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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
 Posted - 09/10/2010 : 20:57:35 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by bngbuck
The point is, the fringe militants don't listen, and they actually do kill indiscriminately. They are genuine, insane, savages and cannot be seen as rational people. |
Thanks for the clarification: stopping a book-burning does nothing to reduce the threat.| My position is that it would be far better to prevent such actions than to be forced to use deadly force when violent reaction to a cartoon, for god's sake, inevitably takes place. |
I'd actually much prefer that the genuine insane savages who cannot be seen as rational people remove themselves from the gene pool by attacking generally well-defended edifices like U.S. embassies.| The trouble is, Dude's side is essentially that freedom of speech and expression is a more important ideal than preventing possibly massive death and destruction. |
There's the slippery slope. We've gone from one murdered cartoonist to "possibly massive death and destruction." Let me remind you that the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil wasn't triggered by anyone engaging in their First Amendment rights.As in everything, context matters. Absolute freedom in one context can be absolute catastrophe in another.
Without the media publicity, the cartoon incident, or the Koran burning would be rather meaningless and the nutcase preacher could burn whatever the fuck he wanted to with all of the world's blessings. When news of his proposed act is instantly publicized world-wide in today's flash-powder world, the consequences of free speech and free expression have to be considered in a realistic life-and-death context. |
Then let's consider it in such a context, and drop the facade of "possibly massive death and destruction" as an obviously ludicrous reason for throwing our ideals down the drain.| As have many other freedoms that we enjoy suffered restriction and control during conventional wartime. We had a pretty restricted society during the Second World War. But a good deal of it was necessary to win the war; and much of our pre-war freedoms were restored when the war ended. |
Please name some of the freedoms which were restricted necessarily for WWII to be won. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 09/10/2010 : 23:30:15 [Permalink]
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bng said:
Are you telling me that if you were confronted on your front porch by an obviously deranged Muslim equipped with a explosive vest, demanding that you not ignite your pile of Quurans or he would push the button, you would not comply with his demands? Your ideals of "freedom of expression" would be more important than your life? Nonsense!
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That person's actions may require me to alter my immediate plans, and in that exact moment I would probably not burn a quoran, but I would not ever agree to never burn a quoran out of fear. At the moment you describe I'm very likely hauling ass out the back door and dialing up a swat team, not tossing my rights onto the fire instead of his fucking book.
| Banning negative comments about Islam is way below the danger bar here in the US. |
What evidence do you have for that assertion? If I go on some crazy talk radio program and tell people that Mohamed was a deranged pedophile who fucked goats for a hobby in between raping wild dogs and eating human excrement, and that muslims in general were ignorant, primitive, deranged child raping homos, and we should put them all in Iraq then build a giant fucking wall around it and let them fuck each other to death inside...
Do you think I might generate some very real danger? You don't think my inbox would be filled with hatemail and death threats?
Shit... I've been threatened face to face for calling a christian fundamentalist a delusional fool for insisting his bible was the literal truth. I haven't yet stopped calling biblical literalists delusional fools, and I don't plan to stop even if they all showed up on my doorstep with torches and pitchforks.
| If I hate tigers, should I be allowed to poke a stick at one in a zoo as an expression of my negative feelings about tigers, until the enraged beast turns on his keeper and injures or kills him? |
Poking an animal with a stick is not protected speech. That you don't seem to understand this is troubling.
| Need to, yes. The point is, the fringe militants don't listen, and they actually do kill indiscriminately. They are genuine, insane, savages and cannot be seen as rational people. |
Then why would you expect giving in to their demands would alter their behavior? You don't engage irrational and insane people as if they were rational and sane.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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| Edited by - Dude on 09/10/2010 23:32:02 |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 09/11/2010 : 01:52:04 [Permalink]
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Dave.....
I said:| Yes. If it is just you and the bomb, me and my house, and a cop; the cop sure as hell better stop me if he can't stop you. |
You said:| In that situation, the cop only has an obligation to stop Dude. There's nothing illegal about burning books. |
So you are saying that if he can't stop Dude, his duty is stand there and watch me light my pile of books, let the crazy push the button, blow up himself, me, my house, and probably the cop himself and half the neighborhood too? Now that's devotion to civil rights, freedom of expression, and constitutional rights.
