Many sites speak against Islam and its prophet, many of them speak against the Koran and its teachings. No demonstrations have gone all out against them. They hold a POV that is not acceptable to Muslims, but that's fine. Many of them even attempt to do research about the topic they talk about to prove their POVs. The question is, would you consider someone who creates a film portraying Jesus or Mohammad as a child molester or as a fraud as someone practicing free speech? I think there is quite a difference between the two.
Shut up and play nice: How the Western world is limiting free speech
141–150 of 284 posts
Re: Shut up and play nice: How the Western world is limiting free speech
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quick question, do you actually think it is the 'militant' or the 'islam' that scares the west? And once you figure out the (right) answer to that question, please rewrite your post to replace 'islamists' with 'militants'. The real lesson here is what better way to mobilise a generation of a nation into militancy than occupy their country, sell off their assets, kill 5% of the population and then insult their religio…
Almost the whole world that is islamic became muslim through military occupation, the mass slaughter of the males who fought or would not convert, the looting of property and the selling off into slavery of their women and children. This was all based on emulating the behaviour of Mohammed (known as sunnah in islamic practice); Mohammed took 20% of the spoils from his army of warriors. (Some describe him as the profi…
Next you'll be telling me that the hundreds of years in which islam used violence to dominate Spain was a Golden Age of tolerance and multi-culturalism.
I'll take moslem Spain over Torquemada any day.
It is complete stupidity to assert Islamic violence over European Christendom, when Europe became Christian because of the violence of the Roman Empire.
So what if Europe had been conquered by Genghis Khan and subsequently turned moslem? The Albigensians were exterminated by Catholics. Do you find that somehow better than if they had been exterminated by Sunnis? Do you think the Albigensians enjoyed being slaughtered by Catholics more?
At their basis, Islam, Christianity and Judaism are exactly the same horrid Old Testament garbage. If anything, Islam is less offensive because some of the worst bits of the Old Testament have been cut out, the same way Java is less offensive than C++.
Re: Shut up and play nice: How the Western world is limiting free speech
#143What concerns me especially in Britain is the amount of times the police are getting involved in what appear to be free speech cases. In Britain 2 police officers were killed. The same day a guy wrote on his t-shirt something to the effect of "kill pigs for fun hahahaah." This is a stupid thing to do. I would have thought the police might confiscate his t-shirt. Nope, that wouldn't have been sufficient. He got 4 mont…
This. Making trolling/writing offensive comments on other people's walls a crime is arguable (I disagree, but I understand the rationale. Writing things on your own wall, however, with no intention to offend or troll, and then getting arrested is ridiculous. The same logic applies to wearing an offensive shirt as opposed to shouting abuse.
The worst part about this is the media coverage almost universally treating this as normal and expected -- which, in a sense, is even worse than explicitly arguing for it -- and neglecting to go into specifics about whether someone posted something on their own wall or not, which is really relevant.
Re: Shut up and play nice: How the Western world is limiting free speech
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It would work, but is not very different from banning all white people in order to shut down the KKK. There's a big difference in that those white people are already in America, and getting rid of them would be impossible. Note that I'm talking about implementing stricter immigration policies going forward , not getting rid of people who are already here. > The proportion of Arabs to radical Islamic fundamentalists…
Wow, you're so incredibly racist and bigoted that it's sickening. I didn't expect the likes of you to be on HN.
Ha, do you actually regularly read HN? If you think the comments on this submission are bad I advise you don't go read the ones here from the other week http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4603611
Re: Shut up and play nice: How the Western world is limiting free speech
#145What concerns me especially in Britain is the amount of times the police are getting involved in what appear to be free speech cases. In Britain 2 police officers were killed. The same day a guy wrote on his t-shirt something to the effect of "kill pigs for fun hahahaah." This is a stupid thing to do. I would have thought the police might confiscate his t-shirt. Nope, that wouldn't have been sufficient. He got 4 mont…
I DO defend these people. Free speech is free speech
I accept the "fire in a theater" exception. Otherwise I don't care what people said, I defend their right to say it.
Re: Shut up and play nice: How the Western world is limiting free speech
#146What concerns me especially in Britain is the amount of times the police are getting involved in what appear to be free speech cases. In Britain 2 police officers were killed. The same day a guy wrote on his t-shirt something to the effect of "kill pigs for fun hahahaah." This is a stupid thing to do. I would have thought the police might confiscate his t-shirt. Nope, that wouldn't have been sufficient. He got 4 mont…
I believe Battle of Britain veteran John Catt was arrested under "anti-terror" laws for protesting the Iraq war.
