# WTF? (Obama's speech on violence in the Mideast) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 25, 2012, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-obamas-speech-on-violence-in-the-mideast/635795 "2012-09-25T16:59:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2012, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-obamas-speech-on-violence-in-the-mideast/635795/21 "2012-09-26T04:12:12Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > [Moderating] > I’ve edited the title of this thread to reflect its subject matter. **newcomer** , in the future, please try to use more descriptive titles for your threads, so people can have some idea what they’re about before they click on them. > [/Moderating] To be fair: Newcomer is very, very stupid. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2012, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-obamas-speech-on-violence-in-the-mideast/635795/22 "2012-09-26T06:26:38Z")
Challenged. Has a library paste abuse problem. ---
**Author:** ![Virgil\_Tibbs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/c4cdca/32.png) [@Virgil\_Tibbs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Virgil_Tibbs)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2012, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-obamas-speech-on-violence-in-the-mideast/635795/23 "2012-09-26T09:09:21Z")
> [@](#): > > Americans have fought and died around the globe to protect the right of all people to express their views – even views that we disagree with. Well, this is bollocks. Imagine being an Egyptian or Saudi or Vietnamese and hearing that. It should read: “Americans have plotted, paid, fought and died around the globe to oppress foreigners and take away all their human rights, including their right to express their views – especially views that we disagree with.” Indeed, I wonder exactly what cynical backroom dealings are currently going on as a result of the protests, riots – and expression of opinions. No one – not even America’s free-world allies – now trusts anything a US government representative says. Not a single right-thinking person will be swayed by anything Obama says. It’s only what you **do** that matters. ---
**Author:** ![newcomer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e5b9ba/32.png) [@newcomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newcomer)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2012, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-obamas-speech-on-violence-in-the-mideast/635795/24 "2012-09-26T14:13:34Z")
> [@Virgil\_Tibbs](#): > > Well, this is bollocks. Imagine being an Egyptian or Saudi or Vietnamese and hearing that. It should read: > > “Americans have plotted, paid, fought and died around the globe to oppress foreigners and take away all their human rights, including their right to express their views – especially views that we disagree with.” > > Indeed, I wonder exactly what cynical backroom dealings are currently going on as a result of the protests, riots – and expression of opinions. > > No one – not even America’s free-world allies – now trusts anything a US government representative says. Not a single right-thinking person will be swayed by anything Obama says. It’s only what you **do** that matters. This is exactly what bothers me with an average Obama supporter, this notion that the speech he makes – even if it’s in fact totally based on speculation or, as in this case, proven wrong as attack on Embassy where diplomat was killed HAD BEEN indeed planned and the dead diplomat even warned about it to who ever wanted to hear – so the speech he makes where he creates this idyllic image of what a human relationships ought to be – at an individual and group level – and that image becomes reality while reality is so far off it’s alarming. Thank you for putting it so eloquently. To add to this, I’ll repeat a challenge I issued in some other thread where I asked for JUST ONE effin’ THING that US Government has done that independent observer may classify as an attempt at improving situation of Middle East countries. It was not responded to because there isn’t one. But still, when debate is on, people pretend that US Government involvement with ME is all milk & honey. I’ll just copy-paste a suitable paragraoph from the eye-opening article in New Yorker “The Lie factory” [http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/09/24/120924fa\_fact\_lepore](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/09/24/120924fa_fact_lepore) > [@](#): > > “Voters are basically lazy, basically uninterested in making an effort to understand what we’re talking about,” the Nixon adviser William Gavin wrote in a memo. “Reason requires a higher degree of discipline, of concentration; impression is easier,” he wrote in another memo. “Reason pushes the viewer back, it assaults him, it demands that he agree or disagree; impression can envelop him, invite him in, without making an intellectual demand. . . . When we argue with him we demand that he make the effort of replying. We seek to engage his intellect, and for most people this is the most difficult work of all. The emotions are more easily roused, closer to the surface, more malleable.” That’s why you now have an invented meme “The Muslim Rage” and people look around baffled “WTF They have to rage about?”. Game over. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2012, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-obamas-speech-on-violence-in-the-mideast/635795/25 "2012-09-26T14:26:43Z")
> [@Bob Ducca](#): > > Not surprising that you’d cherry pick a single quote out of context. Here’s the entire paragraph: He’s right to call out people who tolerate abuse of other religions and then demand death to everyone who offends them personally, and he’s right to defend free speech this way. But there’s still some serious bullshit in there: comparing blasphemy to Holocaust denial is preposterous. People have disagreed about religious doctrine for millennia and they always will. Some people will think Muhammad was a prophet and some will think we was a lunatic. The Holocaust indisputably factually fucking happened. We have _pictures_. ---
**Author:** ![Strassia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e8c25b/32.png) [@Strassia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strassia)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2012, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-obamas-speech-on-violence-in-the-mideast/635795/26 "2012-09-26T14:59:08Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Because slandering Mohammad or Jesus is a perfectly legitimate and proper thing to do. The followers of these old frauds have tortured, persecuted, burned and murdered their way round the globe for centuries and the sooner these ‘prophets’ become historical curiosities the better. If the future really does belong to the Prophet of Islam rather than his ‘slanderers’ then we’re all in fucking trouble. Slandering is not the same as criticizing. Slandering is telling deliberate untruths. If your goal is to convince someone that a person/religion is harmful, slander is actually going to work against you. L. Ron Hubbard was greedy, paranoid, and a tax evader. Criticism. L. Ron Hubbard liked to sodomize dead goats in public. Slander. Including the second statement, which can be shown to be false, in an argument against Scientology will detract from the true portions of any critique. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2012, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-obamas-speech-on-violence-in-the-mideast/635795/27 "2012-09-26T15:06:09Z")
> [@Strassia](#): > > Slandering is not the same as criticizing. Slandering is telling deliberate untruths. And people who don’t like truthful criticisms often call them slander. I don’t think that getting this legalistic about free speech regarding religion is a good idea. > [@](#): > > If your goal is to convince someone that a person/religion is harmful, slander is actually going to work against you. Only if they find out the truth. Slander of Jews and Judaism has been quite effective for the last… I don’t know, 1,900 years. ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2012, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-obamas-speech-on-violence-in-the-mideast/635795/28 "2012-09-26T15:23:40Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > We have _pictures_. Was that intentional? 😛 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-obamas-speech-on-violence-in-the-mideast/635795.md?page=1)