I'll never understand that logic, how does coming to the aide and support of a group that was brutally attacked mean that they are in turn attacking the group that did the attacking? The attack on Charlie was not defensive, defacing the Notepad++ site is not defensive. Defending yourself doesn't mean attacking, and certainly not harming, other people. You only draw more hostility and attacks.
Edit: I am also curious, the language indicates that the hackers feel it is countries versus religion. The actions of someone who believes in a religion do not define the religion. If I do a terrorist act and say it was for my religion, that does not make my religion a terrorist, but it does make me a terrorist. Do the perpetrators of these attacks feel it is countries against religion, or is that just the shield they want to use.
Islamic extremism is a relatively new phenomenon, early 20th century. And it has pretty little to do with religion, it's more some kind of revenge for what we, the western world, did to them. Indonesia is the country with the largest Islamic population in the world yet there is little extremism and - it may of course be coincidence - the western world did never much care about them although they have a lot of oil, too. Religion is just the means to an end. All my personal opinion of course, I am by no means an expert on history or religion.
It seems the QuRan (like the Communist manifesto etc) provided an ideology that drove people to conquer and feel good about it. There have been many reasons to expand and conquer in the past, and they were all usually driven by some ideology. Hellenism, Communism, are two examples.
The political idea that a society should be run according to the principles of Islam is sometimes called "Islamism". A huge reason there isn't much "Christianism" today is that the New Testament was written by people who didn't have much power and so focused on peaceful proselytizing. That is not to say that the Church and other institutions didn't at times wield great political power and seek to maintain it. But rather that the WRITINGS advocate for more like anarchism than a philosophy that encourages converting others by the sword.
Judaism has never placed emphasis on proselytizing - whether by the sword or not. It had a much more exclusive character so there is no sense that Jews living in a democratic country would dream of converting that country's structure to one that follows the rules laid out in the Torah.
So Islam in a political and cultural sense is closer to Communism than Judaism and Christianity. And we see much of the same dynamics. McCarthyism in the USA and the Red Scare are now replaced with fear of radical Islam.
> It seems the QuRan (like the Communist manifesto etc) provided an ideology that drove people to conquer and feel good about it.
It seems like the Bible did that, too.
I mean, have you even casually glanced at the history of the West?
> The political idea that a society should be run according to the principles of Islam is sometimes called "Islamism". A huge reason there isn't much "Christianism" today is that the New Testament was written by people who didn't have much power and so focused on peaceful proselytizing.
"Christianism" is one of the solid bases of support for the political Right in the USA. To say that there isn't much of it in the world is, well, completely misguided.
> But rather that the WRITINGS advocate for more like anarchism than a philosophy that encourages converting others by the sword.
If you view the "writings of Christianity" as the New Testament only, that might be defensible, but actual Christians generally don't, and much Christianism -- which is nowhere near as elusive as you make it out to be -- is based very strongly on particular interpretations of the Old Testament (and particular interpretations of the New Testament that make those interpretations of the Old Testament valid for Christians.)
> It had a much more exclusive character so there is no sense that Jews living in a democratic country would dream of converting that country's structure to one that follows the rules laid out in the Torah.
Yeah, I mean, its inconceivable that, for instance, a Jewish-majority democracy would, for instance, prohibit grocery stores from remaining open on Saturday's because of the importance of maintaining the Sabbath [0].
While what you say has some validity, I think you've mostly attacked straw men in what I actually said.
Islamism urges for instituting sharia courts for instance, with judges trained in Islamic law, which includes the death penalty for homosexual sex provided that it is sufficiently proven and the person is unrepentant. Comparing that with the attitudes of the Christian right today yields a vastly different level of punishment in their policy prescriptions. Opposing the state officiating gay marriage and killing homosexuals are two vastly different levels of enforcement. I'm not just picking on Islam here - homosexuality is illegal in India for instance, largely because of Hinduism.
And anyway I am talking about Muslims living in say Sweden who would support the overthrow of its liberal democracy in favor of an Islamic state.
As for the "elisiveness" of Christianism, by every measure it is far less. The number of radical Islamist groups in the world is far greater. I think the Lord's Resistance Army is an example of an actual Christianist group, and even it formed in response to Islamist groups UPDF and NRA committing genocide. One may also count the KKK as a "Christianist" group in some sense although they were more white supremacists. I see this dearth of Christianist revolutionaries today because the writings have very little that necessitates conquering other societies by the sword.
As for Jews... I said that they aren't looking to take over OTHER countries to run them by the principles of the Torah because those principles were spelled out ONLY for Jews. Now of course some Jews were involved in organizing revolutions but as Communists for example. Trotsky and Sverdlov did not consider themselves very Jewish, and they certainly were animated by another ideology.
As for Israel having certain laws such as no public transportation on Saturdays, that is again not at all the same as conquering other countries NOR even restricting others' religious freedoms. Anyone is free to keep their store open on Saturday. France's majority french population "forces" all the government offices closed on Bastille day. USA post offices are closed on Sundays. I think equivocating between that and, say, preventing women from driving, is a bit disingenuous.
Look I will put it simply: there is one religion that has led to more countries with an official State Religion than all others, and among these countries are some of the only ones that crack down on Christians and openly deny Jews entry. You can see that religion in this map:
I have several friends who are Muslims and I have spoken to Muslims as well as Arabs from all over the world. Many agree that Islamism is dangerous and are not in favor of it. But many are in favor of it and I am worried they would support Islamism if it became an issue the same way Germans who weren't super pro Nazism nevertheless helped bring the Nazis to take absolute control of Germany:
The one religion that has led to more countries with a state religion than any others is Christianity. It's true that mamy of those governments with state religions have since been abandoned them or been forcibly replaced or had the state religion become a vestigial relic with little substance in the same way many monarchies in the same countries have, but that's more due to social developments resulting from economic developments in those countries (in many cases including the social development of declining Christianity in the populace) -- and exhaustion and disdolutionment resulting from centuries of war under the banner of Christianism, including much between various Christianizes with slightly different views of Christianity and what it demanded of civil government -- than a result of mildness in the writings of Christianity vs those of Islam.
I don't disagree that violent Islamism is a particular problem in the world today, probably moreso than violent extremism leveraging any other religion; where I disagree is with your claim in the previous post that this is due to a fundamental difference between Islam and other religions rather than a difference in present circumstances. And I think that distinction is important because confusing the need to fight Islamism with a need to fight Islam changes fighting violentrepressive religious extremism to using repressive religious extremism as an excuse for violent repressive extremism on the basis of religion.
Ok I don't understand the last sentenxe but I think we both agree that we shouldn't confuse the need to fight Islamism with a need to fight Islam. You may be right that Christianity has just as much potential to be used to justify Christianism - but as you and I both agree we now have very few nations AND very few violent revolutionary groups seeking to replace existing governments with ones organized along a "Christian political structure" whatever that may be. I was trying to say that Christianity doesn't COMPEL large swaths of the population at any given point to strongly support a political revolution towards Christianism, which is why the separation of Church and State is rather stable. Whereas I feel that the QuRan among its contents contains prominent instructions as to how a polity is to be set up. Christian writings have this too but the organizational principle is more akin to anarchism so whatever the political leaders wind up using isn't from the NT. Don't you see a difference in the nature of the writings at all when it comes to political structure, conquering and physical violence? I will give one example:
Tell me where do you have a comparable verse in the NT? These pronouncements have been interpreted to apply to modern times as well, since Muslims are to emulate Mohammad. That is what I mean.
