TWCL

[mooncity]

Alexander Hamilton wrote:

It's amazing how people are more annoyed about people drawing cartoon than, you know, murdering people for drawing them.

Wrong. I don't care about someone drawing a cartoon. I'm annoyed at the rank insensitivity and arrogance, plus all the braying about making some kind of protest or stand for something when they really aren't.
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Mooncity
Reversing the polarity of the neutron flow since 1976!


The comic strip that never was.

[Tskingdom]

Didn't see that coming... Oh wait, I did!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Everybody-draw-Holocaust-day-30-June-2010/125126400846347?v=wall
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Because some things are for nice people and some things are for nice people with a taste for occasional sightseeing in a Land of Disgust and Sick. http://tskingdom.com/

[wendyw]

I'm really not surprised.
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Blog

[Jardel]

Had to happen, wonder how many people support both of these "freedom of speech" campaigns...

[Casual Notice]

This is exactly as tacky as the previous, "Let's Offend Millions of People and Pretend it's some sort of valid protest" idiocy.
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What I lack in sincerity, I make up for in sarcasm.
S*P*Q*R

[vulpeslibertas]

Jardel wrote:

Had to happen, wonder how many people support both of these "freedom of speech" campaigns...

At least one.

Jardel, what exactly is freedom of speech?
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[Jardel]

vulpeslibertas wrote:

Jardel, what exactly is freedom of speech?

Clearly it's a privilege both these groups take for granted, don't believe others deserve and feel has no use in the world that does not relate to their own personal gratification.

Shame there isn't more darwinism in the industrialised nations.

[vulpeslibertas]

A privilege, eh? Granted by who? You, in your Almighty Godlike Wisdom of Eternal Betterness than Everyone-Else? How arrogant of those people in their petty selfishness to disagree with wise, all-knowing enlightened folk such as us (and our own personal gratification). How stupid of them to not realize the world is exactly what we say it is, and things are exactly how we believe them to be.

Jardel, your stand only makes sense if you are more important than everyone else, which I am reasonably certain is not the case.

I wonder how many people who believe as you would shut up and do as you are told if that supreme benevolent dictator of yours happened to disagree with everything you believe in.

Freedom of Speech is not a privilege that can be taken away when it is abused, rude, or contrary to the majority's whim. If it was, then it wouldn't really be free speech: "Free speech is the right to say what I tell you to say".

There's really no point in protecting non-controversial speech. By definition it doesn't need protection because nobody has the slightest desire to take it away. The things that are most uncomfortable to talk about: politics, religion, sexuality, those are the things that must be protected, because those are the things it is easiest to convince ourselves "wouldn't it be nice if it just went away", and therefore those are the things that get censored.
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[Casual Notice]

Remember that Jardel is an Oz, VL, not an American. What we view as incontrovertible rights necessary tot he operation of a democracy, the rest of the world often views as a privelege doled out by a kind and paternal government.
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What I lack in sincerity, I make up for in sarcasm.
S*P*Q*R

[vulpeslibertas]

Point taken, Casual.

I believe right is right wherever you are in the world, so when I believe something is right, I have a tendency to bellow it at whoever can hear me, regardless of international borders or cultural affinity or even whether they want to hear it.

I don't believe one man can lay claim to another just because they were born on the same side of an imaginary line. Perhaps I'm wrong on that, but I've never seen anything to indicate otherwise, and as long as that is true, oppressed and "owned" people everywhere have my support, as far as I can yell it. As far as I'm concerned, if someone doesn't like what I have to say, they have the right not to listen.

My point stands, only an arrogant bastard can believe they know what's better for everybody else, but that nobody else knows what's better for them. The flag flying over your head doesn't change that. And Free Speech still isn't free if it only means you are allowed to say what others tell you to.

I'm either wrong or I'm right, it could depend on a lot of things, but it sure doesn't depend on where I was born.
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[Traitorfish]

Casual Notice wrote:

Remember that Jardel is an Oz, VL, not an American. What we view as incontrovertible rights necessary tot he operation of a democracy, the rest of the world often views as a privelege doled out by a kind and paternal government.

Alternatively, the "privelege" to which Jardel was referring was the ability to excercise innate rights such as "freedom of expression", rather than the rights themselves, which is more typically how the term "freedom" is understood in the Commonwealth. An Oz or a Brit may consider all people, everywhere, to posess the right to free speech, but would note that only the minority are priveleged enough to posess the ability to excercise this right, in effect posessing the privelege of free speech.
It's a case of miscommunication, not the Evil Old WorldS Strikes Again. Really, you people really need to get over that sort of thing.
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Traitorfish.deviantART

[Casual Notice]

I never said anyone was evil. I simply pointed out that the American concept of certain rights was different than that held by the rest of the world. Maybe you should get over your belief that pointing out difference is in some way an accusation.

