"U.S. 1st Amendment rights distinguish between speech that is simply offensive and speech deliberately tailored to put lives and property at immediate risk," according to Sarah Chayes, former special assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and resident associate at the Carnegie Endowment.
She gets the famous 1st Amendment expert Anthony Lewis to agree with her shocking, blandly stated view. We're told he said: "Based on my understanding of the events... I think this meets the imminence standard." Chayes paraphrases Lewis as saying "words don't have to urge people to commit violence in order to be subject to limits," and then directly quotes him: "If the result is violence, and that violence was intended, then it meets the standard."
I call on Lewis to repudiate Chayes's use of his words. He can't possibly agree with her opinion, can he? There's a way an interviewer can lead a person along until he gives her the quotes that she wants. I note that Lewis is elderly (85). This appropriation of his reputation is embarrassing for him. But if he actually agrees and wants to put that out there: Make it clear. (And present. And dangerous.)
September 18, 2012
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295 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 295 of 295Those of you who support Chayes...
are emerging fascists.
Garage: So sick of these fucking people. It's poison. It poisons childrens minds, trains people into violence, and makes a culture of death and murder around the globe.
Duuuude...
Has anyone seen Islamic Rage Boy lately? Or is he sitting this one out?
Islam can get fucked. So sick of these fucking people. It's poison. It poisons childrens minds, trains people into violence, and makes a culture of death and murder around the globe.
Oh, this should be a great test of Col. Angus's theory.
Oh, this should be a great test of Col. Angus's theory.
Garage has every right to say anything he wants about any religion... Nobody has to agree with him... and if you are against him having that right then you are against the first amendment and everything it stands for.
I mean, who kills innocent people over a video on Youtube?
"We won't make any videos, just don't kill us!"
No matter how much 1st Amendment absolutists rant, there has always been an area of exception based on public safety and incitement to violence.
Call it the Violence Veto
Simply put, if someone goes out and uses a megaphone to scream at a black crowd that niggers are monkeys and thugs..and a riot ensues..the agitator is arrested for inciting a riot. If all the blacks accept being insulted on several occasions, and then a black complained..then the complaint would be dismissed because Free Speech clearly had not crossed a line and precipitated riot or violence on other occasions of "nigger rants".
Similarly, if men accepted other men calling their wives filthy sluts to both of their faces, rather than fight..with some lame disclaimer "Excuse, me sir, I politely disagree with you insulting my wife as a whore who should be on her knees sucking your cock, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
.....well, it becomes a Sacred Constitutional Right to say it..to other wives and girlfriends.
We permanently shut down bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlakis Sacred Free Speech rights..because their words created violence and impacted our safety.
As for the Copt con artist, he hung himself early when he was interviewed claiming to be an Israeli Jew named Sam Bacile, backed by 100 wealthy Jews...when he said the film was made to show how easily Muslims could be provoked into violence and attack Americans.
The ammo Nakoulu gave the enemy wasn't the SOLE cause of the violence, but it was part of it. And it is specious to try and exonerate the creep because it wasn't the SOLE cause.
I've been trying to find an interview I read last week with an acquaintance of Nokula asserting the filmmakers intent to create a film that would provoke violence in the Muslim world and "prove" how terrible they are. I can't find it, but this is what we do know:
The man behind this intentionally deceived everyone about the subject matter, the funding, etc. He hid the true subject matter from everyone involved in the creation of it and then attributed its creation to "Jews." And there's a possibility that there is no actual film, just the short YouTube posting. Also, he's an Egyptian, Coptic Christian very aware of the passions ignited in the Muslim world by insulting Mohammed. He has been convicted of committing fraud and identity threat, and has been hiding out since everything broke. His "intent" to incite might not be all that hard to prove.
@Christopher in MA ... way back there I think you meant Daniel Pearl, not Daniel Berg. Professor Berg, though up in years, would be shocked by news of his death I assume. But, yes I understood the point you were making.
Yeah, I've read this whole thread. It was exhausting. Enough so that I've nothing to say, which is rare on topics such as this one.
Speaking of the first amendment... where is first amendment straordinarie Floyd Abrams?
Where is Alan Deshowitz? Ron Kuby?
Where is the ACLU?
Intent to incite is not the test, Dave. You fail.
@Christopher in MA ... way back there I think you meant Daniel Pearl, not Daniel Berg. Professor Berg, though up in years, would be shocked by news of his death I assume. But, yes I understood the point you were making.
I think he meant Nick Berg. That was the guy that got his head sawed off by Zawahari.
@Aridog
Nicholas Berg was probably in the mix of thoughts, there. Same fate. :(
Garage has every right to say anything he wants about any religion... Nobody has to agree with him... and if you are against him having that right then you are against the first amendment and everything it stands for
I've flat-out said I don't favor suppressing speech, and I've (notwantingtobrag) have probably done more than you have in helping protect and support free speech.
I just think that those words will be a great test of the "any critique or parody of Islam or Mohammed will result in a violent reaction by Muslims" theory that has been floated, 'cause there ain't any doubt that those words are critical of Islam.
