You can lampoon Islam all you want, that’s not what is bothering them. It’s not about lampooning Mohamed. I’m sorry that you still don’t understand what’s going on here.
If you don’t understand why you shouldn’t walk up to an African American and say, “you’re a fucking n****r” than nothing I say is going to change your opinion at this point.
BTW, this isn’t a threat, but I don’t think you should walk up to an African American and say that.
Beats me. I couldn’t tell the difference between that and your usual posts. Maybe this was about 2% nastier. 
Regardless, you didn’t answer my question.
I doubt it.
For the big South Park fans, no, that is probably not what’s going on here. But the show itself doesn’t really interest me.
So in that case, avoiding lunch meetings was a smart and perfectly reasonable thing to do. Most people this side of Valteron would agree with you on that point.
Because in this case it affects something they care about. And you’re presenting a strawman by assuming these people don’t complain or protest about any other censorship. Even if they don’t, self-censoring out of politeness is not the same as censorship done out of the threat of violence.
And that encapsulates exactly my point: sometimes being an asshole is a valid way to make a point. If a group of people thinks it is reasonable and acceptable to kill people for drawing disrespectful pictures, it’s sensible to refuse to do what they say.
The issue isn’t just “free speech”, but in particular whether or not it is a good idea to let threats of violence be an accepted, successful tactic to quash free speech.
I think it probably isn’t a good idea.
Also, I tend to think it isn’t just a “friendly warning” when I post your home address along with a warning that you will be murdered if you don’t shut up.
“This is just a friendly warning, but you should really shut up or you are going to be brutally murdered at your home at (address). You should be especially careful because of the following easily exploitable flaw in your security system at said address.”
Naw, it just shows how retarded their shit is.
Who is walking up to Muslims and saying squat? The issue IS about the ability to lampoon/editorialize Muslims, Christians, $cientologists, or any other person/group on the planet.
Where in this thread has anyone suggested otherwise?
Except that in this case, this group of assholes is being an asshole towards otherwise very nice people (the 1.4billion non-violent Muslims).
This shit ends up being used as propaganda to recruit more terrorists. It will have the exact opposite effect that is desired. All over the Middle East there will be pictures of angry white Americans holding up drawings of Mohamed getting fucked by a goat. The only message it sends is that American’s can’t be respectful of other people, so why be respectful of them? They bomb our cities, kill our children, and fly over us with their feet hanging out of the helicopters.
If essentially fucks every anti-terrorist activity, and sets them back a decade. Terrorists use this shit to their advantage, to show that American’s can’t be trusted. Which is exactly what happened the last time this was tried.
It doesn’t say, “Americans value free speech above all else and won’t be threatened.”
If that is the message the protest is trying to make, it will fail.
Seek first to understand, then to be understood.
The very nice people are going to have to deal with it, the same way very nice people of every other religion deal with satire or jerkyness.
You’re being hysterical. It does no such thing. It’s an internet protest most people will never be aware of in the first place, and the ones most offended by it will be people who are already pissed off at the West. Remember those Danish cartoons of Muhammad? Those initially caused no offense. Months later, some fundamentalist imams bundled the cartoons together with a lot of unrelated material (like people wearing pig masks) and used that to create offense. It didn’t set relations back 10 years or do anything like that.
Okay, a mea culpa: There is so much manufactured outrage, produced on a daily basis, that I have simply come to assume all outrage is fake. As I said, with all the other assaults on free speech, with all the other shit South Park has pulled, it seems weird that SUDDENLY people are mad as hell and won’t take it any more. You were pretty good at taking it for a really long time.
The Tea Party Protests epitomize this so much for me. Championed by Fox News. Whipped up into a frenzy by Hannity. It all becomes angry people being angry, and trying to ad hoc justify it.
But more on topic is the “Cartoon Wars” episode that has Cartman use this issue for his own personal agenda. Before protesting, I seriously suggest you watch those episodes, and make sure that you aren’t Kyle along for the ride.