Look I could be wrong and at the end of the day the only danger I see is in the political and violent aspects of the writings, as something that makes it hard to separate Mosque and State given enough people. It's a "rule of the game" that you can't jettison as easily as Christians can. That's what I meant.
The earlier Romans and later Europeans, starting with Charlemagne and the Vikings in the 8th century, make up for that, though.
Muslims were cruel in those times, but I don't think they were anything special (read that section about Constantinople in 602 in that first link, and think of Rome, the crusades, and the colonization of Africa, centuries later). They just happened to have the overhand for a while.
No questions about what you say. But I was specifically referring to what we now call Islamic terrorism with its hate for the western world and other religions. This seems to be new and kind of a response to the conduct of the western world.
It was a really horrible event and I'm ashamed that it ever happened. Whilst racial and ethnic tensions [1] have always existed in Indonesia to a certain degree, the event should not be a reflection of the general populace.
I would like to offer you some context FWIW.
Indonesia was in a really bad economic shape [2], the people were frustrated and angry, and were looking for someone to blame. There were already a lot of resentment due to the wealth disparity between the minority ethnic Chinese and the rest of the population, and the riots and violence escalated very quickly.
The Indonesian army could have defused the situation right away through intervention (i.e. deployment of troops), however they was seen as rather complicit in this event for their non-action. Looking back, the more plausible explanation is that they were busy with their own internal power struggles (there were strong rumours of a Coup de Etat, splitting the army depending on their support of Soeharto).
In the 15+ years since the event, the Indonesians have made significant efforts to repair the relationships with the minority ethnic Chinese, and some progress were made. Just to give two examples (which were unthought of in the Soeharto, New Order era):
Gus Dur (Abdurrahman Wahid), one of the President post-Soeharto, is a proponent of pluralism and provided significant goodwill by declaring Chinese New Year as one of the public holidays, and allowing the ethnic Chinese to publicly embrace their cultural heritage.
Ahok (Basuki Tjahaja Purnama) is the first ethnic Chinese Governor of Jakarta, the Indonesian capital. Despite constant opposition and smear campaign from fundamentalist Islamic parties, he is very popular and has a lot of support from the people.
Notes:
[1] - Indonesia has over 300 ethnic groups. Most people speak more than one `language`: `Bahasa Indonesia` and various local dialect(s).
[2] - Currency was highly devaluated (Rp.2000/$US down to Rp.10,000/$US), businesses closed down, and a lot of financial institutions went bankrupt and most of the surviving ones went to a firesale to foreign entities.
New phenomenon? Have you had your head in the sand?
Classical civilization was destroyed by Islam!
Headlines from a few Centuries ...
5th Century
- Spain: knights defeated and heads cut off, placed into a pile so high a man on horseback could not see over it.
7th Century
- Muhammad sends Khalid out, destroys Jazima tribe.
- Khalid at the Battle of Olayis spend 2 days rounding up the loses and cutting off their heads in a dry stream bed until it ran red with their blood.
- Khalid takes the Captain of the Zoroastrian tribe, cuts his head off and lets the blood drain into the soil then rapes the wife of the Captain on the bloody soil! This is the nature of Jihad!
- Umar's conquest of Jerusalem; makes all Christians and Jews dhimmis (3rd class semi-slave).
8th Century
- Attack on Sind: 26,000 Hindus slaughtered.
- Armenian Nobles and their families (children too) herded into a church and burned alive in it.
- Euphesus: 7,000 Greeks enslaved.
9th Century
- All new churches destroyed.
- Amorium: massive enslavement of ALL Christians.
- Egyptian Christians revolt over the jizyah (the dhimmis tax under Shariah).
10th Century
- Thessalonica: 22,000 Christians enslaved.
- Seville: All Christians massacred.
- 30,000 Churches destroyed in Egypt and Syria.
11th Century
- 6,000 Jews in Morocco murdered.
- Hundreds of Jews in Cordoba murdered.
- 4,000 Jews in Granada murdered.
- Georgia and Armenia invaded.
- Hindustan: 15,000 murdered; 500,000 enslaved.
12th Century
- Yemen: Jews forced to convert or die.
- Christians of Granada deported to Morocco.
- India: many cities wiped out, convert of die: 20,000 enslaved in a single town, the rest beheaded.
13th Century
- India: 50,000 Hindu slaves freed by conversion.
- 20 year campaign created 400,000 new Muslims out of Hindus.
- Buddhist monks butchered, nuns raped.
- Damascas and Safed: Christians mass murdered.
- Jews of Marrakeesh massacred
- Tabriz - forced conversion of Jews under threat of death.
Are you getting the TRUE PICTURE yet??
14th Century
- Cairo riots; churches burned.
- Jews of Tabriz forced to convert (see above)
- Tamerlane (makes Hitler look like a saint!) in India kills 90,000 in a single day.
- India: another 30,000 slain.
- Tughlaq took 180,000 slaves.
15th Century
- Tamerlane devastates 700 villages.
- Iraq: Tamerlane annihilated Nestorian and Jacobite Christians.
- Constantinople falls to Islam after 700 years of relentless wars.
16th Century
- India: son of Tamerlane destroyed temples, forced conversions.
- General build two towers of human heads following victories so high you could not see over them.
- Nobel women commit mass suicide to avoid sexual slavery and rape.
17th Century
- Jews of Yemen and Persia forced to convert or die.
- Greek Christians forced to convert or die.
- Persia: Zoroastrians persecution taken to new heights.
- India: 600,000 Hindus murdered by Akbar.
18th Century
- Zoroastrians nearly wiped out world wide as persecution increases.
- Jews of Jedda expelled.
- Jews of Morocco wiped out.
- Hindu persecution continues in increasing levels.
19th Century
- Iran: forced conversion of Jews (do I need to say it?) under pain of death.
- Jews of Baghdad wiped out.
- 250,000 Armenian Christians slaughtered in Turkey.
- Remaining Zoroastrians in Iran wiped out.
20th Century
- over 1,000,000 Turkish Armenians massacred in jihad.
Are you getting the drift on how BAD ISLAM is?
Let me say it again: Classical Civilization was DESTROYED by Islam!!
I'll play 'devil's advocate' here for a moment. I'll be sacrificing a lot of internet points, but I'm not in a great position to begin with. :)
Do let me pre-emptively say: I unequivocally condemn the recent killings of the cartoonists. I unequivocally support the right of anyone to say anything.
Okay, so there is something to consider here: indeed there are now more than a billion Muslims in the world who would not have killed these cartoonists, or even approve of the act of killing these cartoonists (I understand some will take issue with the latter part of my statement, this is just my current reading). Insofar as the 'I am Charlie' statement can be interpreted as approval of the supposedly offending cartoons, the statement could be said to be needlessly confrontational. It's turning things into a combative us (non-Muslims) vs them (Muslims) orientation. Look no further than this very cartoon for proof of this -- this is how these Muslim hacktivists interpreted Notepad++'s 'I am Charlie' stance.