~~~~~
he said the film was made to show how easily Muslims could be provoked into violence and attack Americans
I had heard this as well (on the radio) but unable to find anything on the 'net to back it up. Do you happen to have a link to who reported this?
The ammo Nakoulu gave the enemy wasn't the SOLE cause of the violence, but it was part of it. And it is specious to try and exonerate the creep because it wasn't the SOLE cause.
Exactly. Some folks seem to be of the opinion that all responsibility always lays with only one person, and can't be spread/shared with others.
Violence Veto
I'm sure most of us have been familar with the "violence veto" since grade school. This is not a case of that no matter how bad you want it to be in order to use it to squelch opposing free speech.
Thanks for the corrections. My head was a bit wooly wondering why on earth there was even a debate about something as self-evident as freedom of speech.
Ah, the innocence of youth. . .
Islam can get fucked. So sick of these fucking people. It's poison. It poisons childrens minds, trains people into violence, and makes a culture of death and murder around the globe.
Great God in heaven. Garage actually said something I agree with. It must be a sign of the apocalypse.
Some folks seem to be of the opinion that all responsibility always lays with only one person...
The responsibility lies in the people committing the acts of violence, not some bozo half way around the world making a comical video.
Seven Machos said...
Intent to incite is not the test, Dave. You fail.
================
Intent to incite is the 1st part of the test, you self-righteous fuckstain.
The second part is showing actual harm resulted.
And then the lawyers come in, and in some cases get the inciter off on doubt of the inciter being the proximate cause of the violence or in places where "free speech" is so revered that Al Sharpton gets off for yelling a merchant's store ought to be burned down to a crowd. (and it was).
Darcy ... thanks, you're right I suspect. I wasn't thinking of Iraq or Abu Ghraib.
It is, however, apropos to this thread ... e.g., offense taken then allegedly responsible for the brutal murder of an innocent. Media and Pols assert a link, therefore the link exists. Total hogwash.
I don't think the filmmaker needs to be "exonerated" with regard to the charge of incitement.
I think it's tragic if even one person was killed over the film though I doubt that the film was much more than an excuse. At the same time, do I want people to stop making films that say awful, negative, untrue (take your pick) things about Islam or Muhammed because some Muslims somewhere will take offense and kill over it?
No, I don't. In fact, doesn't it seem an obligation somehow? To expose them? I think it's an awful dilemma, sure.
Cedarford -- Don't forget the Jews. Those sneaky bastards are always inciting violence with their speech.
But use the n-word again. That was totally necessary. See if you can mix it in with a mention of sneaky, hook-nosed Jews.
Shouting 'fire' in a theater where people can panic is not the same as saying the truth and nutjobs go on a rampage.
Fire is not vindictive.
Muslims are.
The Youtube video was just saying the truth about Muslims.
I am with Garage Mahal on this one. The Muslims need to get over it and join the twentieth century at the very least. Although I would miss the sight of them shooting in the air and screaming and burning flags.
This is fucking brilliant.
Darcy said...
... doesn't it seem an obligation somehow? To expose them?
You'd be very right for protecting non-Muslims from the fanatic Jihadists, but the ordinary Muslims as well, the ones you don't see running bug eyed screaming down the street with RPG's and AK-47's.
If and when they see the rest of us not bending and bowing down, their own fears will be relieved. It's not looking that way so far...
For a youtube video.
The officers showed up at his door.
Because he made a youtube video.
Just in case any of you people have made a youtube video.
Or said something on the internet.
It's really flagrant disrespect for free speech and our rights as citizens.
And don't think being anonymous will help you, either.
Eric Holder will find out who you are. That's his job.
Saint Croix said...
This is fucking brilliant.
It is.
¡Viva Garage!
A lot of com enters here have relied upon analogy to make their point. But even looking only at the case at hand, the Op-Ed point can't stand. The whole thing is post hoc ergo propter hoc.
Intent? I don't think so. That would require the filmmaker to record his film in Arabic, or at least add the subtitles himself. Imminence? Well the weeks it sat out there without effect or comment would seem to argue against that.
No, nothing happens until an Egyptian TV show provides the Arabic translation and broadcasts it with outrageous outrage to the Arab street. Like the Danish cartoons where the most obviously offensive were ADDED after the fact, we, Lewis, the LATimes, not any of the chattering classes even knows whether the Arabic subtitles are even an accurate transcription. Perhaps thry've been juiced up a bit to make for more effective incitement.
So whose speech incited the violence? Surely not the unseen unloved YouTube video that film guy made. No without the help of Egyptian TV, their Arabic translation of untested quality, and their unhelpful comments, this backyard art project would have remained the no thing Burger that it is.
Even if we granted the LA times their point, are we really going to hold people responsible for speech actually made by others over whom the first party has no control.
I just think that those words will be a great test of the "any critique or parody of Islam or Mohammed will result in a violent reaction by Muslims" theory that has been floated, 'cause there ain't any doubt that those words are critical of Islam.
