I think the tradition of free speech in Europe is different from that in the US. Here, it is almost sacrosanct, but Europeans seem to be more accepting of restrictions in cases where there have been historical “abuses”. For instance, the banning of Nazi regalia in Germany would never be considered in the US. (Display of symbols falls under free speech.)
I don’t think there is a huge difference, but a noticeable one.
I’ll be the first one to admit there is alot of shyt out there I absolutely hate to the fucking ground. There’s alot of people like me too, many more than will admit it or even recognize it in themselves. Call me a hater, and proud of it.
But it really makes the decent haters like me look bad when the stinking terrorists use it as a reverse psychology cover up for their criminal activity. IMHO, that’s just a bit excessively bat shit fucking crazy for any rational person to accept. How anyone can condone or support that in any way whatsoever, whether they are the assholes firing the RPGs themselves or anybody who places any credence in the whole mohammed pictures/movies/cartoons whatever concept is to me, just unfathomable.
You want to be a bunch or extremist religious zealots and go around killing people to get attention or make your political moves, fine. More allah, allah akbar to you. Just don’t try to cover it up with some pathetic excuse about religious oppression. It’s wearing a bit thin.
Rights only for those who can handle the responsibility? And who decides that? The state? Yeah, that’ll work well, no dangers there.
No, AFAICT (and note that IANAL, oh my, ILA*), that would probably fall under the “fighting words” exception to protection of speech, as mentioned in the above quote. Insulting or injurious speech that is likely “to incite an immediate breach of the peace” isn’t legally protected.
And yelling that sort of vileness at a gay person in public would very likely result in some serious peace-breachin’.
However, it is a protected form of expression to write on a sign “FAGGOTS SHALL BURN IN HELL” and wave it around at a protest against marriage equality, for example. (If it weren’t, the Westboro Baptists would be SOL.)
I think that distinction is a valid and sensible one. Everybody needs to grow a thick skin about public expressions of hateful opinions in general, but nobody should be expected to put up with having hateful insults screamed at them personally.
What a heaping pile of steaming doublespeak. Trying to equate someone screaming hateful things directly at your wife and a friggin movie talking about a religion is comparing things that are as far apart as a moon of Jupiter and my cat’s ball with the little bell in it. We have every right to criticize a people, a nation, a club or a religion. And if we do so we have every right to expect that violence won’t happen to ourselves. If you scream racial epithets while walking through a black neighborhood, you might very well get you ass kicked, but that in NO way excuses the people who attack you. That’s what you don’t seem to get.
You’re falling into the exact trap the Muslim pinheads are setting. They want to move the blame for these acts from the barbarian pigfaces themselves to the people who “insulted” them. Once you agree that that is justification of some kind, then any insult that they deem bad enough to kill and murder people becomes a real defense. Fuck the less-evolved troglodytes, the message that we should be sensing is, "Sorry, you fucking throwbacks. This isn’t the stone ages. People have the right to speak their minds and criticize others. JUst because others might make fun of your contorted belief system that some murderous pedophile was convinced you was a religion, that gives you zero right to harm one hair on their heads. People who view a cartoon of Muhammad dressed up assless chaps with one pig fucking him while he felates another as justifucation for visiting violence on anyone, has shown themselves to be something less than human. And should be death with the same way humans deal with rabid dogs.
I don’t think you’ve read it carefully enough. We pudding-brained liberals have been doing a pretty effective job defending the perfectly reasonable statement that the OP was originally upset about.
As soon as we straightened out the point that “abusing” a civil right isn’t the same thing as “overstepping” or “forfeiting” a civil right (and once Martin Hyde took himself off to howl for the blood of the cursed paynim somewhere else), we managed to settle down to debating some actual points of interest about free speech, repressive societies, and PR manipulation of provocative speech and public reactions to it. Wanna join in? We haven’t been very sweary for a Pit thread, I’m afraid, but we could work on that.
[ETA: Oh, never mind, magellan01’s here.]
Hear hear. European societies can criminalize hate speech if they choose, but that’s not how we roll in the US, and I think it would be a big mistake to try.
NB: I am getting into uncharted waters here, so please, bear with me.
You do have laws for Defamation correct? So in this case the asshole that put this piece of hateful vitriol out could potentially be sued by any number of individual and/or organizations, correct? Because if that is the case, I am fine with it. If not, I still need to mull it over some more.
– my bolding.
But this only happens at the personal level? Still not sure I agree. For instance, I happen to know (don’t ask!) there are hard limits as to what can be done in BDSM movies and/or clubs – which is why German and other Northern European pron is highly desired amongst said subset, they have very few limitations is any. So in actual fact there are limits at least in some areas.
What you seem to be missing is that one doesn’t get brownie points for being offended by the movie’s message - that’s virtually universal (certainly here, and in the newspaper editorial Professor Nitwit was responding to, while arguing that the person responsible should be arrested).
Not sure why you felt compelled to jump in and say “I agree with pretty much everything she said about the film”, when her objections to its content were not in dispute.
No, I don’t think the filmmaker can be sued under U.S. law. Slander involves more than just saying really nasty things about someone, and views like ‘Muhammad was a pedophile and a lush’ would be protected opinion.
AFAIK, in the US laws against defamation are pretty specific and limited, and not very “plaintiff-friendly”, as your link says. In particular, I don’t think it’s considered possible to “defame” or “slander” a historical figure from antiquity.
Certainly, if the Prophet Muhammad or his contemporaries portrayed in the film were alive today, I should think they could sue the pants off the filmmaker(s), but I don’t believe that any modern Muslim individual or institution would have a case. I am still NAL, though.
Errrr…I’m not very familiar with the genres and hobbies you’re talking about, but surely it’s not speech per se that’s being limited in the circumstances you mention?
I mean, AFAIK in the US you can verbally describe the most over-the-top hardcore S&M pronny stuff you can think of and put the description on your website and nobody can do a thing to you legally. That’s protected speech. Acting it out in person or on camera, though, would be a different story.
Master Po in Kung Fu didn’t look all that scary either . . . but he was stone blind and he could still turn a young Chuck Norris into catfood . . .
Wait, not so fast, let’s think about this . . .
Pretty much the same way Fred Phelps does?
Don’t know why but when reading what you guys are writing I keep thinking that your rights end where mine start. And that’s where I am having trouble processing this info.
Does that make sense?
You are correct. Analogy fail.
No way! Have some respect for the Chuckmeister!
Is the “rasberry” part essential?
Ask Kimstu. I’m a noob at this.
Well, no. Mohammed is dead, and it is no tort to slander/libel the dead, and nobody has standing to sue for damage to a dead person’s reputation.
You don’t have a right not to be offended.
Think of it this way: European public speech plays by the rules of Great Debates, whereas American public speech plays by the rules of the BBQ Pit.
We can have just as good discussions as you can when the occasion arises, but we’re allowed to call names more.
I saw what you did there.