edited
=D> Next topic, we’re done here. Nothing to see, move along. You too rubberneck and lookey lou.
political irrationality is just as irrational/good as religious irrationality…
we want them to do as we say. that’s the long and the short of it.
and if we can’t “educate” them to be good “democratic” puppets we’ll shoot 'em.
-Imp
I can understand how freedom of speech should be limited when it comes to things such as yelling fire in a crowded theatre, but since when did satirical cartoons fall under this category? In a secular world community, the religious beliefs of a single group of people should not be allowed to censor the written or artistic expressions of the entire world.
I think many of us in the west are saying [size=150]“Enough!”[/size] Threatening violence because you read or see something that pokes fun at your religion is unacceptable. Muslims do not have the right to hold the world hostage through fear.
What would happen if Monty Python made “The Life of Muhammed”? Should I worry that Mad Magazine or SNL will be the next terrorist target?
It makes me wonder whether my opinions of the policies of the US weren’t naive.
p.s. Adler…how did you get your avatar to do that?
Freedom of speech does not imply the freedom from its consequence.
True, but if I punch someone in the nose because they call me a slag, I’m the one who will be charged with assault…and rightly so.
I believe that each person owns themselves. As such, an individual has the right to choose whatever they eat,drink,smoke,wear,say,write,draw or believe. I have the right to throw my fist, but that right ends at the tip of your nose. I have the right to choose for myself, but not the right to choose for you.
Imagine the world upside down. The Arabs live in America and Europe. The world speaks Arabic as an international language. If you want to get ahead, you must learn to speak it, if only to keep up with technical advances. All the books you learn from carry pictures of happy smiling Muslims in their big houses, with clean, well-fed children. Islam dominates the most quickly advancing parts of the world, and certainly the most influential. But not the current type, a more laid-back, self-questioning, satisfied with itself Islam, a religion fairly secure in the knowledge it has wormed its way into the synapses of mankind, believed or not. All the most flashy films, in every genre, carry overt or subliminal Islamic messages/themes, if it’s an action movie, there may well be some dashing Islamic hero vanquishing the infidel. “This town ain’t big enough for the both of us blondie…” Says Ahmet, through gritted, but perfect teeth, [A scimitar cuts down the greasy crew-cut-head]
There’s a fly in the ointment though, in the Middle East, there’s a bunch of no-good trigger-happy christians. No - not the christainity we know, but a fanatical, religion-under-fire christianity, the old, witch-burning, inquisition torches-and-Torquemada christianity, frothing at the mouth.
You are a member of that Christian sect. Abroad, despite the inquisitive stares, the “Hey Cross-Ass” remarks by pissed Islamic highschool kids, you try to remain an ambassador for your credo, but beneath rumbles an old anger, that never quite leaves your breast. At home, Christainity cornered, distrusted, suspected by the world at large draws it wagons closer, the leaders growing ever-more fundamentalist, to counter the seductive siren calls of foreign media to the younger generations…
A straw falls in the form of a cartoon. And suddenly, given a reason, a grain of righteous indignation, given a red cape, the angry bull in your chest roars, paws the sand… And breaks free.
Is it so hard to understand…?
How nice for me and you.
Here’s how nice, secular, relatively successful people in Turkey settle their differences:
I go to my local grocer once a week, he’s a nice man, remembers who I am, says hello, inquires after the baby. Adjacent to him there’s a flowerseller, from whom I occaisionally buy flowers for the wife. He too, is a perfectly cordial man.
Two weeks ago, my grocer and my flowerseller had a little argument about how much of the pavement each man’s stall should occupy. They got a little heated. I can imagine at some point one or both of them said to the other “Aii - şerefsiz…!” Which means: “You are without honour.” The flowerseller went home, and came back to his stall with a pump-action shotgun, shot the grocer through the chest from point-blank, killing him, and seriously wounded the grocer’s brother. Then he stuck around till he was arrested. He went quietly, honour satisfied.
Let’s face it, West/Middle East, or if you like Christian/Muslim tension effects me directly. If everything goes completely pear-shaped, I’ll have to move back to England with my family, to avoid being killed, no doubt condemming my nominally Muslim wife and child to abuse from my asshole countrymen, not to mention leaving a lifestyle I enjoy, for one not so… enjoyable.