Followers of Islam are demanding we give up our rights. They are the ones demanding censorship. Notice they never offer to censor parts of the Koran? It's nuts to think we must submit to all this because of voices someone heard in the desert on the Arabian Peninsula, 1400 years ago. And if I don't listen to and accept every word of it I'm in danger? Not me.
Dave and Purple Penguin - Like you, I heard it was a deliberate incitement on the news based on an AP report.
What I believed happened was the AP pulled most or all that interview off the internet when it was clear Bacile was lying about the actors being on board, lying how he was a Jew, and the movie was financed by 100 wealthy Jews. And perhaps somebody asked AP to take it down lest more violence occur - because besides the claim of a Jewish conspiracy and that it was intended to cause violence, the interview contained further inflammatory stuff about murderous Egyptians and Islam being a cancer.
(Though at this point we do not know who the donors were, if they knew he was attempting to use the movie to provoke violence against Americans. That part really SHOULD be investigated by authorities.
And there is that matter if actors were hired under false pretenses for a production that Nokoula should reasonably know to have potential to damage their careers, affect their workplace safety -civil torts. That should be looked into as well. I believe the SAG and the industry have some very adept lawyers that will come in - say when an actress is told she is
hired to talk sexy to an off camera man about doing it better with an Apple iPhone, then finds out the producer edited out the iPhine part and the rest of it and her name in the credits is on not a commercial, but 3 minutes in the middle of a hardcore porn film.
(You just don't do that shit in Hollywood if you don't want 5 years of massive lawsuits going after you)
It appears censorship of western expression is the goal, as Saudi Arabia weighs in now.
So, yeah, Prez Obama, Sec Clinton, Gen Depmsey, et al, all y'all just keep on giving credence to this "video as teh cause" idea. Yassir, bow down and show your cowardice...you might as well kick in Jizya as well. Those, non-Muslims and Muslim alike, who relied foolishly on your courage can relax and submit. Right?
We are so fucked in this world today...
Ok, y'all! Lets get ready to rumble!!!
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/us/historian-says-piece-of-papyrus-refers-to-jesus-wife.html?_r=1
First amendment rights are only as strong as its proponents.
If it could survive 2 world wars... couldn't it survive a few hypersensitive Muslims.
Exactly. Some folks seem to be of the opinion that all responsibility always lays with only one person, and can't be spread/shared with others.
So what do you do to the video guy, Purple?
In my opinion, if you question the right of a film maker (any American film maker) to make a movie offensive to religion... then you are questioning the entire 1st amendment.. including this part..
Congress shall make no law respecting... the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The first amendment is one of the best... if not the best thing on the constitution... and we are being urged to fuck with it because some hypersensitive fucks are threatening to use violence if we don't?
WTF?
We dont even let our own politician fuck with our rights... and we are going to let some foreigners change our constitution?
Garage is absolutely right.
Fuck them and the religion they are claiming to ride in on.
Here's an interesting take on the situation linked earlier on Breitbart.
It includes a simple graphic map of locations where violence is occurring allegedly due to a video trailer. Considering the number of locales, how can anyone believe this was a spontaneous uprising?
Does the Qu'ran pass this woman's "free-speech test?"
Cedarford, Dave and PP are right and seem to understand what has happened. I'm also in agreement with Garage.
Intentionall inciting violence that culminated with dead Americans, increased green on blue attacks,the attack on Camp Leatherneck, suicide bombers crashing into buses of contractors and what next?
The movie wasn't the sole reason for the attacks, as Cedarford said, but Nakoula knew what the result of this film would be, he didn't care if it made life even more dangerous for Coptic Christians or Americans in the region.
Those who continue to think that our free speech values will be embraced by those Muslims in the ME and no one will get hurt, are incredibly selfish or simply ideological dumbasses. Few here want to accept that we are at war and irresponsible free speech here, that may have crossed over to something more sinister, affects what happens in that hellish part of the world, so what if it gets innocents killed I guess.
We don't want to be told that it may be wise to not incite violence because of an ideological fixation with free speech, so lets get all our troops, our money, our embassies out of the region, THEN by all means have a free speech orgy, have at it.
Obviously one big problem is an insular mindset of many Americans that THEY HAVE RIGHTS!!! and those rights which originated and evolved before America was a global player with vital global interests.
And now we have many 1st Amendment Absolutists still insisting our piece of paper ranks above their culturally significant pieces of paper - and must be honored globally. Even if it harms America and badly damages our global interests.
But other people's sacred rights, like traditional African female genital mutilation and the Norweigan and Japanese right to take whatever bounty they can find from the high seas - are now limited. Like us, they resented others telling them ABOUT THEIR SACRED RIGHTS!!! - that they needed to consider the interests of others in other nations in abating whale killing or clitorectomies...
We have slowly recognized that certain "sacred, traditional, Constitutional" rights within nations that were created and evolved in isolation do sometimes cross Borders and we have come to agreements, even treaties that strive for human rights standards, animal cruelty standards, bans on international open sea whaling, and controls on pollution that cross national Borders..
