Isn’t there a practical difference IRT whether or not they make it into heaven?
Asking for a friend
God works in mysterious ways.
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It is silly from an individual standpoint IMO, and I’m partly of the opinion that maybe publishers who do this should be subject to civil liabilities from people who incur damages as a result if the outcome of of the publisher’s actions were reasonably foreseeable. But I’m still on the fence about this. It’s just a thought.
However, when you think about freedom of speech issues, you need to understand that Islam is a cultural, religious and political thing. The ones who are spreading outrage were mostly opportunists doing this for political reasons. To give you a further understanding of how this works, in most parts of South and SE Asia, the muslims were not really that upset about the cartoons. We even have stand up comedians doing stupid religious jokes about all religions here all the time. They were outraged that the cartoons were published by people in The West because of issues like past colonization where they were regarded as 2nd class citizens. Politicians were essentially virtue signaling when they denounced them by also denouncing The West itself.
If you think about this on a political level. then think about how it can be applied to all other areas of political dissent and criticism. What if the left or right starts going batshit crazy ending up in violence whenever someone makes fun of their tribe? Do you start getting the government to censor them? Telling them to be quiet and don’t speak up against the other side?
These are just some opinions that I’m throwing out as things to consider. I’m not entirely sure of a lot of issues since, being a global phenomena, it’s really complex.
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Charlie Hebdo already got firebombed a few years before for their first set of Muhamad cartoons. If you already got bombed it is not unforeseeable to be shot at as well.
All I can say is don’t start a fight that you can’t finish.
You’re welcome to keep saying but I think at this point everyone knows how you feel about the Charlie situation.
So they can sue themselves for damages.
It could easily be argued they didn’t start the fight as they were reacting to fundamentalism and terrorism. As far as finishing the fight: that’s up top the rest of us who believe in freedom to not give in to fundamentalists. You are free to hide in your basement instead of standing up for the freedoms that others are willing to die to protect and many have already died protecting. There’s a quote about what happens when good people do nothing.
I should add that the Twin Towers were also attacked prior to the attack on 9/11. Maybe we should have abandoned them rather than allow them to stay open since they were asking for more trouble by not getting the message the first time.
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Interestingly, in many countries that were under British rule locals still bitterly complain that the Brits favored Muslims over other religious groups, notably in Nigeria and the British Raj. I understand that it was the case in Malay Federation as well, but I’m not sure
The reasons that they complained is that God’s rights are universal and have to protected wherever they are infringed. Completely opposite to naive humanism of liberalism.
When stupidly naive Swedes interviewed returning ISIS terrorists and asked staggeringly stupid questions “how did that make you feel, torturing and killing women and children” all they got was uncomprehending blank stares in return. In their deranged minds, God’s rights trump lives of infidels and that’s that.
Like these guys?
In 2013, a charged mob set dozens of houses ablaze in a Christian neighborhood in Lahore after a Christian man living in the area was accused of blasphemy. In a similar incident in 2015, a Christian couple was beaten and burnt to death in a village after a local mosque claimed they desecrated a copy of the Quran.
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They should have known better than to be Christians. That’s just asking for it. Giving in is what smart people do.
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This is very true when it came to paying tribute to Muslim Royalty and acceptance of muslims into the civil service. However, Chinese and Indians were preferred when it came to supporting private enterprise and allocating high level government contracts, leaving the muslims left behind economically and socially. It’s a very large reason why Malaysia still has affirmative action for the majority race whom are all muslims.
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It sounds like that guy missed the part about them already getting bombed.
Why would you allow people to live in your country that you feel the need to fight? Is that not extremely stupid? And either way, if your enemies have automatic weapons and explosives then you need a little bit more than a cartoon to defeat them.
That’s just stupid. The WTC did not do anything to provoke attacks against itself. On the other hand, maybe the US needs to change it approach to foreign policy. When your former allies such as Bin Laden and the Taliban declare war on you, you must have made some major mistake along the way.
Well, if they actually did what they were accused of it wasn’t a very bright idea on their part. If you live amongst fanatics you would do well not to make them want to kill you.
So you think that it’s a good idea for non-Muslims living in Muslim countries to desecrate korans and commit blasphemy, for the sake of “freedom”? I invite you to try it. Teach them your American values and show them how you are ready to die for your beliefs.
There are a lot of fanatical Muslims out there. It’s not hard to see why some countries don’t want them. If you are going to allow them to immigrate to your country then why would you provoke them to attack you? Would you invite someone to your house and then start a fight with them, because “freedom”? Either keep your distance or try to coexist peacefully.
Appease.
You also have to realize the political clique encouraging unrestricted migration is no the clique that values individual liberty like freedom of speech.
It’s the Hegelian dialectic and we are getting fucked over from both sides. I don’t support unrestricted migration, that is just a bad idea overall. But a lot of the right wingers seem to feel that there is nothing wrong with screwing up other countries, which is the main reason why people want to immigrate to the US, Canada, and Europe. One side causes a problem, the other side comes up with a solution that makes things worse over here. And meanwhile, all the hardest working and best-educated people in third world countries are leaving - that’s not good for those countries either.
