Proposed Global Ban on Blasphemy

By the way, that consequence is not inevitable.

I think you are on the right track citing sociological forces. The point about "blasphemy" is that it is a language (i.e.) phenomenon, and language is thought to be involved in the acquisition of "concepts of self", and the functioning of "cognition". You only need to consider that aspect of language which ranges from hypnotic suggestion, through ceremonial prayer to "spells" (I have called "word magic"), to get a feel for the force embodied in language behavior. Thus one culture's "free speech" is another culture's "assault on social integrity".

The anti-Muslim film is an extreme use of speech, violent rioting is an extreme way to defend one's religion. Extremists on both sides created this ugly situation.

Ah . . . a firm grasp of the obvious . . . always a useful skill.

Thanks. I couldn't be more proud.

Sorry but killing and rioting is not justify in any moral system I can come up with over a video and to compare the making of a anti-Muslim movie as the same as riotings and killings and putting out hit contracts say more about you then you might wish to had divulge if you thought about the matter before posting.

By the way, i don't see anyone acknowledging Bill's point. It is not ordinary speech whch is in need of protecton--it is controversial speech, even hate speech, which needs protection. With the sole bar of incitement to criminal behavior, the principle of free speech in the United States protects anything anyone wants to say. If the rest of the world doesn't like that, they are free to go piss up a rope.

He'd search out plastic straws to rail against.

Agreed. We have our constitution and laws, you have yours ...

Agreed. I'm glad I'm in Canada, not the U.S., when it comes to this issue.

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LOL I am glad you are in Canada also and even more glad that General Hull was so must of an incompetence that we did not end up seizing Canada and taking Canadians into our republic during the war of 1812.

If you're putting this in terms of justification, what justifies the extreme use of speech?

The human right to question and challenge any religion dogma and any faith that is in the public square.

There is no moral problem of any kind in such questioning with respect or without respect as it is just as must a right to question a faith or a belief system as it is to be a believers in such a system.

Most Christians had gotten that idea for example no one was killed and the New York museum that dare to first show a picture of the figure of Christ in a bottle of human urine was not burned down.

It is telling that copies of the picture was not harm in the US but was damage in both France and Australia but at least without riots and deaths.

Oh the artist did get some death threats but no hit contracts and no need to go into hiding for years/decades.

I haven't seen the video in question, but I did see the political cartoons that are alleged to have led to Muslim riot and quite a few deaths. I would hardly describe them as extreme and yet, apparently, they prompted conduct that I think anyone would describe as extreme around the world.

It doesn't take a lot to be found guilty of blasphemy in the eyes of a large segment of Muslims, and this segment doesn't consist solely of uneducated poor people. The president of Egypt is among them.

These folks can't be appeased, and any attempt to restrict free speech in order to prevent the rioting of outraged Muslims, would almost certainly come up short.

I recently read that a Pakistani professor had been charged with blasphemey for telling his students that the parents of The Prophet were not Muslims. If such a matter of fact, common sense comment is seen as an affront to Islam, we could
never satisfy them.

We shouldn't restrict our freedoms to meet their outrageous demands and to the extent they respond to words and images with violence and mayhem, we shouldn't apologize for the source of their offense. We should respond in the same way we would respond to any assault on our citizens or our embassies.

We're not about to go to war over such incidents, but we can and should demand formal apologies from the governments of the nations in which the assaults take place. We should also demand prosecution of those who can be identified as participating in the assaults, and serious efforts to prevent such assaults from happening again. If they refuse or fail to make good on any assurance we should close our embassies, toss their diplomats from our soil, and issue strong warnings to Americans concerning travel to these countries. Above all else we should turn off the foreign aid spigot.

It's very distasteful to have to pay dictators billions of dollars to do what we want (co-exist with Israel and put anti-Amercian terrorists in their jails...for example), but it is plain stupid to pay them when they won't deliver.

Apparently, in the case of Egypt, billion of greenbacks are not enough, we also have to release a fanatic jailed for trying to destroy New York and emasculate our Contitution.

