Calm Rational Thought: Criminal syllogism?

["Ted Moffett" <ted_moffett@hotmail.com>]

Visionaries:

"Equal" treatment of gender under the law does not have to mean men and 
women are the same.  I have equal rights with blacks, but our skin color is 
different.  A women has equal right to health care in Medicare as a man, but 
that does not mean men will go to a gynecologist.  A case can be made that 
men and women have equal protection under the law to show certain parts of 
their body in public, but this has NOTHING necessarily to do with men and 
women's chests being different or the same.  Men and women's genitals are 
very different, yet the law is the same regarding public exposure.  So you 
can accept that men's and women's's chests are very different, yet provide 
for equal protection for how the law governs both.  I am not a 
constitutional scholar, but I think what I am saying here is basically 
correct.  Of course some courts have chosen to rule that female breasts are 
considered "private parts" in a manner that makes their exposure in public 
different in kind from exposure of a male breast.  But this definition of a 
female breast as a private part in this legal sense can be challenged.  New 
York state has ruled that women have the same rights as men to be topless in 
public, but still maintains laws against total nudity.

The legal issues involved in this can become very complex, and it seems that 
the emotional bias one has one way or the other overrules calm rational 
thought.  I just think there is a bit of hysteria here regarding the claims 
of the harm being done by the sight of a female breast.  What about the harm 
of creating a negative stigma upon a part of the human body by making it a 
criminal offense just to display that body part in public?  Talk about body 
image anxiety!  The American obsession with the female breast is out of 
control.  I think it is so sad many women want to have surgery to have 
bigger breasts.  Someone must have made these women feel inadequate and 
anxious about their chest.   So while we want to outlaw their display, we 
encourage women to want to have bigger breasts to display them!  America is 
schizoid!

What in the world is this so called "syllogism from government education."  
For one thing, it is not a true syllogism, having no logical content.  The 
third statement does not logically follow from the first two. And where in 
government education is such a statement taught?  This is just plain crazy!

Ted


>From: "Dale Courtney" <dmcourtn@moscow.com>
>To: <vision2020@moscow.com>
>Subject: RE: Criminal syllogism
>Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 08:40:26 -0700
>
>Joan astutely replied:
>
> > >The syllogism from government education goes like this:
> > >
> > >1.	Men and women are equal
> > >2. Men bear their breasts in public
> > >3. Women should bear their breasts in public
> >
> > I think you may have confused syllogism with vicious circle.
>Undefined
> > terms, excluded middle, inclusion of that pesky word should . . .
>
>But that's *exactly* the argument that people on this list have been
>using!  *Since* men and women are equal, women should be able to _bare_
>their breasts.
>
>The other error is the equivocation on the word "equal".
>
>Dale Courtney
>Moscow, ID




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