The way I see it, stop fucking with other people and then nobody can say you owe them anything, you have no responsibility towards them and there is no reason why you should be forced to allow them into your country if you don’t want them there.
Here is the question: if you have a substantial population of Islamic fundamentalists, ready to kill and be killed for their religion, living in your country, what do you do? Should you not consider the possible reaction to your behaviour when you get the bright idea to publish cartoons that they consider to be blasphemy? Or do you just do whatever you want and then someone reads a eulogy at you funeral saying that you died while exercising your right to free speech? You tell me.
I have no urge to offend any Muslims and not Muslims are offending me, there are plenty of them around this city too. I make no effort to appease them, they make no effort to appease me, and there is no problem.
As for free speech, you realize that there are always restrictions, right? Can you walk up to a cop and say you are going to kill him? You would be lucky if you don’t get severely injured on the way to jail. Now try that with a pellet gun or cap gun in your hand. That would be very foolish, right? But if you believe in freedom then are not armed agents of the state, ready to incarcerate or kill you at any moment, not a form of tyranny? Why should you be forced to restrict your behaviour to appease them?
No. You don’t change who you are and how you behave because other people act like they live in the 6th century. It took us thousands of years of human history to get these freedoms. You don’t appease bullies.
What you do is maintain your freedoms and arrest folks that break laws (and use appropriate force against anyone who threatens your life). Stopping immigration of illiterate military aged males would be a good start.
I’m not saying to do that at all. Since when has it been a French tradition to make obscene cartoons of Muhammad?
France colonized a whole bunch of places around the world and continues to fuck them up to this day. They have some kind of arrangement with their former African colonies where France holds most of their gold/cash reserves and these countries have to borrow their own money from France and pay interest, plus French companies get priority on large contracts. It’s not hard to see why they aren’t happy with France.
So once you have a situation like that, what do you do? Sure, the old mentality of raping and plundering the whole world is immoral and lost popular support, but if they had kept it up and not allowed immigration then terrorism would have not become such a concern. If you turn around and say you are going to allow immigration on such and such compassionate grounds then I can’t see a good reason why you would want to simultaneously provoke them to kill you. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. It would have been better if colonization had never happened, or at least if it wasn’t done in such an inhumane manner, but you can’t go back in time so what do you do now?
It sounds good, but these military aged males already have permanent residency and citizenship plus they are making babies at a much faster rate than white people. You can arrest folks that break laws, but once a bunch of people are dead it’s already too late.
The fact is that the western world has problems which are largely a result of its own actions. There is no easy solution either. Taking a hard-headed approach of either the left or right wing variety is not going to work, something else needs to be done. You can left everyone in like Trudeau-Castro did, and the extreme leftist NDP(and US Democrats) still support but then you obviously have more problems than you started with. On the other hand you can put various groups in internment camps or strip them of citizenship, but that is going to cause problems yet again. Like a civil war.
Some sort of middle ground approach would be best, but what exactly? Rather than lamenting problems, maybe we should try to come up with a solution.
The impression that I get from the replies in this thread is that people think I’m opposed to free speech, I’m a terrorist sympathizer, I want to let people walk all over me. That is not the case at all. I just don’t think that doing things with more potential harm than benefit is a good idea.
Not really. You just don’t understand that the entire point of free speech (both in law and as an ethos for citizens) as a concept is to protect ill-advised and unpopular speech.
Wise, careful and gentle speech doesn’t need protection. It doesn’t upset anyone.
So long as your speech isn’t inciting violence or crimes then nobody: not the government, not other people gets a vote on your speech.
That doesn’t mean it won’t get you fired from your job, or ostracized, or ignored etc… But using violence when you can’t win in the marketplace of ideas is decidedly un-western.
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Again, Sweden? How did they fuck with other people? Well, except for their production companies being responsible for 90% of generic pop music…
If you have those people that they won’t settle for anything less than full implementation of sharia law.
Since the French press started publishing porn pamphlets describing Queen Marie Antoinette as as a dildo obsessed nymphomaniac lesbian who loved banging King Louis’ younger brother while the former watched.
There was even a porn opera with very explicit illustrations.
This may sound funny now, but the French Revolution and the legacy of Enlightenment created in France the culture of irreverent free press for whom nothing is sacred or out of bands.
Now this is all supposed to change because of people who’re stuck in the 7th century.
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I agree with you in theory, but in practice it isn’t so simple. And if the cost outweighs the reward then it’s better to keep your mouth shut.
What about the case of Charlie Hebdo, where their speech incited violence against themselves? If they wanted to die as some sort of martyrs for free speech then fine, they can do that even though I don’t see it as a worthwhile loss of life. But if you want to live then there are certain things that you just shouldn’t do, regardless of your philosophy.
That is true, but as we see there are some people who don’t care about western values. Some people see violence as an appropriate response to any sort of offence. So either don’t intentionally offend them or prepare to face the consequences.