'everybody draw mohammed day'

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That's fine. You're entitled to your opinions. It's not like I'm saying you're as bad as the Japanese or anything.

Is this intended as ironic?

lol!! !! i laughed so hard at this!! ! this is incredibly, undeniably true.

interesting statistics. can i add toronto:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Toronto

very multicultural and people of varying cultures seem quite integrated with each other. i think that exposure to other races/religions/cultures definitely can help with trying to understand and tolerate each other.

but not always. the cartoonist was from an ethnically diverse area, right?

in my opinion, she wanted attention and exposure. she knows this will blow over eventually and that the chances of her actually being assassinated are pretty remote. salman rushdie's work was at least noteworthy before the controversy, but this woman seems a bit obscure... well, she got her 15 minutes of fame.

Remember, she's not the one who hyped this thing up, other people did that. She drew a cartoon lampooning the extreme reactions some Muslims have to depictions of the prophet, and satirically suggested an "everybody draw Mohammad" day. People that were not connected to her in any way latched onto the idea and put up a Facebook page, whipped up support and media attention, etc. I believe that the woman in hiding, the original cartoonist, even tried to get the other group to call off the event, to no avail. I don't think this was a publicity stunt.

she must have known, given the current political climate, that the whole thing would be escalated to ridiculous proportions.

she drew the comic in responce to the southpark cartoon, which had already garnered a great deal of attention. clearly she knew what she was getting into. she was making a point, which would obviously have consequences. it's like an instant ticket to fame

Nonsense. You're doing everything you can to legitimize it.


Again, nonsense. This is no more "p***"ing on people or attacking people than black people riding at the front of the bus were "p***ing on" or attacking whites 50 years ago, although back then there were plenty of whites who had convinced themselves, no doubt sincerely, it was being deliberately offensive, just as there are plenty of Muslims today who have convinced themselves, no doubt sincerely, that drawing a picture of the owner of Mary the Copt is an attack on them. Everything you have argued to justify and legitimize the hatred against this woman could also be applied, word for word, to justify the actions of the Klan. Rosa Parks was, by your argument, nothing but a fool who deserved anything bad that happened to her.

What do you think "tolerance" means? It doesn't mean putting up with people when they're being deferential and subservient to you. Anybody and everybody can do that. The most radical Klanner would put up with black people who "kept in their place". At the very least, "tolerance" means minding your own business when someone different does something you don't like but which won't effect you if you ignore it. Carefully cultivating and nursing the thinnest of thin skins, and then claiming someone is "p***ing" on you or attacking you when they are doing stuff that is completely part of their culture and is a right that their ancestors fought for the right to do - in this case, the right to criticise religion, especially organised religion, by ridiculing it - that's not being p***ed on or attacked. That's being a dishonest, manipulative, abuser.

Either "Islam" is tolerant, in which case it will put up with non-Muslims insulting its holy figures from time to time, or it's not tolerant. You can't have it both ways.

And while we're at it, stop pretending that Muslims have any problem, any problem at all, with ridiculing other peoples' religions or deliberately doing stuff that's offensive to people of other religions. Google the Hindu temple at Somnath and see how many times medieval Muslims tore it down for no constructive reason but just to humiliate the indigenous Hindus. On at least one occasion there was heavy loss of civilian life. THAT is attacking people and "p***"ing on them. Drawing a picture is not. (And yes, I could quite easily find more modern examples, such as the Iranians banning Baha'is, an indigenous Iranian religion, from going to college unless they convert to the One True Way. But hey, the Baha'is have certainly been told many many times that being a Baha'i is Very Offensive to Muslims, so according to your logic the Baha'is have only themselves to blame for deliberately offending, attacking, and "p***"ing on Muslims and therefore getting banned from college.)

In your analogy, nobody spits in kid A's milk. He routinely p***es in the other kids' milk, with the support of the teacher, and then punches one of them out for giving him a resentful look afterward.