OK, Dave, if you say so! Ain't gonna happen in my neighborhood or any other! Of course his first duty is to try and stop Dude! My whole point was that if the cop can't stop Dude by any means possible, he has to stop me by any means possible in order to prevent a major disaster. And that certainly is his sworn duty.| a cop still can't stop you from throwing books in your fireplace). |
He surely can if throwing books in the fireplace will result in a major bomb explosion.| How many Westerners have "become dead" due to disrespecting Islam in the most recent decade? I know of only one. The idea that even the most anti-West Muslims are as immanent a threat as a dark-alley mugger is ridiculous. |
How many 9/11 attacks have there been since 9/11? By your argument, no anti-terrorism effort is needed at all because of the history of the last nine years of no attacks on our soil. As to "how many" Westerners have been killed by disrespecting Islam in the last decade, I would say that most of the suicide bombings in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere were directly related to Muslim crazies who believe that Westerners disrespect Islam. It's pretty much the nature of Jihad. How many, I have no idea. Vastly more than one, however.| The idea that even the most anti-West Muslims are as immanent a threat as a dark-alley mugger is ridiculous. |
If you are talking about a threat to Americans in America, anti-west Muslims pose little current threat, and even if they become armed with a nuclear weapon or two, smuggle them into the US, and blow up Washington DC, they will never pose a significant threat to the average American individual. Big war may ensue, but eventually they will be destroyed along with a hell of a lot of other things and people, but not many civilian Americans. More of our troops have been killed by far than the sum total of 9/11 civilian deaths and it ain't over yet.
But if you mean that the most militant anti-west Muslims are not a threat to Americans currently located in some Muslim countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, and even Pakistan; why do our soldiers over there need body armor and automatic weapons if there is no threat? Do you believe that an average infantryman on combat duty fighting in the Afghan provinces is safer than he would be walking down a dark alley in America? Your hometown must have some pretty nasty dark alleys with a lot of "immanent" threats in them, huh?
Anyway, Dude had said that you can not allow "violent nutcases" to dictate your behavior. I was pointing out that there are situations where you have to let "violent nutcases" dictate your behavior. I notice that you don't quarrel with that premise.| Although I suppose that if even a single death is too high a cost to pay for protecting the ideals behind our civil rights, then you think that Martin Luther King, Jr., should have kept his big yap shut, yes? |
I guess that it depends on whose life that "one single life" is. Although I place a very high value on civil rights for all humanity, I am certainly not willing to give up my life in sacrifice to protection of civil rights amendments. Are you? Seriously, would you sacrifice your life to protect the right to free speech and expression?
Another old dead guy quote:
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
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I notice he did not say: "They who can give up essential liberty to stay alive, deserve neither liberty or life"
What is your quarrel with Mill's statement...| the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others |
???| So any safety gained by prohibiting acts we happen to know enrage them is necessarily minimal and temporary, since the threat (violently crazy people with guns and bombs) will not go away just because we don't burn the book they like. |
It may or may not be minimal; it is certain to be temporary. But that is the nature of the beast. Do you suggest that we attempt to provoke them to the maximum at every opportunity by exercising our uncontrolled right to free speech and expression so that we can hopefully push them into a situation of military confrontation - thereby creating a war in which we can feel patriotically proud to give up our lives to save the "threat to our constitutional rights"? Or should we just completely ignore everything they do and hope that they will go away some day?| They will remain violent and crazy and armed, so sacrificing our integrity and ideals does nothing to diminish the threat. |
No, it will eliminate the current threat; the long term threat will remain unchanged.
Actually, Dave, I really would like to hear your plan for a real, long term solution to the "terrorist" threat which so many people of all political and ideological stripes do see as a problem in the world today. I understand that you and others feel there is a substantial internal threat to our constitutional rights inherent in how we handle this problem. I do not completely disagree with this, but neither do I think it is the only issue of importance here.
But how would you, if you were the Executive and Legislative branches of our country combined, approach the problem of anti-American terrorism as it exists in the world today? I kind of gather that you don't think that there really is a problem. Is that true?
| The fear that you are appealing to is exactly what the Bush administration used to stomp all over civil rights. It really is a shame to see a "thinking liberal" agree with those thugs. |
I am not appealing to any "fear", there is no major threat in militant Islam today short of Iran, and that problem will undoubtedly be solved by Israel eventually. It is not "fear" that I am addressing, rather the problem of lessening the military and collateral damage that may ensue from unnecessary provocation of the portion of the Islam world that is crazy.
I truly don't know how to deal with the overreaching situation, I hope you have some intelligent suggestions.