I don't think this is strictly a freedom of speech issue. I saw a good example of this in a Reddit comment: when you enrage someone by calling them racist epithets, and they strike you back ... are the rest of you going to take the racist's side by repeating the racist epithet that invoked the retaliation? Mohammad is a very sacred symbol to Muslims, re-publishing offending material (and similarly approving of the cartoons by saying "I am Charlie") is just needlessly insulting and distressing the plenty of other moderate Muslims. The more this is done, the more those moderate Muslims will feel pressured and start to feel the need to also take a position... and guess whose side they will incline towards? They're surely not going to just throw away their religion, they'll probably verge toward an extremist position.
I'm only suggesting that the 'I am Charlie' sloganeering is a little too hastily thunk, a little too unthought. Of course absolutely everyone should have the right to say such a thing, but a mature and reasonable person would practice caution before saying it. I do admit though, that it's a bit of a challenge packing a sentiment like "I don't think Charlie cartoonists should have been killed, they should have the right to say or mock anyone, but I do generally disapprove of content that's racist, antisemitic, holocaust-denying, sexist, etc." into a nice 3-5 word long slogan.
Why is it so many bleeding heart liberals (coming from a fairly liberal person) defend a religion that treats women as second-class citizens so much? What's in it for them besides the right to be preachy?
Actually a slogan I saw a lot in the Marche republicaine here in France is:
I'm Muslim,
I'm Jewish,
I'm Christian,
I'm Atheist,
I'm a Policeman,
I'm Charlie
Which I think is much better and is a much more inclusive symbol.
The thing though is that Charlie Hebdo is not a publication that only published offensive cartoons about Mohammad, they published offensive cartoons about everybody and were quite equal handed in the offensiveness... It's very far from being a racist publication, on the contrary.
I actually didn't know about this (was out of France when it happened). Reading on it, it seems according to some articles by people familiar with the situation that part of the reason for this is that there was an internal conflict between the editor and Siné who used this to fire him.
I haven't read it that much (I read it a bit more when I was a student) but I definitely never associated that journal with racism in that they've always seemed equally handed in their offensiveness.
Now, you may come back to me and say that I don't understand the context. But you have to understand that sometimes it doesn't matter what the author meant, it matters what the most readily obvious interpretation is because that's how people will will take it. An author is partly responsible for being mindful of this, and good authors have a good understanding of this.
Just to let you know the context for the second drawing is that some far-right magazine had compared the Minister of Justice to a Monkey on the front page :
The drawing is actually denouncing the far-right by a play on word with "Rassemblement Bleu Marine" to "Rassemblement Bleu Racist".
At the time of the publishing, it would have been well understood by the readership this was not an attack on the Minister but rather on the far right.
Regarding the context, let me quote you Cardinal Richelieu:
"Give me six lines written by the most honorable of men, and I will find an excuse in them to hang him"
I don't think the sloganeering is hastily thought, I don't think it is thought at all. It doesn't need to be. Freedom of expression ingrained in Western culture and you would find it very difficult to believe someone should be executed for expressing an opinion. Fined, jailed, maybe, but never executed.
To think of 'I am Charlie' as supporting the cartoons themselves would require you divorce the victims from their fate. Essentially, you'd have to make a leap of logic, and focus on the selfish part (i.e. they offended Muslims) and at this point you no longer deal with rational argument.
Essentially the devil's advocate argument is 'a mature and reasonable person should practice caution before saying anything that may be taken out of context by any party that is sufficiently upset', which is nigh impossible.
True freedom of expression is not ingrained in Western culture, that's a myth. In Europe and in America as well, you either get your platform taken away or possibly face prison time when you say antisemtic stuff, when you say anti-black things, when you say hateful things, etc.
Where and who is arbitrarily drawing the lines for what constitutes permitted freedom of speech?
And, of course no-one (except fringe extremists lunatics) is saying execution of the cartoonists was an appropriate reaction to insulting cartoons.
A lot of people seem to feel that way. I don't get it though. Given the circumstances, you'd think everybody understands that the "je suis charlie" thing is just a gesture. And even if people intent insult when they use the phrase (to make a point, I guess) I still think that would be okay (given the circumstances).
// Funny how both you and the notepad++ people felt the need to add a disclaimer btw.
> Given the circumstances, you'd think everybody understands that the "je suis charlie" thing is just a gesture.
The popular sentiment on most forums (at least ones I've seen) seem to equation the 'je suis charlie' statement with effective re-publishing of the offending cartoons.
You've gotta understand that Mohammad is a very significant and sacred symbol to Muslims everywhere. Printing cartoons Mohammad doing weird things is pretty seriously distressing moderate Muslims -- it's like if someone in America were to making fun of black people being slaves -- it's a no-no, you don't go there, it crosses a line, it's insulting black people, why do that? Of course everyone should have the right to print absolutely anything, but we adults should distance ourselves from childish and belligerent content like that.
You can't control how people interpret what you say. Granted, in this case it wouldn't have been too hard, but that's not the point.
> You've gotta understand that Mohammad [...]
I do actually. You sound exactly like my muslim friends (living in Egypt, Turkey, those kind of places) so we can cut this one short. The rules concerning Mohammad contradict freedom of expression. That's what we end up agreeing upon every time.
> it's like if someone in America were to making fun of black people being slaves
Like every american stand-up ever?
> but we adults should distance ourselves from childish and belligerent content like that.
Fuck that.
---
The problem is the contradiction. The simplest and most cynical solution is to just not live there if you don't like the rules. That obviously doesn't seem to work. So we have people being upset in one country about what people in another country are doing. Happens all the time — we got rules for that at the UN. They don't seem to work either. Compromise is not an option, because both religion and freedom of speech are all-or-nothing kind of ideas. So there really are only two choices left. Getting over it or going to war. Most people don't like war, but apparently that changes if all you ever saw was war.
> The rules concerning Mohammad contradict freedom of expression.
It's really not as simple as that.
You have the "freedom" to do anything, what matters is what kind of consequences there will be after exercising that freedom. If you say antisemtic or racist things, you're going to get your platform taken away from you. If you're a CEO, you'll be fired (and if you control the board -- well, other companies will distance themselves from you, boycotts will take place, etc.). Would you say the laws governing antisemitism contradict freedom of speech? Indeed Charlie's cartoonists were fired for this, see:
I don't know of any popular American stand-up who can get away with saying anti-black things. Mel Gibson ruined his career by saying a few n-words and some antisemitic slurs, and he was a pretty big guy in the industry. Helen Thomas ruined her legacy by saying something antisemitic. No, there's no such thing as absolute, true freedom of speech. You can't say bigoted things in this day and age and survive.
I can't tell if we agree that they shouldn't have fired the guy. CEOs and politicians are a different thing because they represent people (or are supposed to anyway). As far as firing normal people goes, I'm not sure. I guess you'd want the right to fire bigots, but you also want to protect employees from bigots at the same time.
Shouldn't be too hard to find many american comedians saying pretty outrages stuff on youtube. You can look that up yourself I guess. Mel Gibson isn't funny.
> You can't say bigoted things in this day and age and survive.
But that's exactly how comedy works. The point is comedians don't mean it. Mel Gibson probably did mean those things, but the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists didn't. They literally made a living drawing funny things they didn't mean. And everybody knows that. You don't have to think they're funny, of course, but we as a society have agreed upon that stopping them because of that can't be an option either.