Ever since the London bombings, and the earlier threads on terror, I’ve tried to think of a solution. So far I’ve only come up with two.
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The Imp solution. Nuke Iran/Iraq/wherever flat. Short, snappy, low on (Western) casualties.
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Hunker down, take the licks and set up top notch, fully equipped, free schools, run by native teachers, or brave USA/UK Muslims, funded completely by the West, teaching nothing but the three R’s in the country’s native tongue, with English, without any extra ‘credit’, optional, no propaganda, no Christian overtones, no cultural overtones, no bias either way. When one gets blown up, another is built. When that gets blown up, another is built. When that gets blown up, another is built. No comment, no revenge. Just free, good education, with scholarships to the Western Universities or the native universities available on merit.
It will take time, cost lives, but eventually the educated generations may at least have the abillity to choose what stance they take for or against the non-muslim world for themselves, without just blindly following leaders because they really don’t know enough to question.
A pipe-dream, but a noble one…?
Tab.
So, how many days would number one take?
Shyster
I’m not bad with some graphic design programs. Need something tweaked?
LOL, Tab you may be the first to suffer from the consequence of not being a Muslim in your part of the world. At least in the West Muslims are free to worship, are Jews, Christians, Wiccans, Buddhists free to worship in your neck of the woods.
Actually, the consequence, albeit not in Europe with probably be from the U.S. because Europe will again ask our aid and assistance.
When Turkey becomes Islamist, and it may soon turn Islamist, what will you do? Probably convert.
“Turn Islamist?”
Do you expect everyone near Tab to suddenly move out and all of Tab’s neighbors that have known him for some time now, to suddenly hate him? For all of of his wife’s friends suddenly demand he convert?
Somehow that seems stupid to me…
Kinda like French and German were dominate once, so???
The Wild, Wild West. Who will be the lead, a female Dietrich?
Laid back??? Look at all the protests regarding, well name it??? The desecration of the Qur’an, which was bogus, the cartoons, how ridiculous. The beheadings and bombings are much more desecrating to Islam than the cartoons.
Kinda like what is still happening in your neck of the woods cowboy. Instead, it is the fanatical Muslims burning, decapitatig, impabling the infidels.
News Flash, News Flash, this is already occuring in your neck of the woods Bucko.
Yes, what a bunch of whining babies always crying victim. Geez. Jews have been nailed for 2,000 years and they do not whine and play victim like the Muslims.
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You are the worst PR person the Middle-East has. Now I really do not regret a single word I said. Thanks Tab, their culture is actually far more intolerant and violent than our Wild West even in Las Vegas, Rodeo, Gambling City. LOL
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Neutron produces less radiation.
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If you stay, you, you son and wife and her family may suffer terribly.
It is your life and your kit and kin’s, you child. Chuckle. I thought you believed Islam and Muslims are so wonderful and tolerant. They will murder you, your child and wife at the drop of a hat. Do as you wish.
Good luck and I hope you survive. 
Not everyone, but many may probably turn against him, his kit and kin when Turkey turns Islamist. Wait and see.
Roll your eyes all you want, many who have lived in Arab lands who happend to be Christian or Jewish were often exiled, or massacred, they still are taxed and discriminated against.
So read what is really happening for insight.
With regards,
aspacia
“Each individual has the right not to be used, involuntarily,as a means to another’s ends” Kant
In western society,each person has the right of self-ownership. i.e. I dye my hair blonde and get a large tattoo of the Star of David on my back. My friend wears the veil and believes it is wrong to get a tattoo. This is fine, as each of us owns our bodies and can do with them as we wish. If I force my friend to dye her hair or if she forces me to have my tatty removed, this is a violation of liberty. I cannot impose my beliefs on her anymore than she can impose her beliefs on me. This is the main principle upon which western democracies are based…the right to self-determination.
If I were in a Muslim or Islamic country, I would respect their particular culture and beliefs. If I were to be arrested for showing my hair and prancing around in booty shorts, I would accept the consequences of my actions. I would know that if I lit up a fat joint in public and flashed my boobs to strangers that I would be in serious trouble. Their country,their culture,their rules.
The point is, Denmark is not an Islamic or Muslim country. I’ve seen the cartoons, and they are offensive (they are not particularly funny or well-drawn,either). However, the right to free speech in the western world includes the right to be offensive (and unfunny). The fact that Muslims have claimed that they would not portray Jesus in such a fashion matters not, what is important is that they have the right to do so if they choose.