He's now a designated "Extremist" http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/11/john-cat...
I can imagine the day when anyone who says "Palestinians are people too" gets locked up under Nazism charges.
MISTYPED ("was locked up"->"was arrested")
Re: Shut up and play nice: How the Western world is limiting free speech
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
At this risk of getting this all out of order (since you edited rather than replying).. The west is RUN by militant christians (and militant jews and militant atheists etc). They use armies to inflict their particular brand of extremism. They killed about a million iraquis. They murder people in cold blood by dropping missiles from drones from 50,000 ft up. Pretty fucking extreme if you ask me.
Could you please show us the militant Jews and atheists running the West?
Yeah, you got me there, I actually have no idea.. I just assumed there would be some people with other beliefs in the armed forces in US, UK, Israel, Australia (ie. the west).
Re: Shut up and play nice: How the Western world is limiting free speech
#148What concerns me especially in Britain is the amount of times the police are getting involved in what appear to be free speech cases. In Britain 2 police officers were killed. The same day a guy wrote on his t-shirt something to the effect of "kill pigs for fun hahahaah." This is a stupid thing to do. I would have thought the police might confiscate his t-shirt. Nope, that wouldn't have been sufficient. He got 4 mont…
Of course in the UK we don't have a right to free speech. It's defined by the gaps between laws that limit speech in some contexts. In theory we do have Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, but that has so many riders that it's not of huge use.
Most of the set of current prosecutions in the UK are happening under section 127 of the Communication Act of 2003 - http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/a_to_c/communications_offences/#....
There's a nice dissection of the reasons behind the problems with this bit of legalisation over here http://blogscript.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/section-127-communi...
The legislation almost certainly won't last in it's current state. The CPS are already running round tables to discuss the problems http://blog.cps.gov.uk/2012/10/points-for-discussion-for-soc... and the case-law with won appeals by folk like the airport guy will help too.
Re: Shut up and play nice: How the Western world is limiting free speech
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you think that all murders happen because the murderer hates the victim? I think it's very possible for their to be violent non-hate crimes (e.g., murder for hire, killing witnesses to another crime, etc).
No I don't. You are right of course. I just find the term "hate crime" a bit pointless. As if violence against a person is worse if the motive was hatred or that person is ... {pick any of: gay, black, white, atheist, catholic, protestant, American, muslim, ...}
Have you ever lived in fear? For your sake or your family? Your children?
A crime directed at someone just because they are members of a certain minority causes every other member to feel like a potential target. I think it makes perfect sense for it to be punished more harshly; the damage is much greater.
This doesn't mean I support criminalizing hate speech, by the way. Just harder punishment for existing crimes.
Re: Shut up and play nice: How the Western world is limiting free speech
#150Why can't the article just come out and say what it means? Militant Islam scares the crap out of the West, and we're willing to pass laws and endure a certain level of self-censorship to avoid provoking violence out of these people. The simple lesson here is that if you want to stop non-believers from doing blasphemy, violent reprisals work . And really, self-censorship is a practical stance, if not a principled one.…
"And really, self-censorship is a practical stance, if not a principled one."
No, it's neither a practical nor principled stance. It's an act of cowardice, and it's self-destructive.
If we want to win the so-called "war on terror" (god I hate that term), then we need to stop being so terrified. The real enemy in the "war" is ourselves: our emotions, our fears, our gut reactions, and our knee-jerk impulses. Terrorists win when they induce terror, and when that terror compels us to bend and flex our basic beliefs. Plain and simple.
The best response to militant Islam is to reaffirm free speech, to stand up in the face of our fears, and to allow terrorism not to affect us. A defiant lack of terror robs terrorism of its power.
Now, I'm not so naive as to suggest that terrorists won't keep attempting terrorism. They probably always will. But they'll do it regardless of what degree we try to kowtow to their religious sensitivities. They'll do it not because they are Muslims, or because they're offended by us, but because they are militants attempting to advance a specific, political agenda. The Muslims who aren't violently advancing a political agenda, i.e., the majority of them, aren't going to be driven to do so by our free expression.