It struck me as a resonant response to the proclamation of empathy made by France's newspaper (Le Monde) after the 9/11 attacks: "Today we are all American" [http://www.history.com/topics/reaction-to-9-11].
Truly. Had it not been for France, the Colonies would have remained under the auspices of the King of England. Likewise had it not been for the Colonies, the French, and indeed the whole of Europe, would most likely be speaking German today (perhaps - few today are familiar with the ties the Nazis had with radical Islam in the 30's and 40's) I firmly believe that had the Allies lost the war, Europe would have finally succumbed to Islamic Jihad much faster than it is today.
France has 5,000,000+ Muslims; In Italy, the fastest growing "religion" is Muslim and it's also the second most practiced "religion" there today and closing much too fast for my tastes. I put religion in quotes because I do not believe, now, nor will I ever believe that Islam is a religion. It is a cult created and pushed by a sadistic, ego maniacal, self obsessed rapist and murderer seeking only to justify his tastes for evil, death, destruction and misery.
I pray for Muslims worldwide, that they find the light that is Jesus and through HIM, find their way to the true Father. Allah is but Satan in disguise and Satan is the FATHER of ALL LIES!
There are not a billion Muslims who would not have killed! Sure there are a few "radicals" that want all infidels beheaded but the remaining Muslims want the radicals to do the beheading.
For it says in the Qur'an Surat At-Tawbah 9:5 - And when the sacred months have passed, then kill the polytheists wherever you find them and capture them and besiege them and sit in wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they should repent, establish prayer, and give zakah, let them [go] on their way. Indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.
They would emphatically say no, but the Trinity suggests otherwise.
Three distinct entities, with distinct personalities, goals and natures: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Son forgives easily, the Father holds grudges for generations. It's an unforgivable sin to blaspheme against one, but not the others. Meanwhile, the description of the Trinity as essentially distinct aspects of a single being is similar to some interpretations of Hinduism. There is at least a superficial (and not at all radical) case to be made that Christianity is monotheistic in name only.
So would, or do, Muslims consider Christians to be polytheists? I don't know. But it seems they would need to for that verse to really apply.
Although... Christian teaching holds the Old Testament to be as sacred and inerrant as the New, and that has many examples of God (the Father) commanding His people to stone the unclean and murder the infidels (which at the time would be anyone not a Jew, because of course the God of Israel was, exclusively, the God of Israel, (until He wasn't)) and the Book of Revelations is almost entirely about a holy war between Christians and Everyone and Everything Else.
Yet, I doubt you would find the majority of Christians or Jews holding to such a violent and literal interpretation of scripture. Some, yes, obviously. In the US at least, apocalyptic Christian theology is big business (just see the Left Behind and assorted clones in any bookstore) and big politics.
Nevertheless, it is no more the case that all Muslims want the infidels dead (but only a few are willing to pull the trigger) than it is that all Christians want every woman on her period within the city limits to be stoned to death. The truth is, most religious people are hypocrites, and the world remains the better for it, and both Islam and Christianity could (and have, now and then) justify genocide and hate with their Scriptures if they wanted, because both religions come from a time when those were SOP for religions and societies.
To be very clear I'm am not defending the attack on Notepad ++!
> Defending yourself doesn't mean attacking ...
Here in the U.S. there's a common sports phrase, "The best defense is a good offense." This carries over into our military policies. For example, while other countries may benefit from our military presence, the reason we send our military into a situation is to protect the U.S.. There may be an immediate benefit of protection or it may be a long-play protection (e.g. "placate the nationals so we aren't contributing to the future pool of terrorists"), but ultimately we send our military in to protect ourselves and this is frequently a preemptive defense that can be seen as offensively attacking.
Again, I'm not condoning any terrorist attack, I'm just not buying your statement that "Defending yourself doesn't mean attacking..." I'm also not saying that preemptive offense is a moral correct policy; just that it is a common policy.
What the United States are doing in the Middle East is not morally okay. Not even close. At best it kind of works.
EDIT: If you have 45 minutes, here [1] is a show by German political cabaret artist Volker Pispers rushing through half a century of history with heavy focus on the USA in the Middle East. With English subtitles. It's a disturbing mix between fun and contempt for mankind.
>how does coming to the aide and support of a group that was brutally attacked mean that they are in turn attacking the group that did the attacking?
It's in the same way an abusive parent will see a child defending the abused parent as attacking the abusive parent --when what the child is doing is defending the other parent.
Little children, watching their heroes murder people and then playing at being big men by writing on the internet. Defacing something so amateurishly that if I stuck it on my fridge people would ask if my five year old child did it. To be taken about as seriously.
Careful. These "Little Children" are showing us more and more how violent and ruthless they can be. And the arrogance of your end statement reinforces their point. Clearly English isn't their first language yet you belittle them and call them children. You said it best, big man, writing on the internet.
Careful. These "Little Children" are showing us more and more how violent and ruthless they can be.
They defaced a webpage. I don't consider that to be very violent. In a fistfight, I'll take a club with a nail in it over the awesome power of defacing a webpage every time.
I do not belittle them for a poor grasp of English (which, actually, is not very poor). I belittle them because they defaced a webpage, and with a very childish message. It says little more than "I was here".
Samuel Huntington's thesis about the Clash of Civilisations has been thoroughly criticised since he originally proposed it, and yet in some ways the world is increasingly taking the shape he imagined. It would have been wise to treat it as a warning and take precautionary measurers instead; perhaps it is not too late.
It was criticized on academic and theoretical grounds. In his field (International Relations) there are hundreds if not thousands of people all producing a lot of dialogue and research relating to overarching models for how states interact. They've been at this for a very long time.
If you want a book deal, though, you ditch all of this work and just paint broad, easily-digestible strokes over everything. In this case, he's throwing social constructivist research into norms and sub/super-state influencers out the window and claiming the world runs on civilizations. You can probably think through how this might not be the case by considering the role of economics, individuals, and strategic alliances in international politics.
> Because the last notepad++ version (6.7.4) named "JE SUIS CHARLIE" !
> So you think that Islam is terrorist !
I don’t understand the transition between these two lines.
You’ll also note the space before punctuation marks, which is typical of French speakers writing in English (e.g. “something !” instead of “something!”). This is not a surprise, since those who defaced the site claim to be from Tunisia, a country where most of the population speak French.
I'm French, I think I can speak/write English reasonably well, but I still have to correct myself sometimes over punctuations rules, yes. The rule I was taught is "every punctuation character that has a part over the writing line has a space before it".
> I don’t understand the transition between these two lines.
To the rational mind, there isn't one.
To the paranoid, conspiracist, conspiracy-theory-believing mind which sees plots behind every bush and believes whole groups of people can be defined the way you define individuals, it's obvious: You're against an action done by members of a group (as they define it), so you must hate that group the way you hate the people who did the action, so you must be a member of a group which conspires to hurt their group. Note how they immediately drug Israel into the discussion; to some conspiracy theorists, Israel is Pure Evil manifest on Earth, causing endless trouble for all good and righteous human beings, so everyone who is against them must have been duped by Israel and Jews in general.
