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Notes -
I am all for plan A, even now.
One of the recurring arguments I've participated in over the years is whether we should ban circumcision. I'm circumcised, and on the balance I would rather not be. Nevertheless, I consistently argue that we should not ban circumcision, because while I perceive it to be a net-loss, I do not think it is a very severe net loss, and I observe that there is a significant population of my fellow citizens who disagree with my assessment and wish to retain it.
Usually, those arguing for banning it point out that it is genital mutilation performed on helpless infants. They point out that we ban female circumcision/genital mutilation just fine, and that there is no principled distinction for why we should ban one and not the other. Now, my understanding is that female circumcision is often much more damaging than male circumcision; I base this on descriptions of female circumcision on the one hand, and my own experience with being circumcised on the other. but beyond that, I note that there is not a large population of people practicing female circumcision deeply rooted in our society, so maintaining a ban on the practice is considerably less costly. I think we should tolerate the practices of our neighbors, and decline to make neighbors of foreigners with practices we are not willing to tolerate.
I think this is a pretty good way to look at things. My experience is that it is not a Liberal way of looking at things, and in fact Liberals will tend to object strongly to both ends of it. In my experience, they will argue vociferously that circumcision should be banned because it is a violation of human rights and dignity, and likewise that female circumcision should not only be banned here, but we should expend significant effort to suppress the practice abroad, since it is so obviously repugnant. They will then argue that there is no reason not to import large masses of people for whom female circumcision is a well-cemented custom, on the assumption that all that is needed is "education" to conform them to our standards. By doing so, though, they make those very standards and the enforcement of them far more fraught then they ought to be; if we're basically all on the same page, there's no reason for a massive centralized enforcement apparatus to ensure conformity, but once we're trying to mass-conform large numbers of immigrant Muslims, the same mechanisms can be turned to mass-conform Jews or Christians like myself where we run afoul of the issue du jour. And we will run afoul of it, because the "common sense values" that the centralized enforcement apparatus would be hammering people into observably undergo large-magnitude swings under timescales of less than a decade.
The standard Liberal position is that our political and social processes, things like voting, legislating, the courts, a free press, the "marketplace of ideas" and so on, are sufficient to handle arbitrary differences in values. I used to believe that. I very much do not believe that any longer. It is not enough to simply punt to "the system" to handle differences in values. "The system" is priceless, but it is in fact a fragile thing, and if we treat it like an immutable fact of the universe it will not be there to pass on to our children.
It's interesting that you bring up circumcision. I have two sons, am myself circumcised, and I can recall prior to my first son's birth, when I brought up the issue with the Japanese doctor who was at the time very possibly the one who would be the attending surgeon (as it turns out, it was another doctor altogether) I remember him looking at me with what I can only describe as a kind of uncomprehending loathing, probably the same way I would look at a Somalian midwife explaining to me the ins and outs of how she would circumcise a girl. He told me circumcision had no medical basis, and was "just a kind of superstition." He said he had never done one, wouldn't really know how, but could probably get someone to try it if I really wanted my son to have the procedure done (I obviously declined.) Interestingly at this hospital there were posters on the walls regarding 戌の日 or "day of the dog," which is the 12th day of each month in the traditional Japanese Shinto religion. In the fifth month of pregnancy on the day of the dog women are supposed to go to a shrine for some type of blessing. This was posted in the hospital on the wall. This is only one such tradition surrounding birth and children in Japan. The argumentative part of me considered bringing this up to the doctor, but I didn't. Obviously in practice going to a shrine for a blessing is qualitatively different from slicing off foreskin. in principle, I wonder.
Anyway it's a good illustration of a kind of basic value that some have and some do not--I used to ask people I was out with in Japan whether or not to have my sons circumcised, what they thought. All the gay men said Definitely do (a small sample--notably they were also American). Some heterosexual men also said yes, but others said no, and asked why I would even think about it. I didn't have much of an answer other than that it had been done to me, and it seemed normal to me, and that they (my sons) might wonder why I was different than they are (turns out they have never once asked about it. Which also makes sense. I can't imagine as a kid asking my dad about his dick.)
If the "system" is not sufficient to handle differences in values, what would be a solution? Just keeping certain people out? One would be screening for very specific values, I suspect. I also think about Japan and how I, as an immigrant, fit in here. I am one of those who tries to learn the language and behave, if not completely Japanese, at least in a way that doesn't actively annoy people. In certain areas (one city I pass through on my commute which is a type of hub to the airport) you have large areas of Vietnamese, Chinese, and other Asians living. It is a noticeably different vibe--louder, less clean, probably also to some degree more relaxed--and I suspect they have been housed there (via their rental agencies) purposefully to keep them contained. I have often found myself shaking my head at "all the damn foreigners" in parts of Japan where I frequent. The irony does not escape me.
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