Deja NON Vu: Someone Was Imprudent Enough to Mention It

[Gob]

.

We could discuss those matters.

Or we could take "Option Four": We could run away from the substantive issues, because we have nothing to say about them.

This is not a "substantive issue", this is a minor point being debated, the debating of which will not have any influence outside of this forum.

sub·stan·tive
noun Grammar .
1. a noun.
2. a pronoun or other word or phrase functioning or inflected like a noun.

adjective
3. Grammar .
a. pertaining to substantives.
b. used in a sentence like a noun: a substantive adjective.
c. expressing existence: “to be” is a substantive verb.
4. having independent existence; independent.
5. belonging to the real nature or essential part of a thing; essential.
6. real or actual.
7. of considerable amount or quantity.

I think you give your hobby horse too much importance and relevance and meaning there, which others may not share. Involving oneself in this debate is a mater of choice.

[Joe Guy]

Involving oneself in this debate is a mater of choice.

Them heirloom 'maters are some of my favorites.

But they shouldn't be allowed to be naked in public.

[Sean]

Andrew, here's a point to consider if you will. Your tactic throughout the threads you have started on this subject has been to browbeat those who disagree with you. You dismiss their arguments as 'distractions' and then claim that they have presented no arguments. At that point you tend to get condescending and than insulting. This is usually followed by demands that people debate with you. This does not make people want to discuss this with you.

I'm sure you will disagree with this but I'm sure many more will agree with me.
If you want debate you must help to foster an atmosphere where people feel like they will be allowed to debate.

If you're reading this Papa Rubato then you can assume it applies to you too.

[Lord Jim]

Andrew, here's a point to consider if you will. Your tactic throughout the threads you have started on this subject has been to browbeat those who disagree with you. You dismiss their arguments as 'distractions' and then claim that they have presented no arguments. At that point you tend to get condescending and than insulting.

Gee, you've noticed that have you?

Privileged Glimpse Of The Bleeding Obvious 101

[Sean]

Sometimes the bleeding obvious needs to be pointed out Jim...

[Lord Jim]

[Lord Jim]

Sometimes the bleeding obvious needs to be pointed out Jim...

Don't I know it...

[Andrew D]

You and I are evidently not reading the same threads, Sean.

And I notice that despite posting to me repeatedly, you have not responded at all to Sue U:

You're missing the point, Sean. It doesn't matter whether it's an "overwhelmingly vast majority." The question is whether there is anything of subtstance that justifies a rule prohibiting public nudity. Obviously, there is not, other than fashion convention. Nudist resorts and "clothing optional" beaches demonstrate that there is no damage to societal functioning inherent in nudity. Is there societal damage in prohibiting nudity? One can argue that it is an infringement of liberty for the state to demand that you cover yourself under threat of criminal sanction. Moreover, how much covering should be mandatory? Certainly, there are some societies that believe nothing short of a burqa is sufficient. Do such "modesty" laws make sense, and are they consonant with a free society?

Why is that?

[Rick]

If yer point is about legislating morality, morality is legislated all the time and has been for a long time.

Before murder was a criminal offense it was a moral offense.

This argument is not about public nudity what's it really about?

[Jarlaxle]

Andrew's attention-whoring.

[Andrew D]

The question is whether there is anything of subtstance that justifies a rule prohibiting public nudity.

That ... has been the sole issue since Andrew first posed the question. It is an interesting question because it forces consideration of many aspects of how our society is run -- what are the rules, and why, particularly with regard to personal liberty issues, which extend far beyond the example of public nudity.

That is what the argument is about.

It is slippery language to describe prohibiting murder or battery or rape as "legislating morality," as if such prohibitions were on par with prohibiting nudity or consensual adult gay sex or prostitution or drug use or any of myriad other things.

... there are objective standards for "what we have most reason" to want and to do: the awfulness of pain, for example, gives us an objective reason to avoid being in agony.

(Philip Kitcher, "The Lure of the Peak," The New Republic (2 February 2012) (quoting Derek Parfit, On What Matters).)

And because each of us has an objective reason to avoid being in agony, each of us has an objective reason for consenting to laws which, generally speaking, prohibit us from inflicting agony on others.

But what such objective reason justifies prohibiting something merely because some people -- few, many, whatever; plainly not everyone -- are offended by that thing?

If the purported justification is simple majoritarianism, then the people supporting such prohibitions ought to come out and say so. But it is easy to see why they so rarely do: They know as well as anyone that the shoe could easily be on the other foot.

It is also easy to see that general public-nudity laws -- not those involving special circumstances which justify special rules (restaurants, prouce markets, etc.) -- are grounded primarily in simple prejudice. In most places in the U.S., it is perfectly legal for a man to walk down the street with his nipples exposed, but if a woman does the same thing, that is a crime. What is the objective reason for that?