This is by no means limited to Muslim nutballs, BTW. Alex Jones frequently goes on anti-Zionist tirades, where "Zionist" is his code for "Jew" in markets where blatant antisemitism doesn't sell very well. A lot of 9/11 "truthers" also believe Israel is involved as well, because anything which makes any group of Muslims look bad must have been done by the enemies of Muslims, the Jews. Yes, that's pretty much the depth of their analysis.
From the archive of the hacked site: "So you think that Islam is terrorist !"
From the explanation of the "Je suis Charlie" release note: "For this reason, Je suis Charlie, not because I endorse everything they published, but because I cherish the right to speak out freely without risk even when it offends others."
Clearly the Notepad++ team is blanket targeting Islam. /sarcasm
Everyone seems to be missing the point. They list terrible atrocities that don't get even close to the same outcry from the world as the attacks in Paris.
The hackers should have also listed the Battle of Tours (732) and the Battle of Vienna (1683) where many Muslims were killed by insensitive Europeans. Where's the outcry about that?
tl;dr - You're confused about the definition of terrorism.
terrorism or not terrorism?
[ ] 9/11
[ ] US drone attacks
[ ] Charlie Hebdo
[ ] Pearl Harbor
[ ] Hiroshima
[ ] mugging
[ ] insult
Neither you nor I get the "right" to redefine words as we see fit after they have been defined. Invent another word. "State terrorism" could be a rather contentious term for "war" and calls into question your motives.
I hope they deface http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/ next, possibly improving the current design and pissing of the STALLMAN, drawing the first blood. I'll tell ya folks, when #JeSuisGnu is trending, full wrath of Stallman will be unleashed, then and only then the world will know real religious fanaticism. ISIS aint got shit on alt.religion.emacs
Seems like the best way to root out terrorists is to post Mohammad everywhere and go after the people who have a problem with it. It's an easy way to root out extremists.
These people don't even understand why Mohammad didn't want his picture public..it is so people wouldn't 'WORSHIP' him.. making fun of him as "just a man" is not worshiping him.. It is in bounds.. The nut balls should attack people who make comic illustrations WORSHIPING and RESPECTING Mohammad.. Because that is what he (Mohammad) didn't want people to do.
Its just whack a doodle stuff.. Actually I think these nut balls (Violent Muslims) are disenfranchised people and really are just using the "Mohammad" thing as an excuse to go nuts.
Seems like the best way to root out terrorists is to post Mohammad everywhere and go after the people who have a problem with it. It's an easy way to root out extremists.
These people don't even understand why Mohammad didn't want his picture public..it is so people wouldn't 'WORSHIP' him.. making fun of him as "just a man" is not worshiping him.. It is in bounds.. The nut balls should attack people who make comic illustrations WORSHIPING and RESPECTING Mohammad.. Because that is what he (Mohammad) didn't want people to do.
Its just whack a doodle stuff.. Actually I think these nut balls (Violent Muslims) are disenfranchised people and really are just using the "Mohammad" thing as an excuse to go nuts.
JE SUIS CHARLIE is a movement that condemns killing. It is a movement for freedom and freedom of expression. Some people seem to be pissed off because the killings that started the movement were not the ones that happened before or will happen later. That's plain stupid.
After reading comments about this topic, I see a pattern, people blaming religion or/and country for atrocities on human beings. We are human beings first, so trying to justify killing your fellow human being because of religion/country or for wealth suggests we have lost our way and soon we will have another world war and many more after that. Let’s learn to forgive and instead of killing lets have dialogue
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[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 119 ms ] threadEdit: I am also curious, the language indicates that the hackers feel it is countries versus religion. The actions of someone who believes in a religion do not define the religion. If I do a terrorist act and say it was for my religion, that does not make my religion a terrorist, but it does make me a terrorist. Do the perpetrators of these attacks feel it is countries against religion, or is that just the shield they want to use.
The political idea that a society should be run according to the principles of Islam is sometimes called "Islamism". A huge reason there isn't much "Christianism" today is that the New Testament was written by people who didn't have much power and so focused on peaceful proselytizing. That is not to say that the Church and other institutions didn't at times wield great political power and seek to maintain it. But rather that the WRITINGS advocate for more like anarchism than a philosophy that encourages converting others by the sword.
Judaism has never placed emphasis on proselytizing - whether by the sword or not. It had a much more exclusive character so there is no sense that Jews living in a democratic country would dream of converting that country's structure to one that follows the rules laid out in the Torah.
So Islam in a political and cultural sense is closer to Communism than Judaism and Christianity. And we see much of the same dynamics. McCarthyism in the USA and the Red Scare are now replaced with fear of radical Islam.
It seems like the Bible did that, too.
I mean, have you even casually glanced at the history of the West?
> The political idea that a society should be run according to the principles of Islam is sometimes called "Islamism". A huge reason there isn't much "Christianism" today is that the New Testament was written by people who didn't have much power and so focused on peaceful proselytizing.
"Christianism" is one of the solid bases of support for the political Right in the USA. To say that there isn't much of it in the world is, well, completely misguided.
> But rather that the WRITINGS advocate for more like anarchism than a philosophy that encourages converting others by the sword.
If you view the "writings of Christianity" as the New Testament only, that might be defensible, but actual Christians generally don't, and much Christianism -- which is nowhere near as elusive as you make it out to be -- is based very strongly on particular interpretations of the Old Testament (and particular interpretations of the New Testament that make those interpretations of the Old Testament valid for Christians.)
> It had a much more exclusive character so there is no sense that Jews living in a democratic country would dream of converting that country's structure to one that follows the rules laid out in the Torah.
Yeah, I mean, its inconceivable that, for instance, a Jewish-majority democracy would, for instance, prohibit grocery stores from remaining open on Saturday's because of the importance of maintaining the Sabbath [0].
[0] http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.601972
Islamism urges for instituting sharia courts for instance, with judges trained in Islamic law, which includes the death penalty for homosexual sex provided that it is sufficiently proven and the person is unrepentant. Comparing that with the attitudes of the Christian right today yields a vastly different level of punishment in their policy prescriptions. Opposing the state officiating gay marriage and killing homosexuals are two vastly different levels of enforcement. I'm not just picking on Islam here - homosexuality is illegal in India for instance, largely because of Hinduism.
And anyway I am talking about Muslims living in say Sweden who would support the overthrow of its liberal democracy in favor of an Islamic state.
As for the "elisiveness" of Christianism, by every measure it is far less. The number of radical Islamist groups in the world is far greater. I think the Lord's Resistance Army is an example of an actual Christianist group, and even it formed in response to Islamist groups UPDF and NRA committing genocide. One may also count the KKK as a "Christianist" group in some sense although they were more white supremacists. I see this dearth of Christianist revolutionaries today because the writings have very little that necessitates conquering other societies by the sword.
As for Jews... I said that they aren't looking to take over OTHER countries to run them by the principles of the Torah because those principles were spelled out ONLY for Jews. Now of course some Jews were involved in organizing revolutions but as Communists for example. Trotsky and Sverdlov did not consider themselves very Jewish, and they certainly were animated by another ideology.
As for Israel having certain laws such as no public transportation on Saturdays, that is again not at all the same as conquering other countries NOR even restricting others' religious freedoms. Anyone is free to keep their store open on Saturday. France's majority french population "forces" all the government offices closed on Bastille day. USA post offices are closed on Sundays. I think equivocating between that and, say, preventing women from driving, is a bit disingenuous.