That bias caused me to assume Valteron simply hates Muslims, which probably isn’t true.
The main reason I participated in this thread was to try and highlight just how sensitive this issue is for Muslims. As I said before, if we don’t need to draw Mohamed, the polite thing would be to not.
My final opinion on this matter: I would like to point out that in 4 episodes now, South Park has done a perfect job ripping on Muslims and our fear of their retribution. And in none of them did they have to show Mohamed. True satire finds a work around, and by incorporating the censorship becomes all the more powerful.
Frankly, just drawing lame pictures of Mohamed is a childish solution, and will generate a childish response. If you want your protest to have teeth, be a bit more edgy. Make all your drawings censored. Mock and ridicule what’s actually going on (which basically means you’re copying South Park from a few years ago). Find a way to say what you mean without offending 90% of your target audience. You want them to embrace what you’re doing, and at the same time be forced to think about your message.
A real way to accomplish this would be to have pictures of the Mohameds that you know.
(these are the Dave’s I know I know, these are the Dave’s I know)
Show that you have empathy and compassion. Show that you feel bad THEY can’t draw the prophet. But show that you have respect, and that you deserve respect.
If South Park has taught us anything it’s to be a dick, not a pussy or an asshole.
We’re dicks! We’re reckless, arrogant, stupid dicks. And Comedy Central are pussies. And Muslim extremists are asshole. Pussies don’t like dicks, because pussies get fucked by dicks. But dicks also fuck assholes: assholes that just want to shit on everything. Pussies may think they can deal with assholes their way. But the only thing that can fuck an asshole is a dick, with some balls. The problem with dicks is: they fuck too much or fuck when it isn’t appropriate - and it takes a pussy to show them that. But sometimes, pussies can be so full of shit that they become assholes themselves… because pussies are an inch and half away from ass holes. I don’t know much about this crazy, crazy world, but I do know this: If you don’t let us fuck this asshole, we’re going to have our dicks and pussies all covered in shit!
Wait – isn’t Valteron the guy who threw a hissyfit when he found a Gideon Bible in his hotel room once, and demanded that the staff remove it?
Yes. I wouldn’t say he hates Muslims; he’s extremely contemptuous of every religion.
Thank you for illustrating the point made earlier in this thread that Muslims are ultra-sensitive.
And not even in a good, clever way. He’s just set up shop at the corners of Drama and Queen.
Are you incapable of differentiating between attacks on people and attacks on people’s views?
So all the non-Muslim world has to do is not draw Mohammed? We can now make movies criticizing the religion like Van Gogh’s or write books like Salmon Rushdie and that’s OK?
The answer is no. As long as the concept of Fatwa exists and is used to attack blasphemy then criticism of the religion will be met by the level of hypersensitivity and intolerance that exists today.
My point is that it won’t matter AT BEST. I actually think the result will actually be less than the best. I think it will incite, if not violence, at least some people to join the more violent factions.
Other methods of fighting have been offered, but no one wants to take them, because they wouldn’t feel as good as “sticking it to them Moslems.” Your response is not utilitarian, it’s one of anger. Responses that are made in anger are typically met with anger.
People seem to have lost track of the ultimate goal: which is peaceful coexistence. The only reason we care about their beliefs is because they can hurt us. But, instead, it seems like people want to try and force our values on them. Sure, if they accepted our free speech, we’d have a lot less violence, But I don’t think hurting them is the way to get them to change their minds. What y’all are proposing is to poke a stick at a bear to keep it from attacking you.
This is the United States, not Saudi Arabia. Freedom of speech and the free exercise of ideas is everything to our way of life. The “stick” you refer to is any negative mention of Islam. That is not an acceptable arrangement in this society. Anyone wishing to live under that level of religious doctrine should move to a country that restricts freedom in a way that satisfies that need.
