And here I thought it would be obvious that I was referring to the kinds of people that blow others up for their religious beliefs. I forgot about the broad brush brigade.
Your post was addressing the comments of the Pope, who hasn’t blown up others for his religious beliefs. You included references to the Pope’s beliefs about the Garden of Eden. Then you refer to “so many religious leaders”. I thought it was pretty obvious you were not limiting your comments to extremists who would kill others for their beliefs as you now claim you were.
Glad I could clear it up for you.
So the Pope will send a hit squad with kalashnikovs if I draw him?
NO ONE EXPECTS THE …
You know the rest.
You’ve cleared up nothing except the filter you’re reading posts through. I’m not referring specifically the Pope; I’m referring to Muslims who kill and maim others who disagree with them. I quoted the FFRF about religious books containing ideas that no humane person should approve of (and indeed should argue against and make fun of).
I do hope you have that reading comprehension problem taken care of. It must make life difficult.
Don’t be tacky. Steyr TMPs and H & K MP5s, dear child. And halberds, of course.
What was that about naked people in a garden?
Well he *does *supposedly have a team of gnarly Vatican assassin warlocks on payroll, but I have my doubts regarding their field leadership.
Of course. In a post where you specifically talk about a general statement the Pope made and descriptions of his beliefs, you were, in fact, only talking about Muslim extremists. Gotcha. Let me try that fascinating communication technique:
“I think that when Bill Cosby said that his direct quotes were misconstrued, he was either trying to back pedal from a point he made, or he is so poor at communication that he said one thing and meant another. But rather than admit he was wrong, he tried to blame someone who called him on it as having poor reading comprehension, which was just sad and pathetic.”
You get one guess who I mean. And it’s not Bill Cosby.
I’m confused. Who is he talking about there? The cartoonists? That makes sense, grammatically, but not philosophically.
Especially considering that, in Argentina, that title belongs to Independiente de Avellaneda.
You thought wrong, whaddaya think?
Exactly.
I’d love to see all these posters living in the real world with their no-consequences-ever version of freedom of speech.
Maybe we could sing “your mama’s gonna die son” to my neighbour becuase his mum’s got terminal cancer. “Dude, it’s science, bitches, terminal cancer kills, you know, why doesn’t he understand? Why is he angry for my telling the truth?..Why did he key my car doors? He hates freedom of speech”
Maybe when you start being intelligent, or at least having an IQ greater than your age.
Religion? It shouldn’t be exempt qua religion. However, if you constantly offend a group people, making fun of something they consider important for them, moreso if such group of people if currently being discriminated and treated as second class citizens; then not expecting some kind of reaction is stupid.
If I spit on the UFC heavyweght’s champion’s girlfirend’s face and he punches me and breaks my nose, I can legally say he was wrong, however, morally I was and asshole and should’ve thought about the real-life consequences of my actions and not the the only-works-in-theory world of anonymous message boards.
Freedom of speech? All the way
Being a dick (especially with the opressed) and not expecting consequences? Stupid
Maybe I could go to the US and go to a “black” neighbourhood and start telling passersby “you know that very possibly one (or some) of your great-great-grand-mothers was raped by her owner, when, you know, legally she was like a chair you could buy or sell?”…yeah, it would go very well. Maybe you could go with me a defend me by saying “dude, freedom of speech, what he’s saying is scientifically true”.
That’s the point. We all have our stuff. I we made fun of every wrong thing the other guy had/did/said/thought they life would we worse.
I agree that if people are assholes directly to you an answer is in the offing. In your sneezing example if somebody, in private, asked why you didn’t say “bless you” (we say “health” in Spanish) and you politely explained and still he tried to force you to say it, by all means, reap him a new one.
Civility rocks.
I’m a conservative catholic and, at work, I’m telling my divorced and re-married colleague “you’re going to hell, Donna”. If she were to ask me the Catholic perspective on divorce and I told her and then she yelled at me I’d be pissed off.
