I pointed out that GdB was figuratively patting mass-murdering terrorists on the back and saying, “Well, you’re not TOTALLY to blame. They kinda asked for it."
I have said nothing that can interpreted by somebody who reads what I wrote. And is 'blaming' a zero-sum game? If I say that it was unwise of the editors of Charlie Hebdo, does that mean that you can subtract guilt from the terrorists???
I also asked GdB the following questions, after GdB said we should make "responsible use" of free speech:
Since one person's responsible is another person’s irresponsible, "responsible use" is meaningless. Who decides what "responsible use" is? You? Muslims? The Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which has been trying to ban blasphemy at the UN for years?
Is it "irresponsible" and "stupid" for bookstores to sell Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses? Should they instead stop "provoking" anger and riots and sell only what Muslims approve of?
There is enough substance in the rest of my postings, but you prefer to yell 'shame! shame!' as a bull on a red cloth. Learn to be poilte, and ask for reasons, instead of accusing me of having an immoral standpoint. If you don't know what responsibility is, then you have not learned enough to have the right to be free.
I did read what you wrote. You blamed the cartoonists: "there are situations that you can blame the victim," where one of your examples was "editors publishing tasteless provocative cartoons about Islam."
So you think that it is a good idea for a white man to walk into a South-African township with his purse visible in your pocket. Don't you think that is stupid? Don't you think that it is stupid to throw oil on the fire when you already are threatened, and that for the right to provoke, just for the provocation?
So. And from now I will only answer questions if you are polite, and do not follow you own thinking as if it is mine.
As Bill Maher observed, "when there are this many bad apples, it is due to a bad orchard"
Yes. There is not enough water, it was stolen by the richer and more powerful neighbours.
Oh, and by the way, I will never forget that Bill Maher talked with Geert Wilders in his movie. Wilders is explicitly heating up the problems between native Dutch and foreigners (not just Muslims, also Polnish people).
And here is the translation of the sentence in the comic:
"De righteous must always stay alert", the host declared. "The evil may peek between us. Not so long ago, there was a well respected villager, who turned out to be a black one, and he had already poisoned the complete village community before we saw through.The remains of his house are still standing in the village. Yes, yes, that is how life goes... Good night gentlemen."
Of course, in the remaining story it turns out that evil exists because the white sheep have black tongues. Before I am misunderstood: this is not how I see the problems with Islam. But it is a reaction on your eager using of the world evil. It will never solve anything, on the contrary. It might easily block the motivation to understand why the terrorists radicalise. (Fast) judgements are never a good basis for objectivity, for science.
I would also be interested to hear why the publishers consider that free speech is more important than causing offence to large parts of their society; and also how they are expressing their right to free speech by drawing caricatures of Mohammed in their magazine. Its not clear to me.
Well written, and if we here in America so value free speech then why was the the Boston Globe vilified for publishing an obviously racist cartoon of the President using "Watermelon flavored"toothpaste? It is after all free speech! So why did the editors take down the obviously offensive cartoon and issue a public apology? Fear of radical Democratic reprisal against the Globe? It was in poor taste but shouldn't the media be allowed to publicly lampoon someone's racial background? Why not bring back the first comic strip The Yellow Kid about a pigtailed Chinese boy who pulls a goat in a wagon (the origin of "yellow journalism BTW)? Are racial cartoons off the table? It appears to be here at least. Is this an example of unbridled free speech or as pointed out earlier are there limits? And what about LGBT cartoons or mysogenistic cartoons? The list is endless but we don't see them any more. It seems hypocritical to me.
Cap't Jack
Freedom of speech doesn’t mean speech should be free from criticism. If people find a cartoon offensive, it is not a violation of free speech to say so, to write letters of protest, to boycott products associated with the publisher, or to vilify the people who produced it. It is not hypocritical to support free speech and yet condemn specific speech acts as racist or offensive. It would be hypocritical to support laws banning such speech acts or to threaten or engage in violence in response to them, but fighting speech with speech and with non-violent protest is absolutely compatible with the ideal of freedom of expression.
