I have perfectly well explained why I called Ian B a Jacobin: because he wishes to remake the world in conformity with his impoverished rationalist philosophy, based upon shaky premises, and in so doing would inevitably create a tyranny in the name of Liberty. More specifically, his “freedom” involves the suppression of traditional religions. The term is apt and I will keep using it when appropriate. At no point have I ever accused anyone of wanting to re-establish the House of Stuart. Twit.

I am not aware – although Ian B is perfectly capable of answering for himself – whether the removal of the ability of parents to have their kids’ genitals adjusted for non-medical reasons is the same as the “suppression of traditional religions”.

in a free society it is not the job of the state to decide what motives are and are not legitimate unless they can prove the procedure was done with the intention of harming the child. I am not under any obligation whatsoever to prove that infant circumcision is justified by motives you might have, as you demand I do.

You jolly well are. It does make a clear difference in judging such operations to say why you had them carried out. Even if male circ. is harmless or painless, if it is strictly unnecessary for health reasons, I think the burden of proof lies on those parents who want to do away with a part of a child’s anatomy and “mark” the kid in some way or other.

The motive for FGM is to stop women ever experiencing sexual pleasure. The male equivalent of FGM would be removal of the whole penis.)

As I said, one operation is clearly a lot worse than the other: no argument from me (FGM sounds and is totally horrific). But – those folk who justify FGM might argue that they are practising a “traditional religion” and the banners will be trying to suppress it. You might justifiably condemn such specious reasoning. If you condemn such reasoning as self-interested twaddle, however, then the point could be hurled back at you by someone who thinks there are limits to male circ. also.

Is the operation vital for the child’s health and happiness?
Is the operation reversible if it proves to be harmful or irksome in some way?
Is the prime reason for the operation medical, and if not, what is the justification?

We’ve been over your deeply weird intentionalist approach to legal questions. As oldandrew (who has a fantastic blog by the way) has pointed out, in a free society it is not the job of the state to decide what motives are and are not legitimate unless they can prove the procedure was done with the intention of harming the child. I am not under any obligation whatsoever to prove that infant circumcision is justified by motives you might have, as you demand I do.

In both cases, there is clearly no consent whatever from the child, and in today’s age, it is clearly motivated out of group tradition.

Well, this is plainly not the whole justification, but even if it was what’s the bloody problem?

(Again, this is NOT the motive for FGM. The motive for FGM is to stop women ever experiencing sexual pleasure. The male equivalent of FGM would be removal of the whole penis.)

Now, plainly, some of these things should be illegal and some shouldn’t. You will say that comparing circumcision to hair-cutting is ridiculous. I will reply that comparing it to FGM is ridiculous and I am right. The truth is that those of us who have abandoned our teenage prediliciton for systemization based upon reductive models are faced with the necessity of exercising our judgement. We may ask questions such as ‘Are there frequent and serious health problems associated with this activity?’, ‘Are there many adults who complain that this activity was performed on them as children’, ‘Does this activity curtail the affected infant from doing things we judge important, or restrict its ability to be happy,whether in infancy or adulthood? Is this its intention?’ etc. Now, a sober and informed person doing these things will find that FGM should remain illegal and that circumcision should remain legal and they will not be influenced in this by any number of moronic ravings about consent or contract law or whatever.

No, because the difference between giving a four-old boy a haircut and cutting off part of his body so that it cannot grow back, is precisely because it cannot grow back. Once gone, that’s it. It is irreversible (although quite possibly in future I suppose modern science might make this possible). You deplore FGM, as I do; but you try explaining that to parents who, for whatever reason, claim that FGM is part of their culture, and that anyone who disputes that is some sort of utopian, “Jacobite”, etc, etc. It seems to me that there can be some fairly simple principles that guide what is acceptable:

Is the operation vital for the child’s health and happiness?
Is the operation reversible if it proves to be harmful or irksome in some way?
Is the prime reason for the operation medical, and if not, what is the justification?

On this basis, both forms of circumcision, in this day and age of modern science and hygiene, are questionable. (I’ll accept that the female version is far worse than the former). In both cases, there is clearly no consent whatever from the child, and in today’s age, it is clearly motivated out of group tradition.

By the way

“If moral values are ‘taught’ with the cuts of a knife, I will have no part of it.”

No one asked you, sir.

I trust you see the horrifying irony of your response.

You dish it out, so take it. Let’s remind ourselves of the first comment you made that kicked off the whole thread in what seems like a lifetime ago (11:47 am, July 25):

Funny, I thought that honour went to Ian B’s call for the arrest and imprisonment of millions of peacable and loyal Britons.

You dish it out, but you refuse to take it. That is the mark of a bully and a cad.

