Ant said Our rights of expression are very broad and generous but we live with self imposed censorship when it relates to matters of race and gender.

Just to be clear, I think we all agree self imposed censorship is not censorship, i.e. speech outlawed by the Gov't. The Supreme Court of the U.S. ruled that members of the Westboro Baptist Church have a 1st amendment right to protest loudly at funerals of veterans, which indicates how far from censorship we are. (In their mind, it doesn't matter if the vet was gay or not; he fought for a country that refuses to kill homosexuals as God commanded.) SCOTUS also ruled Nazis could march in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood in Skokie Illinois. (After that victory, they agreed to march in Chicago instead.) The U.S. is "far out there" regarding free speech compared to most other countries.

However as has been mentioned, it's still not totally absolute free speech.

• You can't release classified information without risking jail.
• You can't release info restricted by contract, trade secrets etc.
• Legal penalties and other info may be sealed from the public by court ruling.
• Evidence may be excluded from a jury.
• Grand jury deliberations can't be discussed.
• Libel and slander already mentioned.
• HIPAA Restrictions on releasing medical info.
• Yelling fire in a crowded theater already mentioned.
• Inciting a crowd to kill a certain individual and burn down his house.
• What else? ...

I suspect part of the objection to political correctness and speech etiquette standards is one can no longer spout KKK or anti-semitic Neo-Nazi rhetoric and still be considered a proper lady or gentleman as was still true in the 1950s...

Interbane said I have a feeling Phelps would whoop the tar out of you in a debate over who is more justified.

Wrong. Fred Phelps is dead. He will lose every debate.

Fred Phelps is dead.

may his God go with him

"There is no difference between that and a blasphemy law" - Interbane

Except that you and France are framing the argument nearly entirely as the "right to commit blasphemy "

Meanwhile many Muslims besides radicals are stating that they find caricatures of their religion AND muslims in general to be overtly racist, demeaning, bigoted, and offensive.
Whereas other groups are protected by the law from not being offended.

I'm thinking you have investigated this entire issue very superficially and for obvious reasons.

Again, two words - double standard.

Either Muslims learn to police themselves, or the larger world imposes sanctions = false dichotomy

First of all, not all Muslims need to police themselves because they are all behaving badly or are waiting to misbehave or declare Jihad against the civilized world.

My gosh.

Speaking of double standards

Quran (9:29) - "Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued."

And there we have it people.
Evidence that Mulims should begin to be sanctioned.
Courtesy of Cherry-Picker, Inc.

Good grief.

Here's something to think about for those who cut and paste selectively:

It's possible for a phenomena to occur not simply as an effect of a single cause but as the result of a number of contributing factors.
Attributing an effect to a single contributor can lead to intolerably misleading distortions.

Fallacy of Oversimplified Cause.

Oh calm down ant, you mentioned double standards and I thought it ironic.

A religion that says don't offend us and yet has a book that Many find offensive.

No need to start anting.

hufingtonpost.com/2015/01/16/german-isi ... 82516.html

This 13 minute interview with a jihadist, former protestant, German national, demonstrates what extremist think about western Muslim's, which is to say that the extreme does not consider western Muslim's to be truly devout.

What I'm confused about is, who is truly offended by a cartoon? or is that just an excuse? I get the hypocrisy of French law, but is that an excuse? The people represented in the interview would gladly slice any one of our heads off just for being who we are. It does not get any more drastic than that. Its beyond a contentious theistic debate, or even speech laws, its supremely deadly and it is not going away. The people closest to the issue, have to be the ones to take the lead in what ever solution is decided upon, and they need to be able to rely on western support, mockery doesn't seem to fit the bill as part of any problem solving technique. Blaming Jews is not the answer either. Western wealth isn't the issue at all. The people at issue are just Fucking crazy pieces of shit and they need to be dealt with a hammer's touch. Talking to them is not going to change their minds.

Dwill wrote:Islam is involved; the debate is about whether the connection is incidental or essential. I'm not so interested in that question, but rather in the matter of fully isolating this type of behavior without any thought that it has causes. Because once you do that you open the door of rationalizing a tiny bit. Isolating the people who would carry out this violence, cutting them off from all support, is what needs to happen, and I'm not sure that in general Muslims have done this. As Dawkins said at the end, we await opinion polls to see what the "Muslim street" is saying. If it's "such acts are wrong, but so is it wrong to offend the prophet," or something of the sort, that's not good enough.

Hi Dwill. I think it's difficult for us who are on the outside of Islam to understand and make sense of these things. There have been studies done and documentaries made on the causes of extreme radicalisation among young Muslims.
I think the causes have to be considered if the problem is to be addressed. I've looked at some of these discussions and programs to try to understand these things.
There does seem to be a pattern of alienation of Muslims, for example in Australia and France. So in a documentary about Australian Muslims there are people who fled there from war zones like Lebanon was.Their children are born in Australia but are treated as aliens and ostracised by many Australians.
In France and Britain you have National Front type groups engaged in propagating hatred of Muslims.
And of course there are the wars in places like Syria which seem to provide a cause to fight and die for in the name of Islam.
One British born former Mujahadin fighter against Russia in Afghanistan described this experience as exhilarating to him at the time and it was only after 9/11 that he began to question why they were targeting civilians.
Youkrst suggests the Quran itself provides justification for them for their actions and that may be the case, though Muslims dispute among themselves what Jihad means in the Quran.
Whatever the causes are and I'm not an expert here, it seems it would be no harm to try address some of what appears to contribute to the problem where possible.
The Australian government and police have attempted to address some of the problems from their side but it's hard to change people's attitudes in general.
I take your point about rationalising what is barbarous murder,still I think all that can alleviate these things whether within Islam or outside it is worth investigating and implementing where possible.

ant wrote:"There is no difference between that and a blasphemy law" - Interbane

Except that you and France are framing the argument nearly entirely as the "right to commit blasphemy "

Meanwhile many Muslims besides radicals are stating that they find caricatures of their religion AND muslims in general to be overtly racist, demeaning, bigoted, and offensive.
Whereas other groups are protected by the law from not being offended.

I'm thinking you have investigated this entire issue very superficially and for obvious reasons.

Again, two words - double standard.

France's speech laws are restrictive, in a lopsided way. Double standard? It might be too complex for that label.

So if you're so intent on turning our attention back to the laws in France, since they are the core cause, we should rehash 9/11 using the same strategy. Was 9/11 the fault of American women who wear jeans? If wearing jeans is insulting to the general muslim population, why don't countries across the world ban them, rather than the burqa? Or should we ban both jeans and the burqa to keep everything fair?

ant wrote:Either Muslims learn to police themselves, or the larger world imposes sanctions = false dichotomy

I wasn't presenting this as a dichotomy of causes. I was presenting it as a ultimatum. It has nothing to do with a false dichotomy.

Flann wrote:In France and Britain you have National Front type groups engaged in propagating hatred of Muslims.
And of course there are the wars in places like Syria which seem to provide a cause to fight and die for in the name of Islam.

In rehashing various statistics, politifact estimates that roughly 20% of muslims are radical. That's not a small number. Given, these are merely people that want to apply Sharia law to the entire world, rather than blow the world up, but I think that qualifies as radical. We really don't want to be forced to obey Sharia law.

Just my opinion, but the religion is a terrible thing. It's a tragedy that so many people follow it. Not only does it cause people to be fearful of it's followers, but it causes it's followers to act in extreme ways, with violence. It's a volatile belief system, and the world would be better without it. A disclaimer for ant: no, I'm not saying we eliminate all muslims.