People should also be free to decide whether or not to face the consequences of the speech they engage in. If a publisher chooses not to publish something offensive because they don’t want to accept the consequences, that is there choice. Being offensive is not itself a virtue or a requirement in a society with free expression, nor does offensive speech need to be free from consequences. However, there needs to be a right to offend without fear of state sanction or physical violence for there to be meaningful freedom of expression. If I choose to say something which I know will offend others, I should be legally free and physically safe to do so. That is necessary for freedom of thought in society as a whole. The fact that someone else is offended shouldn’t be the standard by which we decide what speech is allowed, since someone somewhere will likely be offended by nearly every speech act, and such a standard effectively shuts down public discourse.
However, I don’t necessarily need to be protected from any and all consequences when I knowingly offend others. Violence and legal sanction, yes, but not public criticism or non-violent protest. That too is necessary for free public discourse.
Of course, you are correct that Islam need not be a necessary factor for doing all of the anti-humanistic deeds that are perpetrated in the world. That is undeniable.
I have some trouble with 'all of the'. If you would have written 'those', then we would really agree.
I've been saying that Islamic doctrine is unusually amenable to interpretations that provide a framework for not only terroristic acts, but many other acts that abuse humans.
Well, every (old) religion is. Just look at the history of Christianity, and of the view of it on women. There is no reason to attack Islam harder than any other religion. But more often than not, just attacking, provoking and oppressing religions does not lead to a solution, just to more war or terrorism.
I am not calling for an attack on, or oppression of Muslims. That is not compatible with my ideals. But your solution seems to be, (even though Islam is, now, not hundreds of years ago, the "very old", as you say, religion that is providing an inordinate amount of the framework for abuses), to just not say anything about it. You seem to be saying "Don't criticize the religion, as speaking such truth will only serve to provoke Muslims to further destructive acts." I disagree.
And even though Islamic doctrine is not always a necessary factor in the perpetration of anti-humanistic acts, it has been racking up the points in this regard for some time now. I really don't understand what underlies a lot of liberals apparent need to deny this. I think that as Bill Maher says, "I am the real liberal here".
Well, but maybe Bill Maher is not a supporter of a secular state? A secular state treats all people the same, whatever their religion, as long as people live by the rules: no religion shall take over power, no religion is discriminated. This also gives the guideline why we cannot accept those citizens that terrorise others or want to forbid free speech: they do no play by the rules. One may criticise Charlie Hebdo for publishing tasteless cartoons, for being stupid to do just that of which they know will raise anger. But one may not forbid the publications but of course one should forbid to kill the editors. But we should beware that we do not make similar errors by pointing at Islam in general.
Bill Maher is a very secular atheist. He criticizes almost all religions, but he does not criticize them equally, as all religions are not equal in there damaging effects on human society. Living in a secular society, does not mean that one cannot criticize religions or religious beliefs. The secular state may have to treat all equally. That's good. But individuals can, and I believe should use their secular right of free speech to call out any contribution to abuse of human rights by any religion or ideology.
And you seem to ignore that Islam in its origin and much of it's currently interpreted dogma, a blueprint for a Theocracy that is fundamentally, either opposed to secularism, or willing to temporarily, partially, adapt to secular systems when necessary, &/or seeking to, ultimately replace all secular government.
And before, you again, jump to the conclusion, that because I believe this to be true, that my solution is to advocate oppression of Muslims, I will say again that I absolutely do not advocate that. But I think that it is critically important to call the destructive interpretations of Islam out for what they are, as opposed to sticking our fingers in our ears and saying "nah nah nah nah nah nah nah...".
