So in 1850, you would have sided with the slave owners? "To tolerate slavery for thousands of years and then suddenly, arbitrarily decide to ban it just seems wrong to me. As I've asked before, if slavery is so obviously, deeply wrong, why hasn't it been banned already, just like human sacrifice has?"

Your argument seems to treat the status quo as a moral self-justification.


What about cutting off an infant's ear, as I've mentioned several times? That's not debilitating.

Kellogg used science (of a sort) both to help justify his religious bias and to engineer a more moral society. Hardly the first or last time that's been done in the US. I didn't say this was motivated by religion, I said religion was used to justify it. Then, as you note, there was some reconning over time. Either way, the use of science to support/justify circumcision in the Christian/secular US made an opening for science to support changing the practice when the scientific based view of circumcision changed.


Some, but not all. Until the experiment is actually performed (outlawing all but medically necessary circumcision) none of us really know how this would play out. Sure, prison and/or fine will make some hesitate, but you'd have to weigh it against the prospect of actually being caught or prosecuted.


I think we're in agreement on that. Since we won't be able to completely eradicate the practice in a generation or less without instituting controls that may well be more damaging than the practice itself I'd argue for harm reduction. This upsets some people. I'm assuming it's because they think it CAN be quickly eliminated, or that the moral good of outlawing infant circumcision at any cost outweighs the moral bad that will result as collateral damage. To some extent these are differing opinions and thus can not be backed up by cites or evidence.


I threw Israel out there because it's probably one of the easiest countries for a Jew to immigrate to. I'm familiar with the fact there are anti-Israel Jews out there, if only the rest of the world grasped that... however, that is a digression. Israel has been used as an intermediate stop while relocating to another location, this is another circumstance where that might occur.

If German Jews suddenly find Germany too oppressive due to outlawing infant circumcision they could seek to go elsewhere. If not Israel then perhaps the US, as another example.

Because Jews have a multi-thousand year history of wandering, of going elsewhere, of moving around? They might love living in Germany now but if they find Germany oppressive (whether you agree with them on that point or not) why wouldn't they leave? German Jews aren't as tied to Germany as secular Germans are. Jews having divided loyalties or placing their tribal identity of "Jew" above their national identity are one of the reasons they have long been viewed as untrustworthy subjects, isn't it?


They weren't lying - that IS when their German ancestors came to the US (well, British colonies). Yes, they've been holding a grudge for 300+ years but it did occur. As did the holocaust a mere 70 years ago. Germany does have periods of great tolerance, but they've also engaged in some very, very nasty intolerance. As I have said many times, I don't think this generation of Germans is likely to murder in the name of [insert intolerant ideology here] but given Germany history it's hardly a wonder that some folks are a little suspicious of long-term German tolerance. Nothing would make me happier than if Germany never commits such crimes again but it's going to take more than 70 years for folks to entirely relax in regards to Germans and capacity for oppressing others.


Other than what occurred in WWII, presumably. Granted, it's a highly unusual case but the devastation was also unusual. There's nothing surprising in some folks having a kneejerk reaction to any German law that restricts religious practices even if that knee is jerking all out of proportion to the given stimulus.


Maybe you could answer the question? What would the effects be if a family simply never took a child to a doctor in Germany? Presumably there would be some record of the child's birth or existence, how much follow up does the government conduct to make sure the parents take the child to the doctor for check-ups, vaccinations, and so forth? How easy is it to take a kid off the medical radar?

Or do you object to me asking Germans about how their society and medical system works in an effort to educate myself? I figure you're a pretty good source of information, hence why I'm asking you, but if you don't care to answer then I'd be happy to hear from any other Germans in this thread.


Yes, but you can't build a temple on your kitchen table, you can do a circumcision there. Temples are large buildings that you can't really move around. Infant boys are very easy to transport to other locations where objectionable-to-outsiders surgical rituals can be performed. They aren't really that comparable.


It's a practice among 95%+ Jews. It's not a matter of zealotry. Infant male circumcision is arguably the closest thing to universal practice among Jews world wide. It's mainstream Judaism. The basis for it is not rational, therefore, reasoned arguments are unlikely to work except in a tiny minority of cases.

To non-Jews the practice is extreme. To Jews, it's normal. It's a pretty significant cultural difference.

"arbitrarily ban circumcision"?
Do you even know what the word "arbitrary" means? Because it means "based on the subjective whim of an individuals opinion".
Which wasn't the case here. The constitution of Germany protects people from having their bodily integrity violated. Children are people too, and as i have explained (and you are evidently agreeing with), they are NOT the property of their parents. Parents do NOT get to violate and infants rights.

