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Network Solutions Suspends Site of Anti-Islam Film
h4rm0ny notes the furor over an anti-Islamic movie due to be released on the Web in the next week. After Pakistan disrupted YouTube worldwide over an interview with right-wing Dutch MP and filmmaker Geert Wilders, Network Solutions, acting as host as well as registrar, has suspended Wilders's site promoting the 15-minute film "Fitna" (a Koranic term translated as "strife"). The site now displays a notice that it is under investigation for possible violations of NetSol's acceptable use policy. According to the article the company's guidelines include "a sweeping prohibition against 'objectionable material of any kind or nature.'" The article describes the site's content before NetSol pulled the plug as a single page with the film's title, an image of the Koran, and the words "Coming Soon." No one but Wilders has seen the film to date. The Dutch government has distanced itself from the film, fearing Muslim backlash. A million Muslims live in The Netherlands. Wilders's party, which controls 9 of 150 seats in the Dutch parliament, was elected on an anti-immigration platform.
American Evangelicals don't go suicide bombing anyone that disagrees with their point of view. They also don't call for the execution of cartoonists that portray Jesus disrespectfully...
>As this film hasn't been released, I give Network Solutions the benefit of the doubt.
Despite the fact that I think this guy is an islamofobic, racist and generally unpleasant guy, I still have to disagree with you here: before having seen the film, you can't assume it contains legally or otherwise unacceptable material. It will probably do so, but we'll have to wait and see whether this is indeed the case. Until the movie has been published, the benefit of the doubt should be given to Geert Wilders, regardless of his lousy reputation.
"Money is a sign of poverty." - Iain Banks
Someone made a film that consists entirely of Muslims protesting violently to stupid shit all over the planet? I'd say 15-20 minutes of film showing nothing but angry violent Muslims protesting stupid shit should be enough to paint them as stupid, to the point that anytime they protest anything the entirety of the rest of the world would laugh at them.
... well downright antisocial. As such I have less than zero respect for the god of a group of people that want to kill anyone that disagrees with them.
Seriously, not all Muslims are violent. Not all Muslims protest everyone else that does anything anywhere in the world that does not affect them. This whole 'insult to Islam' business is as out of control as political correctness in the US. We should start hanging signs up everywhere that state "Sharia Law not legal here" ()
The non-Muslim part of the world should be posting that loudly and proudly... to the point that ordinary Muslim peoples are ASHAMED of their violent militant Muslim friends. When other Muslims tell them to STFU and sit down perhaps the rest of us can stop worrying about stepping on the toes of Muhammed, prophet or otherwise.
No, I do not for an instant believe that Christians or Jews are any better. All the BS about Mr Gibson's movie was stupid. The crap about The Davinci Code was idiotic. The bruhaha about 'The last temptation of Christ' was ignorant. All of these religious groups that are claiming sacred right to this and that and feel they are being insulted actually need to adhere to the words in their books. Oh, but that's the problem... they think they are. Well, for all their 'righteousness' the have surely fucked this planet up.
If you feel insulted, take it as a reason to ponder for a few moments how well you live your religious beliefs. If you think I left your religion out SMACK!! You too can go ponder your religious beliefs. If when you are finished you still find that you are right to be intolerant of other people's belief systems I have a friend with a gun store and plenty of single use bullets. Use these to massage your temples and all will begin to get better in the world.
Personally I'd like to see more people making fun of ALL religions. ALL of them. If your god is almighty and doesn't want anyone to make fun of them, or tell jokes about them, or in some way portray them in ways that you don't like... well, then I suggest your god come right on down here to little old Earth and tell me about it in PERSON. I will not accept the likeness of his mother on a piece of burnt toast or a water stained wall as a sign. I will not accept that a human prophet speaks for an ALL POWERFUL god. If your god does not want me to draw cartoons or make films, he can come down and explain it in PERSON.
Perhaps that is the problem? god doesn't come down and explain things in person so when there is a challenge to god's authority religious zealots have to act before someone points out that there god is not much good at protecting his image, never mind the feeble lives of his followers?
If that makes you wonder about god... good. I do not want to believe in anything or entity whose supporters are so violent, militant, dogmatic, ignorant, disrespectful, hateful and
Yes, I know that only a small group of people hijack religion to server their militant causes. My point is that others of whatever faith should be rising up to stop such people from ruining their otherwise good intentions.