Freedom of speech doesn't mean speech should be free from criticism. If people find a cartoon offensive, it is not a violation of free speech to say so, to write letters of protest, to boycott products associated with the publisher, or to vilify the people who produced it. It is not hypocritical to support free speech and yet condemn specific speech acts as racist or offensive. It would be hypocritical to support laws banning such speech acts or to threaten or engage in violence in response to them, but fighting speech with speech and with non-violent protest is absolutely compatible with the ideal of freedom of expression.
People should also be free to decide whether or not to face the consequences of the speech they engage in. If a publisher chooses not to publish something offensive because they don't want to accept the consequences, that is there choice. Being offensive is not itself a virtue or a requirement in a society with free expression, nor does offensive speech need to be free from consequences. However, there needs to be a right to offend without fear of state sanction or physical violence for there to be meaningful freedom of expression. If I choose to say something which I know will offend others, I should be legally free and physically safe to do so. That is necessary for freedom of thought in society as a whole. The fact that someone else is offended shouldn't be the standard by which we decide what speech is allowed, since someone somewhere will likely be offended by nearly every speech act, and such a standard effectively shuts down public discourse.
However, I don't necessarily need to be protected from any and all consequences when I knowingly offend others. Violence and legal sanction, yes, but not public criticism or non-violent protest. That too is necessary for free public discourse.
Thanks for saying that more eloquently than I might have. I would just add that we, in most secular societies, have a governmentally established right to speak freely. Any governmental limits on that must be extraordinarily limited, lest we risk the government ruling the people (more than it already does), as opposed to the people ruling the government. We also, as human creatures, have the right to feel whatever we feel, be that offended, insulted, angry, or any other emotion. But we don't have a right to act violently toward others, based on what we are feeling.
But socially speaking, (not governmentally speaking) how about instead of just recommending that victims of violence who were attacked due to their insensitive, or insulting speech,... curb their expression,...
we focus more on recommending that potential perpetrators of violence learn to desensitize themselves to such emotional reactions, if they can't or won't control their subsequent violent actions?
GdB,
Of course, in the remaining story it turns out that evil exists because the white sheep have black tongues. Before I am misunderstood: this is not how I see the problems with Islam. But it is a reaction on your eager using of the world evil. It will never solve anything, on the contrary. It might easily block the motivation to understand why the terrorists radicalise. (Fast) judgements are never a good basis for objectivity, for science.
OK, I'll modify my inflammatory term "evil" to exclude the poor and uneducated, those people tend to be more accepting of "a cause". This happens all over the world. So I'll shift the term to identify those who exploit and use these people to commit evil deeds, in the name of Islam or any other religion or any other cause other than self defense. In the middle east there are plenty of Madrasas (muslim schools) which teach hate, instead of wisdom and knowledge. And even here in the US we find isolated pockets of such "religious survivalist" mindsets. The KKK and Neo Nazis are but two examples.
I am not defending intentional insult of any group or religion or individual. As an atheist, I have had my share of insults, I was called "the antichrist" (devil), by a Christian fundamentalist, but that did not spur me to kill that person.
I remember, as a boy, watching the exercises of Hitler Jugend in Holland
The Hitler Youth (German: About this sound Hitlerjugend (help·info), often abbreviated as HJ in German) was the youth organization of the Nazi Party in Germany. Its origins dated back to 1922 in form of predecessor organizations affiliated to the (at the time) Munich-based Nazi Party. From 1933 until 1945, it was the sole official youth organization in Germany and was partially a paramilitary organization; it was constituted of the Hitlerjugend proper for male youth aged 14 to 18, the Deutsches Jungvolk (German Youth) for younger boys, and the League of German Girls.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_Youth
Until the fundamentalists in power codify Sharia Law and educational system, which arrogantly declares that "there is but one god and that is Allah", these countries will be in conflict with the rest of civilized secular countries.
The 2015 Baga massacre is a series of mass killings and attacks believed to have been committed and, according to some reports, still ongoing in the Nigerian town of Baga and its environs, in the state of Borno, between 3 January and 7 January 2015 by the Islamist militia Boko Haram.