But preventing "incidents" certainly is preferable to taking no steps to prevent them or, worse yet, provoking them.| It really is a shame to see a "thinking liberal" agree with those thugs |
It is even more distressing to see a thinking practitioner of the Rule of Reciprocity use subtle insult in place of reasoned argument.
I'll be happy to reply to your other grumblings tomorrow. It is late and I still have work to do tonight.
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 09/11/2010 : 04:29:20 [Permalink]
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Here's an interesting bit of trivia. From Wonkette:
America’s “Burn a Koran Day” celebrity pastor Terry Jones and pill-popping serial groom/hatemonger Rush Limbaugh are not only both graduates of Cape Girardeau Central High School in Cape Girardeau, Missouri — they graduated together, in 1969. Some people are suggesting that this means something!
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Rush & Terry would make a pretty good, WWE tag team; neither has a very secure grip on reality, nor does the WWE.
But it'll never happen; Terry has stolen Hawgjaw's thunder, at least for the moment, and there may be some understandable bad feelings betwixt the old school chums. 
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 09/11/2010 : 06:19:50 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by bngbuck
Banning negative comments about Islam is way below the danger bar here in the US.
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It's the first step in sacrificing the freedom of expression on the altar of accomodationism. Once you start on that road you're in trouble, because once that precedent has been set, you will have religious groups pushing to move the goal post in in order to not ban only the most negative comments, but also the less negative comments. This isn't a slippery slope argument, look at what you have in Iran with political protesters being imprisoned and tortured for expressing criticism.
| Soldiers stationed in Arab countries should be prevented from making negative comments about Muslims. |
Soldiers doesn't have the freedom of expression like civilians have. If their CO orders them to shut the hell up, they are duty-bound to comply at least as long as they are on duty.
I'm sure one of our present and/or former soldiers can confirm that it's in the military code.
Well, it might be a good thing, all things considered, but generally believing in the Rule of Law, I would say it sounds a little extreme. |
I don't trust the American government to adhere to Rule of Law. There has been so many violations the recent decade, and the criminals behind it hasn't even been prosecuted but shielded by the new administration.
| My position is that it would be far better to prevent such actions than to be forced to use deadly force when violent reaction to a cartoon, for god's sake, inevitably takes place. |
If all other options to reconcile has been exhausted, then so be it. Of course we first have to try to talk some sense into them, and make them understand why we allow for criticisms of their ideas and religion, and also explain the specifics of the current criticism...
| The trouble is, Dude's side is essentially that freedom of speech and expression is a more important ideal than preventing possibly massive death and destruction. As in everything, context matters. Absolute freedom in one context can be absolute catastrophe in another. |
That's why we have institutions like the police and the military: to protect the innocent from getting harmed by the crazies (with deadly force if need be), while preserving our right to free expression. It enables us to make that choice.
| As have many other freedoms that we enjoy suffered restriction and control during conventional wartime. We had a pretty restricted society during the Second World War. But a good deal of it was necessary to win the war; and much of our pre-war freedoms were restored when the war ended. |
So you believe that America is at war with Islam?
| By your argument, no anti-terrorism effort is needed at all because of the history of the last nine years of no attacks on our soil. |
That's a straw-man big enough to rival the famous Gävle Goat of Straws that get burnt down every Christmas...
The fact that there are so few domestic terror-attacks provoked by "insensitive" expressions of ideas is a testament to the effectiveness of the law enforcement.
| As to "how many" Westerners have been killed by disrespecting Islam in the last decade, I would say that most of the suicide bombings in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere were directly related to Muslim crazies who believe that Westerners disrespect Islam. |
That is obviously your opinion, but I think it smells of bollox.
In Iraq, the major conflict is between Shia and Sunni. Most victims of suicide bombers and assassinations there are Iraqis, not Americans or even Westerners. In Israel, the suicide bombings and home made missiles by Muslims aren't crazies who feed disrespected. Unless you count families being murdered and/or starved to death, and otherwise being treated like shit... There, you really do have a war.
In Afghanistan, it's radicals murdering moderate Muslims, Muslims moderate to believe in education for the girls and such things. OK, there you do have a Western connection.
| Anyway, Dude had said that you can not allow "violent nut-cases" to dictate your behavior. I was pointing out that there are situations where you have to let "violent nut-cases" dictate your behavior. I notice that you don't quarrel with that premise. |
What's there to quarrel about?
