David Mitchell comments on debates about banning the burqa, which he says would be the only way he would ever wear one and gets to the nub of things quickly:
There’s altogether too much harping on respect and banning these days. If you can’t respect something, you should ban it. If it’s not banned, you should respect it. Bullshit. There is a huge gulf of toleration between respect and banning. In a free society, people should be allowed to do what they want wherever possible. The loss of liberty incurred by any alternative principle is too high a price to pay to stop people making dicks of themselves. But, if people are using their freedoms to make dicks of themselves, other people should be able to say so.
(David Mitchell is on twitter as realdmitchell; if the other famous David Mitchell shows up, will he be realdmitchelltoo? And who is to say any other dmitchells aren’t real either, just because they don’t get to be on telly? Burning issues of the day that clearly need answers, unlike the “debate” on whether or not to ban a piece of clothing.)