"Obama is the president, so he should have to apologize!"...
“We don’t think that depictions of the prophets are freedom of expression. We think it is an offense against our rights,” [said Ismail Mohamed, a religious scholar.] “The West has to understand the ideology of the people.”
Even during the protests, some stone throwers stressed that the clash was not Muslim against Christian. Instead, they suggested that the traditionalism of people of both faiths in the region conflicted with Western individualism and secularism....
Some commentators said they regretted that the violence here and around the region had overshadowed the underlying argument against the offensive video.ADDED: We're not that far from criminalizing blasphemy in the United States, though it seems obvious to educated Americans today that these laws are unconstitutional. Here's a quick summary of the history of blasphemy law in the U.S. And here's the 1952 case Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson where the Supreme Court struck down a New York law that banned showing "sacrilegious" movies. New York's highest court had interpreted the statute to mean "that no religion, as that word is understood by the ordinary, reasonable person, shall be treated with contempt, mockery, scorn and ridicule." The U.S. Supreme Court said:
[T]he state has no legitimate interest in protecting any or all religions from views distasteful to them which is sufficient to justify prior restraints upon the expression of those views. It is not the business of government in our nation to suppress real or imagined attacks upon a particular religious doctrine, whether they appear in publications, speeches, or motion pictures.My point is: it took a Supreme Court case as recently as 1952, to establish that principle in our country, with its rich free-speech tradition. Lawyers even saw fit at that time to argue that movies shouldn't get free-speech protection at all because "their production, distribution, and exhibition is a large-scale business conducted for private profit."
Oh, wait, the President of the United States today argues that corporations don't have free-speech rights, and many Americans, including highly educated lawyers, are saying the Constitution should be amended to delete those rights.
Let's not be so quick to assume the man with the "Shut Up America" sign is thoroughly alien. The threats to free speech lie within. They always have.
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257 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 257 of 257Just bow down infidels. Then we be nice.
"We never insult any prophet — not Moses, not Jesus — so why can’t we demand that Muhammad be respected?" asked a man holding a "Shut Up America" sign outside the American embassy in Cairo.
Ann: That man is not alien to many of us who have studied Islam. It seems that you have not.
How do imagine a dialog with that man would go? Do you really believe it would be productive? Or do you want us to dialog with him to prove to you that we are not irrational and enraged?
I have debated Muslims online on their turf. It is not pretty. It is precisely like arguing with the Red Queen in "Through the Looking Glass." They control the definitions, they control the interpretations, and if you persist too successfully, they ban you.
AA: Consider the people who are saying things like those quoted in the post but who reject the violence ... in part because it's a complete distraction from something they think is an argument that some of us in the West might be interested in considering.
Then look just at that argument and engage with it. They think they are saying something that we might agree with, just as we think our free-speech ideology ought to be persuasive to them.
But I don't think our free-speech ideology should be persuasive to them. It's incompatible with their own long-evolved and deeply-held views about how society ought to be ordered, just as their preferences are incompatible with ours.
When people refuse to recognize that there is such a thing as incommensurate and incompatible views of the Good and the Right, and that maybe "good fences make good neighbors" is as good as it's going to get, then there's nothing left but "saying the same things you've already said a thousand times". Well that, or killing people.
The sooner westerners get over their messianic batshit universalist pretensions, the sooner we can attend to what is far more important: robustly defending our own ways in our own countries. (That's a forlorn hope these days, I know. )
phx: If you don't have any tools to persuade with (could be your ideas aren't so hot, could be you just don't have the gift of discussion let alone persuasion), you may have bypassed "persuasion" in favor of "bomb the fuck out of them."
...let me fix that for you...
If you don't have any tools to persuade with (could be your ideas are stuck in the 7th century AD, could be you just don't have the gift of treating non-Muslims as equals), you may have bypassed "persuasion" in favor of "lynch the f*ck out of them and burn their embassies".
There, that's better.
Althouse added: Let's not be so quick to assume the man with the "Shut Up America" sign is thoroughly alien. The threats to free speech lie within. They always have.
Then Althouse chided us in a comment, telling us not to be smug. Of course there are people in our country who want to limit free speech. And of course we are like them, Althouse herself. Her blog is not an absolute bastion of free speech. It too is subject to whim and her discretion. But it is pretty close to free speech.
I should have said cross burning with the intent to intimidate is banned under the Constitution.
Symbolic speech still.
@purplepenguin ...
The Nah Nah Nah sentence was supposed to an obvious sarc tag. Sorry if that wasn't obvious (I though using Nah Nah Nah made it obvious). My follow up paragraph what the important part. I also have "I talked to a guy" experience. Lot's of pacifist Christians to be specific.
BUT we can't use examples for a near universal statement like "a lot".
