Je Suis Charlie - The Bear and Badger

Brooks

IanHamlett wrote:

Some okay points there and Rupert Murdoch is clearly the most evil man alive but did Mark David Chapman shoot John Lennon because of his religion? Did he have the sympathies of 20% of his countrymen that shared his religion? You all know I hate all religion but Islam does have some specific problems and I think we've tried the "it's just a few extremists" thing long enough.

It's the bit where you're somehow cordoning of this ISLAM thing as a treatable, autonomous entity that doesn't make very much sense.

Brooks

Meanwhile "je suis Charlie" = "i am a right charlie".

Stopharage

Really enjoyed this video. More of this approach needed.

Bollockoff

It's easier to smuggle into France I'd have thought because of the amount of borders.

dynamiteReady

IanHamlett wrote:

I think many people would have seen publishing pictures of Mohamed as an attack on their beliefs.

They can think that if they like, and then grow the fuck up about it. I shouldn't have to watch what I say because a tiny percentage of 1.5bn people might want to kill me for it and a surprisingly large chunk of the rest would be okay with it.

Ahh...

Was looking for this line.

So basically, you think you should be able to say what you like about people, and expect no consequence?

Or heaven forbid, expect the tax paying public to support, and secure your right to insult the beliefs of others?

dynamiteReady

Btw.

Je suis your dad...

[Deleted User]

ne paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaas

dynamiteReady

Lol. :}

LarryDavid

US central command's twitter apparently hacked, showing a load of sensitive information. No idea if it's real of not.

EDIT: taken down now, it was all stuff already in the public domain anyway apparently

EvilRedEye

RamSteelwood wrote:

but isn't the 'right of free speech' simply a belief held by a particular group of people? isn't it just an element of the modern 'religion' of the west? we don't believe in god, we believe in 'rights' like free speech and buying as many ipods as you can carry.

Human rights are a somewhat contrived but essential mechanism for attaching fundamental, inalienable rights to people. It's not a religion, it's just a better method of guaranteeing people have basic rights than the ones that failed and allowed millions of people to be gassed to death on our doorstep.

And inalienable human rights can't come with responsibilities as that would defeat the point. There are competing rights and I get the impression that that is where some of this debate is coming from - the sense there should be something opposing people's right to produce blasphemous cartoons. But there isn't really a competing right or a qualification to the right to freedom of speech that applies here, despite freedom of speech being one of the most qualified rights - it's not like the cartoons contained confidential medical information or leaked data relating to national security or in any way actually hindered anyone's freedom of religion. They were just dumb cartoons.

We're told that the people who carried out the attacks don't represent Islam and are essentially not Muslims. In that case, isn't the uprising in support of freedom of speech, which will help to prevent an atmosphere of chilling self-censorship in the wake of these attacks, a lot more valuable than a load of 'I believe in freedom of speech but...' hand-wringing about a religion the teachings of which are essentially not related to this incident?

Diluted Dante

Ok, he said it better than me.

Brooks

I think it's a bit weird to conflate 'self censorship' with 'see if you can improve the quality of one's criticism', but then this whole incident is pretty weird.

bad_hair_day

If society looks to self censor obscene and hateful publications, we could start with the Quran or Bible.

IanHamlett

dynamiteReady wrote:

IanHamlett wrote:

I think many people would have seen publishing pictures of Mohamed as an attack on their beliefs.

They can think that if they like, and then grow the fuck up about it. I shouldn't have to watch what I say because a tiny percentage of 1.5bn people might want to kill me for it and a surprisingly large chunk of the rest would be okay with it.

Ahh... Was looking for this line. So basically, you think you should be able to say what you like about people, and expect no consequence? Or heaven forbid, expect the tax paying public to support, and secure your right to insult the beliefs of others?

Exactly that. We exchange ideas and vote on who has the best ideas on who to run the country. We buy products that have the best ideas. If some people aren't saying some things because some other people take their imaginary friend waaaaaaaaaaaay too seriously, like enough to actually murder strangers, then I'd expect my tax money to go towards helping the exchange of ideas become more free.

IanHamlett

Brooks wrote:

IanHamlett wrote:

Some okay points there and Rupert Murdoch is clearly the most evil man alive but did Mark David Chapman shoot John Lennon because of his religion? Did he have the sympathies of 20% of his countrymen that shared his religion? You all know I hate all religion but Islam does have some specific problems and I think we've tried the "it's just a few extremists" thing long enough.

It's the bit where you're somehow cordoning of this ISLAM thing as a treatable, autonomous entity that doesn't make very much sense.

It's quite a uniting factor in a lot of dip shit behaviour. I do have a go at the other dip shits but this is a Charlie thred.

Brooks

I think that's mistakenly narrow. The uniting factors are much messier than just drawing a line between some elements of a religious text and people getting capped. Many of those out-prioritise any 'inherent' ill in this Islam thing, not least because they don't even need Islam to find similar expression. Golden Dawn in Greece is an instance, it's motivated by the same anxieties, and then they find a structure of easiest access to coagulate within.

