Untitled topic

South Park actually did that very thing in one episode, where satanic animals were celebrating Christmas by sacrificing babies or something similar.

Was in it poor taste? Sure. But no one went to jail for it, no one was at all punished for it, no one really cared. So when the person I responded to decided to admonish these people for doing something "offensive to muslims and non muslims"... well for one that's objectively false, and for two that's ridiculously backwards from the culture of tolerance that I was raised in. His comment was more offensive to me than the action these folks took by several orders of magnitude.

It's impossible for me to fathom any serious repercussions stemming from offending the sensibilities of religious people. Because where I come from, that's basically a national pastime.

If the OP was facing jail for insulting gay people or "females" (I "love" the implicit denigration of women as lesser you're performing here) in in the US, there would be a _huge_ fund out to defend them, outpoor of money and support, and organizations like ACLU coming to his aid. There would be a bi-partisan outrage against this. We would all say that we disagree with what he said and consider it stupid/immature/offensive but that he had every legal right to say it. To use a real example, see the case of weev: his personality and actions were extremely offensive and poisonous but currently he is in prison on trumped charge of computer trespass due to a stupid law (CFAA). Yet, most are rallying behind him despite having been very familiar with results of his denigration of others (e.g., Kathy Sierra).

Here's a new word for you: liberty. It doesn't mean "only liberty to do things that _I_ like", it means tolerating when others do things I don't like, as long these don't constitute (in words of US Supreme Court) a "clear and present danger" to me or others. I don't have a right to post a list of mosques in my area and encourage others to attack their members (if I do so I should very much be arrested, thrown in jail, and forced to pay restitution if any vandalism, property damage, or violence has occurred); I do have a right to say that prohibition of pork both in Islam and my religion (Judaism) is outdated and silly (it made sense when there was no refrigeration and eating pork in a hot climate meant a risk of trichinosis, but it makes no sense now), you have a right to disagree and continue to not eat pork.

There is nothing inherently Western about this idea too. If you don't treat the concept as binary but as a continuum, it's clear that during the Middle Ages parts of Islamic world were more free than most parts of the Western world. There are many Western detractors of the idea of liberty, there are many Eastern (including Islamic) defenders of the concept (see http://www.nocompulsioninislam.com/nocompulsion.html for examples from your own culture, see Mencious and Laozi for examples from Chinese culture).

Being offended does not constitute "clear and present danger". I personally find the literal text of Torah, New Testament, and Koran to be extremely offensive -- but I understand that they are not meant to be taken literally (but frequently are with disastrous results), were written a in different time and in different circumstances, and will do all I can to prevent those texts from being censored.

Malaysia also has numerous treaties and strong ties with the United States (including security cooperation). Given the Snowden situation, it is quite possible that US would simply refuse to grant asylum (by claiming the charges aren't political) for two purposes: 1) show "sensitivity" to the Islamist world (after implicitly supporting Morsi's outster) 2) to encourage other countries to turn over future whistle blowers despite plausibility of charges against them being political.

It isn't likely that he'll garner political support either: the religious right is itself opposed to pornography and like hopes such laws would exist in the US -- social conservatives are fighting hard to defend the idea that laws that prohibit actions that cause no harm are still legitimate, some segments on the left may be prone to political correctness or partisanship (as "their" guy is in power now).

Sometimes I think the cause of liberalism (broadly defined -- I don't mean celebrating Clinton over champaign, I mean a belief in individual liberty) has (by now) been hopelessly lost. It looks like the fight is between two varieties of anti-liberal communitarian thought: one merely favours a more diverse and equal society, the other is more traditional; they seem, however, to agree social conventions can trump individual rights (they just disagree what those conventions should be) and that achieving near absolutely security (even against already improbable events) is a more important goal (even if still unreachable) than maintaining most basic civil liberties.

Sweet Jesus... I was looking at the news about your case and posting here is a violation of your bail conditions, if you stopped responding here for any other reason don't start again for that reason, you are endangering your freedom.

Malaysia actually returned Hamza Kashgari to face trial in Saudi Arabia for "speech crimes" against Islam.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamza_Kashgari