So there was no threat? The web site was RevolutionMuslim.Com (it has since been pulled) and according to Fox News:
*“We have to warn Matt and Trey that what they are doing is stupid and they will probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh for airing this show,” the posting reads. “This is not a threat, but a warning of the reality of what will likely happen to them.”
Abu Talhah al Amrikee, the author of the post, told Foxnews.com he wrote the entry to “raise awareness.” He said the grisly photograph of van Gogh was meant to “explain the severity” of what Parker and Stone did by mocking Muhammad.*
What do you think would happen if someone were to start a website called NewRevolution.com., and to send a “friendly warning” to a head of state along with a grizly picture of some assasinated politician. What if you included a message like the one above, warning the head of state that what they are doing is “stupid”?
It would be very interesting to see you trying to explain to the law enforcement people that there was no threat involved.
Do we have a word for an individual or group of ignorant assholes that hate a group they don’t understand? Islamophobe?
Kind of like how a homophobe isn’t actually scared of gays, they just hate them for no rational reason.
I have a black friend so I can say the N-word all I want.
I’m sorry for the racist remark. You are an asshole that is going out of his way to offend a very large group of people for no actual reason. Your stated goal does not line up with your actions. You are pretending to be angry about something in order to protest about something else.
If you had just started this in the pit I could have said that a long time ago.
Probably dozens. with the history of Danish cartoon reaction, the fatwa of Salmon Rushdie and the death of Theo van Gogh there is a reason to take the threat seriously.
I haven’t seen Muslims go ape shit over South Park either though. I’m now going to ask The Google about groups that did go ape shit over South Park during the past 13 years and see what turns up.
Isn’t this all moot? I thought there was a fatwa made against infidels like a century ago.
As I’ve pointed out more than once, the threat made by one person has the history of other members of visual media threatened/killed behind it. It also has your opinion behind it because you suggested that violence may come of the May 20th protest.
Sounds like it wasn’t a threat. Anyone else read that?
You know what this reminds me of? Ann Coulter’s made up outrage when she went to Canada and was supposed to speak at the University of Ottawa.
The university provost wrote to her to warm her about Canada’s hate speech laws, trying to make sure she didn’t run afoul. She pretended it was a threat, even though it was simply a polite warning.
Without this kid writing to Comedy Central, I’m pretty sure they were aware of the realities of the world, and of Theo van Gogh. I’m sure Matt and Trey were also aware. Seems pretty benign.
On preview, Valteron you’re an idiot. And worse I fear you are the pawn of a much larger idiot. You can make May 20th a day about free speech without also being an asshole.
Right. And when a gangster running a protection racket says: “Nice little place you have here, it would be a shame if something happened to it”, he is NOT threatening you. He is just giving you a friendly warning.
There is no difference in context between your Mom warning her kid not to cross the street alone and someone who has a site called RevolutionMuslim.com, who is a convert to a religion whose members have a proven record of threatening and murdering those deemed to have insulted Islam, who send you a mesasage with a picture of a murdered person’s corpse.
Slimy bastard was smart enough to say it was not a threat so he cannot be prosecuted. Get real! We all know it was!
Well, if you want my opinion: I think they’ll be violence because this protest is putting a lot of angry assholes all in one place with the sole intention of pissing off other people. It’s sort of the way it goes.
My prediction is that a very peaceful group of Muslims will kindly ask the group to respect their beliefs. In response the group will will go ape shit and murder their ass.
This is where Jimbo would yell, “He’s coming right at us, fire!”
Picturing this thread as an episode of South Park makes it a lot more fun.
Hey, anybody else remember when White people used to lynch not-white people because they wanted to use the same schools? Ah the good ol’days.
So is your presumption that this kid was speaking for an organized group?
You claim it was a threat, and YOU know it was a threat. What was the threat? Was this kid going to attack Matt and Trey himself? Or his he just the communications officer of a much larger syndicate?
I know this kid is a 20-something suburbanite, nothing else. I know this websites name, nothing else. You probably don’t know anything else. These details are all totally, 100% innocuous. Yet, you call him the gangster of our scenario.
While I agree that this whole thing is stupid, surely you guys aren’t so stupid as to take the “This isn’t a threat” thing seriously. It’s the only way he could say what he said without being arrested on the spot in any interview. It’s the only way to guarantee he wouldn’t get his site shut down.
Remember, his freedom of speech is restricted. The second he makes an actual threat, he gets in trouble.
As for you people that want draw stuff: All you’re going to accomplish is making them think we’re more evil than they already think. It’s likely to inspire more people to join the movement. It’s not going to help, as the mainstream media is not going to have any part in it. Most of the drawings won’t even be published.
All this is is a way to keep you guys from doing something that would actually help censorship matters. It’s a feel-good protest at best.
