darq

I really could not care less

Clearly, because you didn't even care enough to read what I originally wrote.

I've got better things to care about.

Go do so then.

The idea that your create your world with unfettered freedom and no restrictions is a false notion.

Good thing I didn't say that then.

But I'm saying you also have to be realistic and face the fact that no one is going to pay you to sit on your bum and play video games all day (in all likelihood).

Who said anything about that?

The world you want to live in is bounded by the stark facts of economic necessities and social pressures.

Except economics is not "facts", it's a way of organising that we have the power to change. Specifically referring to economics, the world is the way that it is because some people want it to be this way, it is not a fact of nature.

Go ahead and be that way and see how far you get in life.

Better things are possible. We create our world, there is no reason it has to be as uncaring as it is. And the only way to make a change for the better is to abandon your way of thinking.

The system doesn't actually require any collaboration to eventually become a two-party race. It's pretty much statistically assured if voters behave rationally, but with limited information.

Well, sorta but also not really.

Neither party seems to have any interest in reforming the voting system to something more representative. So in that way I guess you could say they are colluding, but more reasonably they simply share a common incentive.

But it really is the system itself that makes third party candidates basically impossible. It incentivises people to vote strategically, not for the party they want but rather against the party they don't want. That system is eventually sure to collapse into a two-party system.

Wild how he doesn’t even mention the possibility of voting for a third party.

Why would he? The US voting system makes third party candidates an impossibility. It's not a viable option.

So they didn't rule if the "no hats" rule should go, they were asked if such a rule - if it exists - is applicable to religious hats or if the right to religious freedom protects such symbols. So they rule on half-theoretical questions that are often narrower than the case itself.

And I find that very structure harmful. Because by formulating the question asked of the court in a specific way, then limiting the answers it can give to only that question, you can force these kinds of discriminatory judgements while pretending that that wasn't the point.

The court should be able to say, as part of the ruling, that while exemptions should not be given on religious grounds, justification for rules that are considered to infringe on religious freedoms may be asked for.

We can easily give a reason why discrimination should not be allowed while serving the public, and similarly why antlers cannot be worn in a workshop.

The "no hats" rule in this case wasn't a "no hats" rule, but a "no religious symbols are allowed to be worn by anybody" rule. The court saw such a rule as justified because it did not discriminate against specific religions or symbols.

Which is ridiculous because a hypothetical religion could use pants as a symbol of their faith and suddenly pants are banned.

If the rule by itself is dumb or not is another matter.

No. It's not another matter. It's the entire matter. That's my point.

I know what I described is your second option. But I'm deliberately putting the focus on the original rule, because that is where the problem lies.

The rule disproportionately affects people who wear headwear. The rule basically makes that job inaccessible to those whose religion requires headwear. The rule is discriminatory in its effect, even if not in its wording or intention. So the appropriate action is to rethink the rule. If there is no strong reason why the rule exists, and it has these discriminatory effects, then the rule should change.

Now there is a rule that employees aren't allowed to wear head coverings at work (for whatever reason)

And maybe that rule is the stupid one.

So if one religion is allowed to claim special status for their head covering (Head scarf), can an orthodox jew wear their hat? Can someone believing in druidism wear antlers to work?

Except it isn't necessarily claiming a special status.

The argument can simply be that the headwear ban should be removed, unless there is good reason for it. So yes, anyone can wear any headwear, so long as it doesn't interfere with the task at hand or other people. The antlers would probably fall afoul of those requirements.

And what is with people who happen to have no religion they believe in. Why are they granted less rights by the state than the religious people?

They wouldn't be. The removal of a ban doesn't somehow mean that atheists have fewer rights. They'd be allowed to wear their desired headwear too.

So: Which other possibilities does a state have to resolve this besides

Still a false dichotomy here.

To be clear here: the second option is not "ban religious symbols alltogether", it's "we have our rules, there is no way for you to get an exception with the reason 'religion'"

The option is not to allow "religion" to be used as an exception, but rather set rules that are permissive to everyone, including religious people, within the limits of the task at hand and inconvenience to other people.

A headwear ban is pretty clearly discriminatory towards Muslim people, and probably also to certain Jewish people though I'm not 100% sure of that. The goal should not be to give them exceptions, but rather rethink the headwear rule.

If there isn't a specific reason that something cannot be worn, such as a safety concern or an obstruction to others, then it should be allowed by default. A headscarf doesn't affect anyone. Same way a kippah doesn't affect anyone.

That is completely non-comparable to denying someone service on the basis of religion. And the idea that the only two options are allow religious people to discriminate on the basis of their religion, or ban all clothing that indicates religion, is a false dichotomy.

That is a very false dichotomy.

Yeah honestly living there for a while, I came around a bit on doing things by paper.

It's slower, certainly. But the Japanese are scary efficient at it, and there is a lot of infrastructure to support it.

And in the case where things go wrong or are confusing, at least you can take the forms and actually go and talk to someone, rather than staring at a computer screen that offers nothing.