Stuff and nonsense. Based solely on your posts in this thread, I predict a long and happy posting history for you! C’mon in, the water’s fine!
Said without irony, right? I’ve got two words for you: Fair Game.
Ah, but the Church of Scientology is a Church in name only. Churches have tax-exempt status because of the charitable work that they do. Benevolence is provided for any in need, pretty much regardless of creed. I’ve never heard of a CoS mission to build homes in Guatamala, or provide vets in Kenya, or anything. You might be surprised at how much suffering will have to be dealt with by others if you take that non-profit status away.
What a load of shit. Tom, is that you?
Then hear this: the Church of Scientology of Toronto was convicted under the Criminal Code of Canada for breach of trust for infiltrating the Ontario Provincial Police and the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General. From the Ontario Court of Appeal citing the trial judge (the Court of Appeal adding the emphasis): http://www.canlii.org/en/on/onca/doc/1996/1996canlii1650/1996canlii1650.html
The Church of Scientology of Toronto also went after (e.g. pressed private criminal charges and smeared in the media) the Crown Prosecutor in this matter, the now Honourable Mr. Justice Casey Hill, resulting in what I believe is the largest ever award for damages in a libel matter in Canadian history – 1.6 million dollars. From the Supreme Court of Canada: http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/1995/1995canlii59/1995canlii59.html:
Really? Sounds a bit like what the Muslims do to people who criticize Islam and Mohammed. Except their solution is to kill them.
They don’t seem to have suffered any overt harrassment from it. Maybe they were considered too high profile. I don’t know. The episode was orginally yanked by Comedy Central and they aired one about Chef instead. There were rumors that it would never be aired and that it wouldn’t appear on the DvD for that season either. Comedy Central apparently changed their mind because it did air the episode and put into the regular rerun schedule as well.
CoS was outraged and offended at the slander, of course. But that’s not really a suprise.
What’s your point? That Islam has more blood on its hands than Scientology? That’s pretty much obvious (although give 'em a few hundred years and I’m sure they’ll try their best to catch up). I was addressing the post in which you implied that people shouldn’t protest Scientology as Anonymous are doing because it’s similar to harassment. I was pointing out that amusing irony in your choice of words because Scientology has a documented history of harassing critics.
Yeah, maybe Scientology is being singled out compared to other religions, but we must remember the intentions of the Anonymous protests. They are attacking the power structure - the extortionate, litigious entity at the heart of the ‘Church’ - rather than the religion itself. This was never about protesting beliefs, but about bringing attention to the bunch of shysters that are threatening websites, kidnapping and harassing people, and extorting money for religious teachings that are otherwise free in other religions. There really isn’t as good a parallel in Islam or Christianity for people to protest at this stage.
Uh, you did hear the uproar about some cartoons printed in newspapers in Europe? Yeah, maybe the response by believers there isn’t as organized as the COS can put out, but the COS is quite a bit smaller and is better controlled by the shysters that run it.
Geez, are people deliberately ignoring the similarities, or what? The differences are that some religions have 100’s of millions of followers and have had many years to perfect and mature their techniques of control while the other has 10’s of thousands of followers and is still working things out.
Hey, did you hear about them Catholic priests molesting children and having their deeds covered up by their superiors? Sounds rather criminal, too. Why were they covering things up? I’d suggest to protect their image so that they could keep their particular scam ongoing.
Uzi, if you feel so strongly get off your lazy ass and do something. I opened a GD thread as SmartAleq suggested. Go over there and explain why you feel Anonymous has the wrong target.
I have no idea why you somehow feel the need to defend Scientology from all the unwarrented harrassment they’re getting. :rolleyes: I’ve clearly stated on this board why I think it’s justified and provided numerous links for more information.
But the policy of “you didn’t bring enough for everyone so put it away” only applies to chewing gum. I fail to see any reasoning at all behind the idea that if I can’t fix everything at once I shouldn’t fix anything at all.
Clearly, you do not:
No, I don’t think that it would be more effective. Why? Because Scientology has a much stronger lobby, by dint of having a hell of a lot more money to spend on politicians. That’s why we have things like public protest: because the only thing more important to a politician than money, is votes. If the Anonymous protesters can convince enough people to agree with them, they can use that support to counter Scientology’s deep pockets.
The other part your missing about protesting is that there are many things in society which should be stopped, but which should not be legislated against. For example, the Boy Scouts have an official policy barring homosexuals from becoming members. They have, and should continue to have, every legal right to do this. That doesn’t mean that the policy isn’t fucked up, though. Public protest could be an effective tool to pressure them to drop this deeply discriminatory policy without violating their constitutional right to freedom of association. There are a lot of things about Scientology that I dislike, which I don’t think are necessarily fair game for legislation. Again, a public protest is a good way of pointing out these things to the general public, and hopefully convincing them to stay away from the organization, without violating their fundamental right to be whacked-out assholes.
Freedom can be a bitch sometimes, can’t it?
Oooh, nicely done! +1
Everybody has to rally against something these days…
Clearly I do. But, I don’t agree that you should be able to interrupt people going about their business in a lawful manner. Your freedom stops at my ability to legally do what I want to do. Fuck you if you think I shouldn’t be doing it. And if you are going to hide anonymously on the internet (not you, but the organization/individuals in the OP) then fuck you even more. Maybe elect politicians that are willing to do something about organizations taking advantage of people. Unfortunately, the laws you could make against the CoS would most likely apply to the rest of the scam artists more commonly accepted as mainstream.
Hey, nobody said that scientology had to like being protested against.
However, protesting is legal in this country. As in, just as legal as anything you or the CoS might be doing with themselves. And that legality is the US government saying fuck you to your generic and simplistic anti-protester stance.
Well, you haven’t really demonstrated that in this thread.
So you think public protests should be outlawed?
I wonder how you’d organize public support for that?
So far as I know, no one has been physically prevented from becoming a Scientologist as a result of the Anonymous protests. What, precisely, has Scientology been prevented from doing?
This is what I don’t get about your position here. You clearly have a massive chip on your shoulder about religion in general, so why are you so torqued up about an effort to discredit one? I’d think someone like you would be all for what Anonymous was doing, even if (in your view) they’re not going after the big fish, like Catholics or Mormons. It’s like, people have gotten together to try to cure skin cancer, and you’re calling them bastards for not trying to cure breast cancer. Isn’t “less cancer” a good enough goal in and of itself?
(Note for people who aren’t Uzi: I don’t personally think of the Catholic Church or the Church of Latter Day Saints as a cancer. I’m just trying to frame the argument in terms I think he’ll relate to.)
10+ years and they’re still trying to use Woodybots
In my experience with decentralized organizations, the police pick out the person who seems the most effective and calls them a ‘leader’.
Uzi, you’re being a dick. Cut it out.
Bedlo, I hope you stick around. We need more like you around here.