And, supposing that "we" are going to try for peace with Muslims by not doing stuff that offends them, where does it end? I'm a polytheist, and Muslims have made it clear that polytheism offends them, attacks them, is like "p***"ing on them. Does that, in your eyes, justify them killing me? In that case, what do "freedom of religion" or "freedom of conscience" mean? From time to time I talk to Muslims, and because they see my white skin they assume that I must be a Christian and therefore a good Monotheist, and are therefore willing to speak candidly with me about their views of the people some of them call "dirty Hindus". So I get to hear what they think of other non-monotheists. And you know, the one group of people they despise more than polytheists are atheists. (Yes, there are certainly Muslims who don't despise polytheists or atheists, but for the most part those aren't the ones who advocate killing people for drawing pictures of the guy who invented their Holy Book.) In their eyes, being an atheist, like being a polytheist, is a deliberate insult to "Allah" (He created you and where's your gratitude?), and since omniscient, omnipotent "Allah" is apparently unable to take care of his own insults it devolves on mortal Muslims, as a holy duty, to avenge those insults themselves. So you know, if you really are an atheist, you're not that much further down the List than this unfortunate lady.

And before people tell me that I'm exaggerating the views of Muslims, a Muslim who's lived in Canada for at least thirty years told me earlier this summer (as part of what he considered to be a friendly discussion) that being a Muslim entitles the Muslim to kill any non-Muslims at his discretion. (Presumably monotheists paying jizya (sp?) are safe. And yes, I'm sure you've met more tolerant Muslims than him, so have I. OTOH, he was somewhat tipsy. In vino veritas.)

You must be using a different definition of legitimise. Nowhere am I saying that it is right. Nowhere am I saying that it is good.



Well, I am pretty sure that those people making civil rights protests knew that they would be upsetting a lot of people and knew that the consequences could be pretty harsh. It wasn't an attack on 'whites' as a lot of whites supported the protests. I guess that they thought upsetting and confronting those who opposed civil rights was worth it to gain the prize.

So, Comedy Central chose to censor the program. Maybe it was for fear of extremist attack. Maybe it was to avoid offending ordinary Muslims. Maybe and perhaps most likely it was to prevent them or their parent companies losing investment and/or business from wealthy Muslim owned companies.

I can understand people wanting to oppose extremists and terrorists but this protest is indiscriminate as it also hits at ordinary people too.



I think that you are forgetting your history. Many people are not content that people are "kept in their place". Many will not be content until certain races are eradicated from the face of the earth. And I do know that some Muslims will feel that way about Israel.

Many of us have suffered verbal and physical assaults because of our race, religion, back ground etc. So I do take offense at your "thinnest of thinnest skins". Are you saying that you are proud that your ancestors murdered and yes, "p***ed all over" the Native Americans, Africans, Indians, Aboriginal peoples etc to get where you are today? Should we just put up with whatever you want to dish out?

I guess that many people do have the perception that the West has "p***ed all over other races/cultures" and all this Koran buring and Prophet drawing seems symbolically to be more of the same. The more people seen supporting this the more it seems that the whole West is against Islam rather than just a few nutters and extremists. So, people start getting very nervous.



If you want to list all the injustices and atrocities committed by different groups around the world it would be a pretty long list.

People are free to dislike or hate whoever they want to. But if they stir up trouble, launch attacks physical, verbal or written it is unrealistic to expect no reaction.

And that is not saying that those reactions are right.

This one is for Dox47
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-11396980

IMHO, just more evidence that England has lost the right to call itself a free country.

And let's have burning crosses too. Or is that an insult to Christians?

Paint swastikas every where. Aren't they are a good luck symbol?

How about desecrate a few Jewish cemeteries. Aren't they just a load of old stones and bones?

That is violation of private property rights and is legally actionable. In addition, members of the Jewish Defense League will come with clubs and break the skulls of people who desecrate Jewish cemeteries.

ruveyn

Free speech isn't if unpopular speech isn't protected.

Now, if they happened to violate fire safety standards; that is a different matter.

As far as your others go, they all sound like they'd either violate fire code or be a form of vandalism on private property that isn't yours.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp3074864.html#3074864

^

Same response I gave in the other thread; I feel safer with angry preachers spreading their message than I do with a government that can lock them up for what they say.

i feel the exact opposite.

basic principle behind canada's confederation, in a nutshell:

peace, order and good government

Dang racist white people! Why do white people have to be so racist??