...........
Baga and at least 16 other towns are thought to have been destroyed as over 35,000 people are reported to have been displaced, with many feared to have drowned while trying to cross Lake Chad and others trapped on islands in the lake.[1][4] The attacks are said to have resulted in Boko Haram extending its control to over 70% of Borno State
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Baga_massacre
I doubt that this was a result of someone publishing a book or a cartoon.
and
On 7 January 2015, at about 11:30 CET (10:30 UTC), two masked gunmen forced their way into the offices of the French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris, France. They killed 12 people, including the editor Stéphane "Charb" Charbonnier, 7 other Charlie Hebdo employees, and 2 National Police officers, and wounded 11 others. Charlie Hebdo had attracted attention for its depictions of Muhammad.
The gunmen were armed with AK-47 assault rifles, a shotgun, and an RPG launcher.[12][13][14] They fired up to 50 shots with automatic weapons, shouting "Allahu Akbar", Arabic for "God is great" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Hebdo_shooting
Today, the majority of terror attacks throughout the world today are inspired by religious motives, which IMO, does not speak well about the cultural stability religions are supposed to foster. This is not to say that religion is the major cause for violent deaths, but that is not due to scripture forbidding prostletizing (by force if necessary), but that most people, to their credit, do not follow scripture to the letter, which is a defacto rejection of scripture as written. But until religious scripture is cleansed of all inflammatory rhetoric, it remains a convenient vehicle to commit cultural crimes in the name of God (by any other name) for the most innocuous offenses. Does a woman need to be caned for showing an ankle or too much face or be beaten to near death for trying to attain advanced education?
The oddest part of Islam, is that supposedly this type of scripture is to "protect women" from the inherent lack of control of their animal instinct by men. Thus women are punished for provoking lust in men. Now, if that is not an ironic twisting of assigning responsiblity, I don't know what is.
This is tantamount to a modern defense for rape by stating, "She asked for it" because she wore high heels or had make-up, or wore a mini skirt.
I have said nothing that can interpreted by somebody who reads what I wrote.
You said the cartoonists were to blame. That's the same as patting the terrorists on the back and telling them they were at least partly justified since they aren't completely to blame.
And from now I will only answer questions if you are polite
You haven't answered ANY of my questions. Why are you pretending otherwise? Here they are for the third time:
Who decides what "responsible use" is? You? Muslims? The Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which has been trying to ban blasphemy at the UN for years?
Is it "irresponsible" and "stupid" for bookstores to sell Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses? Should they instead stop "provoking" anger and riots and sell only what Muslims approve of?
However, I don’t necessarily need to be protected from any and all consequences when I knowingly offend others. Violence and legal sanction, yes, but not public criticism or non-violent protest. That too is necessary for free public discourse.
Good points and I stand corrected. The Supreme Court is actually clear on violence and legal sanction.
Cap't Jack
I am not singling out Islam as THE cause for strife, but by your own admission, more muslims have been killed by muslims than by any other foe. That alone proves the violence this religion fosters. I have given due blame to the early Christian practices according to the OT as well.
This is why, finally, some solidarity is displayed by world leaders, including Muslims, against this barbaric practice of forcing people to accept an unjust system, or die. It gives me hope that Islamic governments (and especially the clergy) will see the injustice of this type of behavior against other human beings, regardless of history.
I used the mention of Muslim violence against other Muslims as irony in reference to terrorism against Westerners. I should have been more concise. What this proves is that the conditions for civil strife in these war torn countries has no single cause, i.e. Islam. And yes I agree that the Muslims themselves must solve this crises by reigning in the extremists and vocally condemning those who hide behind their belief system while committing condemned and heinous crimes. When more of the clerics and political leaders take a humanitarian stance it will help, but without a real "Arab Spring" it will likely continue. Bombs, drones and "boots on the ground" will just make matters worse.
