Alberto Monteiro wrote: > > David Hobby wrote: ... > > O.K., we have to back up a bit from that, or there aren't > > any countries in my mythical ODS at all! For instance, the USA is > > rare among western democracies for having separation of church and > > state, but even it doesn't enforce it well. > > > ??? > > AFAIK, every other western nation has it too. Brazil certainly has it, > except that the Roman Catholic Church has too much power because > it's a rich organization.
Certainly not all. Why do they call it the "Church of England", for example? And see my quote below on France... > > We might manage to > > get together enough countries for the ODS if we set the bar lower, > > insisting that the majority could not make private, consensual > > behavior of the minorities illegal. : ) (But don't wear those > > headscarves to school!) > > > Headscarves? Is this the chador? No, Muslim women in France. Here, from: http://www.religioustolerance.org/rt_franc.htm Prohibiting the wearing of headscarves: In the mid 1990's, religious freedom in France was restricted by a a law which outlawed religious proselytizing by persons of all faiths. The French Minister of Education strictly interpreted this law as prohibiting the wearing of the hijab. This is a scarf that covers a woman's head, neck and throat. It is traditionally worn by teenage and adult Muslim women for protection, and to display modesty. He ordered the expulsion from schools of all female students who wore the hijab. The French government took no action against Roman Catholic students wearing crucifixes, Protestant students wearing crosses or Jewish male students wearing yarmulkes (skullcaps). Some of the students who were expelled from school because they wore the hijab successfully sued the French government and were reinstated. ... > > A good rule might be that only people who were born in > > a place could vote on which country it would join. > > > But this is what happened to Kosovo, who was a serbian zone, > until the albanians grew in number and began oppressing them. The former Yugoslavia is a good example. The different ethnic groups were pretty-much separate, although the border between their regions had a fractal look to it in places. If two ethnic groups were set on not wanting to live together, some people would have to move to achieve that. This would be better than ethnic cleansing, however! ---David
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