Final point is that when good people let bad people ruin their faith and do nothing to stop it, it denigrates all of them. Where are those Muslims that renounce violence? Where are the Muslims that renounce suicide bombings? Why did the Iranian vigils after 9/11 get no real news airplay?
Thanks to all the high profile religious people in the world, Atheism is the fastest growing set of beliefs in the Western World, if I can say it that way.
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Contrast your own words to these:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
I don't see anything about, "unless it's speech we really, really don't like," in there at all, do you?
Making negative blanket statements about 1.2 billion VERY VERY diverse Muslims on Earth is also hate crime...
A hate crime has to have SOME criminal element to it. If I say 'Muslims suck', I made a blanket statement, but to even think of elevating it to a crime is absurd. Now, I can run around all day spouting blanket staments, and eventually people will learn that I am acting like a crackpot and have nothing important to say. (Example, Twitter). That is punishment enough.
To start deciding that unpopular content is a crime in itself is the first step in the end of free speech.
I've seen some of the cartoons, I have not seen the film. The cartoons are tasteless, they are not criminal.
The Koran is also very famous for declaring that there is no compulsion in religion. The early Islamic world was well known for tolerating other faiths. In fact, there was a financial incentive for this as well, since people of other religions were taxed to fund the Empire. Al Andalus was a model of religious co-existence for many years. It is no surprise that what is arguably the high water mark of Sephardic Jewish culture occurs at this time.
It's rather pointless to blame Islam, or Christianity for that matter. Both are in fact inert doctrines until they are taken up and interpreted by individuals. Martin Luther King was a Christian, but so was Jerry Falwell, and so were the Crusaders and Oliver Cromwell. Similarly, Osama bin Laden is a Muslim, but Avicenna, Abd Ar Rahman, and Suleyman the Magnificent were Muslims too.
I'm an atheist, but I admire many religious people and deplore others. It's a mixed bad. Idiots like Hitchens can pretend that religion has never done anything good, but has he ever listened to a Bach oratorio or stood in the Mezquita? Only an idiot could say religion has done nothing good.
"by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS
" negative blanket statements about 1.2 billion VERY VERY diverse Muslims on Earth is also hate crime..."
No, it is mere insult. Insult is not a crime, except under Islam, which does not tolerate a wide variety of other Free Speech.
You are invited to make all the derogatory cartoons of me you like, and of my beliefs (I'm theism-free). It bothers me not.
I've deployed to the richest Muslim societies on the planet, and seen the best they can do under the guidance of your oppressive, barbaric, pseudo-Nazi superstition. I will not yield to demands to change our social discourse just because it is not on Islamic (or Christian, Jewish, Scientologist, etc) terms.
Your Prophet can kiss my fat white arse.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Not to sound offensive,but your speech is exactly the reason why Muslim immigration is seen as a plague by Europeans. Everything is "hate crime" and suddenly we must go to some sort of doublespeak sensitivity training to accomodate that.
"making derogatory cartoons of what's dear to me is NOTHING but hate crime"... this sums it up *perfectly*: anything anyone wants to say that displeases you should be considered hate crime, and as such forbidden. It sounds remarkably as a first step towards state-sanctioned Sharia law.
Maybe this comment is also hate crime? Who knows. What I *know* is that I can say that Jesus liked to dress in drag and had an affair with all of the apostles while smoking a joint and nobody wlil prevent me from saying it, nor will anyone - not even he "equally bad" Christians that are used as some sort of "they did it to!" scapegoat - try to kill me. But the moment I even *draw* a depiction off Mohammed I'm an hateful bastard who must be stoped because I'm infringing someones feelings.
There are places where this sort of behaviour is law. Saudi Arabia, for example. I would recommend to people displeased with my ability to say that Mohammed was a camel-sucking homo to move there.
PS: Just to be democratic, it's also perfectly legal to say that Jupiter likes little boys and Ariadne is a slut. Fine with me.
This demonstrates the problem with allowing private organizations to serve as the gateway to the network. The nets, like the roads, should be a public resource; otherwise, they're going to be filtered by the views and fears of those entities providing access.
This is a perfect example: Network Solutions is in no way the author of, or the sponsor of, this content, but they will filter it because they don't want to be another target of violent factions of Islam or hordes of politically correct, censorship-minded people / investors. So the site is censored. Today it is someone speaking out against superstition and violent social coercion; tomorrow it may be a site against the drug war, or one against the war in Iraq. Or one that speaks out against your local school board. Or one that promotes Catholicism over Protestantism.