We also have acted in the past and will continue to act, to shut down speech we clearly think is in a situation where the harm outweighs the good. We shut down Soviet plants in Hollywood that were tasked by the Soviets to write and produce subversive stuff. We shut down "free speech, free elections" in foreign lands when we concluded not doing so would put American lives and American interests at risk.
And the freedom of speech of a jihadi website operator or bomb assembly instructor anywhere "the law" can't arrest them - can be terminated by bomb, missile or bullet...Because exortations for killing us infidels causes us similar upset to what blasphemy does to Islamoids.
Drones, missiles, bullets, whatever it takes. If we must have a presence in that hellish part of the world, we have the "right " to defend ourselves.
And those in this country who feel they don't have a responsibility to not put Americans over there at added risk, because of their ideological fixations need to get their own asses over THERE and then shoot off their big mouths and take the fallout.
Allie - Those who continue to think that our free speech values will be embraced by those Muslims in the ME and no one will get hurt, are incredibly selfish or simply ideological dumbasses. Few here want to accept that we are at war and irresponsible free speech here, that may have crossed over to something more sinister, affects what happens in that hellish part of the world, so what if it gets innocents killed I guess.
We don't want to be told that it may be wise to not incite violence because of an ideological fixation with free speech, so lets get all our troops, our money, our embassies out of the region, THEN by all means have a free speech orgy, have at it.
Well stated...in some ways, we have a contingent that thinks the Holy Founders who Wrote the Sacred Parchment gave us the Precious Unalterable Rights that the rest of the world must kow-tow to, even as we shut down ideologies and their spokespeople deemed harmful to us.
That somehow, there MUST be no consequence to anyone practicing free speech...even though much of it is directed at influencing others to ACTIONS - ACTIONS that could be good, or could be very harmful, even deadly.
There is a path for 1st Amendment Purists. Withdraw from the World, or at least any region that could take offense to Free Speech. Even free speech manipulated by foreign agents provacateurs acting inside America, aimed at harming Americans.
That is to, again, withdraw. Cede access to resources in Muslim Countries, inc. Indonesia and Central Asia, plus Africa, to the Chinese. Ditch Israel. Ditch Europe and Australia. Withdraw all our military to CONUS. Shut down our embassies and discourage Americans from international business and travel. End free trade.
Then ideologues can enjoy the purist holiest of holy 1st Amendment period of the 1st Amendment freedom over all other freedoms and interests...Ever!!
I don't think our free speech will be embraced by these thugs, Allie. Clearly, it will not. Who said that, anyway? I do think it's worth defending. And defending it is not selfish. It is the opposite of selfish. People have very obviously paid a high price in defending it. Further, what is wise and what is tolerated to uphold our freedom are two very different things.
By the way, you hadn't gone on about how it was very okay with you that this filmmaker have a target planted on his back via the media, seized in the night and prosecuted for making a film critical of a religion, you may have had more credibility as far as talking about what is wise.
And dumbasses! Interesting. I've seen some dumbassed, hysterical statements in this discussion all over the net, and in my opinion, they have not been made by the people defending free speech.
Allie Oop ... I think you are actually reasonable, so here goes...as a veteran I understand your basic concerns about things said here impacting violent events half a world away. Been there, done that, got the tee shirt (as do some others here).
For me it was called Vietnam. I got lucky and never deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, although the pressure was increasing when I said adios. How many of the grand progressive left of the 60's were concerned with all that "incitement" in 1965-1975? Ayers? Dohrn? Weiss? Fonda? Et al ad infinitum. I'd say none, and they actively encouraged those who were killing us every day. Don't take my word for it, read PAVN General Vo Nguyen Giap's memoirs.
So today, I'm supposed to be concerned what a moron does in Los Angeles with a movie, essentially unseen by more than a dozen people, then with a short video "trailer", published in July 2012 that just coincidently caused violent acts coordinated in 11 Sep 2012 and thereafter across the entire middle east?
Tell me, if the video is so inciteful, why my 95% Muslim neighborhood (overall 50,000+) remains at peace and most neighbors laugh at the folly of the US government and media for believing this crap? I've mentioned this before , without response, and I expect none now. I'm just being redundant.
Next, since pseudo-Pastor Terry Jones is somehow involved in this, why are his visits to my home town not considered violently inciteful, what with his Koran burning crap and insistence that my town is under Sharia Law.
Terry is lying and he knows it, but he comes here and expects protection, at our expense, and asserts his 1st Amendment rights...in fact implements his 2nd amendment right as well. He knows he is trying to incite violence...and looked quite funny last time when three black Christian ladies ran him off the sidewalk back in to the protection of police. Meanwhile, among the 50,000+ Muslims hereabouts, there was no violent rage. Only disgust.
So, tell me, is Terry coming here to incite us peons with his lies and antics, covered by the exception you & others make for limitation on the 1st amendment? If he succeeded and a riot started with innocent deaths, would you hold him responsible? partially responsible? Or is he exempt?
