Muhammed drawings and free speech

[InfiniteNow]

There was also mention earlier in the thread that, instead of using violence, muslims embargo Norwegian goods.

 

Think of the young Muslim woman whose family moved to Norway in her youth. She, when old enough, opened a fruit stand which specialized in Muslim items. Through 20 years of dedication and trials and hard work, her stand grows into a multi-million dollar supermarket chain specializing in Muslim goods which ship product throughout the continent. Now, Muslims refuse to buy her goods because she is based in Norway. She is losing millions each day, her business crumbles... she has trouble now supporting her family... and so on.

 

How is this an effective method for dealing with the insult? She might never even have purchased a copy of the newspaper, maybe not even aware it was being published or that it was, let alone support it's contents, and yet she and her family is suffering. All her hard work of 20 years taken from her in just a few days...

 

I tried to be as accurate as I could, but I am paraphrasing a true story above. This women exists and is experiencing this. How does this do anything to accurately respond to a perceived insult?

[Racoon]

latest news, and you already know if you MBc

 

4 people dead in Afganistan. Iranians getting really ticked off and want the blood of Norewegian Embassy!! :Waldo:

 

All over some cartoons?

It must be the straw that broke the camels back...

 

Time for a New Crusade,... Pope Innocent style! :Waldo:

 

Seriously.. everyone need to take a few deep breathes and chill!

No one was physically hurt or taken advantage of by the cartoon.

If you don't like it, put it down and walk away.

[TheFaithfulStone]

Political agenda? I guess, if you consider racism etc. a political agenda. Over here there are laws against this type o thing and I'm disappointed they aren't already being mentioned about La Padania, the paper here that published the cartoons.

 

Well... yeah. I mean if "God Hates Fags" is a political point, the so is "Mohammed was a terrorist." Stupid and hateful maybe - but still a political point.

 

Qfwfq - even YOUR affliation is not special. Your affiliation that says that racism and hatred are bad, and that people who hold this view are special. (Why? Because THOSE people get to express their opinion, and hate mongers and idiots do not.)

 

There are a limited number of "real" arguments in the world. The great contribution of liberal democracy to human excellence is that it solves one of these arguments. The argument is "Who matters most, and who can tell me the answer to that question?"

 

For most people, the answer to the first part of the question is "my family, my tribe, my monkey group!" and the answer to the second part is "who ever tells me that the first answer is true!" For facists the answers are "the state" & "the leader" for communists it's "the workers" & "the party." In a (elusive) perfect Democracy, the debate is shortcircuited by the answer "nobody!"

 

Nobody has any MORE rights than anybody else. Nobody matters MORE than anyone else, by virtue of their belonging to some arbitrary group. Democracy works in highly individualistic socities because it is group blind. It is the only system where the answer to the question is not at it's core. "I do, and I can."

 

I despise Fred Phelps, Holocaust deniers, Luddites, Fundamentalists, and a host of other fools. But their rights are not predicated upon them having the "correct" opinions. They are wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong - but I don't get to tell them that they have fewer rights than some one else by virtue of some opinion they hold.

 

TFS

 

PS -

 

This is a "pre-rebuttal" of the "but criminals think they should be allowed to rob and steal" argument. No - that's not the same thing. Their answer to the question is "Me!" and their crime is to act on it. Even most fundamentalists are careful not to say "people who belong to group X should have all of their rights stripped by virtue of belonging to that group." And 99% of them, even though they may hold that belief, won't act on it. This gets into social contract stuff - but the reason that democracy works as opposed to just being a theoretically nice system is because it insists that although you can try to convince people to join your group and get everyone to live the way you think they ought to live, that your group can't force people to join. And if you try? Well then you don't get to play any more.

 

 

Back on topic -

 

For the west, this debate is about whether some group (Muslims) has a special right not to be offended. The answer is NO. For Muslims, the debate is about whether people should be able to say mean things about them. The answer is YES. Now - instead of blowing up embassies and killing diplomats, why don't they say something mean right back? Like "Jyllands-Posten is a disgrace to journalism. By publishing these cartoons they betray a fundamental lack of intelligence and cultural understanding. While we certaintly acknowledge their right to be idiots, we would hope that thoughtful advertisers would not spend money with a company, which ostensibly specializes in journalism, that can't do basic research!"

[Tormod]

For Muslims, the debate is about whether people should be able to say mean things about them. The answer is YES. Now - instead of blowing up embassies and killing diplomats, why don't they say something mean right back? Like "Jyllands-Posten is a disgrace to journalism. By publishing these cartoons they betray a fundamental lack of intelligence and cultural understanding. While we certaintly acknowledge their right to be idiots, we would hope that thoughtful advertisers would not spend money with a company, which ostensibly specializes in journalism, that can't do basic research!"

 

Thank you. This is what I have been trying to say for a couple of pages now. :Waldo:

[Racoon]

Agree with Tormod.

Easy to say when I'm over here fighting different battle. :Waldo:

 

Still, people need to chill...

The world is a tinder box.

 

Its primarily Religous disagreements that are going to happen when you begin a Free Market economy and philosophy.

