The hijab and/or niqab should be banned

Rule Violation Pro extended his arguments in Round 2. This is against the rules set forth in the debate. Pro was supposed to rebut only and therefore this should be deemed as misconduct. But because I like TheHitchslap and his arguments, and this could be my last debate in DDO, I will continue the debate. However, I ask the reader to ignore Pro's extended arguments, as I may not be able to respond to them. R1: The Niqab Promotes Sexualization First of all, Pro makes a false claim that the Quran commands wearing the veil to prevent themselves from being sexually assaulted. This is completely false [1]. Also, it's completely irrelevant because I'm not a Muslim. I'm not here to argue for or against Islam. I'm arguing whether it ought to be legalized or not. This comment is irrelevant. Pro then continues that "Women do not have a responsibility to not be sexually assaulted, that responsibility is on the perpetrator of the one doing the sexual assaulting who needs to cease." This is a red herring. I actually agree with Pro. But this has absolutely nothing to do with the niqab. The comment above is true whether the niqab or hijab is legalized or not. Pro amuses me when he says "The idea that men want to bang everything that walks is also unfair". This is another red herring, and to blame the niqab for it is outright ridiculous. Pro then says that the "niqab furthers dangerous thinking that should be shunned, not perpetrated within a free and democratic society". This is a bare assertion. Pro doesn't show that the hijab is the cause of sexualization or that it promotes it (or promotes dangerous thinking). The sources he provided are completely irrelevant. One talks about sexualization, and one about the hijab, but neither relate the two. So it's simply a bare assertion from Pro. Pro then continues that "It also means that women are no longer women. They become nothing more than sex objects by virtue of the sexualization in the first place." What? Where does Pro come up with these ideas? Did he ask a woman wearing the niqab? Semaa Abdulwali writes: "The niqab makes me feel liberated, and no law will stop me from wearing it" [2]. To argue that Semaa has become nothing more than a sex object is absurd. To turn this argument against Pro, some argue that pop videos [3] and female video characters [4] promote sexualization. Does that mean the government should ban them? That's absurd and therefore Pro's claim is invalid. Pro then argues that "dehumanizing promotion is correlated with increases in sexual assaults, rapes, depression rates increasing, eating disorders being enhanced, et cetera." (Poor source again). I don't disagree with Pro. But Pro needs to understand that correlation is not causation [5]. Even though that Pro didn't provide any data, let's assume for the sake of the argument, that hijab is correlated with increased sexual assaults. I repeat: Pro didn't present such evidence, but even if there was such correlation, it doesn't mean that the niqab caused this sexualization. And therefore, there is no evidence that banning the niqab leads to any reduction to sexualization! R2: If the Niqab was banned, its generally cool with Muslims This is not a contention. It's irrelevant. Who cares if they're cool with it or not? It's the women who are impacted that should be taken into account. Clearly many women weren't cool with it being banned [2][6][7][8][9][10], so this point goes against Pro. They also explain that they did so out of personal choice, and not under pressure by family. R3: Public Policy Isn't Always Rational, Sometimes it is Purely a Values Policy What? Is Pro serious? What does Pro mean that we ought not to be rational in our public policy! That's outlandish. We have to be very rational, and we must respect equality. Pro actually states that "I [Pro] hold too that as a Western Society we value equality". So if Pro values equality, then why should those women who want to wear the niqab are not treated and respected equally? You're entitled to wear what you like to wear, but they don't have the same right? How is that "equal"!? This is insane... Pro continues with bare assertions that "the Niqab, however, clearly does delegate the person to being a second class citizen by very nature of the dress". According to whom? That's Pro's opinion. But what about the women who wear the dress who feel liberated as I've shown? Shouldn't we respect their opinions? Should the government ban BDSM which are erotic practices that involve dominance and submission [11]? One could argue that it's demeaning to the person (the Masochists). I personally find BDSM very disgusting to be honest, but that still doesn’t warrant making it illegal. I ask Con a very important question. What values are these that he's referring to? These values are highly subjective, and they defer within the country and between different cultures and religions. Evangelists argue that abortion and same-sex marriage are gainst their values, and some atheists argue that teaching the Bible in school is against their values. Amish people argue that living in luxury is against their values, and Muslims argue that insulting their religion is against their values. Do you get my point? There's no "objective" value reservoir that all people should adhere to, and therefore the government ought not penalize a certain group of people based on the values of others. Also these values are not static, they change. Hundreds of years ago, slavery wasn't against the values of many Americans, but that doesn't make it right and not ought to be banned. This is a very important and I ask Pro to seriously consider my comments above. I mean this sincerely. R4: Illusion of Choice Pro is really interesting here. He brings a source showing that women want to wear the hijab, but he simply dismisses that claim as an illusion. Based on what is Pro making this claim? None. It's a bare assertion. To argue that all the women I listed above are living some kind of illusion is implausible. Pro's claim ought to be dismissed. But let me make this clear, even if it is an illusion, they have the right to have the illusion. By denying them "what they think" is right, you would be oppressing them. And let's say that a woman was forced or coerced to wear the niqab, it doesn't follow that we should ban the niqab. Let me explain. A boyfriend pressured a woman to drink, does it follow that we ban drinking [12]. And when a man pressures a woman to have breast implants, is that a pretext to ban breast implantation [13]? And many men force their wives to cover their cleavage and not to wear revealing clothes, does that mean we should ban any clothes that are not revealing? If there's an argument to be made, is an argument against the cause (the person who forces). The niqab is not the cause and therefore it doesn't follow that it should be banned. R5: Slippery Slopes, Slippery Slopes EVERYWHERE! I really dislike Pro's argument here because it's invalid. So I'll explain the Slippery slope fallacy (Also called the Camel's nose fallacy) [14]. An example of this fallacy is: "You can never give anyone a break. If you do, they'll walk all over you." Pro argues that if one wears the niqab, then the one wearing the hijab would be considered less covered (and therefore less pure). How does it follow that it ought to be banned? What kind of non sense is that!! If we use Pro's analogy then the hijab ought to be banned, because a woman wearing the hijab would be less covered and less pure. And why cover the sleeves? Maybe we should ban them too because women would be considered less covered otherwise. By the end of it, all women ought to be naked, so no woman would be labeled "less pure" than another. What nonsense! It's none of your business or mine to decide what someone ought to think, and how someone ought to consider something as pure or not. If one considers a woman not wearing the niqab to not be pure, then he's an idiot, but that's his prerogative and opinion. It's none of the government's business to ban something just because some weirdo's think in a certain way. As I stated earlier, I will not be able to answer Pro's extended arguments in the second rounds as I ran out of space. That was in violation of the rules. [1] http://www.irfi.org... [2] http://www.theguardian.com... [3] http://www.ibtimes.co.uk... [4] http://www.academia.edu... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org... [6] http://www.thestar.com... [7] http://www.cbc.ca... [8] http://ipolitics.ca... [9] http://niqablovers.blogspot.ca... [10] https://medium.com... [11] https://en.wikipedia.org... [12] http://www.dearcupid.org...[13] http://isitnormal.com...[14] http://www.nizkor.org...