Hillary Clinton needs to send him a cable that contains one word: Nuts

This morning, I heard the most interesting comment of the radio. I missed most of the conversation. The man explained why this has been blown up beyond proportion.
I'm paraphrasing here..
He said, basically, he people in this region do not hate Americans. They buy your clothes, watch your tv shows and movies, and emulate your culture in many ways. However, many don't understand our culture, any more than we do theirs.
While we live in countries with varying laws on freedom, we still enjoy freedoms, they don't.
We have freedom of movement, speech, to marry who we choose, live where we want, go to school, join the army or not. They don't.
They live in states where the government controls everything, dictatorships, or military control. They don't understand the society we live in, they believe that everything that comes out of the United States is sanctioned by the government.
In their collective mind, it's not one director or financier that made a film, it is government propaganda. Because that is how it is done in their country.
When the Danish cartoons were published it was obviously the Danish government who wanted it so be printed, or so they think. Because nothing is printed, unless it will pass government red tape. They can't understand why the American government would want to insult islam. They know it's not "the people", because "the people" are just like them, living in a police state.
That being said, in our collective mind we see the middle east as a congealed mass of dynamite. We can't imagine not having the luxury of crossing the street, or being watched at every turn. We don't cower when police drive by, or fear being jailed for calling politicians names.
I come from a country that seems only to riot over hockey, we don't know what it's like to be hungry. I can't imagine what it's like to spend life in a tent, burqa, not drive, vote, read..
I remember watching a news story, a reporter is asking a 'terrorist' why he went into a bank and started shooting, killing dozens of people. He'd never been out of his village, but he left in search of a job. He was recruited when he'd been homeless and hungry, he was told the American's were the enemy. He didn't know what an American was. He was told they were foreigners, he didn't know what a foreigner looked like. He was told they were spies, godless people, against muslims. He and a few others walked into a bank, somewhere in his own country. The people he shot were fellow countrymen, not one foreigner, all muslim. He didn't know the difference.. he'd never even seen a picture of what an evil american looked like, never mind a t.v.
We live in different times, eras really. We live in countries with very high rates of literacy. It's not good enough to to thumb our noses at them because they don't have freedom of speech, they want it, they need it and if it doesn't happen, more of these asinine riots will occur.

Sorry but there is a middle and upper class in those countries that are every bit a part of the world community as any of us happen to be.

They knew fully well the situation in the West and without their leadership there would not be in fact could not be riots of the poor dumb and uneducated underclass.

The cartoons was on the internet and so was the anti-muslin video and if you had access to such materials you also have access to the New York Times and a large percent of the total knowledge base of the human race.

When the rebels needed to get videos of the ongoing fighting out of Libra they was in fact able to do so and in the middle of a civil war at that.

As of 2011 there was roughly 70 millions people with internet access in the middle east countries so the cannon fodder used in riots might not be aware of the real situation however the leadership of those riots surely are.

The fellow should speak for himself.

We understand their culture only too well.

If they can't understand that Americans aren't ruled by a Dictator (at least not yet) like they are, they are either ignorant or lapping up a daily dose of propoganda...or both. But hey...I thought Twitter and Facebook were the great equalizers!

So, someone who walks into a bank and slaughters dozens of innocents is afforded a pass because he is an ignorant dolt? You don't have to ever leave your village, or ever have met an American or any foreigner to know that gunning down dozens of innocents is a heinous crime.

You don't need to be able to read to know that murder is wrong.

Yes they should have all of the freedoms we have. We tried to get that ball rolling with our invasion of Iraq and folks like you went crazy.

The so-called Arab Spring didn't do the trick and the US sending them billions of dollars won't either.

Until they figure out that Islamist dictators are no better than their secular counterparts, they are not going to have the freedoms we have and we are under no obligation to give them a pass when they respond to us with violence, no matter how pitifully ignorant they may be.

Wow, maybe try reading what I said before getting your panties in a knot. I don't condone violence and I'm not make excuses or a plea for early parole. The battle here, quite simply, is fraught with ignorance.
Until these people have freedom to read or speak, they won't understand concepts bigger than their backyard.
Know thy enemy...

or you can keep screaming, blocking out all other ideas.

Gosh but you're paranoid.

Who said you condone violence, and where the hell did you come up with anything about a parole?

And I repeat, one doesn't need to have freedom to read or speak to know that murder is wrong.

I know my enemy, I don't have to have sympathy for him.