Let me say it again, more clearly:
I don't think we're debating what is WISE!!! I don't think people defending free speech want to see any free speech causing our troops additional danger.
The debate is what our constitution protects and what we as Americans are free to do and say. What is legal. BIG difference to what you are suggesting, Allie. Get off the straw horse.
Darcy, it's EASY to embrace the concept of free speech, to be a free speech purist as Cedarford says, IF you don't care about the safety of those that irresponsible speech harms. Again it's SELFISH.
I'm certain that the loved ones of those killed in the recent attacks would've appreciated restraint by those who were partially responsible for the death of their loved ones. And those who are more concerned with this film maker, than innocent American in the ME, well I really don't even know what to say anymore, it's disgusting.
Darcy, it's EASY to embrace the concept of free speech, to be a free speech purist as Cedarford says, IF you don't care about the safety of those that irresponsible speech harms. Again it's SELFISH
WTF, over? If the members of our all-volunteer force have a problem undertaking a little risk for the defense the First Amendment, they should never have joined in the first place! We spend a lot of money on the military specifically for this purpose. I pay a lot of taxes, and I don't ask for that much in return. I don't find it selfish in the slightest that I ask them to defend my Constitutional rights! Why the fuck else would we bother having an armed force?
I think you are way off base here. It's the intolerant bigot Muslims who have to change - not us.
Okay, Allie. I tried. I don't think you are comprehending the difference in defending free speech and talking about what is wise and prudent when we have troops at war.
You want people to agree with you on something more than what is wise and prudent to say during wartime, though. What is it?
For what it's worth, I think you should own what you want done to the filmmaker. Name it.
The problem, Allie, is that you say "irresponsible speech" as if you could define it.
People have done all sorts of crazy, dangerous and murderous things using something they read or heard as an excuse.
Moreover, people have used the excuse that their feeling were harmed or their spirit damaged to add to the list of their desired censorship. In fact, this happens every day in the US with the movie, TV and video game rating systems. Grocery stores put plastic covers over magazines less innocent souls be affected.
He is responsible for the havoc his speech causes, especially if it kills innocent human beings. He is a despicable human being and his presence at funerals of those soldiers who have been KIA is beyond hateful and disgusting.
My brother was also a Corpsman , same as my daughter, during Vietnam, he was lucky to have survived. I was 18 years old while he was there and I condemmed the treatment returning veterans received. Yesterday a commenter intimated that I would've been in favor of her actions in Hanoi, unbelievable.
I think that we all engage inainting with a broad brush, when it comes to the opposition. It's not always more important to be ideological purists, it's more important to be human and realists.
My comment at 6:06 directed at Aridog.
There's also been a lot of chatter here questioning the "imminent threat" posed since it was on YouTube for a few months. It seems to me that when a video is the form of speech the date of its creation isn't the determinant but rather the time it's viewed. If protests broke out within a fairly short time after it was broadcast on Egyptian TV which would be the first mass viewing then it proves a latent immediate threat.
Someone also suggested that the video wasn't aimed at the Arabic world because it was in English. Of course, the whole point was to make and "American" movie produced by "Jews" for the American market that would get "discovered" on You Tube. After all, the guy behind it is a con man - a trickster who played our absolutist attitudes about free speech against their absolutist concepts of blasphemy.
That said - if Islam is such a hateful religion - how come there aren't any reports of mass uprisings by the Muslim community in Michigan? Oh - maybe because our religious nut-jobs are "Christians" like Terry Jones and Fred Phelps and Pat Robertson.
Darcy, INVESTIGATE him, find out what he was really doing, who funded him. Stop calling the sheriffs brownshirts who brought him in for questioning, for a start. Then depending on the investigation prosecute him if he is guilty of breaking the law. If he is innocent then he was simply guilty of being selfish and stupid and goes on his merry way.
Jane Fonda's actions in Hanoi.
Fred Phelps calls restricting funeral protests to 300 ft. in California a violation of free speech.
The ACLU defends Nazis marching through Skokie.
Bloggers here defend the "Innocence of Muslims" video .....
I must be a moderate - I think that there's a price to be paid for our freedoms - and it shouldn't be paid by breaking the hearts of those who mourn or those who have endured unspeakable horrors in the holocaust or those unwittingly used by political extremists. There's no free speech when only the loudest voices can be heard.
Sofa King, good luck changing those violent Muslims, maybe if you say it a few more times they will hear you and do as you say. In the meantime we have Americans in the region and Coptic Christains , the troops have big weapons and I know full well they can defend themselves, unless they are he unlucky ones who got killed in the recent green on blue attacks by Afghan police/ army.
Allie Oop ...however often we may disagree I would never presume you were supportive of traitors, now or ever.
My only point is that I don't believe the video caused the violence, but that it has been used by politicians to excuse themselves from responsibility for their ambivalence and lax policy decisions including the ROE's extant today.
Were I still subject to deployment to Afghanistan, I'd likely refuse to go....I just no longer trust the leadership, and I have this permanent "NCO mentality."
