Yes, I know it’s a hijack, but I can’t resist…
If America spent a humongous bundle of money to become self-sufficient in energy, that is, make high-priced energy readily available at high prices, then American wouldn’t be at the mercy of the Ay-rabs who charge us a humongous bundle of money for cheap oil.
Makes sense to me. Let’s start taxing so we can stop spending!
I’m sure there’s a cartoon in there somewhere.
Yes, the ‘energy independence’ thing is somewhat of a chimera. It’s certainly important to have options, so that we have fallback positions should the oil be cut off. But it makes no sense from an economic standpoint to make the decision that you are going to switch to a higher-cost form of energy, while your competitors keep using cheap energy. In fact, if you abandon the oil market, the price will drop giving your competitors an even bigger advantage.
The reality is, as long as cheap energy is available from the middle east, we will continue to use it, even if we have alternatives.
As for disengaging with the Muslim world, that’s not possible for the simple reason that we are already tightly integrated. Not just because of oil, but because our economies and populations are increasingly intertwined.
Europe is facing the biggest problem here. The big problem is that Europe already has a large, unassimilated Muslim population. And Europe’s declining natural population means it is increasingly reliant on muslim immigrants to replenish their work forces. And of course, there are large Muslim countries bordering Europe.
Given what we’ve seen in the last couple of weeks, I think civil war in Europe is a distinct possibility. Perhaps not now, but 10, 20 years from now when muslim populations are larger and the non-muslim population is older.
I’m also increasingly worried about an Islamist takeover in Pakistan, which is probably one of the reasons that drove the U.S. towards its weak apologetic stance to the cartoons. Inflame the situation too much, and you could find rioting fanatical muslims - with dozens of nuclear weapons.
Won’t that be fun.
Yeah, I started a thread on this a week or so ago. Its interesting that the US is getting lumped in with the Europeans…and that the Europeans are all being lumped together. My guess is that there is more going on here than meets the eye, and that to a certain extent the fires are having gas dumped on them by…who knows? I can think of a few that would love to push this ‘crisis’ to the max.
:smack: Well, alaricthegoth has given you one version of this…basically its all our fault so we need to just bend over and take it like sheep. Er, men I mean. Personally I think its more complex than ‘Its all basically America’s fault…we did all the bad things, blah blah blah’. And also I think that there are forces out there that are fanning the flames (or tossing gasoline on the fires) to make this ‘crisis’ bigger and meaner than it otherwise would have been.
I don’t know what real options we have except to dig in our heels, protect our embassies and such abroad and try and weather the storm. Eventually calmer heads will prevail…and if things keep escallating like they have been then eventually some of the folks sucked into this vortex on the side of rightous fury over some cartoons are going to poke their head up and take a good hard at their behavior…and perhaps re-evaluate their actions with reguards to Islam really BEING the religion of peace.
-XT
No matter how you look at it, energy is going to be very expensive from here on out. But we must become energy independent. Period. The alternatives are too bad to even consider. Besides, take away the oil card and the Mideast goes back to being irrelevant, just like it had been for centuries.
Exactly. Sam, I too don’t ever see you put yourself in anyone else’s shoes, or calling for any response to any problem not involving as much simple vindictiveness (vicariously, of course) as you can muster. Imagine some country much stronger militarily than your own, say the US, was involved in an exercise in dipping crucifixes in shit. Some protests and demonstrations were met with statements like “Oh, you’re just too sensitive, we have a right to do this, now just get over it”. If that only made things worse, would you think it appropriate, much less necessary, for the US to start carpet bombing? That’s essentially what you want here.
The idiot publisher and cartoonist in Denmark need to make a public apology, if they haven’t already, for a deliberately-insulting act that they knew would be seen as blasphemous, and for no useful purpose whatsoever. The defenses of their actions need to stop as well. All public comments also need to be accompanied by discussion of the right of free speech we enjoy in the West, and that point needs to be driven home by showing the extent to which we freely criticize our own leadership (something else you don’t seem to acknowledge often under Republican presidencies, Sam). Do that and it will blow over, like most other street protests.
hey, I’m the guy going door to door raising countersnuff bounty on qureshi (see other thread…)
Was it that, or a realization that the cartoons were profoundly offensive to many people and that reprinting them would serve no journalistic purpose?
Too, a contributing factor might be their profound lameness as cartoons, as anyone who’s seen them on the Web knows.
I’m not sure it’s all that easy. Alternative energy is fine to replace the energy used for the generation of electricity. However by far the greater amount of that is generated by coal and not oil. Where we are in a bind is that our transportation system is almost 100% fueled by oil and oil products and alternative energy doesn’t do anything about that. Virtually all of our manufactured products are moved by oil and that includes the coal that generates our electricity.