Look I will put it simply: there is one religion that has led to more countries with an official State Religion than all others, and among these countries are some of the only ones that crack down on Christians and openly deny Jews entry. You can see that religion in this map:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_religion
I have several friends who are Muslims and I have spoken to Muslims as well as Arabs from all over the world. Many agree that Islamism is dangerous and are not in favor of it. But many are in favor of it and I am worried they would support Islamism if it became an issue the same way Germans who weren't super pro Nazism nevertheless helped bring the Nazis to take absolute control of Germany:
http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religi...
See what happens when it's worded in a certain way:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeC2OLv_Fhw
That's not a lot of steps from having people help out in a revolution that will restrict some group's human rights.
I don't disagree that violent Islamism is a particular problem in the world today, probably moreso than violent extremism leveraging any other religion; where I disagree is with your claim in the previous post that this is due to a fundamental difference between Islam and other religions rather than a difference in present circumstances. And I think that distinction is important because confusing the need to fight Islamism with a need to fight Islam changes fighting violentrepressive religious extremism to using repressive religious extremism as an excuse for violent repressive extremism on the basis of religion.
http://corpus.quran.com/translation.jsp?chapter=8&verse=67
Tell me where do you have a comparable verse in the NT? These pronouncements have been interpreted to apply to modern times as well, since Muslims are to emulate Mohammad. That is what I mean.
Look I could be wrong and at the end of the day the only danger I see is in the political and violent aspects of the writings, as something that makes it hard to separate Mosque and State given enough people. It's a "rule of the game" that you can't jettison as easily as Christians can. That's what I meant.
The earlier Romans and later Europeans, starting with Charlemagne and the Vikings in the 8th century, make up for that, though.
Muslims were cruel in those times, but I don't think they were anything special (read that section about Constantinople in 602 in that first link, and think of Rome, the crusades, and the colonization of Africa, centuries later). They just happened to have the overhand for a while.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_1998_riots_of_Indonesia
I would like to offer you some context FWIW.
Indonesia was in a really bad economic shape [2], the people were frustrated and angry, and were looking for someone to blame. There were already a lot of resentment due to the wealth disparity between the minority ethnic Chinese and the rest of the population, and the riots and violence escalated very quickly.
The Indonesian army could have defused the situation right away through intervention (i.e. deployment of troops), however they was seen as rather complicit in this event for their non-action. Looking back, the more plausible explanation is that they were busy with their own internal power struggles (there were strong rumours of a Coup de Etat, splitting the army depending on their support of Soeharto).
In the 15+ years since the event, the Indonesians have made significant efforts to repair the relationships with the minority ethnic Chinese, and some progress were made. Just to give two examples (which were unthought of in the Soeharto, New Order era):
Gus Dur (Abdurrahman Wahid), one of the President post-Soeharto, is a proponent of pluralism and provided significant goodwill by declaring Chinese New Year as one of the public holidays, and allowing the ethnic Chinese to publicly embrace their cultural heritage.
Ahok (Basuki Tjahaja Purnama) is the first ethnic Chinese Governor of Jakarta, the Indonesian capital. Despite constant opposition and smear campaign from fundamentalist Islamic parties, he is very popular and has a lot of support from the people.
Notes:
[1] - Indonesia has over 300 ethnic groups. Most people speak more than one `language`: `Bahasa Indonesia` and various local dialect(s).
[2] - Currency was highly devaluated (Rp.2000/$US down to Rp.10,000/$US), businesses closed down, and a lot of financial institutions went bankrupt and most of the surviving ones went to a firesale to foreign entities.
Classical civilization was destroyed by Islam!
Headlines from a few Centuries ...
5th Century - Spain: knights defeated and heads cut off, placed into a pile so high a man on horseback could not see over it.
7th Century - Muhammad sends Khalid out, destroys Jazima tribe. - Khalid at the Battle of Olayis spend 2 days rounding up the loses and cutting off their heads in a dry stream bed until it ran red with their blood. - Khalid takes the Captain of the Zoroastrian tribe, cuts his head off and lets the blood drain into the soil then rapes the wife of the Captain on the bloody soil! This is the nature of Jihad! - Umar's conquest of Jerusalem; makes all Christians and Jews dhimmis (3rd class semi-slave).
8th Century - Attack on Sind: 26,000 Hindus slaughtered. - Armenian Nobles and their families (children too) herded into a church and burned alive in it. - Euphesus: 7,000 Greeks enslaved.
9th Century - All new churches destroyed. - Amorium: massive enslavement of ALL Christians. - Egyptian Christians revolt over the jizyah (the dhimmis tax under Shariah).
10th Century - Thessalonica: 22,000 Christians enslaved. - Seville: All Christians massacred. - 30,000 Churches destroyed in Egypt and Syria.
11th Century - 6,000 Jews in Morocco murdered. - Hundreds of Jews in Cordoba murdered. - 4,000 Jews in Granada murdered. - Georgia and Armenia invaded. - Hindustan: 15,000 murdered; 500,000 enslaved.
12th Century - Yemen: Jews forced to convert or die. - Christians of Granada deported to Morocco. - India: many cities wiped out, convert of die: 20,000 enslaved in a single town, the rest beheaded.
13th Century - India: 50,000 Hindu slaves freed by conversion. - 20 year campaign created 400,000 new Muslims out of Hindus. - Buddhist monks butchered, nuns raped. - Damascas and Safed: Christians mass murdered. - Jews of Marrakeesh massacred - Tabriz - forced conversion of Jews under threat of death.
Are you getting the TRUE PICTURE yet??
14th Century - Cairo riots; churches burned. - Jews of Tabriz forced to convert (see above) - Tamerlane (makes Hitler look like a saint!) in India kills 90,000 in a single day. - India: another 30,000 slain. - Tughlaq took 180,000 slaves.
15th Century - Tamerlane devastates 700 villages. - Iraq: Tamerlane annihilated Nestorian and Jacobite Christians. - Constantinople falls to Islam after 700 years of relentless wars.
16th Century - India: son of Tamerlane destroyed temples, forced conversions. - General build two towers of human heads following victories so high you could not see over them. - Nobel women commit mass suicide to avoid sexual slavery and rape.
17th Century - Jews of Yemen and Persia forced to convert or die. - Greek Christians forced to convert or die. - Persia: Zoroastrians persecution taken to new heights. - India: 600,000 Hindus murdered by Akbar.
18th Century - Zoroastrians nearly wiped out world wide as persecution increases. - Jews of Jedda expelled. - Jews of Morocco wiped out. - Hindu persecution continues in increasing levels.
19th Century - Iran: forced conversion of Jews (do I need to say it?) under pain of death. - Jews of Baghdad wiped out. - 250,000 Armenian Christians slaughtered in Turkey. - Remaining Zoroastrians in Iran wiped out.
20th Century - over 1,000,000 Turkish Armenians massacred in jihad.
Are you getting the drift on how BAD ISLAM is?
Let me say it again: Classical Civilization was DESTROYED by Islam!!
Do let me pre-emptively say: I unequivocally condemn the recent killings of the cartoonists. I unequivocally support the right of anyone to say anything.