Are you daft?
How is asking practicing Jews whether they regret being circumcised evidence that someone who is no longer a believing Jew wouldn't regret being circumcised as an infant? Have you any idea how stupid that is? That's like evaluating a business by only asking the people who still go there, instead of the people who no longer go there.

If you look at circumcised people who are not part of a tightly-knit religious community (there are plenty of those in the United States), then you can find plenty who DO regret being circumcised without their consent.

Also, you are ignoring studies that show that circumcision actually does result in psychological harm.

---

SoS:NBA GALE Force 上智大学に少し奴隷
"Destiny and fate are for those too weak to forge their own futures. Where we are 'supposed' to be is irrelevent." - Sir Nitram
"The world owes you nothing but painful lessons" - CaptainChewbacca
"The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one." - Wilhelm Stekel
"In 1969 it was easier to send a man to the Moon than to have the public accept a homosexual" - Broomstick

Right. And there are frequently unintended consequences. I'm sure any one of us can pull out negative unintended consequences from enforced cultural change. Isn't that what the whole debate about the pros and cons of the so-called War on Drugs is about? Drugs laws were passed with the wholesome intention of trying to reduce the social and medical ills arising from drug abuse and addiction. Now, a few generations later, there is a sizable group arguing that the harmful consequences outweigh the harms those laws were passed to eliminate.

Since lopping off foreskins is not as intrinsically rewarding as snorting cocaine I don't think the unintended harms would be as extreme, and the side effects might be neutral rather than bad or good, but they will be there. If engineers of physical objects are held responsible for harm caused by those objects, intentional or not, shouldn't social engineers also be held responsible for the harm caused by their policies and laws, intended or not?

Yes, but with the caveat that society is much too complex to reliably predict outcomes. I don't think the people who supported the War on Drugs would have foreseen today's outcome, or that they should be held responsible for it. I would pile much more responsibility on the people who could (and continue to) see those outcomes and yet persist in upholding the policy anyway.

I don't think it's reasonable to expect clairvoyance on the part of social engineers, or to discard the whole idea of social engineering (which, let's face it, all law is) just because we can't predict the future. But it is reasonable to say that if severe unforeseen consequences appear, then people should be willing to revisit past decisions, or they are complicit in the continuation of those consequences.

Gah! Massive typo - in part of post quoted below I originally said "religion" where I should have said "science":


I do hope that wasn't too confusing.

I don't see where this ruling singles out circumcision. It would seem to apply to ANY non-medically-necessary permanent alteration of a child's body. Thus, it would seem to apply to ritual face scarring, foot binding, and head binding, and those would all be equally outlawed. It's just that none of those are currently being practiced by anyone in Germany.


I, too, object to the word “arbitrary” here. There is nothing arbitrary about the ruling, it is the result of a consistent moral stance of a society applied to law. If you allow an exception for IMC why “arbitrarily” allow that but not FGM of even the mildest form?

Sometimes, you have to ignore that feeling of wrongness and realize that the morally correct choice is the uncomfortable one. The Germans are actually acting in a consistent, not arbitrary, manner with this ruling.

In the US, Prohibition was passed to deal with the evils of alcohol abuse and addiction, both perceived and actual. While it did accomplish the goal of reducing alcohol consumption by something like 1/2 it caused so many other problems that in only 13 years it was repealed. I think we can both agree that that was a proper reaction to unintended social harms.

The War on Drugs arguably started back in 1914 with the Harrison Narcotics Act. The results have not been good, nor have they been limited to the US. I think we're in agreement that so far the response to negative side effects of the War on Drugs has not been particularly wonderful.

So, here we are discussing the banning of non-medical circumcision of children. As you pointed out, we can't reliably predict the actions of the human herd. I do think, however, we can learn from other instances where there were attempts to ban cultural practices. Sometimes they can be eliminated by decree backed up with sufficient force. Sometimes they're driven underground. Sometimes they become more extreme as an act of defiance. The easier the practice is to conceal the more likely the latter two choices are to occur. Circumcision is something easily done in a kitchen (room stated purely as example, there are plenty of other places you could do one) by amateurs using readily available tools and the results are easily concealed by normal clothing. This will definitely complicate enforcement. Then there are the problems of adverse physical outcomes. If instead of 95%+ of male infants being circumcised the rate drops to, say, 80% that's a gain, but if the result is far more infections, complications, and non-functional genitalia then the harm done to the 80% is vastly magnified. Would that be worth it?

