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Rackspace Shuts Down Quran-Burning Church's Sites
theodp writes "In response to a complaint, Rackspace has shut down the websites of the Dove World Outreach Center, a small 50-member church which has received national and international criticism for a planned book burning of the Quran on the anniversary of the 9-11 attacks. The center 'violated the hate-speech provision of our acceptable-use policy,' explained Rackspace spokesman Dan Goodgame. 'This is not a constitutional issue. This is a contract issue,' said Goodgame, who added he did not know how long it had hosted the church's sites. Not quite the same thing, but would Kurt Westergaard's cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad also violate Rackspace's AUP? How about Christopher Hitchens' Slate articles? Could articles from one-time Rackspace poster child The Onion pass muster?"
As much as I think this whole is stupid and that a tiny fringe group is being given waaayyy too much publicity for something like this, I don't think shutting down its website is appropriate. They aren't hurting anyone (directly) and by shutting them up you are violating their freedom of speech, no matter how ignorant or idiotic it happens to be. Let them continue to broadcast their idiocy to the world and hopefully everyone will ignore them when they realise how dumb the message actually is. We've all heard of the Streisand effect, haven't we?
awesome, it's nice to see a company with a bit of a spine, freedom of speech is one thing, but no-one has to provide a stage.
- tensions in our lives that are attacking our minds, unite themselves together to make our consciousness blind - op'ivy
Really though, bigots, use Linode. They don't have a policy like this.
Sooner or later you get into the question, do people have the right to dislike other groups of people?
You know, we didn't need Rackspace to get involved in this mess, we already had enough people trying to stomp on the preacher's 1st amendment rights. Yes, it may violate their TOS, but still, it was unnecessary and only makes the situation worse. They should have just let it slide and if they had to, release a statement distancing themselves from the church, blah blah blah...
I think that burning the Koran is stupid, senseless and harmful, but the whole idea behind the 1st Amendment is to protect and allow EXACTLY this kind of speech. Either you truly believe in free speech and support the preacher's right to burn the book (even if you find the idea deplorable) or you don't really believe in free speech.
Ironically, I put the 1st amendment as my status on facebook, as I got tired of half my Christian friends talking about how they shouldn't put a mosque near the old twin tower site. I thought it was obvious in that I was saying they have the right to built it anywhere that code allows, even if I find it distasteful. They all universally thought I was supporting THEIR right to say that Muslims have no right to build it there. I guess free speech is great, as long as others don't say something you don't like.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
So, if someone decides to burn a Bible would they do the same? Look, I am not siding with these bigots, but all this government pressure to attack this stupid church/people, shut them down, and feel them intimidated reeks of police state tactics. Maybe we should all exchange some matches...that way all the bigots on all side are covered and ready to "strike?"
To all the people claiming that this violates this church's right to free speech, please inform me of how this is a government action. Because that is what is protected under the First Amendment. Hell, it's the first three words of the fucking amendment...
"Freedom of speech" only applies to Government's interference in forms of speech. Rackspace is a private company and can do as they please.
Political Correctness has replaced both freedom of religion AND freedom of speech in this country. We've become a nation of cowards.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
is for all these groups going out of their way to condemn this idiotic church but no condemn the threatened response of adherents of Islam. If one little piss ant church in America can cause so many Muslims unglued.
Frankly, while I find the idea of burning any book abhorrent I think that spitting in the face of these radicals of Islam is more important than not. Either bring your religion to 21st century and join the rest of us or shut the hell up.
So, yeah a small town church with a ego maniac at its helm is burning a book, it is no excuse by any RATIONAL people to react with violence.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I don't agree. Instead of a compromise, isn't this more like encouraging people to take more provocative actions so they'd get their way?
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
... so I hope that Rackspace would be fair-minded and shut down any site that publishes the Qu'ran. For example, see Wikipedia
To be clear: I utterly despise book-burning and I think the guy who wants to burn the Qu'ran is doing it solely to incite anger. But at the same time, the Qu'ran itself contains many inflammatory passages and should be criticized just as roundly as the wing-nut in Florida.
Actually, this is the part that ticks me off the most about America: thinking that freedom of speech means you can swear at the neighbour's birthday party, or that some company has to carry your drivel.
In reality it's strictly about your relationship with Congress. The actual text of the first amendment reads: "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." Basically Congress can make no law forbidding you to be a bigotted douchebag, but a company is not forced to carry your packets anyway. A private company can't violate your freedom of speech, because in respect to them you had none whatsoever in the first place.
In fact, if government forced a company to carry someone's drivel, they'd be essentially violating that company's freedom of press. It would be the government telling them what to print and/or distribute.
And possibly freedom of association too (in forcing them to be associated with some particular asshole or the views thereof), although that one isn't explicitly guaranteed in the USA anyway, only freedom of assembly is.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
If they're not quite the same thing, why bother comparing them at all?
They're not the government (read the first amendment again please), and they have a clearly written policy for the type of things that can be hosted on their servers.
