Dear David,

<<You wrote: "protecting viewpoints and dissenting opinions is cheap." I don't think it is cheap at all. Many people have been murdered for their expression of dissenting opinion. Rather than being cheap I think it is precious and essential.>>

Free expression of ideas is valuable, no doubt, but for a regime to allow it is cheap RELATIVE to allowing people to live their own life.

A democratic regime can thus cheaply afford to allow people to yell as much as they like: "let the dogs bark, my caravan will move on anyway; let them scream - all they'll get is hoarse throats".

<<Can we communicate anything except our disagreement?>>

Sure and we do. We agree for example that free speech is precious and essential; we agree that we don't like Singer's articles; and though we did not agree on the name of the principle ('democracy' or 'liberalism') we seemed to agree that minorities should not be interfered with by government... except that I'm no longer sure about it. It seems that you are happy for minorities to believe and say what they like, but then it stops when it moves from speech to actions.

<<Here we disagree again. In a free society we can say almost anything. We cannot do almost anything. An example is polygamy. We are free to advocate polygamy. We are not free to practice polygamy.>>

Yes, I agree that we disagree. I don't find any moral justification that allows the state to limit the number of people you marry.
(neither is it the state's business to register or recognise your marriages). Mind you, I do not advocate polygamy...

Re Singer: I accept Graham's sovereignty in his home, but why can't we, his guests, express our feelings to him?

<<I don’t think we have any obligation to allow practices X, Y & Z>>.

Sure, but what you propose is to explicitly DISALLOW them and persecute those who do. This is violence and the only possible justification for violence is self-defence. The state may only defend on behalf of those who authorise it to defend them.

Dear Yuyutsu,

You have effectively and coherently restated our disagreements.

The state uses violence to prevent people from doing what they will.

In the cases I mentioned - "female genital mutilation, genocide, polygamy, suttee and burning dissenters at the stake" People doing what they will causes harm to others. In those cases I believe the violence is justified.

If you don't then we continue to disagree. I see no point in continuing to hammer at each other.

Dear Yuyutsu,

Looking at the cases I mentioned polygamy may or may not cause harm to others. In cases where the US government interfered with the polygamous arrangements of some Mormons it did not prosecute them for polygamy. It prosecuted the Mormons for rape as some of the wives were young girls who had little choice in the matter. Polygamy only is prosecuted under law where a legal marriage exists, and one of the marital partners goes through the legal formality of another marriage without the dissolution of the first. De facto polygamy where all the participants are freely consenting adults is not prosecuted.

About the statement in the article that Hanan Ashrawi's organisation MIFTAH published an article that promoted blood libel:

MIFTAH didn't actually publish the article. Rather, it was posted as a link. MIFTAH quickly deleted the article, the posting of which it attributed to a junior staff member, rejected the blood libel and apologised.

http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=25950&CategoryId=2

http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=25956&CategoryId=2

Dear David,

<<In the cases I mentioned - "female genital mutilation, genocide, polygamy, suttee and burning dissenters at the stake" People doing what they will causes harm to others. In those cases I believe the violence is justified.>>

Violence can be justified only in self-defence.

For an act to be in self-defence, three conditions must be met:
1) It must be in order to avert harm.
2) The harm must be considered as harm by the 'harmed' person.
3) The harm is against oneself.

How one may defend oneself can vary, and one of the legitimate options is to form or join a 'mutual-defence' group such as a state.

A mutual-defence group is authorised to take any actions which any of its members could morally do.

A mutual-defence group is not authorised to take actions which none of its members may morally do.

So the fact that an act causes harm to others is insufficient to permit a state to prosecute the offender: another condition must also be fulfilled, which is that one or more of the offended has authorised the state to act on their behalf, or at least that they would be likely to authorise the state to act on their behalf have they had a chance to do so.

Genocide and burning dissenters at the stake most likely fall within those parameters.

Polygamy does not if all partners enter it voluntarily, without coercion.

Suttee does not if the widow voluntarily sacrifices herself and no coercion is involved.

FGM (and MGM) is difficult to classify, requiring a broad discussion which tends to involve religious and metaphysical elements. Unless you insist, I think that this would take us too far away from the topic, from which we already strayed quite a bit.

Dear Yuyutsu,

I have noted your comments.