And a bounder too. Listen, I think your ideology is as absurd as it is pernicious and that you’re a bit of a goon. You think I’m a bronze aga child mutilator. The difference is that I don’t shout about how civil and nice I’m being. Either you have been being systematically dishonest or you are too narrow-minded to realise when you are insulting people. This in itself is a minor point, but the fact that your blinkered mindset has been typical of Liberals over the past two centuries is of some significance.

Speaking of dishonesty, we now turn to this from Midwesterner.

My problem is with performing it on non-consenting persons, and when one religion uses government to protect a practice that is closely comparable to another religion’s practice which must be banned.

Sigh. Not prohibiting an activity is not equatable to “protecting” it except in the most basic sense that the Rule of Law exists to protect our peaceable acitivities. Circumcision of male infants has always been legal under the English Common Law, FGM has always been illegal. No amount of sophistry from you will disguise the fact that all I am arguing for is maintenance of the status quo and not exemption, protection or whatever other buzzword you want to toss out.

Now, as to why any such distinction should be made, there are two obvious reasons. The first, based on tradition, will obviously cut no ice with you as you have made abundantly clear your desire to remodel the legal system in conformity with your peculiar personal ideology. I will only note that your disrespect for precendent is alien and repugnant to the Anglo-Saxon political tradition upon which the liberties of both out countries are based and move on to the second reason.

Here are some things a parent could conceivably do to a child:-
a) cut his hair
b) trim his fingernails
c) Give him an MMR injection
d) force him to wear corrective shoes
e) cut off part of his foreskin.
f) tatoo his forehead
g) cut off his leg
h) castrate him.
Now, plainly, some of these things should be illegal and some shouldn’t. You will say that comparing circumcision to hair-cutting is ridiculous. I will reply that comparing it to FGM is ridiculous and I am right. The truth is that those of us who have abandoned our teenage prediliciton for systemization based upon reductive models are faced with the necessity of exercising our judgement. We may ask questions such as ‘Are there frequent and serious health problems associated with this activity?’, ‘Are there many adults who complain that this activity was performed on them as children’, ‘Does this activity curtail the affected infant from doing things we judge important, or restrict its ability to be happy,whether in infancy or adulthood? Is this its intention?’ etc. Now, a sober and informed person doing these things will find that FGM should remain illegal and that circumcision should remain legal and they will not be influenced in this by any number of moronic ravings about consent or contract law or whatever.

Though it is not relevant to my argument, it should be pointed out that in your ignorance you have repeatedly libelled Islam, which does not and never has mandated FGM.

Also, I had said in other circles that I was not returning to this discussion, but I cannot let yet another deliberate misstatement by Gabriel stand. He said “If you are unprepared to foist your values and way of life on your children, your civilization will not endure.” My exact statement that he is mischaracterizing as a prohibition on religious instruction was “joining a religion should be done by personal choice not by assignment at birth.” I most definitely do hope that people “foist” their moral values on their children. It is an essential part of being a good parent. But in that word “foist”, Gabriel is once again concealing the fact that what we are talking about here is an irreversible surgical amputation. If moral values are ‘taught’ with the cuts of a knife, I will have no part of it. There is already one religion that holds that doctrine very strongly.

If you are referring to Christianity you are wrong. Baptism is believed to leave a far more indelible mark than circumcision. It is held by all members of the CofE that are still interested in such matters that Baptism is an irreversible entry into the covenant of grace – for all for whom it is effectual – and I believe this is the doctrine of all the churches that lay claim to the title of Catholic, though they will use different terminology. When I said that Anabaptist ethics were doing the rounds in this comment box I did not do so because I enjoy using long words.
(Doubtless you will respond by saying that baptism is different because it doesn’t leave a scar. Thus demonstrating that you (i) don’t have a clue what I’m talking about and (ii) you hold fundamentalist position on the primacy of matter that you expect your interlocutors to mimic you on).

By the way

If moral values are ‘taught’ with the cuts of a knife, I will have no part of it.

No one asked you, sir.

Something that seems curious to me from an outside perspective, no where in Exodus 20:2-17 or Deuteronomy 5:6-21 (the Commandments) is there any mention of circumcision to say nothing of the eighth day part. And yet rabbis have decided to reinterpret the Sabbath commandment to make an exception for circumcision. But the Commandments came after the message to Abraham and so either God had a change of priorities in the mean time or somebody didn’t copy the scrolls correctly. If there is anybody who can explain how Judaic theology chooses the resolutions to these conflicts with out engineering an answer to support just this particular conclusion, I really am interested.

