Mantrik wrote: ↑Thu Jun 14, 2018 1:15 pmHowever hideous the examples, I place freedom of expression above all restriction of speech which offends people. In the UK we now have a culture which is reaching the point where it drags people into court for offending anyone about anything. Literally, anything.
Then there needs to be a debate about what is deemed permissible by law and what is not. These matters will be settled in the court.
We have a term for thin-skinned people who seek to become offended - 'snowflakes', so timid they ban speakers from universities in case they offend students. Instead, they should invite the most racist and objectionable speakers in the land and defeat them with debate, reduce their crap to dust. We are raisign a generation which is unable to deal with life itself, and needs 'safe spaces' to hide in.
I like where this is going. Snowflake is just a made-up term by the (far) right that doesn't really mean anything. Studies show university students in the U.S. are still very pro-free spech.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/12/us/c ... peech.html
If we prevent expressions of the growing list of 'isms' we lose not only our ability to expose and refute those views, we drive them underground............and as with IS they will inevitably resurface in a more extreme form.
Right. If we prevent thinly veiled racism under the guise of free speech (a tactic used constantly by the far right as I pointed out earlier) we'll create sympathy for IS. This is of course completely false.
Actual research show that what leads to radicalization among muslim youth is opposition to foreign policy (such as the Iraq war and the situation in Syria) and a sense of alienation.
Here's a great article by Mehdi Hasan on the subject:
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/mehdi- ... ccounter=1
In 2008, a classified briefing note on radicalisation, prepared by MI5's behavioural science unit, was leaked to the Guardian. It revealed that, "far from being religious zealots, a large number of those involved in terrorism do not practise their faith regularly. Many lack religious literacy and could . . . be regarded as religious novices." The analysts concluded that "a well-established religious identity actually protects against violent radicalisation", the newspaper said.
For more evidence, read the books of the forensic psychiatrist and former CIA officer Marc Sageman; the political scientist Robert Pape; the international relations scholar Rik Coolsaet; the Islamism expert Olivier Roy; the anthropologist Scott Atran. They have all studied the lives and backgrounds of hundreds of gun-toting, bomb-throwing jihadists and they all agree that Islam isn't to blame for the behaviour of such men...
Instead they point to other drivers of radicalisation: moral outrage, disaffection, peer pressure, the search for a new identity, for a sense of belonging and purpose
See also research from Stanford university in extremism and alientation among muslims in America:
https://news.stanford.edu/2016/03/17/te ... on-031716/
You seem obsessed with Islam. My daughter lived on the same street in Leeds as the London Bombers.......where girls were abused, spat at and and assaulted merely for being white, where women were locked inside by men who were not aversed to beating, murdering and torturing - in the name of Islam. Which Islam would you like to defend from ridicule? Which Islam deserves protection in case followers get offended by a few words?
Not really - but muslims are the bogeyman of the moment. Types of prejudices are connected and the rise of hate crimes against muslims coincide with an rise in antisemitic hate crimes (see
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-germa ... KKBN1I9251).
An example: Euarabia conspiracies (muslim overtaking of Europe) is fueled by antisemitism as the far right believes this is in essence a jewish plan. Thus far-right conspiracies nurture BOTH antisemitism and racism against muslims/Islamophobia.
The second half of your parapgraph reads like your run-of-the-mill far-right pundit. It's not really helping your case. If anyone is spat at or abused verbally they should file a police report. This is a question of personal morals - not Islamic teachings. To think that this is somehow a feature of Islam or muslims is a bit weird.
When the IRA were shooting and bombing people (incuding myself) there was a huge amount of humour and ridicule of them and of both Catholics and Protestants in the context of the fighting. Should we have been violently oppressed for daring to make fun of those who wished that very oppression through terrorism?
I don't think there are too many people opposed to anyone criticizing or ridiculing groups such as IS. This is a red herring.
We've seen bombings and murders of people who ridicule Islam.......for me, this is the worst aspect of all - the acts of the oppressors behaving like the Inquisition or Burmese troops which show us where we may be headed when we curtail free speech.
Right. And I like all reasonable people oppose this.
No religion has the right to insist that we cannot ridicule it, and I believe we have a right, even a duty, to cause offence to people whose arguments deserve the harshest rebuttals of their teachings and actions. Humour is an amazingly effective way to demolish dogmatic and repressive systems.
The point is not critique of religion but rather that said "critique" is being used to promote racist views - which result in
Actual violence against muslims. I oppose disrespecting people or religion just for the heck of it but it should not be illegal - but again, this is not the issue here.
If their response, like yours, is to be violent, one has to question the validity of their path and the teachings they claim to use to justify that violence. Your 'slap' is but a microcosm of the attitude whereby regimes arise and use stoning and beheading for those daring to speak out, even as a joke.
Right. Me saying I would react very negatively to say someone desecrating the sacred text of a minority that is the victim of racism and racist violence is the same as autocratic regimes imposing stoning or beheadings. Me saying "I would slap you" is simply me saying I would react very strongly.
The problem is that you seem ignorant to the fact that xenophobic/racist/hateful rhetoric (be it towards muslim or others) have real consequences and result in
actual violence.
Donald Trump used vicious racist rhetoric and hate crime has been up since he won the election:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 55026.html
Rise of the "alt-right" in the U.S. tied to racist attacks:
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2018 ... sm/146319/
German study shows online hate speech leads to violence:
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detai ... nsequences
After people like Nigel Farage cynically used the Brexit campaign to stir up anger against immigrants and minorities hate crimes have risen drastically:
http://time.com/4985332/hate-crime-uk-2017/
Hate crimes in Britain up since Brexit:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/uk-m ... -qb7hd7xl7