Do you have a history of killing people when someone burns that book? Are you unreachable by law?
The problem is that Jones knew there were subhuman murdering savages and chose to go out of his way to give them pretext to act.
You once again miss that Jones having guilt doesn’t lessen the guilt of the killers. Guilt isn’t a fluid that flows from party to party.
He harmed nobody. The phony preachers are the rabid monkeys who preached hatred and incited a riot to kill people. They essentially said, “we’re the religion of peace and we’ll kill anybody who says otherwise.”
A genuine Muslim would not act in the manner that results in the direct or indirect murder of people. Not only are the Imam’s the keeper of the word in their little corner of the world but they are the keeper of words in my corner of the world. They killed because they WANTED to kill. Any excuse would do. They could just as easily have said a Christian preacher was marrying gay people which was an abomination against Allah and their influence in Afghanistan is sinful.
Do you think that they would have killed those men that day if no Koran was burned? You’re probably wrong about that.
By the way, no one is saying that Jones’ guilt reduces the killer’s responsibility for the actions. Those who think that is being said are harboring the delusion that guilt is a pie that has to be divided among all the actors in a scenario. That isn’t true. I don’t even know why someone would think that, it seems pretty obvious.
Well presumably Batman or the police would apprehend the Joker as quick as possible freeing the public to their caps, because Gotham wouldn’t tolerate that state. How soon until we can have free speech concerning Islam?
Because anything short of all speech, including regrettable speech, is unacceptable. Free speech is much more than some hat. Thought a hat can be expression and fall under speech.
Let’s take it another way, cell phone companies know a certain percentage of their phones will cause people to text while driving and have accidents killing 3rd party innocents. How much blame do they have for the deaths?
How about beer manufacturers? Beer doesn’t even have the utility of cell phones, yet leads to innocents killed in accidents. How much blood does an average Anheuser-Busch employee have on his hands?
Instead they might have killed over a wiki article, or some other wing nut’s book burning, maybe a cartoon, or political commentary. They’re insane, and they need to be stopped.
If they killed over a picture of Mohammad in Wikipedia would Jimmy Whales have blood on his hands?
Heres the deal: the degree to which one thinks Jones morally culpable is in direct proportion to the degree that one thinks that Muslims are less than human. That they are a group unable to grasp the concept of proportionality. A group incapable of controlling their rage and passion by choosing to not be violent. That it is beyond their ability.
The fact is, either Muslims are as human as the rest of us and have control of their actions or they’re not and they don’t. I’m quite surprised to see that some people on these boards seem to believe that they are, indeed, lesser humans, less evolved, more animalistic. And therefore not solely responsible for their own actions.
In spite of the hundreds of millions of Muslims who managed to not kill and behead people because someone burned a book half way around the world.
Very odd position you guys have.
You have free speech now. But if you choose to use it in a way that will get innocent people killed, you are an asshole. There is nothing brave or upstanding about Jones’ action. He knew he wouldn’t be killed, he just wanted other innocent people to die so he could support his bigoted narrative that Muslims are evil. The fact is that there are a small minority of them that are evil and burning Korans only increases their numbers. It’s self defeating and stupid.
Sure. No one is saying he should go to jail under our laws (as far as I can tell) but just because something is legal, doesn’t mean it isn’t evil. Japanese internment was legal and evil.
Are they specifically granting discounts to texting while the phone’s GPS senses movement over 30mph? In that case I’d say they’d get some blame. But they aren’t inventing an issue that specifically is designed to lure drivers to texting while moving. Jones was.
If AB were marketing stuff that specifically encouraged people to drive drunk they’d have some blame.
Yes, I think the Imam would have used any of thousands of examples of perceived insults to justify his hatred. He didn’t focus his anger at Jones, he chose to focus it on random Western targets. Call it Kristallnacht-II. They didn’t need Jones to set fire to schools or throw acid on little girls. Jones is an excuse for behavior that already existed.
Here’s a question: if a cop witnesses a killing by a drug dealer and is going to testify to that, but is killed beforehand in order to prevent his testimony, he he responsible for his own death?
