Should countries outlaw the hijab, niqab and burka?

I've told you several times: I find it morally repugnant that you want to tell Muslim women what to wear. If they choose freely to wear the hijab, you want to prevent them from doing so. So why do you want to take away the woman's right to choose?

You want to ban the hijab, don't you? That IS removing a woman's right to choose to wear a hijab. Even if women were being forced to wear the hijab, taking away that one form of oppression would do NOTHING to improve the life of Muslim women.

"Likely" would not agree? You've been shown testimony from women who DO want to wear the hijab. There's no "likely" about it. They DO NOT agree with YOU.You're talking about some hypothetical women who are being "forced" by their husbands to wear the hijab and you're using that as an excuse to oppress ALL Muslim women. Shame on you.

YOU are the one who continually ignores what everybody is saying - i.e that YOU are the one who wants to oppress women.You have been shown that some women DO wear the hijab voluntarily. Why do you want to prevent them? Stop evading the question.

We're not just talking about "full face and body coverings" here. There may be viable reasons for banning full face and body coverings in some circumstances.But the argument in this thread includes the hijab. If you can come up with a reason for banning the hijab, beyond racism, feel free to roll it out.

So we could have ended slavery by banning chains? Nobody is pretending any such thing. The point is that if ANY women make the choice, we can not legitimately prevent them. If there is ANY non-oppressive use for chains, we can not legitimately ban them. And banning them wouldn't eliminate the oppression anyway.

That's what I've been saying - the idea of ending oppression by banning the symbols of oppression is absurd. I can do that three times before breakfast. I have said that a ban may be legitimate in some circumstances. That does not legitimize a blanket ban. What an idiotic thing to say. You can't integrate people by making them uncomfortable.

Don't confuse "legal" with "legitimate". There's nothing "extreme" about a hijab. I don't know if you're deliberately trying to bait and switch....The topic covers the hijab - it's right there in the title - as well as "full body covering". If you can understand the difference, please make that clear. If you think extending a "full body covering" ban to headscarves is sensible, please make that clear too.And please make clear how far you think it is "legitimate" to force immigrants to emulate their host culture. Should turbans be banned? Should long skirts be banned? Should the bindi be banned? Should speaking Hindi or Urdu in public be banned? Just how far are you willing to go to "integrate" newcomers?

I'm saying that laws imposing a dress code on Muslim women are not legitimate. I have a problem with "nuanced" discrimination. When you say, "The full body covering is a symbol of non-integration with the prevalent culture," it sounds like an intent to shoehorn newcomers into "our" culture.

So the devil made you do it? I've already said:
1. If ONE woman voluntarily chooses to wear the hijab, she should be allowed to do so.
2. If any women are being forced to wear the hijab, banning the hijab will not prevent their husbands from oppressing them in other ways. You can't end oppression by banning the symptoms of oppression.

I don't give a flying f**k if people are made uncomfortable by somebody else's clothing or skin colour or whatever. I'm against assimilation. Look what happened when we tried to assimilate aboriginal children by forcing them into residential schools. We need less forced assimilation, not more.

No. My grandparents came to Canada for the free farmland. They knew next to nothing about the culture, so how could they possibly like it or want it? Have you heard of history at all? The French and English didn't come to Canada because they wanted to "fit in". Why on earth would other immigrants come here to "fit in"?

We ended slavery without banning chains. Damn right I wouldn't pass laws that suit the many by oppressing the few. On the contrary, basic human rights require that the majority does NOT trample on the rights of the minority.

You're confusing legal with legitimate again. None of which have anything to do with the topic.

If you're not full-blooded aboriginal, that statement is pretty ironic. If you are, I'm sorry but we're not going anywhere.Far from embracing the aboriginal culture, we imposed ours on them. That attempt at assimilation caused more problems than it solved.We don't want to make the same mistake again. Instead, we'll absorb the good aspects of incoming cultures and we'll tolerate the other aspects. That's the Canadian way. We learned it from the aboriginals.If you don't like it, get the hell out.