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Newsom vetoes a proposed ban on caste discrimination in California

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21–30 of 192 posts

Re: Newsom vetoes a proposed ban on caste discrimination in California

#21

The large and vocal constituency activated against the bill is good evidence that in fact it is not already accounted for under existing civil rights law.

Precisely. I'm trying to understand the resistance in good faith, but the article didn't explain their position very clearly. "It's already prohibited" - so why the fierce opposition? "Passing a law against discrimination of X will stigmatize X" - Imagine someone was making this argument for an existing federally protected class.

No idea what the actual reason is, but I could potentially understand the argument that passing such laws would suggest to courts that other categories that they might've thought were already intended to be protected perhaps actually weren't so.

Moreover, every new law carries a risk of having unintended consequences. So the argument may well be as simple as, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

(That said, I don't get the impression everyone who opposed it did so for the same reasons.)

Re: Newsom vetoes a proposed ban on caste discrimination in California

#22

The large and vocal constituency activated against the bill is good evidence that in fact it is not already accounted for under existing civil rights law.

Precisely. I'm trying to understand the resistance in good faith, but the article didn't explain their position very clearly. "It's already prohibited" - so why the fierce opposition? "Passing a law against discrimination of X will stigmatize X" - Imagine someone was making this argument for an existing federally protected class.

People do not want to import this shit into the US.

They left these systems behind, and making a law codifies the system into law, which is kinda fucked up.

I myself have seen discrimination in non obvious ways (not Indian but exact same idea where your birth dictates certain societal ideas about you) , and would be absolutely pissed if anyone made a law that protects against that because discrimination is already protected against.

I REALLY do not want the Govt to literally categorize me into a bucket I do not give a shit about, and now everyone wants to codify a system that I would rather just fade away into time.

Re: Newsom vetoes a proposed ban on caste discrimination in California

#23

The large and vocal constituency activated against the bill is good evidence that in fact it is not already accounted for under existing civil rights law.

Precisely. I'm trying to understand the resistance in good faith, but the article didn't explain their position very clearly. "It's already prohibited" - so why the fierce opposition? "Passing a law against discrimination of X will stigmatize X" - Imagine someone was making this argument for an existing federally protected class.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/30/anti-sharia-...

Re: Newsom vetoes a proposed ban on caste discrimination in California

#24
post #3

If it’s already covered, what’s the harm in letting the bill go into effect?

Exactly, what's wrong with having codified redundancy?

Because the law doesn’t work like a set of logical propositions where having redundancy is strictly zero harm. If the law says “no one should be discriminated against; and by the way specifically theogravity should not be discriminated against” that would raise some eyebrows about why this clarification is necessary, wouldn’t it? Also imagine ever simplifying the law to get rid of redundancies in the future. “caste discrimination is now allowed!” etc. - lots of ways bad actors can spin this.

I’d be very very careful about what’s put down on paper in cases like this.

Re: Newsom vetoes a proposed ban on caste discrimination in California

#25

The large and vocal constituency activated against the bill is good evidence that in fact it is not already accounted for under existing civil rights law.

It might be good evidence that those people don't believe it's covered, but it doesn't really imply anything about the actual law. Or even about what other people think about it.

Re: Newsom vetoes a proposed ban on caste discrimination in California

#26
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Precisely. I'm trying to understand the resistance in good faith, but the article didn't explain their position very clearly. "It's already prohibited" - so why the fierce opposition? "Passing a law against discrimination of X will stigmatize X" - Imagine someone was making this argument for an existing federally protected class.

People do not want to import this shit into the US. They left these systems behind, and making a law codifies the system into law, which is kinda fucked up. I myself have seen discrimination in non obvious ways (not Indian but exact same idea where your birth dictates certain societal ideas about you) , and would be absolutely pissed if anyone made a law that protects against that because discrimination is already pr…

> because discrimination is already protected against

Some discrimination is protected against, but this statement is far too broad to be accurate. I can discriminate against you because of who you vote for or what car you drive or which NFL team you root for.

Re: Newsom vetoes a proposed ban on caste discrimination in California

#27
post #3

If it’s already covered, what’s the harm in letting the bill go into effect?

What's the harm in having duplicate functions in your code?

The law is like a giant unmaintainable software project, where the code and the JIT compiler get constantly modified.

Re: Newsom vetoes a proposed ban on caste discrimination in California

#28

The large and vocal constituency activated against the bill is good evidence that in fact it is not already accounted for under existing civil rights law.

The large and vocal constituency isn’t evidence of anything except for a bunch of people being mad. But we do not have caste protections as far as the law is concerned. If someone said “I don’t want to hire them because they’re poor trash from Alabama,” there’s actually nothing legally discriminatory about it as far as our protections go. Weird to think about.

Re: Newsom vetoes a proposed ban on caste discrimination in California

#29
post #3

If it’s already covered, what’s the harm in letting the bill go into effect?

He's right that it is basically covered. Newsom is playing politics to try and shed the "California liberal" tag ahead of a 2028 presidential run.

Re: Newsom vetoes a proposed ban on caste discrimination in California

#30

The large and vocal constituency activated against the bill is good evidence that in fact it is not already accounted for under existing civil rights law.

Precisely. I'm trying to understand the resistance in good faith, but the article didn't explain their position very clearly. "It's already prohibited" - so why the fierce opposition? "Passing a law against discrimination of X will stigmatize X" - Imagine someone was making this argument for an existing federally protected class.

The one good faith argument is that Hindus feel targeted by it because, de facto, this is about higher-caste Hindus discriminating against low-caste Hindus.

Whether or not that's particularly convincing or a reason not to pass it is debatable, but I think it's a valid reason that merits consideration.

Any reasoning beyond this ends up being gobbledygook.

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