I see. You want the government to find something he's guilty of because he did something selfish. You are totally on board with harassing this guy even as on the face of it, he broke no law. Or would you like our government to interpret our free speech at its whim depending on how folks feel about the consequences on any given day?
Our constitution is so brilliant because the authors specifically guarded against these whims.
Please think this through, Allie. I don't think what happened to those embassy personnel nor what has happened subsequently had much to do with a video, but if they really did it's tragic. Not something that should cause a restriction of the freedoms that have endured many a test and that we hold dear. That define our country in large part.
Think it over.
Darcy! Did I say I wanted the government to FIND something if nothing would exist?! If there Is something to be found then so be it. Why should this man be free from scrutiny?! WTH?
No one here has said the movie was the SOLE reason the attacks and protests occured and continue, why do you continue to ignore several of us who have stated this now, several times actually.
It most certainly WAS fuel for the fire.
Thanks Aridog.
You want this man investigated. For what?
Someone yesterday posited the simple explanation for all this: that the embassy was undermanned under-protected in view of the potential for violence on that fateful anniversary. Someone fucked up.
It damns the Administration's record on safety and the WOT. It would be political suicide for the Obama Administration to admit this at this point and so they won't--they can't. They found a scapegoat. This is an existential fight for POTUS to hold power. It is untenable however.
Parlous times. Indeed, Americans need to watch what they say, watch what they do.
Right, Allie?
(BTW, the fact that you find yourself in agreement with Cedarford should set off some big alarm buzzers. Just saying.)
I know full well they can defend themselves,...
That depends Allie, on those Rules of Engagement once again. Do they even have ammunition? Are they allowed to fire on obvious insurgent enemy personnel, or must they wait until armed men in local civilian clothes actually aim a weapon at them? Hell, do they even have weapons or are they required to stack arms when a DoD dignitary visits? All the better for an insurgent attacker who "penetrates the fence" I'd say...unarmed Marines.
They (Taliban) got to 8 aircraft this week, and wrecked them, on a 21,000 man UK/US ISAF air base, with a mere 15 homicide bomb terrorists. What's next, a dozen bomb dudes strolling in to a mess hall?
Not kidding...back in 2004 when my boss was deployed to Iraq, he called me at home, from the Embassy Mess Hall, to yak in the middle of my night (his b'fast time)and try to persuade me to volunteer to join him. As we spoke a 120mm rocket hit the Mess Hall ...detonating on the perimeter fencing. After a moment he explained what the big "boom" was and said, yee haw, it's just like Saigon 1968-69. I suggested he not eat in Mess Halls anymore...just like we didn't in RVN long ago. Mess Hall = Target.
This is what I meant by I no longer trust the leadership, there or damn near anywhere these days.
Allie, I'm afraid there's no reconciling the oath we all took when we enlisted in the Armed Forces with your statements regarding the First Amendment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Armed_Forces_oath_of_enlistment
I see clearly and respect your concern and frustration. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you would hold to your positions even if your daughter was not in the Service.
For the vast majority of the American public, those who have not served, the Constitution remains fairly abstract, even mysterious. People aren't even aware of the total number of Amendments that exist. They don't understand what is contained in the Bill of Rights.
But for those who have taken the oath, the Constitution is a living thing. It was the reason why we all wrote a blank check on our lives and gave that check to the government for its use should the need arise. And we accepted that provision of our service.
The oath does not allow individual service members to parse the meaning of the Constitution. We accepted it whole. And if our "checks" were cashed and our lives forfeit, that was part of the deal.
It can't be otherwise for our service members. For if we do not stand for the meaning of the Constitution, we stand for nothing. Folks talk and argue about American Exceptionalism. I don't know all that that means. But the Constitution stands at the center of the discussion and if that is the basis of our "exceptionalsim", I assure you that all who served understand that absolutely.
I sincerely hope your daughter returns home safe. I pray for her as my folks prayed for me and as I prayed for my son who also served.
With that in mind, should Charlie Manson really be in prison?
That's the actual imminence standard -- he issued kill orders with the expectation that they would be carried out.
Aridog, on my daughter's Marine base they carry fully loaded weapons with them wherever they go. I actually posted a picture of my daughter as my avatar for a short while in her Marine uniform, holding both of her weapons, shortly before leaving for Afghanistan.
That base that was attacked was the base my daughter is on, Camp Leatherneck, she was 5 minutes down the road from the attack on Bastion. I'm not violating OPSEC as my screen name is no where near my daughter's real first or last name.
Thank you for the prayers Sheridan.
If people in other countries have their tender religious or other feelings hurt as a direct, proximate result of our awesome liberties, fuck those other people. May they die like dogs.
As for Allie, the fascist, and Cedarford, the anti-Semite, you deserve each other.
Sheridan said...
Allie, I'm afraid there's no reconciling the oath we all took when we enlisted in the Armed Forces with your statements regarding the First Amendment.
I see clearly and respect your concern and frustration. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you would hold to your positions even if your daughter was not in the Service.