If you're a disenfranchised, baffled reactionary and the most obvious cultural conduit for your discontent is comfy traditional clarity provided by a local religion, that's probably going to shape the nature of response. Islam-flavour ultra-conservatism is still ultra-conservatism, so deal with the real energy rather than the cosmetics.

dynamiteReady

IanHamlett wrote:

I think many people would have seen publishing pictures of Mohamed as an attack on their beliefs.

They can think that if they like, and then grow the fuck up about it. I shouldn't have to watch what I say because a tiny percentage of 1.5bn people might want to kill me for it and a surprisingly large chunk of the rest would be okay with it.

Ahh... Was looking for this line. So basically, you think you should be able to say what you like about people, and expect no consequence? Or heaven forbid, expect the tax paying public to support, and secure your right to insult the beliefs of others?

Exactly that. We exchange ideas and vote on who has the best ideas on who to run the country. We buy products that have the best ideas. If some people aren't saying some things because some other people take their imaginary friend waaaaaaaaaaaay too seriously, like enough to actually murder strangers, then I'd expect my tax money to go towards helping the exchange of ideas become more free.

This isn't about imaginary friends though. This is about a respect for the differences between races...

So... it's ok to insult a racial group that's mostly defined by a cultural characteristic, right?
But of course, to isolate and demonize a group characterized by a clear physical, genetic trait is wrong?

IanHamlett

From Indonesia to Nigeria I'm seeing some pronounced racial variation.

IanHamlett

It's about imaginary friends.

dynamiteReady

IanHamlett wrote:

It's about imaginary friends.

What do you make of the Chinese government's attitude towards the Falun Gong movement in China?

And why is mainland Ireland divided into two seperate countries?

IanHamlett

I think China shouldn't suppress religion.

Ireland is now two countries because the people in one but want it to stay like that. It's not a religious problem at its core but that's become a big marker. Many feuds would likely have been forgotten if it wasn't so easy to keep track of who's ancestors were on what side.

Many problems that young islamic extremists latch onto are geographic or economic too. That doesn't cover the honour killings, lashing rape victims or marrying them off to their rapist, killing a whole school full of kids, not letting women drive unsupervised etc. 2015 FFS.

dynamiteReady

IanHamlett wrote:

That doesn't cover the honour killings, lashing rape victims or marrying them off to their rapist, killing a whole school full of kids, not letting women drive unsupervised etc. 2015 FFS.

There are plenty of things on that list that I hate.

I also hate the idea of apartheid, acquitting policemen obviously found guilty of unlawful killings, the state sanctioned effort to protect certain classes of pedophiles, unlawful invasions, brazen, white collar theft, unjust stop and search policies...

Yeah.

Kow

Listing extremist elements makes it all sound like Hell all right. I've spent a lot of time in a lot of Muslim countries and rarely found the people to be anything other than welcoming and generous, far more so than any European country I've been to. I was in Syria when Lebanon was being bombed and nobody made any attempt to acost me as a filthy Westerner.

Kow

You could easily put together a list of horrors to describe America too, if you wanted - police murdering and imprisoning ethnic minorities, Westboro church, the Klan, imperialist invaders, CIA torture etc etc. Fuck it we should round up the yanks.

Facewon

IanHamlett wrote:

We exchange ideas and vote on who has the best ideas on who to run the country. We buy products that have the best ideas.

Speaking of imaginary.

I'm always wary of the "self-censorship" argument. Especially as it seems to come consistently from guys like Andrew Bolt, who has a prime slot in a murdoch paper, the most read blog in the country, a TV show and can get on the radio whenver the fuck he wants.

dynamiteReady

Facewon wrote:

I'm always wary of the "self-censorship" argument.

Bear in mind that I don't give a shit about self censorship.

People can, should, and will say what they like, but don't expect me to always,

A: Cry for them,
B, Agree with them,
C, Support them.

And you can almost always count on me getting ratty, when I think people are supporting the wrong thing.

You know...

Like publishing casual racism, and crying for public support when they're shot in the face for it.

Ahmed's death was the only real tragedy here.
And of course, I will agree that those murders weren't exactly committed on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

Kow

Just reading now that the police commissioner in charge of the investigation shot himself in the head, apparently. It's not being treated as suspicious.

Brooks

Kow wrote:

You could easily put together a list of horrors to describe America too, if you wanted - police murdering and imprisoning ethnic minorities, Westboro church, the Klan, imperialist invaders, CIA torture etc etc. Fuck it we should round up the yanks.

Precisely. The issue is how all of these are various expressions of control and the need to control. People grasping for simplifications of the real to the detriment of decency.

IanHamlett

Kow wrote:

You could easily put together a list of horrors to describe America too, if you wanted - police murdering and imprisoning ethnic minorities, Westboro church, the Klan, imperialist invaders, CIA torture etc etc. Fuck it we should round up the yanks.

Not a fan of America either. Fuck Israel too.

dynamiteReady

Brooks wrote:

Kow wrote:

You could easily put together a list of horrors to describe America too, if you wanted - police murdering and imprisoning ethnic minorities, Westboro church, the Klan, imperialist invaders, CIA torture etc etc. Fuck it we should round up the yanks.

Precisely. The issue is how all of these are various expressions of control and the need to control. People grasping for simplifications of the real to the detriment of decency.

It's almost as though no one ever mentioned that before, eh?

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