Muhammed drawings and free speech

[TheFaithfulStone]

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.

 

But you DO! Your claim is right there in the open. You have the right to express your opinion - these other folks do not. People who are not racist hatemongers get to share their views. People who ARE racist hatemongers don't.

 

That is EXACTLY what you said. Your affliation is special - you get the right of free speech - some other group doesn't.

 

That's anti-democratic - which is fine - you're not required to believe in democracy. You are perfectly within your rights to believe that a 'benevolent' dictatorship run by your particular group is the best form of government. I kinda doubt that you'll have much luck convincing much of the population - because it's the SAME ARGUMENT that racists use. "Group Y is bad, and therefore should not have right X, but Group Z is good and therefore should."

 

And I don't think that the cartoons could be said to be in the same class as that argument, simply because they don't propose a solution. From what I have seen there was no cartoon implying that we should lock up all Muslims, or that they shouldn't be allowed some right the rest of have. It was just "Muslims are terrorists! Oh noes!"

 

The blessing and the curse of a free society - you can't make stupidity illegal.

 

Other than that, we'll just have to disagree. (But I suspect we'll still get along...)

 

TFS

[TheFaithfulStone]

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

 

Agreed. The round about point is that I am concerned about the potential for Democracy in the Middle East. If you can't at least pretend that you have a civil society....

 

You don't have a Democracy with a tyranny of the majority. You've got mob rule.

 

TFS

[Qfwfq]

You have the right to your opinion Faith but we seem to disagree on the subtler points of what democracy means. To me it does not mean tyranny of the majority. Neither do I believe that a 'benevolent' dictatorship run by my particular group is the best form of government. You don't have the right to decide what my opinion is by misreading my posts.

 

It was just "Muslims are terrorists! Oh noes!"

That's the trouble, it's a false statement.

 

The blessing and the curse of a free society - you can't make stupidity illegal.

Stupidity, no. But racism and similar things are formally a crime over here.

[TheFaithfulStone]

"Group Y is bad, and therefore should not have right X, but Group Z is good and therefore should."

 

Sorry Q, but I don't think I'm misreading what you're saying. Could you explain to me how you have NOT said that? Because it seems that is EXACTLY what you are saying.

 

As for the "benevolent dictatorship" comment ... well - consider it retracted. It was hyperbole, but went too far. Sorry.

 

Second post - point being that a Democracy requires respect for the rights (not the feelings) of all minorities. Without that - then it's mob rule.

 

I am opposed to pictures of Jesus as Northern European. Anytime Jesus is shown as a white guy with a beard, I consider that racist - since Jesus of Nazareth was CLEARLY not an Albrect Duhrer look-alike. I am a minority (of one!) but am deeply offended by any picture of Jesus that does not show him as being of middle eastern ancestry. Are we going to stop people from publishing pictures of Jesus? I am serious as a heart attack about this. Why can't we prosecute a bunch of companies that publish pictures of Jesus as a white dude? It's racist, anti-semetic, and clearly factually inaccurate.

 

To me the application of your opinion leads to some pretty weird places.

 

Anyway, we'll probably just have to agree to disagree - you've certaintly made some excellent points - Are there certain opinions, which may not be violent in intent, that should be supressed? Are there certain things that you should not be allowed to say, even if they pass the "harm" test?

 

Are their situations in which discrimination based upon someones opinions is justified, or even necessary? Even if their particular opinions only real "danger" is that it upsets someone else who may react dangerously to it?

 

What rights does the majority have to force their viewpoints upon the minority? If the minority opinion is innocuous? What if it is poisonous and dangerous?

 

Interesting questions - but we seem to have arrived at different answers.

 

TFS

[Tormod]

And now for a completely different perspective:

 

http://www.sorrynorwaydenmark.com/

[InfiniteNow]

That's beautiful. I want to thank THEM!

[questor]

Tormod, it's nice the young people want to apologize to your country. at least they didn't come to YOUR country to burn your embassies. i kept looking for an apology to the Americans for coming to OUR country to slaughter 3000 innocent people. guess i was being a little naive, right? what would you think if they came to YOUR country to kill YOUR friends and not only didn't apologize, but want to kill ALL of you?

[InfiniteNow]

The love in your heart is downright infectious questor... :confused:

[InfiniteNow]

After all, the point you are so eloquently missing is that the people who wrote that page have nothing to do with the bombings and attacks you mention, and specifically point out that most Muslims have nothing to do with them either.

[questor]

they may have had nothing to do with the attacks, but they do live in the world where the attacks took place. do you not think they should apologize to the families who lost loved ones? our people were also not part of any

misdeeds toward the Muslims. i fail to understand the reasoning process behind your comments.

[InfiniteNow]

they may have had nothing to do with the attacks, but they do live in the world where the attacks took place. do you not think they should apologize to the families who lost loved ones? our people were also not part of any

misdeeds toward the Muslims. i fail to understand the reasoning process behind your comments.