As someone said (for Christians): “preach always, sometimes with words”
What about “prove the scientific method without axioms or circular reasoning?”
What about “embyos are genetically disctinct memeber of the H. sapiens species and those pesky human right thingies applied to all H. sapiens?”
Even if they want to be fully covered?
You wanna tell others how to dress (especially if they err on the side of caution, i.e. too much clothing)? I mean, not trying to force anyone to do it, but simply be allowed to dress in whatever the fuck way they want for whatever the fuck reason they want?
But, you can see, that even if you were demonstrably 100% right, constantly mocking people is not going to do anyhting but antagonize them.
If your plan is to make them stop being dicks to you, being a dick yourself isn’t going to work.
Halberds, dude; it’s halberds.
/\very good response
If someone went into a mosque and waved cartoons of Mohammed around, it would not go well, and the guy wouldn’t get much sympathy. But all of France is not a mosque. Your way would shut down any speech some group doesn’t like.
Back in the early '60s good Catholic Chicago cops arrested Lenny Bruce for making jokes about the Pope. I’m sure they were truly offended. So, was Bruce wrong? Forget about the legality of it, was he wrong to make jokes that offended?
You realize that women who don’t dress the way the men command get arrested or worse? Not to mention social pressure. In my neighborhood there are plenty of Muslim women, and some are covered. No one objects, especially because we have ways of supporting people who want to get out of abusive relationships, if that is the reason for their dress. In Saudi Arabia, not so much.
But what we have here is this group of people telling us, “you can’t say/draw/depict/joke about this”, and who are willing to get violent if we don’t. What, exactly, is supposed to be done about that? A “general display of free speech”? No, I’m sorry, when someone tells us “your rights do not apply to this”, it is our responsibility to stand up and say, “Yes, yes it does”. If these guys are willing to kill over this, it is our responsibility as citizens in a democracy to step up and say, “No, you will not silence us”. Yeah, it’s gonna hurt some feelings. That’s unfortunate. But the alternative is even more unfortunate.
Oh come on, you seriously don’t see the difference between these different actions? In many states, spitting on someone counts as straight-up battery. But what if you talked shit about her to his face and he punches you? He’s not just legally in the wrong, he’s morally in the wrong. You don’t respond to words, even nasty, hateful words, with violence. It doesn’t matter that what you say is offensive.
But this is even a step further removed. You’re not insulting their girlfriends. You’re violating a religious tenet that they hold. Also, potentially insulting a religious figure of theirs, but he’s been dead for over a thousand years and given his position can probably handle a little ribbing. But they cannot force us to abide by their religious doctrine. And if they try to, I feel that we are morally obligated to protect our basic, fundamental human rights and freedoms by pushing back. If they tell us “you cannot draw pictures of our prophet because it’s against our religion”, we have an obligation to do exactly that, to make it perfectly clear that we will not be silenced, and that they will not take our rights from us.
Islam doesn’t get to be a sacred cow, safe from being mocked or parodied. Nothing does, no matter how dear people hold it. And those who hold things of theirs up like that merely demand that we mock and parody them.
I’ve put a lot less thought into this than other posters here, but I just think it’s a funny juxtaposition for the leader of the religion of “turn the other cheek” to be all, “You mess with the Papal Bull, you get the horns.”
I’m not saying “don’t make jokes that offend”.
I’m saying:
a) Don’t be dick (especially to those who are treated as econd-class citizens in your country). Being legally correct doesn’t mean it’s the wisest choice morally.
b) If you’re a dick, even if legally, don’t be surprised that people get angry
What you think aout the final part about the black neighbourhood?
Legally wrong? With today’s standards? Absolutley not
Depnding on the specific circumnstances he might’ve been a dick
Arrested? Wrong.
But what about Fatima Farach, M. D. from London or Paris? Can she dress whatver the fuck way she wants?
[QUOTE]
As a general idea, I agree.
However, freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from consequences.