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Freedom of the press is not to be translated as “freedom to write whatever you want so long as you don’t insult anyone”…this freedom is as sacrosanct to western beliefs as not showing images of Allah or Mohamed is to Islamic beliefs.[/size]
If Muslim people wish to protest,boycott,write their own articles on the cartoons,etc…they have the freedom to do so in a democratic western society. It is when this extends to threats or acts of violence that the line is crossed. This is what I mean when I say that “the right to throw my fist ends at the tip your nose”. My rights end when they impune upon your rights and vice-versa. These rights are particular to culture and should be respected as such.
I also applaud Google in censoring their search engine for the Chinese market. China, not the west or Google, decides what is right for China.
In grade 9, I drew flack when I protested the removal of a White Supremicist flyer from a public bulletin board. The only conditions for removal of something from this board was if the announcement contained sexual content or made blatently racist remarks. The flyer contained neither of these, and hence should have been allowed to stay. The tweenage morons ( and most of the equally ignorant teachers) in my school (some of whom thought it was funny to call me “kke" and, strange as it may seem in these modern collagen-enhanced times, "nggerlips”) could not understand why. The only person who fully supported me was my Jewish math teacher. He understood what I did, that supporting the right to free speech does not mean that I have to agree with what is being said.
It is easy to support freedom of speech when you agree with it, and this can hardly be counted as support at all. If I want the right to publish an article on Feminism, it would be hypocritical of me try to limit the right of another to publish an anti-Feminist article.
Freedom of expression is what we in the west have chosen for ourselves, and this is what we are responsible for protecting.
Please note the 74% solve rate, and the low number of actual crimes cf with Poland Germany and France.
I’m sure Aspacia would like to pull up some statistics from America on violent crime, I’d be exceptionally interested to see how Turkey and America compare with regard to firearm-related killings.
Wouldn’t you…?
I think the Enlightenment gave us a third way. Voltaire et al took on the Monarchs of Europe with nothing more than a pen and an easy escape route to Switzerland…
…and won.
I think that the Muslims simply need to get offended more often. One day they’ll reach an astonishing conclusion: that a cartoon is not worth taking on the entire world.
Arabs and S. Asians have embraced secularism before, and there’s no reason to think it won’t happen again.
…though, it may take a while. It was De Gaulle who finally declared the Enlightenment’s victory, when he said, “You don’t arrest Voltaire”. Of course, by that time two centuries had passed, and he was referring to Sartre.
Thanks Logo, and thanks for a ray of hope.
The stats are very high in the U.S., I am well aware of the violence in my land, hence I have a loaded gun near my bed at night.
You were the one who mentioned that honor is a big deal and you neighbors will murder each other over tainted honor.
Look Tab, you loath me, so do not mention me or respond to me. I disagree with much of what you claim. So what? I do not care, nor do I hate or loath you, you simply are not that important to me in RT.
Hmm… How surprising the mistress of links becomes shy when posting them on the murder rate of her own beloved “land of the free and home of the brave.”
Funny too, that in my Muslim country, full of Aspacia’s wannabe terrorists 
, I sleep soundly with nothing on my bedside table but an alarm clock.
It is true murder occurs over points of honour here, clearly defined points of honour. And as you may have not noticed, the perpetrator waited for the police to arrest him, after the shooting. No running, no get-away chases, no hostages. Action and acceptance of consequence.
That was my point, in case you missed it, both of them were good men, neither ever tried to kill or rob me. I did not impugn their honour, and they treated me with acceptance and respect. Here there is freedom of speech, but no state-protected freedom from its consequence. Should you ever venture to my shores, one of the first things you will notice is how polite, civil and friendly everyone is in daily life. People are this way by default, because it is taken as a given that one’s personal sense of honour will be taken seriously, and defended physically.
Where is the honour in American crime…?
You are important to me in real life Aspacia, for it is people like you, saying the things that you say, that have a direct impact on my well-being in Turkey. You may sit with your gun in your bedroom, and type your narrow little world into being, it is me however, that actually has to live there.
Feel free to visit me anytime.
excuse the interruption
there is no honour among theives
-Imp