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I find it interesting that Jyllands-Posten had earlier refused to run cartoons mocking Jesus on the grounds that it would offend their (mostly Christian) readers. So forgive me if I don't see their actions as defending free speech, only a kind of racist Western triumphalism.

Why was it necessary to publish the Mohammed cartoons? What higher purpose is being served? Just because you can? In the greater context of world events and the West's general rapaciousness toward the Muslim world, that's not a good enough reason for me. (If I recall, Denmark has a military presence in the Middle East in support of my country's various disasters there, another sore point.) If you truly want to start a dialog with other cultures, there are better ways to do it than by the equivalent of yelling "f**k you" in someone's face.

Some of the other posts have described the West in general as being enlightened and civilized and the Muslim world as being primitive and barbaric. And yet somehow when it comes to invading other countries on the flimsiest of pretexts, overthrowing their governments, murdering their people en masse, and stealing their natural resources, all the while lecturing them about Noble Ideals, it seems to be us "civilized" types who are the champs in this department. Weird.

We're not perfect, but we're still better than they are.

We live in a fundamentally different world. Our world is commercial, it is not religion, or public opinion or politics that drives our countries, it is money, trade, and we have that because of the emphasis on rights and responsibility that islamic law takes a different view upon.

In Iran women have to wear those thigns that cover their face because the qu'oran says so, the qu'oran gives a reason why, but its still done even if that reason nolonger applies. I read of a muslim cleric who reasoned ti was no lognr necessary who was condemned for critiscising holy words.

However her in the west ti is th responsibility of the woman and the woman alone wether she wears those covering garments. The consequences fo not wearing them ro wearing them are for her to choose.

The danish blamed the newspaper for the whole fiasco. The muslim world blamed the danish people as a whole. What ahd the danish government done to deserve all that agro? Or the danish people living in the middle east who lost their businesses? In the west the newspaper would have been targetted not the government.

Then there is the fact that we itnernally critiscise ourselves. Have you ever read a european enspaper? The brittish ones are the most remarkable of all for this sort of thing. I open up the daily Mirror and I see in a minute that there are tens of articles critiscising the government and companies about public spending and farcical events such as a man who gto 31 points on his driving license but wasnt banned from driving.

Then the criticism against other coutnries, afterrall the majority of european countries didnt want anything todo with iraq as did a fairly large portion of the US population, but the governments took us all to war anyway. Some governments in europe saw election defeats because of their reduced popularity in those steps they took.

Enough rambling...

Question: Suppose I were to right an article critical of the Catholic Church, and it featured a cartoon of Jesus in the garb of a priest, and he was sodomizing a little boy. What would be the reaction to that?

Letter writing and protests probably, but there wouldn't be boycotts and molotovs.

Well, a few people in the church would be outraged, the public would laugh (exept the really pious one who would mostly ignore it, or actively condemn, but they're always doing that anyways). The whole thing would blow over in a matter of days, and you might see a newspaper artcile making fun of it.

The danish pictures though, the 3 that are causing the most offence where never actually published, and nobody realized untill 5 months after they where published. Most people had forgotten ro never knew they existed till muslims took it and ran away with the snowball.

FizWizz wrote:Question: Suppose I were to right an article critical of the Catholic Church, and it featured a cartoon of Jesus in the garb of a priest, and he was sodomizing a little boy. What would be the reaction to that?

Das Bruce wrote:Letter writing and protests probably, but there wouldn't be boycotts and molotovs.

Maybe not in New Zealand, but if a major circulation published something like that in the USA, not only would there be boycotts against the newspaper's advertisers, I guarantee you some angry "religious" person would shoot them, light them on fire, or blow them up (probably all three). You'd probably even have politicians calling for the cartoonist's assassination... all in the name of the LORD, of course.

AF wrote:Well, a few people in the church would be outraged, the public would laugh (exept the really pious one who would mostly ignore it, or actively condemn, but they're always doing that anyways). The whole thing would blow over in a matter of days, and you might see a newspaper artcile making fun of it.

How I wish I lived in your country! America is as religiously fundamentalist as Iran or any other place we seek to demonize. The very same so-called Christians who laugh at Muslims' discomfort with the Mohammed cartoons would suffer fits of red-faced apoplexy if, say, the New York Times ran cartoons depicting Jesus as a hard-drinking, dog-kicking, card-playing womanizer, let alone a pedophile or terrorist. You'd hear Americans say, "Freedom of speech is all well and good, but there should be limits." Oh yeah, they already say that (about flag-burning).

Err...i'm perfectly fine with flag burning. I dont think its a good thing, but i think the freedom to burn a flag is increadably important!

Also just becasue 70 or so percent of a country's a single relligion dos'nt mean that the country is relligiosly fundamentalist.

Do you see people in America stoneing women to death who dont follow a two thousand year old tradition? Do you see people in America letting a school burn to the ground becasue it teaches evolution?

Are Americans perfect? No! Are they bad? Nah.

I rank the world a 7.5 (needs improvement, but is getting better!)

I am sure that Maestro (a Muslim from Indonesia) is not pleased by it but i'm sure he isn't demanding for their heads to be cut off, and there is plenty more of those types of muslims.

