in all but the most carefully circumscribed discursive contexts.

You assert that empirical facts are wanting in the analysis at hand. But tell me: which "empirical facts" lead you to believe in constructs such as "worldviews" and "Western"? Aren't you just importing preferred a priori tools and insisting that everyone else use them merely because you regard them as adequate?

How very non-western.

Still, in a perfect world, there’s a liberal-conservative-libertarian hybrid. Polices disallowing women from being allowed to “choose” to wear Scarlet letters would co-exist with a free market for labor.

"Disallowing from being allowed to choose"? War is peace. Hate is love. Coercion is choice. Your "perfect world" is one in which the state saves people from themselves at the level of religious practice and dress?