For the vast majority of the American public, those who have not served, the Constitution remains fairly abstract, even mysterious. People aren't even aware of the total number of Amendments that exist. They don't understand what is contained in the Bill of Rights.
But for those who have taken the oath, the Constitution is a living thing. It was the reason why we all wrote a blank check on our lives and gave that check to the government for its use should the need arise. And we accepted that provision of our service.
The oath does not allow individual service members to parse the meaning of the Constitution. We accepted it whole. And if our "checks" were cashed and our lives forfeit, that was part of the deal.
=====================
Gaaaah, Sheridan! That is an absolutely brain-dead reading of your enlistment oath and my once Commission oath.
No one fucking requires you to abandon your personal belief system and believe each and every part of the Constitution must be defended to the death as some Sacred Parchment you must believe and follow as blindly as Islamists follow their Sacred Parchment, the Koran.
Were that so, all the soldiers would have been on the Confederate side.
And serving means just defending the country and following the Chain of Command - which interpret law and Constitution and orders higher up the chain. You are not required to support abortion because 5 lawyers in robes declared it Constitutional, open the Base gate to a reporter screaming freedom of the press, ...or have to defend lifetime appointment of judges, for that matter.
You do not have to defend bin Laden's free speech rights by declining to join a mission to shut him up.
Give an inch and take a mile
I'm always wary about making concessions to these people. Give them an inch and they'll take a mile.
- - - - -
Some of us don't believe it's wise to give them even one inch. It's one inch too far down the slippery slope. That way lies Zimbabwe, Venezuela and every two-bit dictatorship in the world. Absolutist? Perhaps. But that's the main thing that's protected the First Amendment (and by extension this country's freedom) for 225 years.
I am so buying a round for garage. Shoot, I'll pick up his tab for the night. The man is positively incendiary today.
Dave@6:08
I'm the one to whom you are referring. You completely misconstrued my comment. Even granting your point, which I don't, that immenece derives when it was viewed rather than posted, whose speech is it at that point. Is it film guy's or is it Egyptian TV guy's? Well whose?
I don't know and neither do you how accurately or inflamatorily Egyptian TV presented film guy's video. So once again I ask you. Do we hold people responsible for their own speech, or how third parties beyond their control present their speech?
Because if you are really saying the latter, then your liability for speaking anything is limited only by your enemy's ability to use some unspecified version of your words to incite others to violence.
Dave @6:18
Regarding Nazis marching in Skokie, you apparently missed the earlier comment that quoted Lewis at length defending the Nazis right to march in Skokie.
Lewis was right in that instance as much as he is wrong, as are you, in this one.
They're not liberals, they're leftists.
Speech doesn't kill people.
It's the person who acts who kills.
As I posted earlier, on this thread or another, I can't remember...
If a guy picks up a rock and throws it and injures or kills another is it the rock's fault?
Is it the fault of whoever left the rock there?
After all, if the rock weren't there then the person who was hit with the rock wouldn't be injured (or dead).
The responsibility lies with the person who acts. Period.
Although it would be a hoot to see reactions from the Lefties if a few Templars beheaded a few. Just to see if they also excused their actions as they do the usual Islamists....heh, as Glenn says.
Where is the ACLU in all of this? Am I the only one who remembers Skokie? The ACLU defended the neo-Nazis in their right to march among a Jewish population.
Why do liberals have such little backbone?
Pasta,
What on earth is with the "lululu" stuff? Everybody knows the traditional chant of the Mammonites is "cha-ching, cha-ching" (the sound of a traditional cash register operating.)
While I was all absorbed in seeing him,
He looked at me, and opened with his hands
His bosom, saying: "See now how I rend me;
How mutilated, see, is Mahomet;
In front of me doth Ali weeping go,
Cleft in the face from forelock unto chin;
And all the others whom thou here beholdest,
Disseminators of scandal and of schism
While living were, and therefore are cleft thus...
- Dante's Inferno, Canto 28
now tell me: Shall we censor this too?
I hear Eric Holder made a real breakthrough in regard to the cause of the Aurora theater massacre.
They're bringing Christian Bale in for questioning.
INVESTIGATE him, find out what he was really doing, who funded him. Stop calling the sheriffs brownshirts who brought him in for questioning, for a start. Then depending on the investigation prosecute him if he is guilty of breaking the law. If he is innocent then he was simply guilty of being selfish and stupid and goes on his merry way.
" Purple, this is ample evidence to support my safe assumption.
I don't think that the examples you listed support your original ("any critique or parody of Islam or Mohammed will result in a violent reaction by Muslims") claim, and the links that were provided by others also fail to support your statement."
If you interpret his statement literally, as in that *every single* critique or parody of Islam will lead to violence in a deterministic fashion (100 percent probability), it is obviously wrong.
If - more reasonably - you interpret it to mean that pretty much any kind of derisory statement can with some probability lead to widespread violence, then there is ample evidence to support that position.
I guess this is why we need lawyers...