If the situation goes as far as your scenario, law enforcement have failed miserably in its mission to serve and protect the public. People do have the freedom to express their distaste for religion by public burning of their holy book. But they need also have in mind while doing it, that the police cannot guarantee their safety to 101%. Everyone must keep in mind that the system isn't infallible. Someone may get hurt, but isn't that a risk worth taking? ~15000 Americans are killed each year by drunk drivers, but that's a price the public has accepted for the freedom of driving their car. Why should freedom of expression be any different?
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 09/11/2010 : 07:40:07 [Permalink]
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bng said:
| Anyway, Dude had said that you can not allow "violent nutcases" to dictate your behavior. I was pointing out that there are situations where you have to let "violent nutcases" dictate your behavior. I notice that you don't quarrel with that premise. |
When you have a loaded gun pointed directly in your face your options are limited, true. But your analogy does not apply to anything other than itself. There is no similarity between a mugger with a gun and a religious fanatic making threats, or to some imagined response by unnamed parties.
I remain unconvinced that you actually hold this position, I think you are just trolling or possibly entertaining yourself by adopting an indefensible position and making an effort.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 09/11/2010 : 08:50:14 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by bngbuck
Dave.....
I said:| Yes. If it is just you and the bomb, me and my house, and a cop; the cop sure as hell better stop me if he can't stop you. |
You said:| In that situation, the cop only has an obligation to stop Dude. There's nothing illegal about burning books. |
So you are saying that if he can't stop Dude, his duty is stand there and watch me light my pile of books, let the crazy push the button, blow up himself, me, my house, and probably the cop himself and half the neighborhood too? Now that's devotion to civil rights, freedom of expression, and constitutional rights. |
You really don't think the cop would call in a whole SWAT team to blow Dude's head off?
Hell, if the situation was so dire that the cop had ten seconds to choose a course of action, I'd lay odds that he'd shoot the guy with the bomb. The guy with the bomb is the one who is the immediate threat to the cop's own life, after all.| OK, Dave, if you say so! Ain't gonna happen in my neighborhood or any other! Of course his first duty is to try and stop Dude! My whole point was that if the cop can't stop Dude by any means possible, he has to stop me by any means possible in order to prevent a major disaster. And that certainly is his sworn duty. |
"By any means possible" leaves a lot to interpretation.| a cop still can't stop you from throwing books in your fireplace). |
He surely can if throwing books in the fireplace will result in a major bomb explosion. |
Do you really think that a cop could get a judge to issue warrant to enter a home just because some crazy guy with a bomb says that the home owner is going to throw some books in his fireplace? Probable cause exists to stop the bomber without a warrant, not the home owner.| How many Westerners have "become dead" due to disrespecting Islam in the most recent decade? I know of only one. The idea that even the most anti-West Muslims are as immanent a threat as a dark-alley mugger is ridiculous. |
How many 9/11 attacks have there been since 9/11? By your argument, no anti-terrorism effort is needed at all because of the history of the last nine years of no attacks on our soil. |
You're comparing our government's anti-terrorism work (which really has broken up several plots before they came to fruition) to vague threats of violence by violent crazy people who've only managed to kill one person. I'm talking about the actual evidence of how much of a threat "disrespecting Islam" really is. "Everbody Draw Mohammed Day," which was no less intentionally disrespectful than burning a Koran (and also made the national news), resulted in no violence at all, so far as I can tell.| As to "how many" Westerners have been killed by disrespecting Islam in the last decade, I would say that most of the suicide bombings in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere were directly related to Muslim crazies who believe that Westerners disrespect Islam. It's pretty much the nature of Jihad. |
You've got to be kidding. You're comparing the results of decades of pro-Israel foreign policy including black-ops-style tinkering in sovereign governments and outright invasions to non-violent protests? Installing a Shah in Iran or supplying arms to Israel weren't intended to be protests against Islamic fundamentalist violence, which is what we're talking about.| But if you mean that the most militant anti-west Muslims are not a threat to Americans currently located in some Muslim countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, and even Pakistan; why do our soldiers over there need body armor and automatic weapons if there is no threat? |