That is the rationale, in countries where the FGM rates are in the 80-90%+ categories, to promoting harm reduction rather than outright ban. The idea is that by moving the practice to sanitary hospitals rather than using dirty razors (or worse) in the boondocks you reduce the physical harm, and in the hospital context you can urge less extreme forms that do less long-term damage to the person. It's not as good as an outright cessation of the practice, of course, but a nicking of the clitoral hood is far preferable to our sensibilities than a Pharonic FGM and thus it's a step in the right direction. Is that really the best course to take? Well, it is controversial. The justification on a moral level is that even though you're not eliminating all harm you're greatly reducing the harm done. Like most compromises, no one is completely happy with it.

I suppose another parallel would be if the British, instead of outright banning the burning alive of widows, "settled" for "merely" branding them as a compromise: burn part of the women instead of the entire woman. On the other hand, my understanding is that suttee or sati was never as universal among Hindus as IMC is among Jews, it's not a particularly good parallel.

Slavery was largely abolished by the mid 19th century, partly because of Enlightenment ideas such as individual rights. Germany became a unified country in 1871, and was, on paper at least, a modern, progressive, post-Enlightenment nation-state. If infant circumcision is morally equivalent to slavery, why was it not banned in Germany at that time, long after slavery had become abhorrent to most of the world.



Isn't it? The external ear collects sound and helps you to tell what direction it is coming from. It's also a publically visible disfigurement, while circumcision isn't as obviously apparent in public, unless you're a naturist.





That constitution has existed since 1949, and 'bodily integrity' is mentioned in Article 2, which I'm assuming is as old as the constitution itself. Why is circumcision only being banned now, over 60 years later? It's the timing that seems odd to me. However, I recognize that 'arbitrary' was a poor word choice, and I apologize for it.



Very well then, what if the question were asked of circumcised Jewish men both practising and non-practising? I would guess that more than half of a randomly selected group would be at least nominally practising, and therefore probably happy about their circumcision. I'm also guessing that a fair number of regretful circumcised men in the USA (I should point out that I'm British, not American, by the way) are not Jewish, but were circumcised for fairly shaky medical reasons such as 'hygiene', which I do see as unjustifiable.



I would still argue that circumcision is less debilitating and disfiguring than any of those customs, and that the effect is still to single out circumcision, since with the possible exception of face scarring in pre-medieval times, none of them have to my knowledge ever been practised in Germany, while Jews have lived in Germany for more than one and a half millennia and practised circumcision for all that time.

Head binding is probably less damaging than IMC. There is no indication that it causes any sort of loss of function, or impairment whatsoever unlike circumcision which does do things like permanently reduce sensitivity.

Head binding of a sort is still done for cosmetic reasons in the Western world - but there the intention is to reshape the head to something closer to the statistical norm. The search term to use to learn more is "plagiocephaly without synostosis", and one treatment for it is to make the kid wear a helmet 23 hours a day to reshape the growing skull. While there are some medical syndromes and extreme cases where there is an actual medical reason for this, most instances these days are for purely cosmetic reasons, and if the parents/caregivers could just be arsed to pick the kids up more often the problem is largely self-correcting, or even easily prevented. If this wasn't done the kids' brains would function just fine. It's just that kids tend to fit better into overall society when their heads aren't lopsided because people are such visually judgmental shaved apes.

So... is that a morally justified practice or not, altering the kids to make them conform to a purely cosmetic norm?

First of all, it is impossible to keep your children out of school and homeschool them in Germany - you must either send them to public or an accredited private school.
And yes, some schools inquire about a child's doctor when they talk to the parents.

Second, a child has a right to see a doctor without the parents consent or knowledge from age 12 (IIRC) onwards. That can and is actually supported by CPS.
A young transwoman (14 years old) is given excuse from school once a month and is being paid a Taxi by CPS to visit her therapist. The reason is simply that her parents forbid her going to a therapist, despite her obviously being under great distress due to that. She phoned CPS, who talked to the parents, who still refused, so this arrangment was made (the parents do not know when exactly she goes there, so the only option would be to keep her out of school permanently, which is illegal).

Third, a few years back we had a large public outcry when several cases of child neglect which resulted in death became public. Since then (though also before, though a bit more lax) CPS is looking sharply for such instances, and not sending a child to the a doctor - ever - is obviously dangerous neglect.