For instance, our concept of "Freedom of the Press" evolved from the John Peter Zinger case. Now, Zinger was almost certainly guilty of libel and slander, and, had he been brought up in civil court probably would have lost his shirt. He was brought to a criminal court, however, and his trial and the circus surrounding it fixed, in the American psyche, the concept that Freedom of the Press was absolute. (By the way, that "everybody gets to say what they want" American attitude is codified in our Constitution.)
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What I lack in sincerity, I make up for in sarcasm.
S*P*Q*R

[Jardel]

It is a privillege because there is plenty of historical evidence to show societies can function without it. We could go into it's evolution etc but suffice to say there are plenty of people inside and outside our respective societies who work tirelessly to try to remove or reduce it because they believe it is for the common good.

Causal Notice is correct in that we do not have a constitutional right here, no First Amendment for anyone to try to squeeze anything through. Australia's also currently having all manner of fun and insanity because our very Catholic Prime Minister keeps pushing for more anti-pornography legislation.

And you know what, the arguements he's putting forward sound amazingly similar to yours Vupes. They follow the same formula of "If you do not agree with my plan which I say is objectively both going to accomplish and express our desire to accomplish [noble goal here] then clearly you are against such a goal and must be siding with [insert bad people here]."

When flaws in your flawless plan are exposed, you rush back to trying to campaign on a moral extreme standpoint without ever justifying how you're even connected to these morals.

Being offensive does not mean you're being contraversial, being offensive because someone asks you not to does mean you are campaigning for freedom of speech. Sure you're exercising it, but that doesn't mean you're going to campaign for it or even assist in it's maintenance.

The price of freedom of speech is that you become personally accountable for everything you say, while at the same time everything you say will be linked to your group (you don't get a say in that).

These people are cowards because they are trying to avoid any accountability, not once thinking about who might take the bite for their teasing Jihadists, and they're bigots because they don't care to distinguish the specific groups of muslims who they claim they're campaigning against and are just attacking everyone who holds Mohammed sacred.

They're also doing so in an absense of contraversy relating to freedom of speech since they missed the boat by over a year. We already had Syria, Iran, etc petition to the world to ban offensive drawings of Mohammed when the dickhead in Denmark did his idiotic cartoons, and the overwhelming consensus of the rest of the world was "No".

Claiming this protest is for freedom of speech is like going to an open mic night in a family friendly club, repeating every offensive term you can think of an then claiming you did it to support freedom in the same spirit as Lenny Bruce.

[Traitorfish]

Casual Notice wrote:

I never said anyone was evil. I simply pointed out that the American concept of certain rights was different than that held by the rest of the world. Maybe you should get over your belief that pointing out difference is in some way an accusation.

Fine, fine, forget I said anything. Your post wasn't exactly bereft of derision, I must say, but I suppose I may misconstrued your intent.
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Traitorfish.deviantART

[vulpeslibertas]

Jardel wrote:

And you know what, the arguements he's putting forward sound amazingly similar to yours Vupes. They follow the same formula of "If you do not agree with my plan which I say is objectively both going to accomplish and express our desire to accomplish [noble goal here] then clearly you are against such a goal and must be siding with [insert bad people here]."

This is exactly the opposite of what I have been saying. I believe in un-forcing my beliefs on others. There is only one political philosophy which prevents one person from interfering in the life of another, that is a hands-off non-interventionism: Live and let live. Every other philosophy, by its nature, pushes their beliefs on someone else.

My plan is to have no plan. My goal is to have no goal. When society has a goal, it must bend the will of the individual to the will of the collective. It is imperative. It is essential. This is why the freedom-loving nation of China ran over protesters with tanks, why the proletariat-loving Soviets sent millions to political prisons. This is why your philosophy requires a benevolent dictator to force people to comply with your beliefs. Those individuals are hurting society's goals by having goals and plans of their own. When nations have rights, individuals have none.

Any other political philosophy requires the destruction of individuals. Take your own, Jardel:

They follow the same formula of "If you do not agree with banning free speech which I say is objectively both going to accomplish and express our desire to accomplish a stable and beneficent society then clearly you are against such a goal and must be siding with our very Catholic Prime Minister."

To further your goal, you have made all manner of baseless and blatantly wrong accusations about me. I do not watch or agree with CNN (I probably despise them more than you), I am not a Muslim-hater (I disagree with them, but I believe they have that right), I do not believe in forcing my beliefs on other people (only that I will force them to recognize my own freedom). I do not necessarily support those artists who drew Mohamed, but I do support their right to draw him, free from credible threats of death. I do not necessarily support the Muslims who protest that, but I support their right to protest the drawings in a way which does not present a credible threat. Mutual respect is the foundation of civilization, and while many societies have survived without freedom of speech, they are not societies that I would want to live in, nor would you if you were not in the protected class (as you very vociferous participation in this thread testifies).

I don't think anywhere in this thread I have stood on my actual beliefs because I am not arguing for forcing my beliefs on other people. I am arguing that every person has a right to follow their own beliefs regardless of what people like you and I think they should believe.

This goal has never been accomplished by banning free speech or installing dictators, benevolent or otherwise.
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