Cap't Jack
I agree, but until the Qu'ran is amended, which is very unlikely, there wil be fundamentalists adhering to the literal interpretation as we have here and elsewhere. I have advocated throwing out the OT in Christianity also. The tragedy is that, unlike science theory or constituional amendments, Holy Scripture (word of god) cannot be amended. That in itself would constitute punishable blasphemy. I am truly afraid of all but the most peaceful religions, because they cannot be objectively analyzed and critiqued, whereas they are free to condemn secular or atheist leaning societies as infidels who must be eradicated, by violence if necessary. I have never heard an atheist killing a theist for being theist, OTOH............!
I am actually surprises that the "Skeptic's Annotated Bible" has not been targeted yet. http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/
But if the following is a reliable study, it would tend to suport the position that theist leaning societies are more prone to violence than secular societies.
Predominantly Atheist Countries Have Lowest Crime Rate According To Study
I did read what you wrote. You blamed the cartoonists: "there are situations that you can blame the victim," where one of your examples was "editors publishing tasteless provocative cartoons about Islam." I didn't need to "read between any lines," GdB. You explicitly blamed them. If the victim gets some of the blame, then the perpetrators don't get all the blame. Which is why I was accurate in describing you as someone who pats mass-murdering terrorists on the back and says, "Well, you're not TOTALLY to blame. They kinda asked for it."
.
If I leave my window open and get robbed I blame myself for leaving the window open. I shouldn't have done it. But I did nothing morally wrong, so I wasn't to blame in that sense. The thief takes all the moral blame. But if we simply look at blame as causal blame rather than moral blame, then yes I'm partially to blame, as are the thief's genetics and his upbringing etc etc.
In the case of terrorism,moral blame isn't much use at all, the terrorists are products of their genetic make up and their environment.
We aren't about to start playing around with peoples genes I hope, so we need to look at the environment that produces the terrorists.
There are 2 problems here.
Firstly the publishing in the Charles Hebdo magazine of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed is offensive to Muslims; and seems to me not to be about any form of free speech but an insult to the followers of that faith. Whether any offence is meant by the magazine is not clear but offence has been taken and the publishers of the magazine must be aware that what they are doing is offensive so they would be well advised to desist from what the are doing. That is perhaps even more important now that the threat level against certain parts of French and European communities are higher than at any level since the second world war.
Secondly the reaction of the armed gunmen is wholly wrong and the majority of Muslims are aghast at what happened last week. Rightly so, but the fact is that the majority of Muslims did not act in the way these lone gunmen have behaved. They have silently stood by and allowed the offensive magazine to be published.
So in the greater interests of the wider community, being all faiths and non believers, should the publishers of the magazine stop what they are doing in the hope that we can bring to an end this violence and lead peaceful lives; or do they want to carry on with what they are doing and insulting people in the name of so called free speech?
I would also be interested to hear why the publishers consider that free speech is more important than causing offence to large parts of their society; and also how they are expressing their right to free speech by drawing caricatures of Mohammed in their magazine. Its not clear to me.
How about the even larger part of society that thinks that killing people for what they say or write is offensive?
What right were the killers expressing? Do you think that right should be defended or restricted?
What you say here offends me greatly. You must have known that would offend a large part of society before you wrote it.
Do I now have the right to kill you for it? You should have known better thanto express such offensive speech.
...
So in the greater interests of the wider community, being all faiths and non believers, should the publishers of the magazine stop what they are doing in the hope that we can bring to an end this violence and lead peaceful lives; or do they want to carry on with what they are doing and insulting people in the name of so called free speech?
I would also be interested to hear why the publishers consider that free speech is more important than causing offence to large parts of their society; and also how they are expressing their right to free speech by drawing caricatures of Mohammed in their magazine. Its not clear to me.
No the publishers should absolutely not bow to violence and continued threats of violence, precisely, because, it is NOT, in the interests of the worldwide community, to have rules of expression defined by whoever is the most murderous or scary.