As far as the Advanced Math (which Discrete Math and Stats are not). You asked for a "good method for all opinions/assertions".
I replied Logic and Math. And a great class for Logic is Discrete. And the math you need for speaking about "a lot" of a people group is Statistics. I answered your question.
From the article:
It was also a demand that many of them described with the word “freedom,” although in a context very different from the term’s use in the individualistic West: the right of a community, whether Muslim, Christian or Jewish, to be free from grave insult to its identity and values.
I understand their argument; I simply disagree with it.
If we make it illegal to be offensive-- IE: with vaguely expansive "hate" speech and blasphemy laws -- or especially, give people the right to not be offended, we might as well outlaw all contentious speech, because someone will always be offended.
Allie Oop: The latest news I heard on CNN was that (just as I've been saying) the protests at the Embassies WERE about the movie...
Well OK then. You heard it on CNN from some dude (or dudess), you know it's all you need to know.
I have debated Muslims online on their turf. It is not pretty. It is precisely like arguing with the Red Queen in "Through the Looking Glass." They control the definitions, they control the interpretations, and if you persist too successfully, they ban you.
Those were debates you were having here, you ninny!
jk creeley23.
"Those were debates you were having here, you ninny."
You're still here . . .
phx: "while they should continue to enjoy commercial speech, should not have political free speech. Bring the arguments on. "
The New York Times Corporation has been losing money for years, so their speech is certainly NOT commercial. Punch decided to push his agenda even if he has to lose money. The NYT Corporation should have it's free speech taken away, phx Q.E.D.
The criminalization of blasphemy begins on the campuses of our socalled finest universities with their speech codes. Leading by example.
creeley23 said...
Let's not be so quick to assume the man with the "Shut Up America" sign is thoroughly alien. The threats to free speech lie within. They always have.
Ann: Huh? Of course there are threats to free speech within. You just did a topic on a poll that 28% of Americans will not put free speech ahead of "offending other cultures."
=====================
Sorry, Creeley23, but Free Speech is no more absolute than the Right to Keep and Bear Arms gives me the rights to buy own and bear MANPAD missiles.
And even where free speech is allowed, even if deeply damaging to America and costing American lives - there is no cause to glorify the agents provacateurs that damaged us and cost lives and treasure as FREEDOM LOVERS!!!
Like it or not, we live in a Global World and we should seek to cultivate good relations and form alliances. And part of that is recognizing abusers of free speech for what they are - manipulators that seek to cast America as the Enemy in the eyes of many overseas - for their own purposes.
It has been done by communist subverters, it has been done by agents of nations in conflict with other countries and ideologies that seek to define Americans as enemies of their foes in the eyes of that enemy...So once America is a target, they can jump up and say "We are now Bestest Friends and Allies in a Common Cause against the people we convinced you Americans are now the enemy of!!".
It is a game that has been played a long, long time not with just America, but other Empires.
It is the reverse of "divide and conquer" the Brits mastered. It is pit the empire or colonial power against your local enemy so you can gain power, security, wealth as the Great Friend of the great power so manipulated.
No, I'm asking you to understand the thinking of the people you might want to persuade.
I understand their point, and I respectfully disagree with it, w/o resorting to violence.
If someone can't or refuses to understand my POV regarding freedom, or simply disagrees with it, should I just give in and erode my constitutional rights, because of the threat of violence? Or do I continue to defend my rights, and hope that they can respect that w/o resorting to violence?
Also, as the post update shows, you should put away any smugness you may have about the depth of our commitment to free speech.
??? Is there a country more devoted to free speech than ours?
And the fact that there are people within our own country who want to limit our rights to speech, is precisely why we have to be diligent about protecting them.
Expat(ish) had it right in the very first comment: "The big lie lives."
However, it appears we're collectively buying in to this sham that a disrespectful video trailer caused the mayhem and death this week.
That is exactly what they, our enemies, and our government, wish us to believe. And it seems to be working.
PS: Quaestor @ 1:30PM laid the foundation for refuting this offense taken nonsense.
It's Egypt. They haven't blown up those ancient Egyptian statues of gods.
Yet
Exactly. Once the Taliban gets into power they blow up the ancient statues. Egypt will not be immune.
"I don't know what the President argues but I'm absolutely open to the idea that corporations, while they should continue to enjoy commercial speech, should not have political free speech. Bring the arguments on."
Here, this makes just as much sense:
"I'm absolutely open to the idea that [women], while they should continue to enjoy [procreative sex], should not have [recreational sex]. Bring the arguments on."
Your premise assumes that you, or the people you might vote for, have some legitimate role in determining what kind of speech is which, and who is permitted to "enjoy" exercising it. You're mistaken. It's got nothing to do with you. It's none of your business.
Ann Althouse:
No, I'm asking you to understand the thinking of the people you might want to persuade. Also, as the post update shows, you should put away any smugness you may have about the depth of our commitment to free speech.