@Cedarford
My two cents:
"And now we have many 1st Amendment Absolutists still insisting our piece of paper ranks above their culturally significant pieces of paper - and must be honored globally. Even if it harms America and badly damages our global interests."
The right to free expression of opinions and ideas is more than your run-of-the-mill right. It is the basis of the political order.
In short - it´s the key cease-fire agreement that allows a democracy to function in a stable fashion with widespread popular legitimacy.
Once the faction in power starts using the police power for locking up or punishing those that disagree with them, or that causes them foreign policy problems, etc. it is unclear why those out of power should any longer abide by the rules of the game (I.e. mutual non-violence and respect for whatever constitutional arrangement is in place).
This is also why any speech restriction must be symmetrical. If the law that states that only Republicans can be convicted of libel, that law is not compatible with political stability.
If the law is enfoced so that only republicans are actually convicted of libel, again you have a law that is incompatible with a non-violent politics. The government pressuring Youtube to pull videos of a particular viewpoint, for instance is non-neutral, and takes us down a slippery slope that is slippery indeed.
Personally, I am not a free speech absolutist in strict terms. I do not, for instance, believe that people have any moral obligation to honor the free speech rights of those that have declared themselves in favor of (say) locking up those who make insulting movies about Islam.
I see no duty for people to cooperate in their own enslavement. Restricting the free speech of a communist or a nazi entails no assymetry – you are merely giving what you are getting (or is going to get).
Outside of emergencies, though, giving government the power to censor political or religious speech is simply too likely a power to be abused, so in practice I will come down on the side of the free speech fundies.
"He is responsible for the havoc his speech causes, especially if it kills innocent human beings."
Causation is not culpability.
If I drive according to the rules, enter an intersection, and get hit by a speeding car, I indeed "caused" the accident (had I not entered the intersection, there would not have beeen an accident). But I am not culpable.
Posting a video ridiculing whatever religion might likewise cause someone somewhere to murder someone else (provided they are so disposed), and the video might indeed be the cause, but unless one wants to argue that murdering others in response to religious slights is a reasonable and just thing to do, there is no culpability there (except for the actual perpetrator of the murder).
Isn't their argument self-contradictory?
If I understand correctly, they're saying that free speech should be restricted if it can result in violence. So the message is that if you don't want to hear opposition to your views, threatened or actual violence is the way to accomplish that.
And if that's the message, aren't the authors indirectly encouraging violence? I mean, aren't they telling Christians, for example, that they should be more aggressive in their response to "piss Christ" if they want to stop future works of "art" in the same vein?
Probably the best thing would be to incite and inflame everyday until they're all tuckered out.
The plan of the usual suspects is obviously going to be that saying anything that might conceivably upset a Muslim...any Muslim, anywhere...is the equivalent of shouting "Fire!" in a Justice Holmes's theater.
AllieOop said...
Aridog, on my daughter's Marine base they carry fully loaded weapons with them wherever they go ...[snip]... That base that was attacked was the base my daughter is on, Camp Leatherneck ...
No worries about OPSEC, you've said nothing not said by information officers for publication, both US and Brit.
I'm pretty sure you know, likely to your dismay ... that even at Camp Leatherneck US Marines are disarmed from time to time ... for example: that is where Leon Panetta visited and US Marines were ordered to stack arms, including side arms, outside the speech area. Being the mother or father of a soldier in harm's way cannot be comforting.
That said, medics are the best of the best who have to go where the fire is already concentrated...no stealth involved. Not sure I could do that.
The Bastion incursion was on one side of the base, right at the airstrip.
I gather (conjecture)it is not guarded very intensely, per whatever ROE of the day, because, you know, groups of a dozen or so natives near the fencing at 2200 hours with wire cutters and weapons are probably just innocent shepherds looking to free up a little goat from a fence somewhere. No worries.
I have heard that if a woman wears an outfit that muslim find offensive then they might protest. If they protest violently would it be acceptable to no longer offer certain types of clothing for sale?
"If the result is violence, and that violence was intended, then it meets the standard."
Is she honestly that dense to not understand the importance of who intended the violence and toward whom it was directed. I understand Lewis' words to mean that if person A uses speech with the intent of inciting violence against person(s) B then it meets the standard. If this film inspired someone to go out and kill Muslims and that was their intent, she might have a point, but in this case, it's person B using person A's speech to justify their intended violence against person(s) A. Or does she think the film was made specifically to incite Muslim mobs to kill innocent Americans? This would be like charging the police officer with murder for killing someone who commits suicide by cop. Or saying that if I get mad at what you said and hit you it's your fault for saying it. It's just crazy.
Freeman,
"Probably the best thing would be to incite and inflame everyday until they're all tuckered out."
Yes! "I am Nakoula/van Gogh/Vilks/Rose/Westergaard/Norris/etc/etc/etc/"
interesting ... In Canada we have our Human Rights Commissions that have decreed that not being offended is a "Human Right". What utter bullshit.
fyi -Althouse is mentioned in James Taranto's Best of the Web Today blog on this topic.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444165804578006412406470412.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLESecond
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