Personally, I think access-provider censorship is the kind of behavior the FCC really ought to be watching for, if they were really looking out for us. But of course, they aren't. They're watching out for corporate interests. And of course, Network Solutions is a corporation.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
You saw it on TV? Wow, it must be representative of the whole Middle East then.
Long ago. Where were you, in a cave? In the nation with the world's most advanced concepts and legal frameworks relating to liberty, in order to Save The [insert fear-inspiring potential Victims here], free speech is not free; freedom of religion is not freedom; the explicit right to keep and bear arms is no right; the commerce clause is the inverse commerce clause; the orderly and specific requirements of probable cause, oath or affirmation, warrant, and then search have become search, followed, perhaps, by warrant; the freedom from incriminating one's self has become the freedom to be tortured until you speak the desired confession; the absolute dictate against ex post facto laws spawns them instead of stopping them; enforcement of the prohibition against being deprived of property without due process is only a dim memory; and the government wages a violent war against personal and consensual adult choices in such a way as to create black markets of equal violence and danger.
Certainly, more remains to be lost. So enjoy what you have now. It's only going to get worse. Save The [fitb]!
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
As a dutch colored guy, I would be assumed to not be a fan of Wilders (the guy that made said movie that no one has seen yet)... and that's true, in fact, if I didn't have half a brain, I'd probably go out and punch that guy as hard as I can in the face because he's advocating seperation and instead of working together, advocates hate and stigmatizing all people that aren't white as criminals.
But I don't... I severely despise everything he stands for, yet I will fight for his right to say so. Even if the movie is offensive and inflamatory (and no one has seen it yet), I think if we ban this or any other speech, it's not just bad for "free speech" but mostly, a threat to an open society. I think his kind would never have gained the support if we would all allow him to say whatever stupid things he wants. When it's not allowed to talk about it, all good reasons against it aren't heard either. I say, let's view his inflamotory, hatefull movie and laugh about / discuss it.
That said... I really fear what will happen to him, cos we can't really expect a guy that's so full of **** and so much in the public spotlight to *not* get some crazy muslim to kill him... I mean, I hope it doesn't happen and just degrades to another "Jan Maat", but if he does get killed (and he's really working hard to make that a reality) his views will only be adopted even more... and he will have gained more support in death than he ever could in life...
"This should be fun, and by fun, I mean a wholly depressing insight into the cognitive ability of some grown adults."
Freedom of speech is precisely freedom of offensive speech, particularly offensive political speech. When the party in power in a givernment can arrest an opposition party member or candidate (or censor his speech) for simply stating his platform, democracy is over.
I believe the term for inoffensively destroying democracy is "velvet fascism". It seems to be gaining ground in a great many countries. You should be outraged by this!
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I am consistently amazed by the rights that people, particularly Americans since this is where I reside, think they have. It used to amuse me. Then it saddened me. Now it frightens me to see the "false rights" that people want defended. They include, but certainly are not limited to:
;-)
1. Freedom from being offended.
- I've actually heard people who think that offending a person audibly is equally punishable as assaulting a person physically. When I tried to argue this idea, they kept yelling "It's the same thing. It's the same thing. It's the same F---ing thing."
2. Freedom _from_, not _of_, religion.
- It's arguable (as are all things regarding religion http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/religion#Usage_notes ), but everyone has a religion. (Religion as in a person's believe _regarding_, not necessarily in, deities.) So, just because you are an atheist, you don't have a right to total isolation from religion. Although I sympathize at how annoyed you must be.
3. Constitutional right to vote.
- This was even spoke of recently by Barack Obama. I'm disturbed to see how many people think the U.S. Constitution affords them a right to vote. The truth is, the Federal Government only restricts the criteria that can be used for denying a person the privilege of voting. Your state's constitution may protect additional rights, but that is rarely ever spoken of. I think that it would increase voter turn out if we properly described voting as a privilege instead of a right.
4. The right to drive an automobile.
- This is certainly a privilege, not a right. It is also a privilege that is too freely granted, and too infrequently denied or revoked.
Please feel free to contribute to the list. I guess you have the _right_ to argue with it too, but why would you want to?
The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the