comma ([identity profile] q10.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] asterroc 2008-03-02 09:07 pm (UTC)

also, an analogy - i'd be a lot more okay with a ban on all meat than a selective ban on the meats of kosher animals, because the state has a commitment to equal treatment of its citizens the spirit of which the second violates for no good reason (a ban on kosher slaughter practices would be more defensible, since there you can come up with some kind of reason). likewise, i'd be tentatively in favor of certain procedural changes to the criminal justice system that made things easier for defendants, but i'd be really freaked out by any proposal to extend the new procedural benefits selectively to one particular class of defendants, even if the distinction being made (say, drinking more than 300 cups of coffee a year) was not one with a lot of historical baggage. even if on balance restricting the exploitation of animals is good, selectively restricting certain people's animal exploitation practices can still be bad because it violates the state's moral commitment to fairness.

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