[Rick]

Again Andrew there is subtext to yer question "why is the sky blue".

Why don't you spit it out?

[Andrew D]

I do not understand that posting, keld feldspar. To what subtext do you refer?

I have tried to make the point that I am getting at clear. Sue U has done a better job of that than I have, so I have explicitly adopted her phrasing of the issue.

If you think that I am somehow getting at something else, please let me know what that something else is.

[Lord Jim]

Again Andrew there is subtext to yer question "why is the sky blue".

Why don't you spit it out?

Keld, the "subtext" here is the one Jarl pointed out in his last post....

The "subtext", is that Andrewdriver has now resurrected three dead horse topics, (so far) because the previous discussions on those topics ended without those who disagreed with him being beat into submission; that irritates him, so he's having another go....

Re this particular topic:

If anyone gets the impression I'm not taking this discussion seriously, they would be right...

I agree with Strop ; this not a "substantive" topic....

It is a cream pie in the face, seltzer water down the pants, joy buzzer, whoopie cushion topic....

It belongs in "Laffs"....

Your tactic throughout the threads you have started on this subject has been to browbeat those who disagree with you. You dismiss their arguments as 'distractions' and then claim that they have presented no arguments. At that point you tend to get condescending and than insulting.

That has become his primary approach to virtually any topic, (though he frequently dives in with the personal abuse in order to try and bully others into submission earlier in the process...)

And of course when he isn't dismissing the arguments of those who disagree with him as "distractions" he busies himself mischaracterizing them in order to create a strawman pseudo debate that he can easily win....

(And no matter how many times it's demonstrated that he's mischaracterizing an argument, he just keeps right on doing it...that's part of the "wearing down" technique he's fond of)

The sooner that this "discussion" (actually this is a vanity thread; it was never intended as a "discussion" in any meaningful sense) get's to the point where, like his role model quaddriver he triumphantly declares that no one has said anything that proves he is anything less than 100% correct and has been all along, the better...

Then he can move on to declaring himself absolutely 100% correct about something else, (resurrected languages for example) and engaging in sophistry and intellectual dishonesty peppered with personal abuse on another topic....

[rubato]

1.
Would you care if legal prohibition was replaced with social opprobrium?

2.
Aren't laws against public nudity more like laws against storing junk cars in your front yard?


yrs,
rubato

[Rick]

1.
Would you care if legal prohibition was replaced with social opprobrium?

2.
Aren't laws against public nudity more like laws against storing junk cars in your front yard?


yrs,
rubato

In CA this already occurs.

Andrew wants "I'll do what I damn well please anywhere I damn well please to hell with codification"...

[Lord Jim]

I'll do what I damn well please anywhere I damn well please

Exactamundo...

And not only that, he wants to take it further, and not only have this offensive behavior tolerated but also lauded as morally correct...

I recall from his numerous previous pontifications on this topic that he even attempts to stand reality on it's head, and actually has the mendacity to try to claim that it's the people who object to exhibitionists parading around butt-naked in public that have the mental problems, rather than the ones with a compulsion to parade around butt-naked in front of strangers....

[Andrew D]

Well, if my highest aspiration in life were to be a successful internet swindler, then I might adopt Little Jimmy's purported point of view.

Meanwhile, however, the salient issue remains what it has been all along:

The question is whether there is anything of subtstance that justifies a rule prohibiting public nudity.

That ... has been the sole issue since Andrew first posed the question. It is an interesting question because it forces consideration of many aspects of how our society is run -- what are the rules, and why, particularly with regard to personal liberty issues, which extend far beyond the example of public nudity.

People are, of course, free to follow the lead of those who, desperate to avoid the question, flailingly struggle to make the dispute about me.

People are also free to engage in rational discussion about the question that matters. (No dispute about me matters.)

I am still hoping for the latter, but I am becoming increasingly less optimistic.

[Andrew D]

1.
Would you care if legal prohibition was replaced with social opprobrium?

That depends on the consequences of the social opprobrium. If the consequences are merely that people disapprove, then so what?

2.
Aren't laws against public nudity more like laws against storing junk cars in your front yard?

Do naked bodies rust? Do they leech contaminants into the shared soil?

If the argument is that public nudity somehow depresses property values, then those making that argument should say so. And they should say why that argument should extend to nudity on public sidewalks, in public parks, etc.

[Andrew D]

Andrew wants "I'll do what I damn well please anywhere I damn well please to hell with codification"...

I have not said that. On the contrary, I have observed that there are particular circumstances (restaurants, etc.) which justify particular codifications.

I have been asking -- with very little success in getting answers -- for the justifications underlying general codifications -- codifications which, because they apply even the special circumstances do not exist, are not justified by those special circumstances.

What if I said "I'll read whatever books I damn well please, and to hell with censorship"? Would you have the same attitude?