Bottom line:
Yes, you COULD keep a child from ever going to the doctor. However, doing so would come with a high chance of getting caught and kissing your child custody goodbye.

---

SoS:NBA GALE Force 上智大学に少し奴隷
"Destiny and fate are for those too weak to forge their own futures. Where we are 'supposed' to be is irrelevent." - Sir Nitram
"The world owes you nothing but painful lessons" - CaptainChewbacca
"The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one." - Wilhelm Stekel
"In 1969 it was easier to send a man to the Moon than to have the public accept a homosexual" - Broomstick

It was a practice confined to upper-class Hindu women. It affected a fraction of a percentage of the population, and it's not even clear how often it was involuntary.

To Serafina's post: That level of oversight would make enforcement much more thorough than in some other places.

That makes me even more inclined to imagine a migration of Jews out of Germany. The Muslims would probably delay circumcision until age 12, then start applying a lot of family pressure to get the kid to consent.

You completely missed the point. I was not saying that circumcision is morally equivalent to slavery. I was saying that your logic (ie- that you can't ban it because it's been around for a long time and has been legal up to now) could just as easily apply to slavery before it was abolished.

Hey, dumbass, learn to read:

No one is saying that infant circumcision is EQUALLY abhorrent as slavery.
All we are saying is that it is an abhorrent, inhumane, barbaric practice.

Raping your wife wasn't banned until somewhat recently either. So was a husband forbidding his wife from working. So was beating your children (though not in the USA).
By your logic, those things are all fine and dandy and should never have been banned.
Heck, by your logic, slavery should never have been banned - with the simple argument "well if it is so obviously abhorrent, why wasn't it banned centuries ago?".

Gee, i don't know - maybe because society is becoming more enlightened than when the constitution was enacted in 1949? What's your point?
Oh, right, i forgot - you don't have any other than "well if it wasn't always illegal we shouldn't change that".


Oh, hey, look at me - making things up about reality while ignoring the actual point! Aint i great!?

Way to miss the point. The point was simply that there is a chance that those circumcised without their consent might regret it and then can't reverse it.

Where do you see the difference between doing it for the belief that it has medical benefits, as opposed to the belief that it will prevent an invisible spaceman from smiting you?

---

SoS:NBA GALE Force 上智大学に少し奴隷
"Destiny and fate are for those too weak to forge their own futures. Where we are 'supposed' to be is irrelevent." - Sir Nitram
"The world owes you nothing but painful lessons" - CaptainChewbacca
"The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one." - Wilhelm Stekel
"In 1969 it was easier to send a man to the Moon than to have the public accept a homosexual" - Broomstick

If the original head shape is quite far away from the norm, I suppose that it would be justified in order to help the child fit in. If the shape is only slightly different from the norm, it might not be justified. Would the German law interpret this kind of headbinding as a permissible necessary medical procedure, or as an illegal violation of the child's bodily integrity?

Serafina, Darth Wong et al: You know what, fine, I concede all the points. I'm not going to change anyone's mind, and I can't be bothered arguing any more. This is the last post I will be making in this thread. All I'll say is that I think enforcing this ruling will be harder than some people seem to think.

Yeah, yeah, this is the "I'm too good to waste time on you idiots" technique. We've all seen it before.

The problem is that your logic is inconsistent. You use a particular argument to defend circumcision and then bristle when I show that your logic could be applied exactly to slavery before it was outlawed. The fact that you can't convince me of your rightness is not the issue.

Look, I am seriously regretting ever posting in this thread. If anyone's been an idiot here, it's me, and I see, in retrospect, that many of my arguments have been illogical and badly backed up. I just wanted to speak up for circumcision when so many people were condemning it, but I don't have any more arguments, so I'm asking you to please just accept my concession so I don't make an even bigger fool of myself.

Meh. Given the massive amounts of recources poured into Jewish life in Germany, I very much doubt they will up and leave. And if they do, that is their perfectly legitimate choice to make.



The treaty of Westphalia, which pretty much killed off all religious violence perpetrated by states in Germany, happened in 1648. The first British colony in Jamestown only became a crown colony in 1624. What is their source for this happening? The early settlers were predominantly british, so from what great prosecution did these friends of yours flee from?



Meh. By that standard, they should be more wary of the nation they currently live in or form a new nation. I mean, I might just as well state that the USA has engaged in more repression over the past 70 years than Germany has over the same period etc. That is an extraordinarily bad argument to make here, going on Germanophobia even.