Some people, at some time, will always find something about the expressions of others to be offended about. So if someone being offended about something that is expressed, is the arbiter of what can be expressed, eventually very little could be expressed, at all.
So my suggestion is to everyone who gets uncontrollably offended at what other people express, is "Get over it, bucko."
Expression is just expression, but murder is murder. See the difference? We all have emotions, and we all need to control those emotions, to the degree that we don't physically harm others. If we hurt someone's feelings, they can get over that. If we kill someone, they can't get over that.
Here in the U.S., “freedom of speech” is often misunderstood. The only legal right of free speech is applicable to government action restricting speech. So when it is claimed a right to free speech is violated by a boycott of a magazine or tv show, for example, their is no legal right being violated. People are simply choosing to engage in a boycott because they’ve found some statement of opinion or other statement offensive.
Satire is intended to offend. If you live in a society which allows freedom of expression, you must expect to be offended by some expression, sometime. It is a price paid for being able to express oneself freely. It’s also, in my mind, something any reasonable grown up accepts as the price of living; those who think they must never be offended have an almost lunatic self-regard.
The fact that an expression may offend someone, somewhere, or many people somewhere, in itself should not be an issue in this debate. We should not be debating in this case whether someone should have published a cartoon which riles the peculiar religious sense of certain individuals. Freedom of expression, in general, is the way of it in places like the U.S. and France. So is the freedom to protest offensive speech in various ways.
People who don’t want to be exposed to offensive expression have available relatively easy means by which to achieve this blessed state. They may decline to listen, read, watch. If they must, they can leave–a room, a hall, a country. There is no obligation to accommodate people who think others should not say certain things or do certain things or wear certain things, though one is certainly free to do so as a matter of courtesy. There is no obligation, or reason, to tolerate those who resort to violence if people say or do what they find offensive.
As much as we may disagree with what these people are saying you can’t defend the rights of the Charlie Hebdo’s artists and writers and then put people in jail for speaking their mind on other issues you don’t agree with. The French just had a huge protest to defend speech. This policy is indefensible.
GdB,
Of course, in the remaining story it turns out that evil exists because the white sheep have black tongues. Before I am misunderstood: this is not how I see the problems with Islam. But it is a reaction on your eager using of the world evil. It will never solve anything, on the contrary. It might easily block the motivation to understand why the terrorists radicalise. (Fast) judgements are never a good basis for objectivity, for science.
OK, I'll modify my inflammatory term "evil" to exclude the poor and uneducated, those people tend to be more accepting of "a cause". This happens all over the world. So I'll shift the term to identify those who exploit and use these people to commit evil deeds, in the name of Islam or any other religion or any other cause other than self defense. In the middle east there are plenty of Madrasas (muslim schools) which teach hate, instead of wisdom and knowledge. And even here in the US we find isolated pockets of such "religious survivalist" mindsets. The KKK and Neo Nazis are but two examples.
I am not defending intentional insult of any group or religion or individual. As an atheist, I have had my share of insults, I was called "the antichrist" (devil), by a Christian fundamentalist, but that did not spur me to kill that person.
I remember, as a boy, watching the exercises of Hitler Jugend in Holland
The Hitler Youth (German: About this sound Hitlerjugend (help·info), often abbreviated as HJ in German) was the youth organization of the Nazi Party in Germany. Its origins dated back to 1922 in form of predecessor organizations affiliated to the (at the time) Munich-based Nazi Party. From 1933 until 1945, it was the sole official youth organization in Germany and was partially a paramilitary organization; it was constituted of the Hitlerjugend proper for male youth aged 14 to 18, the Deutsches Jungvolk (German Youth) for younger boys, and the League of German Girls.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_Youth
Until the fundamentalists in power codify Sharia Law and educational system, which arrogantly declares that "there is but one god and that is Allah", these countries will be in conflict with the rest of civilized secular countries.