Okay, so there is something to consider here: indeed there are now more than a billion Muslims in the world who would not have killed these cartoonists, or even approve of the act of killing these cartoonists (I understand some will take issue with the latter part of my statement, this is just my current reading). Insofar as the 'I am Charlie' statement can be interpreted as approval of the supposedly offending cartoons, the statement could be said to be needlessly confrontational. It's turning things into a combative us (non-Muslims) vs them (Muslims) orientation. Look no further than this very cartoon for proof of this -- this is how these Muslim hacktivists interpreted Notepad++'s 'I am Charlie' stance.
I don't think this is strictly a freedom of speech issue. I saw a good example of this in a Reddit comment: when you enrage someone by calling them racist epithets, and they strike you back ... are the rest of you going to take the racist's side by repeating the racist epithet that invoked the retaliation? Mohammad is a very sacred symbol to Muslims, re-publishing offending material (and similarly approving of the cartoons by saying "I am Charlie") is just needlessly insulting and distressing the plenty of other moderate Muslims. The more this is done, the more those moderate Muslims will feel pressured and start to feel the need to also take a position... and guess whose side they will incline towards? They're surely not going to just throw away their religion, they'll probably verge toward an extremist position.
I'm only suggesting that the 'I am Charlie' sloganeering is a little too hastily thunk, a little too unthought. Of course absolutely everyone should have the right to say such a thing, but a mature and reasonable person would practice caution before saying it. I do admit though, that it's a bit of a challenge packing a sentiment like "I don't think Charlie cartoonists should have been killed, they should have the right to say or mock anyone, but I do generally disapprove of content that's racist, antisemitic, holocaust-denying, sexist, etc." into a nice 3-5 word long slogan.
I'm Muslim, I'm Jewish, I'm Christian, I'm Atheist, I'm a Policeman, I'm Charlie
Which I think is much better and is a much more inclusive symbol.
The thing though is that Charlie Hebdo is not a publication that only published offensive cartoons about Mohammad, they published offensive cartoons about everybody and were quite equal handed in the offensiveness... It's very far from being a racist publication, on the contrary.
In term of drawings, there's been a few offensive cartoons of jewish as well as christians (but then again, their caricatures and drawings have traditionally always been more offensive than their columns). See for example: http://www.jewpop.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/ROD0070417.... or http://www.jewpop.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/antisemitis...
I haven't read it that much (I read it a bit more when I was a student) but I definitely never associated that journal with racism in that they've always seemed equally handed in their offensiveness.
After the boko haram kidnapping of many, many young girls, Charlie Hedbo's cover featured the girls saying "Where's my handout?" http://qph.is.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-ddd3904e07d024cc09ecc4d...
That seems to me pretty much as racist as you can get.
Aaaand here's another one: http://qph.is.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-a262d9096f3a68dd274198c...
Now, you may come back to me and say that I don't understand the context. But you have to understand that sometimes it doesn't matter what the author meant, it matters what the most readily obvious interpretation is because that's how people will will take it. An author is partly responsible for being mindful of this, and good authors have a good understanding of this.
http://www.france24.com/en/20131113-france-racism-black-mini...
The drawing is actually denouncing the far-right by a play on word with "Rassemblement Bleu Marine" to "Rassemblement Bleu Racist".
At the time of the publishing, it would have been well understood by the readership this was not an attack on the Minister but rather on the far right.
Regarding the context, let me quote you Cardinal Richelieu: "Give me six lines written by the most honorable of men, and I will find an excuse in them to hang him"
To think of 'I am Charlie' as supporting the cartoons themselves would require you divorce the victims from their fate. Essentially, you'd have to make a leap of logic, and focus on the selfish part (i.e. they offended Muslims) and at this point you no longer deal with rational argument.
Essentially the devil's advocate argument is 'a mature and reasonable person should practice caution before saying anything that may be taken out of context by any party that is sufficiently upset', which is nigh impossible.
Where and who is arbitrarily drawing the lines for what constitutes permitted freedom of speech?
And, of course no-one (except fringe extremists lunatics) is saying execution of the cartoonists was an appropriate reaction to insulting cartoons.
Not so much(it is only for things westeros are not emotional of)
http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/3/5578984/mozilla-ceo-resigns...
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/07/02/tech/social-media/facebook...
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/john-galliano-fired-anti...
http://greece.greekreporter.com/2014/03/02/greek-doctor-arre...
If you can not call things by their true colors you have nothing and will lose all you thought you had.
// Funny how both you and the notepad++ people felt the need to add a disclaimer btw.
The popular sentiment on most forums (at least ones I've seen) seem to equation the 'je suis charlie' statement with effective re-publishing of the offending cartoons.
You've gotta understand that Mohammad is a very significant and sacred symbol to Muslims everywhere. Printing cartoons Mohammad doing weird things is pretty seriously distressing moderate Muslims -- it's like if someone in America were to making fun of black people being slaves -- it's a no-no, you don't go there, it crosses a line, it's insulting black people, why do that? Of course everyone should have the right to print absolutely anything, but we adults should distance ourselves from childish and belligerent content like that.
You can't control how people interpret what you say. Granted, in this case it wouldn't have been too hard, but that's not the point.
> You've gotta understand that Mohammad [...]
I do actually. You sound exactly like my muslim friends (living in Egypt, Turkey, those kind of places) so we can cut this one short. The rules concerning Mohammad contradict freedom of expression. That's what we end up agreeing upon every time.
> it's like if someone in America were to making fun of black people being slaves
Like every american stand-up ever?
> but we adults should distance ourselves from childish and belligerent content like that.
Fuck that.
---
The problem is the contradiction. The simplest and most cynical solution is to just not live there if you don't like the rules. That obviously doesn't seem to work. So we have people being upset in one country about what people in another country are doing. Happens all the time — we got rules for that at the UN. They don't seem to work either. Compromise is not an option, because both religion and freedom of speech are all-or-nothing kind of ideas. So there really are only two choices left. Getting over it or going to war. Most people don't like war, but apparently that changes if all you ever saw was war.
It's really not as simple as that.
You have the "freedom" to do anything, what matters is what kind of consequences there will be after exercising that freedom. If you say antisemtic or racist things, you're going to get your platform taken away from you. If you're a CEO, you'll be fired (and if you control the board -- well, other companies will distance themselves from you, boycotts will take place, etc.). Would you say the laws governing antisemitism contradict freedom of speech? Indeed Charlie's cartoonists were fired for this, see:
1) http://www.worldbulletin.net/news/152585/charlie-hebdo-fired...
2) http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/frame_game/2...
> Like every american stand-up ever?
I don't know of any popular American stand-up who can get away with saying anti-black things. Mel Gibson ruined his career by saying a few n-words and some antisemitic slurs, and he was a pretty big guy in the industry. Helen Thomas ruined her legacy by saying something antisemitic. No, there's no such thing as absolute, true freedom of speech. You can't say bigoted things in this day and age and survive.
Shouldn't be too hard to find many american comedians saying pretty outrages stuff on youtube. You can look that up yourself I guess. Mel Gibson isn't funny.
> You can't say bigoted things in this day and age and survive.
But that's exactly how comedy works. The point is comedians don't mean it. Mel Gibson probably did mean those things, but the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists didn't. They literally made a living drawing funny things they didn't mean. And everybody knows that. You don't have to think they're funny, of course, but we as a society have agreed upon that stopping them because of that can't be an option either.