You live in this world the same as them. Using the statement you made, they are no different than you. To answer your question, no. Following your reasoning, it would also be appropriate for you to apologize to the families who lost loved ones. I think we both agree that's silly. The analogy is baseless.

[CraigD]

i kept looking for an apology to the Americans for coming to OUR country to slaughter 3000 innocent people. guess i was being a little naive, right?

I don’t believe you were being naïve, but rather not looking thoroughly enough.

 

The first 2 finds in this google search for “statement sympathy september” quote hundreds of individual Muslims and Islamic organizations condemning and expressing sympathy and support for the victims of the 9/11/01 attacks. The governments of several predominantly Islamic countries – notably Qatar and Pakistan – offered not only words, but vital support to subsequent US efforts to prevent future such attacks.

 

I’ve not personally encountered a Muslim who failed to express a sense of outrage at and condemnation of the actions of the 9/11 hijackers.

[C1ay]

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.

I agree with the Danes on the first, no censorship. People can say and print what they want.

 

Limits on free speach and press may mean:

 

-censorship

 

-liability

 

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.

As it should. Free speech ≠ no liability. Free speech means responsible speech, not speech that violates someone else's rights. I have no problem with criminal or civil liabilities for speech qualifying for such accountability.

 

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.

And each nation, like Denmark, should be free to set their laws as they choose. It Italy wants to punish hate speech in Italy, it is Italy's right to do so. If Denmark wants to allow any publication in Denmark, it is Denmark's right to do so as well. From this article it looks like they are attempting to make arrangements with Iran to publish any Holocaust cartoons that their contest yields. It appears they are happy to be equally offensive to everyone.

 

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.

It's only wrong if it violates the laws that Denmark sets for itself. It doesn't matter that it's a misdemeanour in Italy or a capital crime in any country based on Sharia law. Certainly you are not suggesting that Jyllands-Posten should be held criminally liable in Italy for actions performed in Denmark? OTOH, if La Padania has performed an illegal act in the jurisdiction of Italy, then Italy should respond as it sees fit.

[C1ay]

i kept looking for an apology to the Americans for coming to OUR country to slaughter 3000 innocent people. guess i was being a little naive, right? what would you think if they came to YOUR country to kill YOUR friends and not only didn't apologize, but want to kill ALL of you?

Who is it you're expecting an apology from, Al-Qaeda? Their supporters? That would be naive. The rest of the Muslim world? Why? Should Italy apologize to New York or Chicago on behalf of the mafia?

 

they may have had nothing to do with the attacks, but they do live in the world where the attacks took place. do you not think they should apologize to the families who lost loved ones? our people were also not part of any

misdeeds toward the Muslims.

The rest of the Muslim world is not responsible. Look at it this way. Divide the Muslim world into 2 sets. Those that hate us and those that don't. The first set is focused on killing us and the second set owes no apology. It seems unreasonable to expect an apology from either.

[justforfun]

I don't believe the issue is really the cartoons. The muslim world is unhappy with the US attitude towards the Muslim world since 9/11 in general. Bush screams about weapons of mass destruction but the US has them. Bush invades Iraq to 'free the people' but would Americans (or anyone else) like to be invaded to be freed? If Someone in the Muslim world was publishing garbage about Jesus, wouldn't a few feathers gert ruffled? The violent backlash by Muslims is wrong, but I understand their frustration.

[ughaibu]

I assume the claimed willingness to die for free speech is independent of free speech's legal status, if so I dont see how the legality or otherwise of any behaviour in this situation is important.

[Qfwfq]

For everybody:

http://today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-02-09T041719Z_01_L09649909_RTRUKOC_0_US-RELIGION-CARTOONS-EU.xml

 

Faith, all right, if you insist, I'm an anti-democratic suppressor of minorities and it was me that gassed the Kurds in Iraq!!!!!!!

:hihi:

 

But I still believe that I've said otherwise.

 

It's only wrong if it violates the laws that Denmark sets for itself. It doesn't matter that it's a misdemeanour in Italy or a capital crime in any country based on Sharia law. Certainly you are not suggesting that Jyllands-Posten should be held criminally liable in Italy for actions performed in Denmark? OTOH, if La Padania has performed an illegal act in the jurisdiction of Italy, then Italy should respond as it sees fit.

I'm glad you understood my other points but perhaps I spelled out those things less clearly.

 

I wasn't calling for Italy to prosecute Jyllands-Posten I said that La Padania could be prosecuted here. I believe some other countries have similar laws and there are international conventions involved but I don't know about Denmark. What I meant is that here and perhaps elsewhere this is apparently being overlooked.

 

I'm less familiar with British/American legal terms, by misdemeanour I meant offence less serious than a crime but it turns out instead to be a crime less serious than a felony. Anyway some of the Italian laws I referred to are in a section of criminal code concerning "delitti" i. e. felonies. Another, which implies imprisonment, is a law that ratified an international convention signed in New York on March 7th, 1966: "Convention internationale sur l'elimination de toutes les formes de discrimination raciale"