As I’m sure you’ll recognise, it is inavoidable that on occasions various commandments will come into conflict with one another. When this occurs, Rabbis, assuming that G-d is neither insane nor nor malevolent, seek a way to reconcile the conflicting obligations. When doing so they have as their guide the ordinary tools of source criticism as well as a large body of precedent and explanatory rulings known, somewhat misleadingly, as the Oral Law, which is held to have originated, with the Pentateuch, at Sinai (though opinions on how exactly this is the case differ). The problems thrown up by the Sabbath day are, as it happens a particularly rich source of such tricky questions. If you are genuinely interested, I sugggest you consult Tractate Shabbat of the Talmud. Unfortunately, the Talmud is arranged in a rather inconvenient way for purposes of finding answers to questions such as these and relevant material will be dispersed throughout it so I would recommend you, if you want to save time, to refer to the relevant chapters of Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah. I caution you, though, that his legal rulings are not considered absolutely binding by anyone except the Yemenite community. I am not at all learned in Jewish law, so that’s the best I can do.

Squander, you say “I’m against FGM, of course.” and attack me twice for having any doubts about your opinion on the matter. Apparently there is something utterly beyond the pale about cutting off a significant part of what will become the sensation producing parts of female baby’s genitals. And yet cutting off what will become a significant sensation producing part of male baby’s genitals is not just permissible, it must be legally protected.

And you want to know what is wrong with me that I am unable to see a profound difference between the two practices? One could easily say that “you have no idea what’s important to people. Unless they’re you.” I see why you are so pathologically afraid of reason and logic.

BTW, are you basing the Jewish exception on the indisputable fact that Jews have lived in the West longer than Muslims? Or that there are more of them? Why exactly is one religion’s practice in the West excused as ‘traditional’ and the other religion’s practice abhorrent?

The point is that people vote with their feet.

So you are telling anybody who didn’t want to be circumcised but was, that they should have left their country before they were born?

Some other interesting contradictions in this thread.

Opposition to non-medical circumcism has been portrayed by some as “an abstract idea” while at the same time others say it is “based on unbending rational logic”

Some people claim that circumcision as a tradition must be considered in light of unforeseen benefits and yet unforeseen (but observed) negative consequences are utterly inappropriate to the discussion.

Pork apparently must remain banned because it used to cause trichina (I had to look it up) and circumcision might have had a medical reason so it should remain in force. At least that appears to be that person’s goal. That argument is a sword without a handle, be careful or you will inadvertently be arguing for an end to all Jewish law for which their speculative purpose is now solved by other, better means. Religious law needs no justification. That is why it is religious law and that is why it must be by personal consent. I think dietary prescriptions and proscriptions are fine for children provided they don’t cause readily demonstrable health problems in the nature of poisoning, etc. but again people are ignoring the difference between deliberately doing something the child can never undo and something (a kosher diet) that they can change immediately on reaching adulthood.

Something that seems curious to me from an outside perspective, no where in Exodus 20:2-17 or Deuteronomy 5:6-21 (the Commandments) is there any mention of circumcision to say nothing of the eighth day part. And yet rabbis have decided to reinterpret the Sabbath commandment to make an exception for circumcision. But the Commandments came after the message to Abraham and so either God had a change of priorities in the mean time or somebody didn’t copy the scrolls correctly. If there is anybody who can explain how Judaic theology chooses the resolutions to these conflicts with out engineering an answer to support just this particular conclusion, I really am interested.

I would not have bothered to engage in this discussion if proponents of infant male genital modification held a consistent position on infant female genital modification. But it is very clear to me that there is an expectation of a special religious exemption that they have no intention of permitting to other religions.

That violates the separation of religion and government.

It is in the dishonesty of some debaters here that showing a preference for one religion’s practice over another’s is portrayed as keeping religion out of government yet holding all religions to the same standards is portrayed as government interfering in religion.

I oppose (quite clearly by now I suspect) all irreversible procedures performed on children for religious reasons. But what has me upset here is the vicious and duplicitous arguments by the pro-circumcision lobby. If you were consistent and not demanding a special legal dispensation for your particular practice while denying one to others, I would grant you consistency and be content to simply disagree. As should be clear from all of my comments, I have no problem with religious circumcision. My problem is with performing it on non-consenting persons, and when one religion uses government to protect a practice that is closely comparable to another religion’s practice which must be banned.

Also, I had said in other circles that I was not returning to this discussion, but I cannot let yet another deliberate misstatement by Gabriel stand. He said “If you are unprepared to foist your values and way of life on your children, your civilization will not endure.” My exact statement that he is mischaracterizing as a prohibition on religious instruction was “joining a religion should be done by personal choice not by assignment at birth.” I most definitely do hope that people “foist” their moral values on their children. It is an essential part of being a good parent. But in that word “foist”, Gabriel is once again concealing the fact that what we are talking about here is an irreversible surgical amputation. If moral values are ‘taught’ with the cuts of a knife, I will have no part of it. There is already one religion that holds that doctrine very strongly.

No.

