I’m saying the limit is your conscience. If you have a damn good idea that action A will probably result in disaster B, then you should think about whether or not action A is really worth it. If your thinking on the matter stops at “Well, I have no legal responsibilities..”, then you are a person I don’t want to associate with. If you are taking action A for no other reason than as a dare to those who would respond with disaster B, then you are a lower than scum in my book.
How much censorship should be tolerated? That depends-are you personally being threatened? If so, then standing up for your rights might be the honorable thing to do. If, on the other hand, your actions threaten innocent others that have no say, you should at the very least have second thoughts.
I agree the asshole things are no great loss, but the problem I have is with the not so asshole things.
Say I’m Jimmy Whales, and extremists wish to have the the Depictions of Mohammad article deleted or violence. Should it be deleted?
When this happens, it’ll have it’s own thread and we can discuss it.
Hmm, you do make good points and I want to agree with you, but the whole thing stinks and I don’t know what to think. No win scenario. Either violence or religious based censorship. Either one is unacceptable.
The saying: “I hate your guts for saying it, but I’d die for your right to” doesn’t mean much when someone else is doing the dieing.
This is what I am saying-you are not “fighting” for your rights if innocent others are doing the dying.
No, because having an informational article about something going on in the world isn’t an asshole thing: it has real value to the world. And if people stop doing GOOD things (even if they’re very small good things) in order to appease the terrorists, then they win.
But if people stop doing asshole things in order to appease terrorists, that’s win-win.
Certainly “it would have happened anyway” would be a valid defense if true, but it’s probably not.
It is true that there are those in the Muslim world who will cynically incite and perpetrate violence given any suitable pretext, but the question isn’t whether Jones’ act was necessary for there to be this kind of violence. Obviously it is not. The question is whether or not Jones’ act specifically led to more *marginal *deaths. If Jones hadn’t burned that Koran, would those 12 people at the U.N. outpost have been murdered? Was there an opportunity cost to murdering those 12 people (i.e., if they weren’t there killing those 12 people, would the killers then have, and have taken, the opportunity to kill 12 or more *other *people?).
Probably the answers are no and no. Even pretext-exploiting, cynical, murdering bastards need workable pretexts, and by so stupidly and needlessly providing one Jones gave them an opportunity they may otherwise not have had. More nebulously: enmity begets enmity, and Jones’ action had the effect of reinforcing the vicious circle which is causing the deaths of many Westerners and many, many Muslims.
Regarding Jones’ motive: I doubt that his specific goal was to prod extremists into these sorts of murders, and I’m certain that no one should hold that opinion with a high degree of confidence. However, his intending to cause the murders is not necessary to his bearing some culpability for them; merely being indifferent to the possibility (either in fact or in effect) is sufficient.
If you claim Jones bears responsibility, aren’t you in effect saying he should have been well aware that Muslims are prone to murdering people in fits of uncontrollable rage brought on by stuff like burning books or drawing cartoons? Do you believe that? Do you believe burning a Bible carries the same risk and therefore is to be opposed? Why not? What is it that is different between Christians and Muslims?
Here’s what I’m thinking.
If we assume protection of innocents and rights of expression are paramount then the only thing to do is prevent the extremists from murdering through force. Either the locals do it or someone does it. Which is an even nastier problem.
This generation gets the Karma for another generation’s misdeeds in the area. Debating over guilt is irrelevant. The moral thing to do is support the Afghan people and help them clean up the mess we made in the pissing match with the Soviets.
Some nutjob having a masturbatory grill off wouldn’t matter if the local people had a stable government to keep the peace.
That’s a good point! Thanks!
I am in effect saying that he should have been, and undoubtedly was, aware that his specific and very public act carried with it a real chance of inciting violence.
I am not in effect saying that he should have been aware that [racist-accusation strawman].
What’s the difference between Christians and Muslims? Between burning a Bible and burning a Koran? It’s complicated, and it’s not that “Muslims” are “prone to murder.”
Okay, I will say it: there is a death-cult hiding amongst Muslims. By far most Muslims aren’t part of it, but just as the community of wizards has their Death-Eaters, the community of Muslims has their Taliban. There are similar death-cults among Christianity, but they are currently much smaller.
So yeah, yeah, yeah: burning a Bible wouldn’t have gotten the same response, because the Christian death cults are much smaller and less effective in the first place, and in the second place, that’s not the sort of thing that gets their death-cultiness going (abortion, on the other hand, really gets some of the Christian death-cults salivating). I fail to see how pointing this out is anything other than a non-sequitur, however.
God damn it, I wish I had LHOD’s gift for concision.
(Part of the reason I don’t: I just spent 4 minutes choosing between “concision” and “conciseness,” and editing this post back and forth.)
For what it’s worth, and I should’ve said this earlier, but I read the OP and was like, “Hell yeah! VarlosZ laid it out exactly, only in much more detail than I could ever be bothered to.”
Thanks :).
I guess the kids regret that I’m not more convincing then. Anyway when it comes to moral responsibility, it appears that after the guys who actually did the bloody murder, and the fucked up Imams, most blame should fall on the man in charge of the guards, who had ordered them to not shoot. When in fact they of course should had shot every last person involved in the rioting mob. I hope this is a lesson they bear in heart for next time. As for the pastor Jones. Who’s to say what does or does not make sense for him? Maybe burning the Koran carried for him a deep and meaningful symbolism, like for others it is very important to immerse a crucifix in piss or paint Jesus with a hard-on. He appears to think the Muslims in general are devil worshippers. Which is rather painting with a wide brush, however in this particular instance his belief was entirely vindicated. Devil-worshippers seems to be an appropriate description of people who murder and decapitate a bunch of random people on account of what their religion tells them to do. Idiot man in charge should have told the guards to shoot the fucking lot, and the world would have been a better place. That’s the most important lesson we should learn from this.
It is the old hostage dilemma. Humanizing the few victims directly in front of you is easier than humanizing the much larger number of unnamed future victims which is always the result when we let ourselves be cowed by bullies, blackmailers, pirates, etc. whose demands and future actions will always be emboldened by what they see as success of their violence and threats. The correct way for society to react in such circumstances would be to send the clear message that such violence will bring them nothing but the exact opposite of what they seek. You could present the pastor with a grant and 10,000 Korans to light up in a great bonfire with an effigy painting of Mullah Omar on top.
I don’t give a shit what does or does not make sense for him, or about what deep symbolic value he puts on it. It was an asshole move. If the hostage-takers demand that we stop being assholes, I’m going to ask the assholes to stop being assholes.
I entirely agree, he is an asshole like all the idiot so-called artist desecrating Christian symbols. In fact I’d be happy if I just didn’t have to fund them through my tax, but I don’t feel no particular need to blame them of anything besides that.
The difference is:
- Piss-Christ-dude knows that the ultimate bad effects of his work might be to get NEA defunded by reactionary conservatives.
- Jones knows that the ultimate bad effects of his work might be to get some innocent people killed.
The latter is a lot worse than the former.