If y’all really believe this, I’m gonna start having fun in the pit. We can’t threaten bodily harm, but I could link an image of some poster whose been killed, and warn that the same thing could happen to you. I’m sure I won’t get in trouble, since I’ll say it’s not really a threat.
Oh, and to get the whole thing where they know Matt and Trey’s names and addresses, trust me: I could get your info, too.
It goes directly back to the Danish cartoons. If you think it won’t matter then that’s your opinion but it’s time people stood up for free speech and not shrink away from it. At some point the religion of Islam is going to have to evolve beyond the Fatwa mentality. Other religions managed to do it.
I said it before and I’ll say it again: If you want to show me that you guys are really super duper extra mad about this onslaught to your freedom of speech, and not just xenophobic assholes looking to stick it to brown people, I put this challenge to you:
Spend THIS May 20th protesting your right to use the N-word. Have some fun with it, put sheets over your head to represent the goats of civil liberties. Hang some figures to represent the noose that is around all our throats. Maybe burn a cross to show, crap, I don’t have something for that one. Wait, burn a giant letter t to represent the loss of our language to threats of violence. Because that’s what you’re mad about, free speech.
Do that and next year I’ll be right along with you, holding my very own depiction of Mohamed, PBUH, giving it good to a little girl. I assume we’re allowed to show sexual depictions of underage individuals right?
How about this: seeing as how we’re in a pluralistic society, you do what you want with the day and I do what I want with it.
That’s somewhat true. But is being an asshole always undesirable or is it sometimes a valid way to make a point?
This is a stupid request. Very few of us draw pictures of Muhammad in our day to day lives. If you want, you could pretend I’ve been respecting their wishes my whole life by never drawing his picture. The reality is that I don’t care one way or the other because I’ve never had any reason to draw him and probably never will.
I behave like a decent human being most of the time, thank you.
South Park aside - I’ve never been a fan - this is not about us respecting a religion. It’s a reasonable demand that religious believers not attempt to hold nonbelievers to their own laws. If a Muslim wants to fast during the day in Ramada, or a Catholic wants to smudge his forehead on Ash Wednesday, or a Jew wants to avoid using electricity on Saturdays, that’s fine. I think they’re all superstitions, but I wouldn’t stop anyone from practicing and I probably wouldn’t express that view to a believer. *But if a Muslim takes my lunch during Ramadan, a Catholic puts ash on my forehead, or a Jew cuts of my electricity, that’s a problem. And if any of those people tried to cajole me into following their religious traditions by the threat of violence, that’s the same problem.
I don’t know the intent of the Revolution Muslim poster, although his message does come off as threatening. (It’s about as helpful as a mobster saying ‘Gee, it’d be a shame if this place happened to burn down’ and then asking for protection money.) But leaving that guy out of the debate, the issue still exists: we’re expected to give Islam a wide berth because some Muslims are violent lunatics. Not pissing off lunatics is a pretty good survival strategy but it really isn’t right, and after a certain point, “just don’t make him mad!” becomes an infringement of my ability to live the way I choose. All of this is pretty general and South Park doesn’t have much to do with it, but it’s a real issue.
Nigger is used all the time on cable as is the depiction of other religions. When Jesus is depicted in a photo of a jar of urine or as an ineffectual talk show host on South Park there are certainly Christians who object. Happens every day. What makes Islam special that it can’t be lampooned or editorialized?
Listen you pissy little fuckwad. Just because you’re mother is a disease ridden crack whore doesn’t change the fact that this isn’t about free speech.
So you tell me? Does me being an asshole help or hurt my case?
After having someone insult you, are you more are less likely to respect what they have to say?
If I thought people at this protest were going to draw pictures of Mohamed doing nice things, and say, “Look, it’s okay to draw him” I might be more sympathetic.
My bet is that there will be a lot more violent expressions of the prophet. Wait, is it violent if we do it, or only them?
I hear this made a lot, but that’s not what’s going on here. And I expected it would eventually devolve into religious tolerance.
And my wife’s company, they sent around an email reminding everyone that Ramadan was coming up. Let people know what it is. And then asked that if possible please avoid having lunch meetings during this time.
Nothing was forbidden. It was just a way of showing respect for a different culture. All it asked was that if you didn’t need to have a lunch meeting, don’t.
I keep saying this, and it has yet to register, but we already live in a highly censored society, one picture of one old dude is the least of our worries. I don’t get why a few people are polishing their pitchforks.
You want free speech, spend May 20th drawing pictures of kiddie porn, then post it on the internet. You’ll see a lot more violence, but mostly because your cellmate has made you his bitch and prison isn’t a kind place. That’s not a threat, just a warning that you probably shouldn’t post kiddie porn on the internet.
I just see it differently. We can draw anything we want (except kiddie porn), and Muslims have asked that we simply avoid this one. That a few individuals got really violent simply shows just how sacred this image is.
We can either respect that and leave it alone. Or we can piss all over it and hope they see it was all a big joke.