The people in Asia and the Middle East pose a threat to our soldiers whether anyone burns a Koran or not. Do you think that the troops who were killed this past week died because Terry Jones threatened to burn a Koran?| Do you believe that an average infantryman on combat duty fighting in the Afghan provinces is safer than he would be walking down a dark alley in America? Your hometown must have some pretty nasty dark alleys with a lot of "immanent" threats in them, huh? |
You're the one who compared the threat posed by Terry Jones to a crazy mugger on the street. The extra threat, that is. I think that's so far overblown as to be ridiculous.| Anyway, Dude had said that you can not allow "violent nutcases" to dictate your behavior. I was pointing out that there are situations where you have to let "violent nutcases" dictate your behavior. I notice that you don't quarrel with that premise. |
No, I just think the situations you consider analogous are totally ludicrous.| Although I suppose that if even a single death is too high a cost to pay for protecting the ideals behind our civil rights, then you think that Martin Luther King, Jr., should have kept his big yap shut, yes? |
I guess that it depends on whose life that "one single life" is. Although I place a very high value on civil rights for all humanity, I am certainly not willing to give up my life in sacrifice to protection of civil rights amendments. Are you? Seriously, would you sacrifice your life to protect the right to free speech and expression? |
Well, if we're running with the over-reaching analogies, then I'd say that if I faced a choice between dying and the First Amendment being repealed, I would choose death.| I notice he did not say: "They who can give up essential liberty to stay alive, deserve neither liberty or life" |
You really must be kidding. Giving up those essential liberties is no guarantee that anyone will stay alive. A person arguing that we need to suspend the First Amendment to guard against terrorist attack could easily get hit by a bus five minutes later. Measures to protect us from retaliation for our free expression do not, in any way, help us "stay alive."What is your quarrel with Mill's statement...| the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others |
??? |
I don't have a quarrel with it. Why do you think I do?| So any safety gained by prohibiting acts we happen to know enrage them is necessarily minimal and temporary, since the threat (violently crazy people with guns and bombs) will not go away just because we don't burn the book they like. |
It may or may not be minimal; it is certain to be temporary. |
Thanks for agreeing.| But that is the nature of the beast. |
Nobody said otherwise.| Do you suggest that we attempt to provoke them to the maximum at every opportunity by exercising our uncontrolled right to free speech and expression so that we can hopefully push them into a situation of military confrontation - thereby creating a war in which we can feel patriotically proud to give up our lives to save the "threat to our constitutional rights"? |
If they posed as much of a threat as you suggest, then why not?| Or should we just completely ignore everything they do and hope that they will go away some day? |
Since that takes their power away, that would work, yes.| They will remain violent and crazy and armed, so sacrificing our integrity and ideals does nothing to diminish the threat. |
No, it will eliminate the current threat; the long term threat will remain unchanged. |
That's exactly what was meant by "temporary safety." Thanks for agreeing.| Actually, Dave, I really would like to hear your plan for a real, long term solution to the "terrorist" threat which so many people of all political and ideological stripes do see as a problem in the world today. |
It is a problem, but the solution certainly isn't to hamstring our own civil rights. As I said above, the solution is to take the terrorists' power away from them. Since silencing certain opinions is exactly what they want, then agreeing to do so increases their power, and so is the polar opposite of "a solution."| But how would you, if you were the Executive and Legislative branches of our country combined, approach the problem of anti-American terrorism as it exists in the world today? |
The gubmint needs to engage in legal intelligence gathering to identify threats and react appropriately. Arresting a bunch of guys who have been stockpiling weapons and have developed plans for an attack is appropriate. Silencing citizens on the vague feeling that someone might do something violent somewhere in response to a protest is not.| I kind of gather that you don't think that there really is a problem. Is that true? |
Not hardly.| I am not appealing to any "fear", there is no major threat in militant Islam today short of Iran, and that problem will undoubtedly be solved by Israel eventually. It is not "fear" that I am addressing, rather the problem of lessening the military and collateral damage that may ensue from unnecessary provocation of the portion of the Islam world that is crazy. |
Yes, it is the fear that more of our troops (and world citizens) will die at the hands of crazy people with guns and bombs that you are appealing to. I don't see how what you've said is not an appeal to fear.I truly don't know how to deal with the overreaching situation, I hope you have some intelligent suggestions.