Becoming independent of oil used in transportation isn’t really a matter of alternative energy. Ethanol you say? Well, the grains that make it are planted, cultivated, harrvested and hauled to the processin plants using largely oil. A lot of the fertilizer that increases the yield of the grain crop comes from oil and is hauled to the fields with oil powered trucks.
And don’t forget that oil is a fungible commodity. The oil that we buy from sources other than the mideast isn’t available for use by our European friends so they must get oil from the mideast. The world’s supply of oil is one great big pot and we are all in this boat together. In this case I’m afraid a “go it alone” policy would be futile.
You can, of course, point to a cite where I suggested any kind of ‘vindictive’ behaviour, right? Have you even read what I’ve said?
You can, of course, point to any kind of cite where I have called for ‘carpet-bombing’ the Muslim world, or even any kind of military action, right?
No useful purpose? Those cartoons didn’t have a point to make? And I suppose you think Andres Serrano should have apologized to Christians for ‘Piss Christ’? If not, what’s the difference?
It’s not surprising that the US is being attacked. Most of the rioters don’t see this as a nationalism issue; it’s a religious issue with a Muslim side and a Christian side. So we’re seen as the leaders of the other side regardless of the fact we had nothing to do with the original incident.
As for what we should do - I disagree with most of what alaric said, but I think his first line was true: “we have no appropriate response on the menu”. How do we react to rioters? Start burning Mosques in response to Church burnings? Attack embassies from Islamic countries? Run through Muslim neighborhoods breaking windows? The problem is we can’t counter-riot. You don’t give up on civilization just because you’re having a problem with barbarians.
Why should the Danish publisher apologize for not following Islamic law? Is he a Muslim? And why is it only this Islamic law that the Western world is meant to follow? Should we apologize for not eating halal, too? Sam Stone’s hardline approach may not be the best route, but there is a point where we have to draw a line in the sand. We should avoid being inflammatory as much as possible, but that doesn’t mean we need to kowtow to zealots. The publisher was absolutely right to publish those cartoons. If illustrators are afraid to use their right to free speech, it’s perfectly valid to challenge that and attempt to bring it out into the open.
Giving in over the cartoons won’t solve anything. As other posters have said, this isn’t about cartoons. It’s about a cultural conflict between the Muslim world and the west, and if this hadn’t brought things to a head, something else would have. There is also no way cutting off the Muslim world will solve anything, either. We can never completely disengage; there are too many political, economic and cultural connections. We’d have to leave Israel to its own devices for a start. And even if we could disengage completely, it would, in the long term, only make things worse. The best way to reduce this sort of tension is to increase Muslim engagement with the West, not cut it off.
Not for “not following Islamic law”, but for doing something offensive for no good reason. Or, as you say,
Free speech is not only a right; it entails responsibility as well.
Do you equate apologizing for giving offense with “giving in” in other parts of life too? As I said to Sam, turn the tables and see if that still works. The belligerence you both seem to advocate does not reflect a basic respect for other human beings and their own sensitivities. No doubt the enraged Muslims realize that as well. Does “not giving in” really
Only if you call simple boorishness and the refusal to accept responsibility for its negative results a “cultural conflict”.
OF course. Does the “Fuck off, we can say whatever we want about you, now just get the hell over it” approach further that goal?
Does this mean you are of the opinion that re-printing of offensive cartoons should be prohibited? Or simply that cartoons that are offensive shouldn’t be (re)printed only if folks are going to run riot over it? As a theoretical, lets say that I’m a fundamentalist christian. Lets say its a few years ago and lets say that you, a cartoonist, print some cartoons showing Christ bombing an abortion clinic (or something along those lines). This would obviously offend me…were I a christian fundamentalist. Is it your contention then that your cartoons shouldn’t have been printed in the first place…since I’d be offended? Or perhaps its your contention that, once you found out I was offended that said cartoons should never be re-printed? Or would you only say that if I ran riot and burned some property and killed some folks?
Lastly, would I be justified (in your eyes) gathering up some of my fundie homies and running through the streets torching cars and wreaking havoc? After all, you offended me, right? How about if you were a muslim…would I be justified in torching some Islamic Mosques and perhaps killing a few muslims?
-XT
Since when is a “few hundred” extremists representative of a significant trend? It’s obvious Al Qaeda is capitalizing on the opportunity the cartoons presented, but it hardly represents an inexorable spiral. Some people are way too afraid of terrorists, and see calamity at their hands behind every headline. I suggest you take a few deep breaths in a paper sack Sam, and let cooler heads decide if the end of the world in nigh; you are obviously over-wrought.
Your own OP:
Or are you going to tell us what nonvindictive kind of nontoleration you meant?
Unless you can explain that you had in mind something other than military action by this:
Continuing, for some reason:
Then you can tell us what that point is, right? I’d sure love to know. Was it something more profound than snidely putting quotation marks around “religion of peace” as you did in your OP?