Not even close. You need to reread the thread because your understanding of the issues in it is way off.
You are wrong. Please reread the thread because your take on it is prejudicial and nothing more than an attempt to attack without bothering to understand.
You have utterly missed the main focus of the thread. Can I ask that you make a good-faith attempt to understand it before posting further?
It’s not a position that anyone in this thread has taken. Your comments are the result of a very, very brief skimming of the content of this thread.
Not in the least. If you read the thread you’d understand that no one is saying that.
Again, no one is saying the extremists aren’t at fault. They are an existing problem. A bear-trap that will go off when prodded.
The trouble is Jones is pushing innocent people into the trap.
Now Magellan will likely say I’m saying that all Muslims are automations like bear traps, because he doesn’t want to bother actually reading the thread, but the fact is, the extremists exist and are a real issue. They will react badly to perceived provocation and have done so in the past.
Prodding them with a stick is dangerous. And cowardly because the prodder isn’t the one who gets his leg snapped in two.
I could be wrong here, but I’m getting the feeling that you don’t think I’ve read the thread. How odd. I have read the thread. Now that that’s straightened out, perhaps you can explain what you think is wrong with this:
Whine, whine. Americans kill plenty of people for religious reasons, just different ones. And we are less honest about it. Millions of people supported the war on Iraq in part in retaliation for 9-11; something for which they had no responsibility. But they ARE mostly Muslim, and we simply wanted to mass murder ourselves some Muslims and they were easy targets. But unlike people like these Afghan fanatics, we were unwilling to admit what we were doing. Just as we oppress women to “save babies”, or harass and kill gays to “save their souls”.
We aren’t nearly as different as we like to pretend. We just have better weapons and less honesty.
Wrong. Jones can be morally culpable without Muslims being less than human.
First: Guilt isn’t a finite mass that has to be split up among the parties. The killers can be guilty and Jones can have a degree of guilt without subtracting the killer’s portion.
Second: This is not about “Muslims” it is about a small, particularly insane sect of extremists. You are painting this as a comment on all Muslims incorrectly. Much as calling all Christians to task for witch burnings in Africa.
Wrong. The fact is that a particular small group of insane people exist and have a history of lashing out at random people when provoked. These people have free will, but they (like drug addicts for instance) will use their free will to evil ends.
In any case, Jones’ level of guilt has no bearing on the level of guilt the small sect of crazy people have. It is in addition to their guilt, not subtracting from it.
And the protestors burning the American flag in Gaza and Pakistan and other places are morally responsible for this, since they incited the American population.
This is where we disagree. The Imam’s who perpetrate these riots are a self-tripping bear trap. Jones didn’t start this. There are thousands if not millions of examples on the internet that the Imam could use. You can type “burning Koran” in you tube and watch people burning them.
That’s actually true and to some extent I believe you’re correct. But Jones sought a high profile, and it’s because of that his particular event had legs.
You have a point and I stand corrected. Further I agree the book burner is a jackass.
However he didn’t murder anyone, he didn’t do anything but burn a book. His message is very regrettable, but it didn’t kill anyone.
There was a bunch of outrage over pictures of Mohammad on Wikipedia. Let’s say that was the catalyst for a beheading. Would Jimmy Whales have blood on his hands? If so does that mean we’re now morally forbidden from discussing anything Islam dislikes? Where does it end?
Lobohan, in regards to the beer and cellphones hypothetical do you depute that the companies who make them know the existence of their products will cause loss of lives? It doesn’t matter how people use them. If no one made alcohol there wouldn’t be drunk driving, using the logic presented here it’s makers have blood on their hands. They could have choose to make something else.
I would say intent matters. Producing cell phones has the side effect that some people will die. Also, some people will have better lives. Particularly 15 year old girls.
But Jones isn’t doing something other than specifically try to piss off some already murderous extremists. And on top of that he’s attempting to paint the US as a culture that gladly supports a slap in the face to a billion Muslims the world over.
Not only is he trying to get people killed, he’s actually creating more extremists in the process. I’m sure there are marginal types who hear about this and it ticks them over.
So I’d say intending to cause deaths is the difference.