But preventing "incidents" certainly is preferable to taking no steps to prevent them or, worse yet, provoking them. |
Can you point to any specific "incident" which will be prevented by stopping anyone from burning Korans? Of course not, because the threat is vague and uncertain. Judging from the results of previous protests which have been intended to challenge Islamic sensibilities, the threat is minimal. If we only look at the threat such protests pose to our troops, it's far below the level of the threat to our troops posed by our military occupations and nation-building.| It really is a shame to see a "thinking liberal" agree with those thugs |
It is even more distressing to see a thinking practitioner of the Rule of Reciprocity use subtle insult in place of reasoned argument. |
"In place of?" Wow. So everything else I wrote (my "reasoned argument") is nullified out of existence because I teased you? Perhaps you meant "in addition to" instead of "in place of." |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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podcat
Skeptic Friend
435 Posts |
Posted - 09/11/2010 : 10:27:17 [Permalink]
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| Would it be likely that more people are recruited to be terrorists because of the scheduled Quaran burning? Why or why not? |
“In a modern...society, everybody has the absolute right to believe whatever they damn well please, but they don't have the same right to be taken seriously”.
-Barry Williams, co-founder, Australian Skeptics |
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tomk80
SFN Regular
Netherlands
1278 Posts |
Posted - 09/11/2010 : 17:58:57 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by podcat
Would it be likely that more people are recruited to be terrorists because of the scheduled Quaran burning? Why or why not?
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Possibly. If someone is already nudging in that direction, burning the Quran might become one more reason to think America is a heathen nation out to get Muslims.
I don't think it is likely that someone would go from positive to America to becoming a terrorist. It is somewhat likely that someone who already has anti-American sentiments might consider this the final straw. However, if burning the Quran would not do it, for this person something else would do.
I think this could be one of those window-shifting events, that just nudges a lot of Muslims in a more anti-American frame of mind. So someone who is very positive might become a little less so, someone who is very negative might become a bit more negative. |
Tom
`Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, `if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.'
-Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Caroll- |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 09/11/2010 : 20:33:08 [Permalink]
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A report from two hours ago:...Jones, head of a tiny and obscure church in Gainesville, canceled his plans on Thursday and told NBC's "Today" show in New York he would not burn the Koran, "Not today, not ever."
His proposed action had triggered outbreaks of violence in Afghanistan in which one protester was shot dead. See? Nobody needed to actually burn a Koran for violence to ensue. Prohibiting the burning wouldn't have kept these people from harm, not without prohibiting merely saying that one is going to burn the Koran.Thousands of Afghans demonstrated in the northeast of the country for a second day. And they're not reporting more violence. How odd.
Here's what happened today:One man protesting against the center [Park51] tore pages from the Koran, and set them alight. In another incident, a man tore pages from a copy of the Koran and made vulgar gestures with it.
Near Nashville, Tennessee, evangelical Pastor Bob Old and another preacher used lighter fluid and a lighter to burn at least two copies of the Koran in his yard. Old called Islam "a false religion."
There were no reports of any arrests. So trying to silence Terry Jones in particular was pointless, of course.A few hundred demonstrators gathered across the street from Jones' Dove World Outreach Center church in Gainesville at the time the Koran burning had been scheduled to take place.
Local television showed them carrying signs reading "Dove Doesn't Represent America" and "Burn Candles, Not Korans."
Police said they stopped one man near the church from trying to burn a Koran, but did not arrest him. "He took out a lighter and the book and we grabbed both of them off him," a Gainesville police spokeswoman told Reuters. So the Gainesville police are either looking at a First Amendment lawsuit, or they'll need to make sure the man knew he was looking at a citation for improper burning.
Ah, a teensy bit more detail on the death:More violence erupted in Afghanistan's northeastern Badakhshan province on Saturday, where a day earlier a protester was killed outside a German-run NATO base, provincial police chief Aqa Noor Kentuz said. And something which may or may not be related:In Denmark, authorities raised its attack preparedness after a man set off a small explosion in a Copenhagen hotel on Friday.
Edited to add still more detail:On Friday, private security forces opened fire on demonstrators who tried to storm a Nato base in northern Afghanistan. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 09/11/2010 : 20:54:53 [Permalink]
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Here you go, bngbuck:In London, 20 protesters from the radical group Muslims Against Crusades (MAC) arrived outside the US Embassy in London to burn an American flag. The demonstrators, mostly male, carried the black flag of the Islamic Khilafah and placards bearing slogans such as "May Allah burn those who burn the Koran". Shortly afterwards, two youths from the English Defence League (EDL) appeared. One threw a can of what appeared to be Carlsberg at the MAC protesters and was bundled off by the police. About 15 minutes later, more EDL supporters arrived and were ushered to the far side of the embassy by police, where they chanted "scum" and swore at their rival protesters 25 metres away.