In fact, yes, and why would you think otherwise?
Excluded middle, if you’re taking the responsibility for a cartoonist’s or publisher’s actions away from him and putting it on the government instead. Obviously journalistic judgment is involved in everything that gets printed or said in a newspaper, as it should be - and just as obviously that judgment needs to be exercised responsibly. Sometimes a point needs to be made and can’t be made without offending some people. Sometimes there’s no real point and it’s just ethnic bashing. Like this time (you’ve seen them too, right?)
But it would make a point - that Christ wouldn’t have done what some self-described Christians insist be done in the name of Christ. That would be an example of a point having to be made that can’t be made inoffensively. Its intent is to make its targets think, not to bash them. I trust you see the difference.
Of course not. Everyone’s actions are, of course, their own responsibility, including yours (in this scenario, too). What’s your point?
Excluded middle, ehe? So, what I think you are getting at is that the cartoonist should self censor, calculating before hand whether or not he has a point and who is going to be offended…right?
Yes, I’ve seen the cartoons (I was actually ammused by the one with the bomb under the guys turbin…but I’m easily ammused 
)…and while the cartoonist is painting with (obvious) broad brush strokes (obviously not ALL muslims, or even a majority exhibit such behavior), I think there is a point to the cartoons…so its not JUST ‘ethnic bashing’…especially since ‘muslims’ are a specific ethnic group. More a religions group…and I’ve never held back from my own religious bashing.
YMMV and interperatations will vary obviously.
Perhaps the cartoonist was also trying to make a point? Have you actually looked at the cartoons? I’d say he is making a rather pointed ‘point’ about the ‘religion of peace’. Its all a matter of perspective…and whose ox is gored of course.
So, to answer your question…no, I don’t really see the difference. Could you run through why you think the cartoons are ‘pointless’…and why having a point makes a difference at all?
Just feeling you out for where you stand. You SEEM to be excusing this behavior due to the fact that A) (IYO) there is no point to the cartoons, and B) Muslims were obviously offended. By this statement though I see you more as (perhaps) understanding the blow up but not excusing their behavior…right?
-XT
Essentially, yes. Good cartoons do have points. Do you disagree?
I’ll ask you too, then - what do you think *was * the point, if it was in fact more than gleeful ethnic/religious bashing?
If there’s a point other than mindless bashing, I don’t see it. The best you’ve come up with is deriding Islam as, in quotation marks, a “religion of peace” (in inevitable contrast to Christianity, a pretty shaky point even on its good days). That’s why I think they’re “pointless”. Why does it matter? Because mindless bashing creates hard feelings, and hard feelings can beget violence. That isn’t a subtle notion.
I’m not. I’m deploring the notion that the rioting, to whatever degree it really exists, is the fundamental problem, that everything is always entirely the other guys’ fault, and that all required changes in behavior lie on them.
Yep. Many of us, including some posters, are quite adept at pointing out others’ behavioral shortcomings without considering the possibility that we have our own, and that those can be in large part at the source of the problem. You know the joke about the kid crying “He hit me back first!”, right? A little self-restraint goes a long way.
The concrete proposals I’ve mentioned so far:
[ul]
[li]In the case of the Danish cleric who added three very offensive cartoons to the 12 relatively non-offensive ones and claimed that they were all made by those cartoonists, the paper and cartoonists should consider legal action for libel.[/li][li]In the case of the Imam who is offering the $1 million bounty on the head of the cartoonists, Danish government should consider charging him, in absentia, with solicitation of murder.[/li][li]In the case of the Indian member of government who has also offered a bounty on the head of the cartoonists, an official government protest should be filed, along with a demand for a retraction.[/li][li]The west should respond with a public information campaign explaining why we believe a free press is necessary, put in terms that make it clear that this is beneficial to Muslims in countries where they are in the minority. Instead of apologizing for the cartoons, explain that in a free society the government has no influence whatsoever in what its citizens say.[/li][li]This would be a good time to re-evaluate ‘hate crimes’ in general, including those that protect jews from anti-semitic speech, so that we can show this is not anti-muslim and that we won’t accept a double standard where some speech is protected while other speech is not.[/li][/ul]
That’s pretty much it. If you can find ‘carpet bombing muslim countries’ in there, go for it. Until you can, I would like an admission that you were wrong and misrepresented me. Of course, I don’t expect it.
Sure. The point to those cartoons was the Islam is increasingly represented by those that are willing to commit violence in its name. Since the person making the point is a cartoonist, he made it in the medium he has chosen to work in.
[regarding whether Serrano should apologize for ‘Piss Christ’]
Serrano was making a statement about what he saw as the corrupt state of his faith. He should no more have to apologize for it than you should have to apologize to all the conservatives you have offended in the course of criticizing what you see as their wrong behaviour.
I meant ‘hate speech crimes’.