🚀 go-pugleaf

I was reading the latest issue of Scientific American. There was a
bunch of good stuff in it, such as articles on new technologies that
might hold promise for the future of electronics, such as nanotubes
and tetracene.

Included was the sad story of how, in the early 1960s, the originator
of the technique of the technique of executing multiple instructions
per clock cycle, which helps the Pentiums and other microprocessor
chips in our computers go as fast as they do, was persecuted because
of having undergone a sex-change operation.

This is tragic and unfortunate; nowadays, things are different, of
course, but it was noted in the article that transsexuals today are
still the target of hatred and threats.

This too is unfortunate, but I tend to view this as now merely a
law-enforcement problem. "Changing public attitudes", in the sense of
making everyone comfortable with this sort of thing - as opposed to
making people more likely to respect the rights of others, even people
they disapprove of in some way - was, naturally enough in today's
climate, the remedy advocated in the article.

Well, I recalled a news item from a couple months ago. A transvestite
- a man dressed in woman's clothing, not surgically altered - sued a
restaurant owner, and won, because he was prevented from using the
women's washroom there.

Events like this will naturally be expected to produce a strong public
reaction. A decision like this clearly, and obviously, compromises the
safety and privacy of women.

Another example: at present, the law forbidding dogs or other animals
from entering grocery stores and restaurants, and other places where
food is dealt with, contains an exemption for seeing-eye dogs.

In Alberta, before the law was amended in this way, a restaurant owner
was successfully fined for refusing admission to a patron with a
seeing-eye dog.

This was outrageous.

When there is a law saying "do not do this" because doing it would
*endanger people's lives and health*, then everyone is expected to
_obey_ that law. To punish someone for OBEYING THE LAW is horrendously
unfair.

Of course, presumably the combination of the principle that "ignorance
of the law is no excuse" with the existence of a law against
discrimination that took precedence over other laws allowed this to
happen.

Of course, there are numerous other examples of this sort of things.
Women sports reporters and male athlete's locker rooms. A number of
issues involving homosexuality. Restrictions on how companies can deal
with drug abuse among their employees. Even the issue of turbans and
the Canadian Legion.

Canadians are fair-minded people. They oppose discriminating against
people on the basis of irrational beliefs.

But it's not irrational to think that:

women's privacy and safety is endangered if all a man has to do to be
able to walk into the ladies' room is wear a dress

a dog is a dog, regardless of what training it has recieved, and thus
its immune system and microbial population are also likely to be the
same, unless it is in a laboratory doing work on gnotobiotic dogs or
something

men of certain ethnic and religious backgrounds would be discriminated
against in the field of pro sport if those with a sense of modesty
need not apply

it should be forbidden to communicate with a minor about sexual
matters without the consent of the minor's parent or legal guardian
(with exceptions, of course, for police and social workers), and
certain attempts to promote tolerance of homosexuals are in violation
of this

the ability of people to perform tasks reliably and safely is affected
by drug use

communities of individuals have their customs and usages; ethnic and
religious communities are not the only kinds of communities that exist

What therefore is being rejected is not the hard-won victory over
discrimination. What is causing resentment and anger is interference
in the lives of people who are not actively discriminating.

Since a part of this anger and resentment naturally will spill over
against the groups on whose behalf these things are being done, it is
precisely this extravagance that is putting our legacy of tolerance at
risk. And since tolerance is in itself a difficult achievement (a look
at history should convince anyone of that), I would think those
genuinely concerned about the well-being of people would be trying to
ensure that tolerance would be sustained, rather than trying to go
beyond it - to achieve a Utopian vision of total equality - at great
expense to many private individuals, thus creating a climate of fear.

John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/crypto.htm