France has 5,000,000+ Muslims; In Italy, the fastest growing "religion" is Muslim and it's also the second most practiced "religion" there today and closing much too fast for my tastes. I put religion in quotes because I do not believe, now, nor will I ever believe that Islam is a religion. It is a cult created and pushed by a sadistic, ego maniacal, self obsessed rapist and murderer seeking only to justify his tastes for evil, death, destruction and misery.
I pray for Muslims worldwide, that they find the light that is Jesus and through HIM, find their way to the true Father. Allah is but Satan in disguise and Satan is the FATHER of ALL LIES!
There are not a billion Muslims who would not have killed! Sure there are a few "radicals" that want all infidels beheaded but the remaining Muslims want the radicals to do the beheading.
For it says in the Qur'an Surat At-Tawbah 9:5 - And when the sacred months have passed, then kill the polytheists wherever you find them and capture them and besiege them and sit in wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they should repent, establish prayer, and give zakah, let them [go] on their way. Indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.
Let me rephrase for you: convert or die.
They would emphatically say no, but the Trinity suggests otherwise.
Three distinct entities, with distinct personalities, goals and natures: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Son forgives easily, the Father holds grudges for generations. It's an unforgivable sin to blaspheme against one, but not the others. Meanwhile, the description of the Trinity as essentially distinct aspects of a single being is similar to some interpretations of Hinduism. There is at least a superficial (and not at all radical) case to be made that Christianity is monotheistic in name only.
So would, or do, Muslims consider Christians to be polytheists? I don't know. But it seems they would need to for that verse to really apply.
Although... Christian teaching holds the Old Testament to be as sacred and inerrant as the New, and that has many examples of God (the Father) commanding His people to stone the unclean and murder the infidels (which at the time would be anyone not a Jew, because of course the God of Israel was, exclusively, the God of Israel, (until He wasn't)) and the Book of Revelations is almost entirely about a holy war between Christians and Everyone and Everything Else.
Yet, I doubt you would find the majority of Christians or Jews holding to such a violent and literal interpretation of scripture. Some, yes, obviously. In the US at least, apocalyptic Christian theology is big business (just see the Left Behind and assorted clones in any bookstore) and big politics.
Nevertheless, it is no more the case that all Muslims want the infidels dead (but only a few are willing to pull the trigger) than it is that all Christians want every woman on her period within the city limits to be stoned to death. The truth is, most religious people are hypocrites, and the world remains the better for it, and both Islam and Christianity could (and have, now and then) justify genocide and hate with their Scriptures if they wanted, because both religions come from a time when those were SOP for religions and societies.
> Defending yourself doesn't mean attacking ...
Here in the U.S. there's a common sports phrase, "The best defense is a good offense." This carries over into our military policies. For example, while other countries may benefit from our military presence, the reason we send our military into a situation is to protect the U.S.. There may be an immediate benefit of protection or it may be a long-play protection (e.g. "placate the nationals so we aren't contributing to the future pool of terrorists"), but ultimately we send our military in to protect ourselves and this is frequently a preemptive defense that can be seen as offensively attacking.
Again, I'm not condoning any terrorist attack, I'm just not buying your statement that "Defending yourself doesn't mean attacking..." I'm also not saying that preemptive offense is a moral correct policy; just that it is a common policy.
EDIT: If you have 45 minutes, here [1] is a show by German political cabaret artist Volker Pispers rushing through half a century of history with heavy focus on the USA in the Middle East. With English subtitles. It's a disturbing mix between fun and contempt for mankind.
[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG0Ql0VfcRg
It's in the same way an abusive parent will see a child defending the abused parent as attacking the abusive parent --when what the child is doing is defending the other parent.
They defaced a webpage. I don't consider that to be very violent. In a fistfight, I'll take a club with a nail in it over the awesome power of defacing a webpage every time.
I do not belittle them for a poor grasp of English (which, actually, is not very poor). I belittle them because they defaced a webpage, and with a very childish message. It says little more than "I was here".
I'm sure they would be offended. freedom of expression, freedom of speech, was first declared an inalienable right during the French Revolution of 1789. http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Declaration_of_the_Rights_of_Man_...
If you want a book deal, though, you ditch all of this work and just paint broad, easily-digestible strokes over everything. In this case, he's throwing social constructivist research into norms and sub/super-state influencers out the window and claiming the world runs on civilizations. You can probably think through how this might not be the case by considering the role of economics, individuals, and strategic alliances in international politics.
You’ll also note the space before punctuation marks, which is typical of French speakers writing in English (e.g. “something !” instead of “something!”). This is not a surprise, since those who defaced the site claim to be from Tunisia, a country where most of the population speak French.
To the rational mind, there isn't one.
To the paranoid, conspiracist, conspiracy-theory-believing mind which sees plots behind every bush and believes whole groups of people can be defined the way you define individuals, it's obvious: You're against an action done by members of a group (as they define it), so you must hate that group the way you hate the people who did the action, so you must be a member of a group which conspires to hurt their group. Note how they immediately drug Israel into the discussion; to some conspiracy theorists, Israel is Pure Evil manifest on Earth, causing endless trouble for all good and righteous human beings, so everyone who is against them must have been duped by Israel and Jews in general.
This is by no means limited to Muslim nutballs, BTW. Alex Jones frequently goes on anti-Zionist tirades, where "Zionist" is his code for "Jew" in markets where blatant antisemitism doesn't sell very well. A lot of 9/11 "truthers" also believe Israel is involved as well, because anything which makes any group of Muslims look bad must have been done by the enemies of Muslims, the Jews. Yes, that's pretty much the depth of their analysis.
[1] http://www.liberation.fr/societe/2015/01/12/mahomet-en-une-d...
From the explanation of the "Je suis Charlie" release note: "For this reason, Je suis Charlie, not because I endorse everything they published, but because I cherish the right to speak out freely without risk even when it offends others."
Clearly the Notepad++ team is blanket targeting Islam. /sarcasm
tl;dr - You're confused about the definition of terrorism.
Sure not, it is not terrorism if you get the right do define it!
Neither you nor I get the "right" to redefine words as we see fit after they have been defined. Invent another word. "State terrorism" could be a rather contentious term for "war" and calls into question your motives.
These people don't even understand why Mohammad didn't want his picture public..it is so people wouldn't 'WORSHIP' him.. making fun of him as "just a man" is not worshiping him.. It is in bounds.. The nut balls should attack people who make comic illustrations WORSHIPING and RESPECTING Mohammad.. Because that is what he (Mohammad) didn't want people to do.
Its just whack a doodle stuff.. Actually I think these nut balls (Violent Muslims) are disenfranchised people and really are just using the "Mohammad" thing as an excuse to go nuts.
These people don't even understand why Mohammad didn't want his picture public..it is so people wouldn't 'WORSHIP' him.. making fun of him as "just a man" is not worshiping him.. It is in bounds.. The nut balls should attack people who make comic illustrations WORSHIPING and RESPECTING Mohammad.. Because that is what he (Mohammad) didn't want people to do.
Its just whack a doodle stuff.. Actually I think these nut balls (Violent Muslims) are disenfranchised people and really are just using the "Mohammad" thing as an excuse to go nuts.