This could just be growing pains....:confused:

[rockytriton]

sorry, haven't read all 16 pages, is this the pic?

 

[TheBigDog]

Considering the reaction, the fuse in the picture is probably too long.

 

Bill

[TheBigDog]

From one of my hero's...

 

If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.

 

I imagine he would have loved Hypography, if not started it. You are in good company Tormod.

 

Bill

[TheBigDog]

One small minority from one group, claiming to speak for the majority, are condeming the majorty of another group over the actions of a very small minority of that group.

Who are the majorities and minorities? Lets see...

 

• A minority of Muslims claiming to speak for all of Islam says that Muhammad sanctions terrorism.
   
  
• A minority of Norwegian cartoonists are paid to draw a picture of Muhammad.
  

Which is the greater insult to Islam?

 

• A majority of Muslims claim that Islam is a religion of Peace, yet sit on their hands and remain silent as acts of terror are done in the name of their Prophet.
   
  
• A majority of westerners believe Islam sanctions terrorism.
  

 

Who is sending the message, and who is receiving it?

 

As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence.

 

Bill

[Qfwfq]

Thanks for the lesson Faith but your aim was a bit wrong.

 

I don't claim that anyone has a special affiliation, whether myself or Muslims. I voice my opinion and support it, I criticize that of others.

 

My opinion is that it was useless and silly to publish those cartoons and not that the answer to the violent reactions is to insist. I also consider it to have been an expression of racism and religious intolerance.

 

My opinion is that we should have limits on free speach and press. There are laws that limit these things or that at least pose liability to one's speach in some cases and in my view some such laws concern the case of those who have started this whole thing and have been insisting. I don't know about your country but over here I've found the articles of criminal code by which, IMV, prosecution of "La Padania" could and should be considered. I mean laws against propaganda based on racism or ethnic hatred, against incitation of discrimination upon racist, ethnic, national or religious grounds, against offending the cult of a religious confession. In searching I also found mention of relevant international conventions.

 

The problem of applying laws of this type is recognized given that of drawing the distinction between these crimes and free speach. I found an article about it, especially this bit, on the site of the association of Italian constitutionalists, but I won't bother translating it for you. I'll only say that it puts these laws as being a response to Nazi-Fascism and the Holocaust in particular. To me, this says something about the insistence on free speach at all cost including tolerance of the likes of racism.

 

TheBigDog, it has already been said here that the media put the spotlight on the terrorists and the violence but hardly on the ordinary Muslims that condemn terrorism.

 

Infinite, I really wouldn't say that those terrorists are controlling 6 billion people by inducing fear and I think there are a shade less than that many people insisting on the publication of those cartoons. I simply find it silly to insist on the right to publish cartoons that serve only to promote racism and ethnic-cultural hatred and discrimination, things which I personally don't place as being at the peaks of civilized conduct.

[Queso]

So a couple of people died today over these cartoons that People drew about other People, and things.

 

Peoples lives, ENDED

because of ART

 

I CAN NOT DESCRIBE HOW ANGRY THIS MAKES ME

AND HOW HARD IT IS NOW TO THROW EVERYTHING OUT OF WINDOWS

LAUGHING LIKE MAD

[Qfwfq]

The whole thing makes me angry.

[C1ay]

My opinion is that we should have limits on free speach and press.

On that we will have to agree to disagree. IMO censorship is wrong. No one should retain any right to mute others because they or others might be offended.

[C1ay]

Who is sending the message, and who is receiving it?

The media with their incessant fanning of the flames. I am now beginning to wonder, will the media be the cause of WW III over religion or politics?

[Qfwfq]

Limits on free speach and press may mean:

 

-censorship

 

-liability

 

The first is typically practiced in the western world only on obscenity, and ever less. This doesn't really have much to do with safeguarding against regimes.

 

The second does exist, starting from that for crimes such as libel and slander. The idea is deterrence, not preventing it from being published. For cases such as racism, IMO it should be publicly prosecutable.

 

According to the Italian constitutionalist site I linked to, although Italy does have the laws, it is near impossible to prosecute racist speakers or writers without getting into the troubles of drawing distinctions about the author's intent, danger of consequences and issues of freedom and democracy but the law is important in any case, as a matter of principle to state that certain things are a crime.

 

Unless one can really believe there wasn't a harmful intent behind the publication of those cartoons one must consider it wrong. Some countries might consider it but a misdemeanour AFAIK but many including Italy consider racism and the likes a crime. IMHO the actions of Jyllands-Posten, La Padania and others fall within what those laws describe and in this country, were done with harmul intent and have certainly been the seed of violence, ergo they constitute crimes according to those laws. One of them, if applicable to La Padania, could mean up to a year and a half of prison. It would set example.

[Tormod]

Q, all your opinions voiced in the last post are valid, and I agree with most of it, even though we disagree on the core of the free speech issue.

 

I am still more concerned about the violent uprising and the apparently unintelligent reaction we are seeing from the fundamentalists.

[Qfwfq]

So am I.

 

Except that I don't say "more", I can't believe Jyllands-Posten expected Hamas to laugh at their sense of humour.