Either you apply your TOS, or you're going to face another situation when people start asking why they got shut down, but that guy didn't.
Hell, they're not saying the site can't be on the internet, or trying to influence other hosts to prevent them from getting another site, they're just saying "we don't allow that on our resources".
It's not censorship. Not even close.
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
Since when does free (hate) speech outweigh freedom of religion. To be free from persecution. Burning the Koran/Quran is a form of intimidation, much like burning crosses in peoples front yards.
- tensions in our lives that are attacking our minds, unite themselves together to make our consciousness blind - op'ivy
While the submitter makes it sound like they disagree with Rackspace's decision (head boggle...), I would like to say good. Good for them. Freedom of speech does not mean that everyone must listen to you. Freedom of speech does not mean every company must assist you in delivering a message they disagree with. Freedom of speech means the government can't shut you down because they don't like your message. I, as an individual, can shut you off. Companies that disagree with you have no requirement to broadcast your message.
Good for Rackspace. They did the right thing.
And, to the church I say this - you're hateful fucks. I hope you find out that your God isn't quite so accepting of hateful actions like that.
So, some backwoods yokel can make threats of religious violence in Florida and affect the outcome of a local zoning issue in New York County (Manhattan)? Sounds like terrorism to me, dude.
I'm not sure what's sadder. A backwoods pastor trying to provoke a reaction by book burning or the international media giving the idiot so much free airtime and so many free column inches. I bet the guy has never felt so important. If I were a cynical sort, I would think the media is devoting so much time to this subject purely to provoke a reaction from certain groups in order to have something explosive to report and moralise on. After all, nothing sells newspapers like violence and bloodshed...
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
...how does a tolerant society deal with intolerance?
There are many inconsistent and hypocritical ways of answering this question. I'm not sure there are any good answers.
This "church" is doing to tolerance what Gödel did to mathematics -- showing its internal contradictions.
Reading a book from cover to cover should be a prerequisite to burning it.
Umm... Rackspace shut the site down. not America.
Need to quote my own sig for those that have them turned off: (quote is sig was made intentionally shorter to fit the size limit. Here is the full one) "Freedom in the United States of America is no longer the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want." - A. Anderson
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
Ok, please explain to me how either of the two parties mentioned get their way with my solution? Plus isn't extreme provocation how the Muslim extremists are reacting? Rioting and protesting to stop the Koran burning? This solutions shows the radicals that we are willing to listen but we expect something in return.
"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh. " -Voltaire
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/9/5/893426/-WARNING:-Money-launderers-using-moslems-as-red-herrings
Yes, it is totally about Islam being above criticism, and has nothing to do with this guy being sleazy all the way through.
Seriously, this kind of paranoia makes no sense. There is nothing preventing people from criticising Islam, or any other religion. There are criticisms, though, which are sufficiently hyperbolic and unfounded that they don't get much sympathy or protection.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
If you can explain to me how burning someone else's holy book qualifies as satire or parody then I'll accept the equivalence with Westergaard's case.
This situation is closer to a company like Rackspace choosing not to host the KKK's web site. Doesn't exactly make Rackspace a paragon of free speech, but there no shortage of service providers out there who are willing to host the site... most at a premium that covers the inevitable hack attacks.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
My own personal guess is that there's two reasons for this move:
1) The cost of containing damage from activist and/or religious hackers is higher than the income brought in by the offending site.
2) The loss of income from muslim clients is greater than the income brought in by the offending site.
Let's be clear - you have a freedom of speech in the US. And a freedom of religion. But you can't make Putnam Books publish to get your message out there.
(1) The constitution is binding on the *government*, not private parties. Rackspace may deny service to anyone, just as Dove World Outrage Center may.
(2) There's a legal and moral distinction between being insulting or derogatory speech (Westergaard, Onion) and inciting violence (Dove).
(3) "Clear and present danger" is a recognized exception to free speech. Don't yell fire in a crowded theatre, etc. The *predictable* result of Dove's action is a sharply increased risk of retaliatory attacks killing US soldiers.
IMO any of these three reasons alone is sufficient to say that Rackspace's action is no affront to free speech. In combination, they're sufficient for me to say that anyone who protests Rackspace's actions more than Dove's is exhibiting a lack of understanding and/or perspective so serious that it's the domain of psychiatry rather than philosophy. I say that as a card-carrying monthly-dues-paying ACLU member, by the way. The actual advancement of civil liberties is only harmed by such ridiculous positions.
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
Good game, Mr Goodgame. Haters just be hatin. Somehow I think if there was a god he wouldnt take to kindly to all this nastyness.
Those who can, do. Those who cannot, sue.
The worst thing about this is that Rev. Terry Jones has sullied the good name of Terry Jones, the ex-Python member.
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
You're the first I've seen making any reference to "intimidation," which is entirely subjective. How are they being intimidating?
Bad use of Fahrenheit 451. That was about preventing education of the masses, not making a religious or nationalistic statement. They're burning just the Koran, not any books they can get their hands on.
This isn't criticism. This is trolling, and all it will achieve is angering muslims who didn't have anything to do with 9/11 and help those who did.