After a short speech by an MAC spokesman, Abu Rayah, explaining that while they were "not against one hillbilly trying to burn the Koran, we are against the constitution that attacks Muslims every day", the US flag was set alight. Some 50 protesters chanted: "Democracy, you will burn." These people aren't fazed by a book-burning, they're against the idea of democracy itself. Would you advocate switching the U.S. to an Islamic theocracy to gain a little temporary safety from their particular violently crazy jihad? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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chefcrsh
Skeptic Friend
Hong Kong
380 Posts |
Posted - 09/11/2010 : 20:58:28 [Permalink]
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| So to answer the OP, and with full benefit of hindsight, I can now say unequivocally, that the whole sordid affair, including the guy, the church, the media, the bloggers, the muslims, the governments...it was a startling and nearly global display nearing if not actually summiting the pinnacle of human stupidity. If Aliens are watching, they must have enjoyed this particular episode. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 09/11/2010 : 21:30:47 [Permalink]
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I'd forgotten all about the Qur'an desecration controversy of 2005. It's historical evidence of what happens when U.S. government employees (not just mere citizens) are accused of "abusing" the holy book of Islam: maybe 32 Muslims dead and hundreds injured, in riots in Afghanistan (though what sparked the riots isn't clear). No reports that I could find of any Americans even being bruised.
So, if Islam itself is actually a threat to democracy and "our way of life" (as some people claim), then the solution seems clear given the evidence from yesterday and five years ago: we should mandate the desecration of the Qur'an, then sit back and watch as Muslims have such huge conniption fits that they get themselves and other Muslims killed. If the premise is true (and to remove my tongue from my cheek for an instant, I don't think it is), then this would be nothing but an epic win for us.
I wonder if it'd worked on Christians, too... Maybe "Piss Christ" just didn't push hard enough. I've got an old pocket Bible and a jar around here somewhere... |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 09/12/2010 : 04:07:10 [Permalink]
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I guess the Big Bad Burn Day was pretty much a bust from all points of view. Jones backed down and the rest of the Koran-burnings were picayune to the point of non-significance. I was hoping for huge, conflagrations, riots in the streets, world-wide looting, and instead I get this smarmy crap:
Muslim scholars convince S. African court to block Bible burning
By Agence France-Presse
Saturday, September 11th, 2010 -- 4:19 pm
A South African court has blocked a Muslim businessman's plan to burn Bibles on Saturday in response to a Florida pastor's threat to burn the Koran, the lawyer who brought the case said.
The Johannesburg High Court issued an urgent interdict late Friday blocking Mohammed Vawda from burning Bibles at a square in the centre of the city, said Zehir Omar.
Vawda's plans for a "Burn the Bible Day" were intended to react to pastor Terry Jones' threats to mark Saturday's anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States by setting alight a pile of Korans, said Omar, who brought the case on behalf of an Islamic intellectual organisation, Scholars of the Truth.
"Vawda insisted that something must be done in retaliation to pastor Jones' plans," Omar told AFP.
"He was horribly riled up at pastor Jones' repeated threats."
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Book-burners just ain't what they used to be, however stupid they appear at first blush. 
But there is yet hope for 2011. The stupids on all sides will have had a year to get their shit together and organize some really good burnings, rather along the lines of latter-day Gehennas. Therein any slight scrap of paper boasting any of the nine hundred names of God will be immolated like a Templar at the Vatican. That'll show them folks what doesn't believe right a thing or two!
And where do the godless figure into all of this? Well, having no home team to cheer on, we'll be reduced to observing the festivities from the top bleachers, with beer and blackjack and hookers. It'll be fun......
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 09/12/2010 : 09:00:23 [Permalink]
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Dave.....
I stated (and meant every word):| I guess that it depends on whose life that "one single life" is. Although I place a very high value on civil rights for all humanity, I am certainly not willing to give up my life in sacrifice to protection of civil rights amendments. Are you? Seriously, would you sacrifice your life to protect the right to free speech and expression? |
Your response was:| I'd say that if I faced a choice between dying and the First Amendment being repealed, I would choose death. |
You must be speaking hyperbolically, or in some sense of a figure of speech!
You do not mean to say that you would literally sacrifice your life, at your current age, in order to preserve the First Amendment, do you? In other words, if you - Dave W. - had to die in order for the First Amendment not to be repealed, although the rest of the Bill of Rights would remain intact, you would choose death!
Do you actually mean that LITERALLY ? |
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Burning the Koran: how stupid is this?