Are you kidding? It's smug to be 100% in favor of the 1A no qualifications? I can't believe what you just said.
Yet this same person holding this sign might have no problems referring to jews and monkeys and pigs. Thus disrespecting another religion.
It's a narcissism assuming the identity of a religious protest.
Civilization is better off validating the freedom of expression instead of the narcissistic protester seeking to curtail same.
People have called it malignant narcissism. Maybe with good reason.
"""We never insult any prophet — not Moses, not Jesus — so why can’t we demand that Muhammad be respected?"""
In all fairness to Christians, they don't consider Jesus or Muhammad to be prophets. They consider Jesus to be God and Muhammad to be some form of heretic.
Sorry, Creeley23, but Free Speech is no more absolute than the Right to Keep and Bear Arms gives me the rights to buy own and bear MANPAD missiles.
Sorry, Cedarford, I don't accept your analogy. There are limits to speech, just as there are limits to arms bearing, but the case of Nakoula Basseley Nakoula is as vanilla a case of free speech as owning a Beretta.
The New York Times Corporation has been losing money for years, so their speech is certainly NOT commercial. Punch decided to push his agenda even if he has to lose money. The NYT Corporation should have it's free speech taken away, phx Q.E.D.
The press is specifically protected by the 1st Amendment, LakeLevel. But try to think of other ways we can improve America. Keep thinking.
Exactly. Once the Taliban gets into power they blow up the ancient statues. Egypt will not be immune.
Egypt doesn't need the Taliban. The process is already beginning: Calls to Destroy Egypt’s Great Pyramids Begin.
Allie Oop wrote:
I still suspect that bad movie guy was involved in this plot. But hey that's just me, over active imagination...
An over-active imagination isn't the half of it...
Your premise assumes that you, or the people you might vote for, have some legitimate role in determining what kind of speech is which, and who is permitted to "enjoy" exercising it. You're mistaken. It's got nothing to do with you. It's none of your business.
This is a fundamental issue for citizens in our time. It always is. The question of whether corporations are endowed by their creator with the same unalienable Rights as citizens are is my business.
creeley23 That was a hoax that originated with a satire.
Like it or not, the left has made it THEIR business to suppress free speech rights. The question to us freedom-lovers is - what are we going to do about it?
I have debated Muslims online on their turf. It is not pretty. It is precisely like arguing with the Red Queen in "Through the Looking Glass." They control the definitions, they control the interpretations, and if you persist too successfully, they ban you.
Sounds like what the feminists do on their sites.
Of course one of the problems with free speech is that often our citizens don't now how to evaluate what we read or hear any better than people who don't have it.
Those were debates you were having here, you ninny! jibed the Red Queen.
Off with your head.
Are you kidding? It's smug to be 100% in favor of the 1A no qualifications? I can't believe what you just said.
I think "smug" is the wrong word. I think she meant "secure that it isn't under attack internally." Perhaps the "smugness" is the false sense of "security."
I don't think that's what is going on at all. I many of the same people who repudiate foreigners asking us to change our constitution for them, are also quite incensed by PCism and its attacks on free speech. And as for Obama, at least he wants to change the constitution, and recognizes that free speech of corporations is protected. He merely wants to remove that protection.
Althouse is absolutely right: It's not the barbarians at the gate that we need to fear -- it's the barbarians already within the gate.
See phx, for example. He's always up for a little suppression of speech -- as long as the right people are being suppressed. Corporations have no right to speech, he says; except corporations like MSNBC. They're "the press".
How many printing presses do they run over there at MSNBC, phx?
Too pendantic, you say? (I'm skipping ahead in the predictable back-and-forth). And yet it's not pedantic at all to distinguish between corporations you've labeled "the press" and corporations you haven't? Can my small manufacturing firm start a paper, then (the same way Microsoft started MSNBC), and then we're "the press" too? I mean, in this day and age...on an actual blog...you're resorting to conventional definitions of "the press".
How very twentieth-century of you, phx.
Scratch the thin veneer of free-pot, free-love hippy bullshit off of any progressive, and you'll find a fascist underneath.
Pushed your angry buttons Pastafarian?
Of course one of the problems with free speech is that often our citizens don't now how to evaluate what we read or hear any better than people who don't have it.
Absolutely!! So we need governmental control over speech to make sure these mental midgets think and believe the "right" things.
phx, if watching your president grovel and apologize to ignorant murderous savages doesn't press your angry buttons...then you might be just as bad as I think you are.
There are principled liberals. Althouse is one; maybe you're another. And then there are leftists.
This issue will sort you out.
Anyone who's willing to pretend that the "film maker" was frog-marched out of his house with his head covered, in front of waiting media, in the middle of the night, for routine questioning about "parole violations" is a leftist, not a liberal.