“Peaceful coexistence” means being able to mock each other’s beliefs, without going off the deep end and threatening to behead people who you have chosen to be offended by.
Getting someone’s attention via insulting or offending them is not a good idea. It’s like the old canard for advertising, that there has been a thread on in GD recently; as long as people remember your product, that’s fine, right? But it isn’t. Negative opinions mean negative attention. Getting someone’s attention via insulting them means that a) their opinion of whatever your intent is is likely going to be negative, and b) their opinion of you is likely going to be negative.
It’s no use saying, essentially; “This is apparently an insulting thing to do; we shall continue to do it, because they need to learn it’s not insulting”. It’s not a test run. People actually are being insulted, and just saying “Well, they shouldn’t be” doesn’t magically make them not care. If there are death threats - were there actual deaths because of this situation - you could not wish it away by simply pointing out that they were wrong to be insulted. If you want to actually change someone’s mind, you have to take into account someone’s opinion, not reject it as irrelevant or wrong entirely, because otherwise why are they going to listen?
Now that we’re in the Pit, I can happily tell you you’re an asshole. Your sad ramblings, pathetic in their illogicality, foolish in their reasoning, beyond any semblance of sanity and reasonability in their concepts, are clearly the works of a diseased, moronic mind. You’re an idiot. Your opinions are wrong, and any intelligent or even mildly stupid would know that.
You feel perfectly disposed to my arguments now, right? I’ve pointed out that you’re wrong, i’ve insulted you to get your attention, and now you have an excellent opinion of me. Right?
(I should point out I don’t actually think those nasty things of you. Just for the record!;))
In what manner?
If I go up to a Muslim and call him a “Sand Nigger”, or a “camel Jockey”, then it is well within his rights to be offended. He would understandably be upset that I directly insulted him. He may want to punch me in the nose, and while I can understand the desire, it would still land him in more trouble than I woudl be in. And rightly so.
If I draw a picture of Muhammed, and post it in public, I am not directly insulting any Muslim, at all. I may be violating a relgious proscription (as declared by certain hadith, but certainly not a universal). As I am not an adherent to that particular faith, I am not bound by it’s rules.
When I get in a car and drive to work, do the Amish riot in the streets (I mean, they do have pitchforks…) and threaten to kill me? Even in a "plain but legally veiled way?
When I have bacon and eggs with cheese on my plate, to the orthodox jews, or even those who just keep kosher, rise up and demand that I be put to death?
If the Amish or the Jews did such things, would it be acceptable?
Put in that context, is it any more acceptable for Muslims to riot, demand my death, or to actually attempt to harm or kill me?
I’m of two minds on this protest issue.
On the one hand, the form the protest itself is taking is, apparently, that of being an asshole for the sake of being an asshole. I’ve no problem with that - I’ve been one myself on many occasions, and am a fan of many an asshole’s creative efforts - but it shouldn’t be overlooked that those people who go out of their way to depict Mohammed fucking pigs or what have you are, in fact, assholes.
On the other hand, my being an asshole, as long as I don’t force you to experience my offensive behavior, doesn’t give you ANY right at all to threaten me with physical violence. I’m so fucking tired of seeing this weak-ass analogy:
In this particular case, it’s a goddamned TV show we’re talking about. Are Trey and Matt breaking into mosques or Muslims’ homes and forcing them (à la Clockwork Orange) to watch their show? You talk about xenophobic idiots seeking out offense - how does that not apply to those Muslims who would be ostensibly offended in this case?
And this is some more really weak sauce:
No one needs to do anything in the cultural realm. I can’t believe you’re even trying to bring necessity into a discussion of arguments over culture.
And why is it that “they can’t draw the prophet”? Are their fingers broken or something? They can sure as hell do it if they want to - they choose not to do so. Yet I’m supposed to feel “empathy and compassion” for them over their cultural choices? Brother, please.:rolleyes:
Agreed.
