--- Elizaphanian <Elizaphanian@btinternet.com> wrote:
> According to one biography I have read of Fortuyn,
> "He wanted to halt
> immigration from Muslim countries because he feared
> that Muslims would erode
> the country's tolerance of homosexuals."
> If you see that there is a higher value than the
> nation, the doctrine of
> human rights, then you will accept that there are
> times when it is necessary
> to go against your own nation in pursuit of that
> higher value.
> So, if you accept that tolerance for homosexuality
> is part of a more general
> respect for human rights (as seems to be the settled
> will of Dutch society)
> then acting against a potential threat to that
> (immigration of people
> opposed to that settled will) seems reasonable, and
> "high quality" in MoQ
> terms - it is the defence of an intellectual level
> value against a social
> level value.
Sam & All,
The defense of an intellectual over social value is
moral only if it is rational. An illogical deduction,
such as "Immigration from Muslim countries weakens
Dutch tolerance for homosexuals" is complete
xenophobic propaganda. True, this idea is an
intellectual value that can be argued against social
values such as immigration laws, but it would be a
very weak argument.
I would argue that politicians like Fortuyn are
immoral because they play the blame game by
identifying a scapegoat (a social value). If his idea
had intellectual merit there would be a discernable
pattern of attacks on homosexual rights from Muslim
immigrants, which there is not. If his motives are
intellectual, then he wouldn't be against all
immigration, just Muslim immigration.
It is this same argument that Hitler used to justify
his ostricization and eventual termination of Jews in
Germany. He told the German people that the Jews were
to blame for the problems with Germany's economy. Was
Hitler promoting an intellectual value over a social
value? Most definitely yes! However, intellectual
values have never been free from irrationality. The
Earth is flat? Witches in Salem? Homosexuality is a
psychological disorder? There have been individuals
who have argued the intellectual value of these
irrational ideas much as Fortuyn did his, but that
doesn't make any of them right.
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