So which are you, phx, a liberal, or a leftist?
phx, if watching your president grovel and apologize to ignorant murderous savages doesn't press your angry buttons
Who am I? I'm someone who makes a point of not getting angry. Certainly not over anything a president or other politician does.
Absolutely!! So we need governmental control over speech to make sure these mental midgets think and believe the "right" things.
Personally I just favor correcting them when necessary.
creeley23 That was a hoax that originated with a satire.
You're just arguing for the sake of arguing now.
Hitler was a politician. Nothing he did makes you the least bit angry, huh? That makes you either a liar, a misanthrope, or a bloodless eunuch.
I'm invoking Godwins Law at this point Pastafarian. Good night!
I'd say that's a good tactical decision on your part, phx. You can only defend the indefensible for so long.
The question to us freedom-lovers is - what are we going to do about it?
Easy. Get Mick on the phone and have him sue someone.
Allie Oop wrote:
I still suspect that bad movie guy was involved in this plot. But hey that's just me, over active imagination...
Nah...you and many others have more knowledge of all this than my 50,000+ Arab Muslim neighbors.
I'm not singling you put personally, but I am singling out a "theory" that not one single Arab Muslim I know has iterated even once.
Why is that?
It isn't like they're not capable of voicing opposition or a view point contrary to mine...we do it all the time in discussions. I like it here and I've lived here for over 30 years...I know the place pretty well. No one has yet gone bug eyed and grabbed for their RPG.
PS: Well, there were a couple guys, one (not an Arab or from here) was killed by the FBI and the other was turned in by his Arab neighbors as a potential danger to their children.
Allie, since I discovered how you believe this affects your daughter, I can't bring myself to join the chorus of boos against you.
Appeasing the jihadis won't work and it won't protect your daughter.
But, I understand your motivation.
God bless and protect your daughter.
Easy. Get Mick on the phone and have him sue someone.
Heh.
Personally I just favor correcting them when necessary.
creeley23 That was a hoax that originated with a satire.
phx: Typically you were too lazy to include a cite. I found the story at the NY Times. The upshot is that destroying the pyramids was a spoofed tweet from Sheik Mahmoud.
In terms of real Islamic threats of Egpytian antiquities, the article goes on to state that there is a plan to cover the heads of statues in melted wax:
In January 2011, the spokesman for the Salafi Preaching Movement, Sheik Abdel Moneim el-Shahat, said the question of Egypt’s antiquities was simply a theological problem, and he suggested a compromise: Cover the heads of ancient Egyptian statues in wax. This would leave them visible, but would technically "obliterate" the faces. "I’ll do something that combines religious adherence and leaving antiquities as historic monuments," he said on a television program.
Then last August, Sheik Shahat was asked to explain the difference between his plan and the Taliban’s destruction of the ancient Buddhas, which he pointedly refrained from criticizing.
"The Taliban was in power at the time," he said, whereas the Salafis in Egypt are not.
Silly conservatives. The Egyptian Muslims just want to cover all those treasures from Ancient Egypt in wax. They are reasonable people after all. At least until the Taliban gets in.
Someone I know made what I consider to be an excellent point why blasphemy laws could not work in America: The Dem. platform would be blasphemous to Christians.
"The press is specifically protected by the 1st Amendment, LakeLevel. But try to think of other ways we can improve America. Keep thinking."
Just define "press" as "not a corporation." So any organization that wants to have the freedom allowed the "press" is limited to other business models or they become the propaganda arm of a corporation and subject to speech limits.
After all, do we define "press" in any meaningful way? Wouldn't defining what is the "press" and what is not the "press" violate the freedom of the press? "You're not the press. You're just a pamphleteer!"
@creely23 Well if you had started with a real paper instead of that god-awful children's magazine you apparently like to read...
Well if you had started with a real paper instead of that god-awful children's magazine you apparently like to read...
phx: Oh you mean The New York Times, the newspaper which employed Walter Duranty as its Moscow Bureau chief? That's the Walter Duranty who denied the genocide of the Ukrainian kulaks in the 1930s and defended Stalin's show trials?
Those aren't insignificant errors. Those comprised journalistic malpractice of the highest order.
Anyone who imagines The New York Times entitles them to intellectual or moral high ground is an ignorant fool. And the Times isn't doing much better today.
Althouse says: "My point is: it took a Supreme Court case as recently as 1952, to establish that principle in our country, with its rich free-speech tradition."
Althouse born 1951. SCOTUS acts for free speech 1952. Coincidence?
phx: Oh you mean The New York Times, the newspaper which employed Walter Duranty as its Moscow Bureau chief?
creeley23: No, I mean the New York Times, the newspaper you are quoting to convince me that you are right, Egyptian Muslims are a threat.
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