Nothing's easier than being for free speech -- today — Page 5

We can't hate Islam because a few losers carry their stupidity to extremes. It seems like an economic problem in the world that's fueling this hate.

---

To me, this horrendous tragedy crystallizes the widely-held view in my inner circle that freedom is never really free. I grew up in the Old South around some rather plain-speaking, wholly irreverent, and misogynistic men-folk. But, a popular adage back then was that you don't poke fun at any man's God, woman, or children. You do so at your own peril. Whether or not that passes muster around these parts will no doubt be deliberated on ad nauseum. Please forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but we still live in a world in which neither words nor hash-tags stop bullets. There are the heartless among us who will just as soon kill and be killed if it advances their causes. I'm at a loss as to how to rationally deter them from that aim. I will share with you though my doubts that poverty or inequity is somehow the root cause of their angst.

---

Updated On: 1/9/15 at 07:16 PM

Namo, your snark toward some of us is so pointless and random that sometimes there's nothing one can do but repeat what you have misrepresented.

Updated On: 1/9/15 at 09:34 PM

Slate's piece: "The French satirical magazine is heroic. It is also racist."

Excerpt:

This, in a country where Muslims are a poor and harassed minority, maligned by a growing nationalist movement that has used liberal values like secularism and free speech to cloak garden-variety xenophobia. France is the place, remember, where the concept of free expression has failed to stop politicians from banning headscarves and burqas. Charlie Hebdo may claim to be a satirical, equal-opportunity offender. But there’s good reason critics have compared it to “a white power mag.” As Jacob Canfield wrote in an eloquent post at the Hooded Utilitarian, “White men punching down is not a recipe for good satire.”

Bold emphasis mine.


Heroic and racist?

---

Updated On: 1/9/15 at 10:45 PM

If only we and our EU cousins in the Northern States could hit up our respective nation's founding fathers for some answers. I'm not being intentionally glib here either.

Throughout modern history there have been varying interpretations of the so-called social contract and attempts at implementation in the form of constitutional republics. As I understand it Sharia law with its ban on insulting the prophet Muhammad is directly in contravention of the United States Constitution. However, my sources indicate that speech in France is controlled by laws criminalizing speech that insults, defames or incites hatred, discrimination or violence on the basis of religion, race, ethnicity, nationality, disability, sex or sexual orientation. While being a lofty ideal, the restriction gives the French little wiggle room to counter Sharia adherents seeking the moral high ground in this matter. It also strengthens Namo's case, to me at least, that Charlie Hebdo should have long been denounced as a racist shaite-stirrer.

I'm also always fascinated by the way European nations have dealt with and continue to deal with any group considered an outsider for whatever reason. A few months ago I read a copy of the original 1492 Alhambra Decree which called for the expulsion of Jews from Spain and her territories at the time. An English translation is linked. It boggles the mind that the thing was not formally revoked until 1968 which wasn't that long ago for some of us.

Somewhat related, back in December the Economist reported that Dresden, Germany is grappling with a major wave of anti-Islamic public sentiment under the banner of PEGIDA an acronym typically rendered in English as Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West.

Hopefully brighter minds than mine will sort it all out.




Edict of the Expulsion of the Jews (1492)

---

Updated On: 1/10/15 at 08:37 AM

Dislike the expression "what the founding fathers....". Who cares what they wanted or meant, they were wrong sometimes.

---

"Who cares what they [the founding fathers] wanted or meant, they were wrong sometimes."

Agreed, but at times their ideas and deliberations were prescient. It's a shame however that those same land-grabbing founders hatched a scheme to establish, preserve, and vindicate rights for themselves exclusively at the expense of several other classes of people. I'm just not comfortable believing that my contemporaries and I alone have answers for all that ails the West today. If only snark were the remedy.

---