1984 was a commentary on countries that really existed.
But if you want to stick with literal real-world examples: the Nazis were merely the silver-medal winners in the 20th Century Mass-Murder Olympics. The Commies took the gold, both in absolute numbers and also with the highest percentage of a country murdered.
Do you advocate restrictions on the kind of left-wing ideological writing that has led – not just once but repeatedly – to the most murderous regimes in history?
It wasn’t the Nazis’ economic policies or system of government I was talking about banning. So, the parts of Communist ideology that are advocating genocide - I’m all in favour of banning those.
Could you point out which parts of left-wing ideology those might be?
The parts that the Soviets and Maoists used to justify their murder of tens of millions of people.
That can be construed narrowly or broadly. But that’s exactly the point.
Then I must suppose you are fine with any expressions of racism that don’t advocate genocide.
Right?
The whole “let’s not offend Muslims” is based on fear, nothing else. We know that no random person will be decapitated in broad daylight for showing a cartoon of Jesus doing despicable things. And if somehow, it happended, they would not say “look at what the archbishop of Milwaukee said, that what we need to hear”.
Fear, nothing else.
Which would be … ?
You want to explain the logic behind that stupid statement?
What do I have to fear from French Islamicists?
Nothing, as long as you stop asserting your right to live freely.
Stop projecting your own fears onto me.
I don’t fear French Islamicists at all, and yet I still say we shouldn’t offend the other French Muslims. So obviously it’s not all “based on fear, nothing else”. Some of it is based on just not being a dick.
Marx did write, when criticising how people are manipulated via organised religion,
Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
but I must have missed the part where he says to kill all the Jews and Muslims among the long discussion of the price of 10 lbs of yarn versus 10 lbs of cotton and on the depreciation of industrial machinery.
You asked “what do I have to fear from French Islamacists?”.
My answer is, death. They want to subjugate or kill you and it is nothing to do with your personal willingness or not to offend the majority of muslims with offensive cartoons or speech. Bataclan and Nice give you plenty of reasons to fear them and what they will do to innocent people.
Your whole way of life is an affront to them and don’t think for one second that they will pause their nightclub massacre to say “all those who called for the banning of Charlie Hebdo are free to go”.
In fact a case can be made that by singling out Islam for special protection from insult you do indeed give weight to the Islamist case that Islam is somehow special and that people who follow it are special. I don’t think that is healthy.
I’m sure you value the option to speak freely to certain people in certain circumstances with the accompanying risk of causing offence (and of course the option to refrain where you think it does more harm than good)
How would you feel about having that right either removed completely or curtailed on pain of legal sanction or death?
You could decide that Trump is such a gross misogynist, and his supporters so flawed that a deeply offensive and grotesque cartoon full of stereotypes and sexual imagery is a suitable way to get at him and make your point. To put it on an equal footing, lets say that the followers were all depicted as toothless, redneck simpletons with banjos, overalls and pickups.
How would you react if Trump warned you that to do so risked his supporters gunning you down in a drive-by shooting? Would it stop you? Would it make you reconsider? Would you think that they had a point? Would you urge your fellow criticisers to avoid such caricatures and criticism?
Do you know the meaning of “rhetorical question”? I was replying to AdG, addressing the idea that fear is the only motivator for not being a dick. I wasn’t actually leaving an opening for you to stuff your irrational fears of some kind of European Caliphate into.
The absolute joke here is that you seem to think I’m so unfamiliar with living in a place where what you say can get you assaulted, tortured and killed that I need it whitesplained to me. Ha! I’m intimately familiar with it. Doesn’t turn me into a quivering lump of fear at the very thought, though.
Something I did not do. PLEASE kindly stop making up shit and attributing it to me. I’ve been very explicit that I want those protections for all victims of racist media, not just Muslims.
I would say “Not this shit again?” and put my life on the line for it. Again.
What literal scars from fighting for your rights do you have?
You do know that a worldwide caliphate is precisely what the extreme Islamists want don’t you?
And “irrational” is a curious way to put it seeing as thousands of innocent people have lost their lives as collateral damage in pursuit of that aim.
You set different standards for offence against Islam than you do for other groups. I don’t know what that is other than “special protection”
Yes, you did. You do not believe anyone needs to follow Jewish law; you do not believe anyone needs to follow Christian law. But for some reason you believe we all need to follow the Hadith that forbids drawing Muhammed.
“Want” and “can have” are two different things. I don’t fear the Caliphate any more than I fear asteroids.
Doesn’t mean believing the Caliphate is happening is rational.
And complete lack of response to me pointing out that I have actual experience with living under exactly the kind of thing you fear, noted…
No, I don’t. My standard is “don’t be a dick”. Just because Muslims have one thing where the “being a dick” thing is something you’re capable of doing to them with public media, doesn’t make it a “special protection”.
I don’t think you need to “follow the Hadith”, I think you need to respect the feelings of those Muslims who do. Not the same thing. I’m also not down with pissing in the holy water, or secretly putting pork in the kosher sausages, or whatever juvenile troll bullying people can conceive of against the religious, FYI…
So you’re equating putting urine in water that Christians touch/sprinkle on themselves, or tricking Jews into eating pork, with drawing Muhammed.
I’ll note that these aren’t equivalent. An equivalent to tricking jews into eating pork would be tricking Muslims into eating pork, since they also don’t eat pigs. That would be a fucked up thing to do to someone, I agree.
But drawing Muhammed isn’t equivalent to tricking people into coming into personal, physical contact with things they consider unclean, like pork or urine. It’s equivalent to tricking Muslims into eating pork.
And now you’ll say “But do Jews and Christians have a longstanding tradition of not drawing Muhammed?”. No, but Jews have a very long tradition of not representing God through any iconography. So should The Simpsons be banned because they show the face of God? That’s a violation of the 2nd commandment, its one of Judaism’s key tenants.
I’m only “equating” them in the sense that they’re all dickish. Equally dickish.
Yes, that would also be dickish.
You want to redo that paragraph??
Are The Simpsons clearly indicating that it’s the face of the Jewish God?
Also, so the prohibition against depicting 'God" isn’t just a Islamic one? Whaddayaknow!
Mean speech is not equivalent to physical assault.