No, it matches everything I've heard about the Japanese, and some of our own forum racists have touted the Japanese as an enlightened group. "Japanese" is also a nation, not a race anyway, so I don't see the irony.


Wow, I feel tempted to burn a Koran now.

I really don't understand this. In America, not even our own flag/national symbol is so protected, so why should some religious artifact of some cult be protected so heavily?


The only problem with some of your suggestions is the destruction of the property of other people. That's a clear violation of property rights.

However, sure, why not have swastikas everywhere? Who says the Nazis should have the last say on what the symbol means? Even further, who says that you can't actually be a fascist? We allow KKK rallies, so how is this swastika supposed to be an issue?

Burning crosses? Like that's even an issue. You can use crosses to keep your fireplace lit for all I care. It is just a lower-case t anyway.

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Really though, to be honest, I don't agree philosophically with the principle behind this speech regulation.

Like Dox, I do not think that this power should be granted lightly to political powers at all, as the issues are trivial, but real people are going to be hurt by the enforcement of this law like any law.

Even further, I really believe that suppressing fringe ideas is a disservice to the mental capabilities of individuals. I think that fringe thoughts, ones that fundamentally disagree with the workings of our current society, can actually be the ones that challenge us more by calling more into question. This isn't to say that I think the average racist really is a bringer of enlightenment, but I think that people have more to learn from anarchists, fascists, anti-authority figures, subversives, comedians with black humor, and the others than they ever really could from those who think like the "proper people" think. The reason being that "proper thought" is going to often be a spoon-fed bunch of tripe propagandized into everyone at an early age, often containing dogmas that really are difficult to defend, if not irrational to defend, but which are made "obvious" to anybody comfortable in that clique. Who will question our dogmas unless we have people who question our society? How can we maintain these people if we punish the fringes for existing? Now, this can be race, but it can be a LOT of very different things as well, and the ability to silence speech threatens all of this. (Note: Many people won't get this. They misunderstand knowledge. Knowledge is not "simple intuition" built to precision, as a lot of that is socially constructed or psychologically questionable, but rather it is the application of paradigms. Paradigms are created through human creativity applied to real world problems. Each paradigm is flawed, but also an approximation of truth. Understanding multiple paradigms allows mental flexibility to create better paradigms through recombination, and/or shifting as necessary. The notion of a "paradigm" isn't something I just entirely invented either, but rather it could be attributable to philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn's work, and I think it touches on things that seem quite true. Some may disagree, but anybody who has explored a lot of ideas might understand how there can be a sudden shift in perspective from this engagement, and from finding a problem and wrapping oneself up in it.)

Finally, on a personal note, I do not really think that all of the "politically correct" squad benefit an incredible amount from their imposition, other than having their puritanism sated, however, I benefit a lot from the laxness of this. My favorite fictions are often transgressive(and postmodern) novels, with the most recent read being American Psycho by Brett Ellis. Many of the people whose philosophy I enjoy are anarchists and radicals. My favorite humor is darker humor. My favorite music is metal. I find the idea of the Libertarian National Socialist Green Party to be hilarious. (link here: http://www.nazi.org/ ) I have no doubt that in a more restricted society, things that stimulate me would also be restricted. I have little doubt that the same "prudential impulses" that guide the desire to restrict freedom of speech today are the same kind of impulses that were behind the laws within "Christendom" against blasphemy, an act that I commit with my existence as a "strident atheist", and that they are the same impulses that sought to restrict philosopher Bertrand Russell from holding a teaching position due to his unorthodox beliefs.

Basically, I recognize that I am the intellectual descendant of heretics, and that I live my life in dialog with heresy, and so I cannot support efforts to oppress the heretics, regardless of their positions and how "disgusting" or "obviously wrong" those positions are. As skafather84 said: "Free speech isn't if unpopular speech isn't protected.". Every idea we have today was once unpopular, disgusting, socially unacceptable, harmful to the status quo, etc, and so why is this age so sacred to have found the final truths, while all of those other claims were just pretenders, despite their efforts to make the same claim of authenticity? In the end, I find all of this ridiculous. Why not start putting on pope hats while we're at it?