I personally have mixed feelings about it, intentionally dipiciting offensive images only adds to the polarization of the society of today but freedom of speech dictates that everything should be able to be published and some religion shouldn't inhibbit this.

but in my personal opinion, the Bush administration is probably behind this so they can have more support of invading Iran.

Yeah...

wait...Iran is not Iraq, even though it has the same name!

Wait...that makes a little sence, but wont work as long as some idiot dosn't go and blow him/herself up in a futie gesture against......


where are the Dane's from, Sweeden or Daneland?

Zoombie wrote:wait...Iran is not Iraq, even though it has the same name!

Wait...that makes a little sence, but wont work as long as some idiot dosn't go and blow him/herself up in a futie gesture against......

People in the Bish Administration have already said a few words about the possibility of Iran being a threat in the future. Because it is the Bush administration, that means that they've already decided they are going to take action against Iran, but they haven't cooked up an excuse for it yet.

Zoombie wrote:where are the Dane's from, Sweeden or Daneland?

Good lord, man. Denmark! D-E-N-M-A-R-K.

Ah Denmark!

XigXag wrote:I find it interesting that Jyllands-Posten had earlier refused to run cartoons mocking Jesus on the grounds that it would offend their (mostly Christian) readers. So forgive me if I don't see their actions as defending free speech, only a kind of racist Western triumphalism.

Freedom of speach is the freedom to say what you want to say, but also the freedom to not say what you don't want to say. The argument that if they are willing to insult one religious figure they should be willing to insult all religious figures isn't relevent to a freedom of speach argument, even if it is ethically correct.

SwiftSpear wrote:Freedom of speach is the freedom to say what you want to say, but also the freedom to not say what you don't want to say. The argument that if they are willing to insult one religious figure they should be willing to insult all religious figures isn't relevent to a freedom of speach argument, even if it is ethically correct.

This is a very good point. However, if I am not mistaken, many European countries do not have full freedom of the press in all circumstances. For instance, it is illegal in Germany to display Nazi regalia, and it's illegal there and elsewhere to mock Judaism (anti-Semitism laws). There are also hate-crime laws in the USA. So "freedom of speech" in practice is not as pure as it might be.

One could of course argue that there are good reasons for these limits on free speech. Surely the racist horror of the Holocaust is as good a reason as any for some limitations, the idea being that such-and-such category of people is under attack and needs protection. But once you start using historical events to justify restrictions on speech, where do you stop? What is the standard? Is it necessary for some other religious group (Muslims, for instance) to suffer a fate worse than the Holocaust in order for their religion to be protected by hate-crime laws?

Zoombie wrote:Also just becasue 70 or so percent of a country's a single relligion dos'nt mean that the country is relligiosly fundamentalist.

Do you see people in America stoneing women to death who dont follow a two thousand year old tradition? Do you see people in America letting a school burn to the ground becasue it teaches evolution?

American religious nuts don't stone people to death, they use rifles and fertilizer bombs. (Tim McVeigh, Eric Rudolph, etc.) And fundamentalism isn't always manifested in the form of torches and pitchforks. You are right to bring up the plight of women in Sharia-ruled countries. So you should also be alarmed that American women are seemingly on the verge of losing their abortion rights. There used to be whole wards of hospitals devoted to women who had been grievously injured by illegal abortions. Many died. Many more were rendered infertile or suffered other lifelong health consequences. The wealthy, of course, flew to Mexico. If that isn't woman-hating fundamentalist hoo-haa, I don't know what is.

As a matter of principle, when it comes to religion vs. free speech, I have to choose free speech. But there is also such a thing as common sense. It just seems like we're getting swept up in that tide of jingoistic fervor that always precedes wars of aggression. To get the country to support a war, first you must demonize the enemy. Both sides' extremists are trying to trick everybody else into fighting. I am almost certain that Captain Stupid will engineer another pretext operation to "justify" an attack against Iran. I just hope he doesn't go nukular on Seattle.

Has anybody seen the movie "Flash Gordon?" What I wouldn't give to see all of our Glorious Leaders forced to fight each other with bullwhips on one of those rotating spike-platform things...

I TRIED to watch Flash Gordon, but stopped twenty minuets into it and started doing something else.

My stance on Abortion is: Its something i would never want to do, but i will NEVER stop someone else from doing it.

I think we need to stop worrying about is people restricting each others rights because an ancient book written by a few men living in mud huts running for cover when lighting strikes. How can something written TWO THOUSAND years ago codify a way of life! A book written a mere HUNDRED years ago that tells you how to live is barely applicable to todays society. If things have changed so much over the last twenty or thirty years, then how can something so ancient have any bearing on anything other then the most basic facets of human life (Like commence since things like not killing one another and stuff like that)

"Speach" actually spelled "Speech"

hehe

Big steve, I'll get you if its the last thing i DOOOOOOO!!!! <Shakes fist>

I personally find the whole ordeal startling and it pains me to think such religous tension can exist this far into our world's history. How dare free speech be ridiculed, its just sad. Not only that, but Muslim leaders mislead followers by adding cartoons the Danish didnt even create in the first place to incite more violence.

Blind faith is dangerous, the suppression of free speech is even worse.

Free speach is good. Uncontrolled publishing in major papers is not good

Religion is good. Blind faith is not good.

Comics are good. Drawing something for the sole purpose of annoying someone is not good.

All good things in moderation.