Here is why I'm moving into Nadir's camp. All western nations observe censorship to protect various groups from being "offended." Some western democracies even mandate jail time for exressing certain ideas that certain groups find "offensive." All major news and entertainment media self-censor to appease various organized groups that have their lists of verboten expressions. As long as western democrats appease various anti-freedom groups in this way, why refuse to accomidate muslim nuts as well?
Sure, the New York Times regularly prints the Scat Mary and Peepee Jesus. But that's because the nutty christians choose to permit this. But ABC fired Bill Mahr, Dr. Laura, and Rush Limbough because they violated de facto speach restrictions imposed by various citizen groups. I'm sure that the Danish newspaper that printed the mohammad cartoons would have refused to print certain certain other cartoons for similar reasons.
If kooky christians in the US can keep ABC from running a crusifiction parody in an upcoming sitcom (to cite one of an endless number of examples), why not accomidate nutty muslims? As long as we western democrats tolerate *SOME* nutty tyrants to effectively ban the expression of ideas that they hae identified, why exclude nutty muslims? I oppose this practice overall, but it does exist, and our other democratic ideals obligate us to extend to shrieking, irrational muslims the same accomidations that we shamefully extend to shrieking, irrational christians, jews, and multi-culturalists.
I'm proud that the kooky US christians are advanced and liberal enough to permit the New York Times to print Piss Jesus. But the NYT ain't printing that *despite* the kooky christians; they are printing it because the kooky christians are mature enough to accept this printing. I am certain that the NYT is cowardly enough to ban Piss Jesus if the kooky christians demanded that they do with the furror that they have successfully demanded that ABC ban the planned Will and Grace parody of Jesus's crucifiction ("Hey, I can almost see my house from here").
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Make sure you read the article, and inspect the little conduct cards intended for British fans. This is not a joke. It lists examples of "OK" behavior, including "Whistling the theme from The Great Escape." It's list of "NOT OK" (and actionable!) behavior: Chanting "Two World Wars and One World Cup!"
If we accept this, we really must accept the demands of the kooky muslims. No?
"Why is it that people can be locked up for walking in a strange way during the World Cup in Germany, but in England you can march through the streets with signs saying that you should behead someone that doesn't agree with your religion?"
Good point. And that's the point that the muslims with the signs are trying to make. If you make it illegal to "walk in a funny way", why not make it illegal to lampoon mohammad?
Those nasty muslim signs are intended to outrage non-muslims in a manner similar to the muslim outrage at mohammad cartoons. If you want to ban "death to infidel" signs because *you* find them offensive, why not ban mohammad cartoons, which *others* find offensive?
Not sure I get your point. I've been reading the NYT off and on for almost 20 years and never seen it run shock art. On the other hand, despite its rather milquetoast politics and pretty tightly constrained news coverage, it's a constant target of criticism from the right. Sixstring himself, I'm sure, considers it the devil's rag. Ask a Christian nut about it, a Gary Bauer or a Pat Robertson, and I doubt the reaction will be very "mature" or "liberal."
Tom: The christ nuts are "mature" and "liberal" indeed compared to the mohammad nuts. Robertson, Bauer, and Falwell do not want the piss jesus creator executed. They don't even want its image banned from the NYT. They merely want to ban tax funds from paying for it, and they would boycott and company that underwrote it.
The christian nuts abhor the NYT and other corporate media for many reasons, including reasons that the muslim nuts would cite, such as showing your grandmother's old film, "Suffregettes Gone Wild." The christ and allah assholes both tollerate media in western societies displaying such things. But both of them gird their loins on behalf of certain other things.
For example, the christian nuts and other rightist tyrants in the US forced ABC to fire Bill Mahr after his 911 comments. And multicultural tyrants forced ABC to fire Dr. Laura from her scheduled show due to her views on the bareback cowboys. So both of these tyrantical groups in the US force their censorship on the rest of us. That makes them retarded in my eyes. The muslim tyrants are one million times worse because when they decide to insist upon a censorship, we see now that they go past letter writing, pickets, and boycotts, and start issuing vigilante mob death warrents.
So I oppose them a million times more than I oppose the leftist and rightist tyrants. *BUT*: if our media cow-tows to our leftist and rightist tyrants on the few cencorships that they demand, why not the allah tyrants? Please understand me: I want the NYT to print piss jesus *and* scat mohammad. But the christian nuts haven't declared piss jesus off-limits in the NYT; they have focused their efforts on keeping Bill Marh off network broadcasts, and Will and Grace from lampooning Jesus. Meanwhile, mohammad retards have their own list of demands. Sure, it's probably larger, and comes with threats much graver than those of the jesus nuts. But it's a list none-the-less, not fundimentally different than that of the jesus nuts.
I hope that you support my effort to end having these lists. But as long as the one submitted by the jesus tyrants is honored, shouldn't the one submitted by the muslim kooks?
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