The reason I object to this is because you make a great deal of proclamations with very little fact to go on, then spam people with questions when they point out you are wrong instead of putting forward your own argument. So I'll just settle for this: Yes, it might be possible to hide your child if you want it to become a cellar kid which will never enter a school and will never work in his/her life. Religious fundies and hard-core Romani try this, but I doubt the same is true for 99% of jews living here.



Excuse me? The very part of the bonding with god, the center of the entire religion, the holy land, is not comparable to circumcision? That is a modern interpretation. WHich is my point. The jews changed back then, they can change now. Methods exist (like the little pricking of the penis etc. outlined above).

---

Whoever says "education does not matter" can try ignorance
------------------
"You know, you insist government is depraved for not legislating against what we can see on newsstands, or what we can see in an art exhibit, or what we can burn in protest, or which sex we can have sex with, or a woman's right to choose, but don't you dare try to regulate this deadly weapon I have concealed on me, for that would encroach against my freedom!"
- Sam Seaborn
------------------
Et si omnes ego non

We're talking about Jews specifically, who have reason to be wary of Germany specifically (justifiably or not).



There was no alternative to the Temple, so there was no choice. In this case, they can move.

Also, wouldn't those alternatives also essentially run counter to the Constitutional principle here?

If the people Broomstick is talking about are descendants of the Pennsylvania Germans, also known as the Pennsylvania Dutch, then their migration during the late 17th and early 18th centuries was partly motivated by the French invasion of the Palatinate, the home of many of them, during the Nine Years' War/War of the Grand Alliance. Although this was not a religious conflict, I suppose that in folk memory it may have become mixed together with earlier religious persecutions. If they are also members of Anabaptist denominations, then their ancestors would still have had to fear religious persecution even after the Peace of Westphalia, since only Catholicism, Lutheranism and Calvinism were recognized as legitimate, protected faiths by that treaty.

No, that paragraph was about the "Germans" Broomstick referenced as fleeing to the USA and holding a grudge over 300 years later.



Sure. But my point was that when faced with having no choice, Judaism adapts to the challenges raised to it. I don't think anybody disputed they can move and I suspect some might, but I bet the vast, vast majority will just revert to other practices like just pricking the penis.


I am confused. What do you mean here?

---

Whoever says "education does not matter" can try ignorance
------------------
"You know, you insist government is depraved for not legislating against what we can see on newsstands, or what we can see in an art exhibit, or what we can burn in protest, or which sex we can have sex with, or a woman's right to choose, but don't you dare try to regulate this deadly weapon I have concealed on me, for that would encroach against my freedom!"
- Sam Seaborn
------------------
Et si omnes ego non

Probably to making a nick on the infants penis and then letting it scar over, thus marking it without actually removing the foreskin.

And yes, those would be illegal for pretty much the same reasons as circumcision - it still harms the infant, it still leaves a permanent mark, it's still medically unnecessary.

Acceptable alternatives would be holding off the circumcision until the boys Bar Mitzwah or later, or anything that is just a ceremony that does NOT involve violating the childs physical integrity.

---

SoS:NBA GALE Force 上智大学に少し奴隷
"Destiny and fate are for those too weak to forge their own futures. Where we are 'supposed' to be is irrelevent." - Sir Nitram
"The world owes you nothing but painful lessons" - CaptainChewbacca
"The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one." - Wilhelm Stekel
"In 1969 it was easier to send a man to the Moon than to have the public accept a homosexual" - Broomstick

That is a very good explanation - bad memories and people hilariously holding a grudge for no reason at all. Fled from war? They should be blaming the french, really.



Hmmm. This might be an even better explanation - though I wonder about that one. Persecution there happened mostly in the 16th century and anabaptism never spread far into Germany after the destruction of the Augsburg circle in the 16th century. Most of the anabaptists seem to have fled the Netherlands and used Germany as a transit station so that might work as well for an explanation.





No, I don't think that it is. Let us not forget that it has to be a significant injury or harm. I doubt this will fall under the degree.

---

Whoever says "education does not matter" can try ignorance
------------------
"You know, you insist government is depraved for not legislating against what we can see on newsstands, or what we can see in an art exhibit, or what we can burn in protest, or which sex we can have sex with, or a woman's right to choose, but don't you dare try to regulate this deadly weapon I have concealed on me, for that would encroach against my freedom!"
- Sam Seaborn
------------------
Et si omnes ego non