The 2015 Baga massacre is a series of mass killings and attacks believed to have been committed and, according to some reports, still ongoing in the Nigerian town of Baga and its environs, in the state of Borno, between 3 January and 7 January 2015 by the Islamist militia Boko Haram.
...........
Baga and at least 16 other towns are thought to have been destroyed as over 35,000 people are reported to have been displaced, with many feared to have drowned while trying to cross Lake Chad and others trapped on islands in the lake.[1][4] The attacks are said to have resulted in Boko Haram extending its control to over 70% of Borno State
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Baga_massacre
I doubt that this was a result of someone publishing a book or a cartoon.
and
On 7 January 2015, at about 11:30 CET (10:30 UTC), two masked gunmen forced their way into the offices of the French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris, France. They killed 12 people, including the editor Stéphane "Charb" Charbonnier, 7 other Charlie Hebdo employees, and 2 National Police officers, and wounded 11 others. Charlie Hebdo had attracted attention for its depictions of Muhammad.
The gunmen were armed with AK-47 assault rifles, a shotgun, and an RPG launcher.[12][13][14] They fired up to 50 shots with automatic weapons, shouting "Allahu Akbar", Arabic for "God is great" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Hebdo_shooting
Today, the majority of terror attacks throughout the world today are inspired by religious motives, which IMO, does not speak well about the cultural stability religions are supposed to foster. This is not to say that religion is the major cause for violent deaths, but that is not due to scripture forbidding prostletizing (by force if necessary), but that most people, to their credit, do not follow scripture to the letter, which is a defacto rejection of scripture as written. But until religious scripture is cleansed of all inflammatory rhetoric, it remains a convenient vehicle to commit cultural crimes in the name of God (by any other name) for the most innocuous offenses. Does a woman need to be caned for showing an ankle or too much face or be beaten to near death for trying to attain advanced education?
The oddest part of Islam, is that supposedly this type of scripture is to "protect women" from the inherent lack of control of their animal instinct by men. Thus women are punished for provoking lust in men. Now, if that is not an ironic twisting of assigning responsiblity, I don't know what is.
This is tantamount to a modern defense for rape by stating, "She asked for it" because she wore high heels or had make-up, or wore
a mini skirt.
This is hypocritical.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/01/france-arrests-dozens-for-hate-speech.html
As much as we may disagree with what these people are saying you can't defend the rights of the Charlie Hebdo's artists and writers and then put people in jail for speaking their mind on other issues you don't agree with. The French just had a huge protest to defend speech. This policy is indefensible.
Hate Speech laws are a threat to speech and thought. That the French would do this in these circumstances is incredible.
I did read what you wrote. You blamed the cartoonists: "there are situations that you can blame the victim," where one of your examples was "editors publishing tasteless provocative cartoons about Islam." I didn't need to "read between any lines," GdB. You explicitly blamed them. If the victim gets some of the blame, then the perpetrators don't get all the blame. Which is why I was accurate in describing you as someone who pats mass-murdering terrorists on the back and says, "Well, you're not TOTALLY to blame. They kinda asked for it."
.
If I leave my window open and get robbed I blame myself for leaving the window open. I shouldn't have done it. But I did nothing morally wrong, so I wasn't to blame in that sense. The thief takes all the moral blame. But if we simply look at blame as causal blame rather than moral blame, then yes I'm partially to blame, as are the thief's genetics and his upbringing etc etc.
In the case of terrorism,moral blame isn't much use at all, the terrorists are products of their genetic make up and their environment.
We aren't about to start playing around with peoples genes I hope, so we need to look at the environment that produces the terrorists.
The environment is Islam.
Lois
I have been wandering if the whole situation with Charlie Hebdo is significantly different to inviting a guest into your house and then verbally abusing his/her ancestors, parents or children?
Is publishing intentionally offensive to millions of people (French citizens actually) material can be called a democracy and freedom of speech? Were these images newsworthy?
I believe that terrorism is the real threat to our society, but so is human stupidity.