In this country if you want to ban something that has hitherto been practised legally and peacefully you bloody well get a statute passed by both Houses of Parliament. End of.

Indeed. As several of us have said, the law against assault has been imperfectly and unevenly applied down the years. Statutary legislation is, or should be, passed to correct these anomalies. Whether parliament will want to do so is another matter, since it would obviously offend some Jewish and Muslim voters, possibly others, while I suspect a lot of people are indifferent to it, although probably not indifferent to the female operation. I have no confidence that this practice will be outlawed or restricted, and anyway, there are rather more urgent issues in front of us, such as cutting back the State generally.

As for my rudeness, every so often I get mad about something someone has said and call eveyone an idiot, people call me a fascist, jihadist, xenophobe or multiculturalist or whatever, Perry threatens to IP ban me and I shut up. It’s a lot more fun than a bunch of comment boxes with a few praises for the original comment, an overblown Jeremiad from Ian B, a few whimsical and sensible comments from Nick M, a Enlightenment/Counter Enlightenment meta-narrative from countingcats and a Haiku from RAB.

You dish it out, so take it. Let’s remind ourselves of the first comment you made that kicked off the whole thread in what seems like a lifetime ago (11:47 am, July 25):

Utterly absurd and completely typical Libertarian gibberish. Do you think a parent can’t confiscate their children’s toys because it violates their property rights? What about cutting his nails if he doesn’t want it? Grow up. The whole concept of Children’s Rights is the brainchild of the totalitarian Left and nothing more nor nor less than then first step towards communal breeding of children and the eradication of hereditary transmission of knowledge and custom – that is to say the only absolutely indispensible condition of cultured existence.* That so many Libertarians support it is the best indication that their philosophy is pernicious horses**t. When exactly are you going to learn the elementary fact that different modes of association have different rules associated with them? Idiots.

You dish it out, but you refuse to take it. That is the mark of a bully and a cad.

And this blog does not want to be an echo-chamber (I have had plenty of disagreements with other regulars here who nevertheless are perfectly civil, even though the lingo gets a bit salty).

And RAB’s Haikus are great.

Wow. Seriously, wow. Letting people choose their own religion => death of a civilization?

I didn’t say that. Perhaps our interpretation of what Midwesterner said is different and perhaps you are correct, but what I meant, in any case, is this. If you are unprepared to foist your values and way of life on your children, your civilization will not endure. The secularised Anabaptist ethics that many here seem to hold are a dead end.

On another minor point, you can stop wasting your time researching anti-circumcision groups. Nobody, contrary to your claims, is arguing pro or anti-foreskin on the grounds of the merits or weaknesses of the foreskin. If you believe this to be the case, then you have very clearly distorted the opposing comments in your head (as with SquanderTwo’s claims about “militant atheism”) and totally misunderstood the arguments against religiously-justified circumcision.

Ian B and Frederick Grieves have clearly grounded their case on the supposed harm of infant circumcision and both seem to have absorbed a fair chunk of anti-circumcision propaganda. JP’s argument is somewhat different, but nevertheless any claims of “assault” or “abuse” are only intellgible if we take not having a foreskin to be worse than having one.

Mr Grieves

I also don’t think that equating them to PETA is fair. As http://petakillsanimals.com PETA actually kills those it supposedly wants protected, while intactivists do not get boys circumcised at all. ^_^

The point is that such groups ostensibly want to make people happier, but operate by preying on and intensifying misery.

I have known many Jews to share his view. Yet they are still forced to spend their lives marked with a sign that means nothing to them.

I call bullshit.

There is no law officially exempting it from assault and battery legislation.

Now this really isn’t on, no matter how many times it has been repeated. In this country if you want to ban something that has hitherto been practised legally and peacefully you bloody well get a statute passed by both Houses of Parliament. End of.

JP

Well, as for Gabriel, several of us have been a bit rough. But I hate to state the obvious, but this whole argument was kicked off when Gabriel tore into Ian B for his views, including using such lovely expressions as “Jacobite bastard”, or somesuch. Lovely.

One day I truly hope to be in a conversation with someone who I can call a Jacobite bastard.

As for my rudeness, every so often I get mad about something someone has said and call eveyone an idiot, people call me a fascist, jihadist, xenophobe or multiculturalist or whatever, Perry threatens to IP ban me and I shut up. It’s a lot more fun than a bunch of comment boxes with a few praises for the original comment, an overblown Jeremiad from Ian B, a few whimsical and sensible comments from Nick M, a Enlightenment/Counter Enlightenment meta-narrative from countingcats and a Haiku from RAB.

Anyway, the point is a minor one, but Squander 2 is entirely correct. One of the first points I made was that people like you have no clue what people outside your bubble care about and you seem to have gone out of your way to prove that for the rest of your argument.