Imagine you left your cell pone on a park bench and three hours later you came back and it wasn’t there (cuz it was stolen). Could you imagine getting much sympathy for saying “someone infringed on my property rights?”.
Of course, legally, nobody should take your pone, but in the real world of real people you know that leaving valuables in the open mean you might lose them.
If somebody came to me at work and said “you know, today I masturbated while thinking I was raping your 4-year-old daughter. Man, was it good, she moaned so loud, dude”. He didn’t do anything nut if I punched him in the face or shoved him to the ground I don’t think the right response would be "dude, freedom of speech, he dind’t do anything. Yup, he dind’t do anything, but he was a dick.
You’re a better man than most.
Almost every single person I know would’ve say “you had it coming”, legal issues notwithstanding.
Religious doctrine? Hell no.
Being purposely a dick because you can, especially againt people who are discriminated? Hell no
There is no “potentially insulting”, it’s straight up (legally) insulting.
You’re from the only-on-anonymous-message-boards-reality school of thought that because something is legal it’s always 100% OK to do it.
Yup, I’m going to the cáncer Ward of the hospital and tell al the patients every day that they will possibly die son.
Sacred cow? No.
I’m left to wonder how you actually are in real life if you actually believe that “nothing [is safe from being mocked], no matter how dear people hold it. And those who hold things of theirs up like that merely demand that we mock and parody them”. What a massive dick you must be if you get out of your ways to specifically insult thing people hold dear.
Do you tell your wife “man, those stretch marks are really ugly, how do you ever look at yourself in the mirror. No bikinis for you, I guess”.
Do you tell the neighbours “I’m glad your son died quickly of his disease. You dodged a massive financial bullet. Think about the college money you saved. I see a second honey moon coming from the life insurance money,”?
I hope it’s just a case of web-cojones
He’s merely stating that he is a human being with shortcomings, not saying it’s the right thing to do.
Yes, and in a civilized society, those consequences do not include murder, assault, or battery.
Meh. Better is relative.
You seem to be missing the crucial part of this. Tact. Case in point:
It’s not about insulting things people hold dear. Particularly not on a personal level. But on a societal level, on a media level, the things we aren’t allowed to talk about can all too often be the things we need to talk about. I try to avoid mocking or belittling Islam in front of my Muslim friends. But when it comes to the media, people saying “we hold this doctrine dear, therefore you are not allowed to make images of this public religious figure” must be fought against. These people are trying to curtail free speech, and not for the sake of not hurting people. Not for the sake of protecting people from abuse and insults (you may have noticed that in every one of your examples, it’s a profoundly personal matter, having to do with private people who may not deserve it whatsoever), but for the sake of their totalitarian religious doctrine.
In the face of that, how do we react? A general “support free speech” protest? No. The only meaningful response to this is to stand up and say what they don’t want us to be able to say. To say, “I’m sorry to those this offends, but they want us to not be allowed to say this, and we cannot allow that.” I don’t think anyone, regardless of how violently they would react in their own, personal case, wants it not to be allowed to insult someone’s girlfriend in the abstract. I don’t think anyone is calling for the illegalization of cancer jokes. If everyone was as touchy as islamists, Frankie Boyle would be out of a job, wouldn’t he?
Agreed, especially on the murder thingy.
Better than me on these specific points.
Agreed
I think we’re getting closer.
I will galdly support anyone who fights the concept of not mocking certain people/ideas, i.e. printing images of Muhammad even if for Muslims it is wrong to do it. It’s imposible to say somthing in public without offending someone. My rant is against specifically mocking for the point of insulting, without irony or intelligence. But, legally, plastering the walls of a mostly muslim neighbourhood with images of Muhammad raping a pig while wiping is ass with the Koran is, to say the least, an uncivil use of your freedom.
I fully get the point of fighting specifically against a proposed prohibition/ban
Can I borrow a cup of what-the-fuck? I thought I had enough to last the week, but I ended up using it all on that article.