Which is what the USA is all about. You can say what you like as long as you can afford to pay for creation and distribution and someone will take your money. Otherwise you are effectively silenced.
Blar.
So is anyone planning to park outside of the church and hold a "Bible Barbecue," cooking burgers on grills in the back of pickups replacing the charcoal with, well...
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
If by "all" you mean:
then yes, your subject says it all.
which is totally what she said
Burning crosses carried with it a bodily threat. Burning the Koran is merely a rejection of a religion. Roughly equivalent of burning a flag. Shouldn't all you flag burning communists be supporting this? The mainstream wouldn't blink at burning the bible -- been there, done that.
Rackspace is, of course, free to terminate services with anyone they see fit. I'd say it's probably a bad idea to get into the game of judging the quality of content when you have that much content, however. Someone can be offended by almost anything. And this is what it is about, a group is feeling offended, not threatened.
t
You're what is known in my neck of the woods as a moron.
The Hebrews committed genocide at the behest of their god several times. You really gotta check out the old testament some time.
Blar.
I was thinking the same thing... find every religious text you can and burn them all, and watch how it's just the Muslims who riot. Islam is the petulant child of religions, they can dish it but they can't take it. Fuck `em. I'm glad a few people like Christopher Hitchens and Thunderf00t still have balls enough not to knuckle under to all the PC cries of 'bigot!' just because they still have eyes with which to see.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
If burning your own copy of a book is "religious violence," to the point of being terrorism, then we have no free speech rights whatsoever, do we?
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
There's a big difference between burning a cross in front of some person's yard and burning a cross in your own yard...
The Koran is just a book, let it burn. In fact, throw in some bibles while you're at it.
But that is the beauty of it. New York Country Zoning laws play no part. The Imam, ideally, should volunteer to move the mosque as part of the compromise. Plus if it does smell a bit like terrorism, it is something the fanatical Muslims should understand.
However, I don't see it as terrorism for the simple fact the 'yokel' is not making any demands he just feels a need to perform his action. The Imam does as well. I'm merely putting forth a compromise that could be acceptable to both parties and offends the least number of people. No ones rights are stepped on and a solution is reached.
"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh. " -Voltaire
Yes there is. Fear. Cowardice. Very few are left with the spine to stand up and say that Islam is NOT above criticism. Even show a picture of Muhammad and television networks run away, newspapers cower in fear, the citizens of the most powerful country in the world turn into a bunch of scared children--unwilling to make even the most token effort to defend one of the defining principles of the Constitution that founded modern democracy. People who would have no problem with someone burning a flag or Bible become apologists for repression in the name of religion. And they don't do it because of "respecting religion." Let's be honest. They do it because they're COWARDS.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Good for Rackspace. And good for you. It's critical to first remember that 1st Amendment only regards the actions of the government. Period. End of Story.
This was an action/choice by a "private" entity, not a "public" entity. The only way the government should be considered in this action if Rackspace had, for example, a government license to operate and dropping this action in some way violated that license. For example, if your local cable company has a government-sanctioned monopoly, I would hope that they would have to operate under the dictates of the 1st Amendment.
Rackspace provides a service, and they always have the right to refuse service to anyone. But, no worry, you also have the (reflexive) right to not use their service. That is called a boycott. It has a long and proud tradition and you are free to exercise it.
Now get off my lawn.
I don't fear computers, I fear the lack of them. -I. Asimov
Since enabling a non-violent rejection of someone else's point of view is the entire point of both free speech and freedom of religion. Seriously, what do you think free speech/religion/press/assembly is for if not expressing viewpoints that someone else finds grossly offensive?
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
For those of us who are a bit more conservative in our Christianity (many here may call me a fundie - the pastor burning the books would probably call me a lefty, so there you go...), this book burning issue is sad not because of the intolerance and idiocy that it shows, but because it serves no Gospel purpose. It will push Muslims away from Christianity (as well as Western values in general - many non-western Muslims link nationality and religion together). It does nothing to fulfill the Great Commission - the idea that Christ commanded us to go into the world and preach the Gospel (man is a sinner in need of a Saviour, provided by Christ's death on the Cross). It just does the opposite.
This wouldn't have been a big deal if everyone had ignored the guy. So some bigot wants to burn a book, let him; just ignore him. The fact that everyone is giving him so much attention is causing way more problems then the actions he is doing.
If you want to have fun with him, you should bring your bible's and crosses to the burning and join in on the anti religion fun. Bring a Book of Mormon and some L Ron Hubbard to the event too. Hell, bring an American Flag and the Origin of Species as well just to make sure all your bases are covered.
People should be allowed to burn stuff in protest of things they believe are wrong. They have that right. It doesn't mean it is good or appropriate. The fear that it will be used as a recruitment tool or upset other people is not a valid reason to stop them from protesting. If anything it is a reason to allow them to protest. When did we loose our spine. I will not cower to extremists of any religion, not the Bible thumping abortionist killing kind nor the suicidal Islamic kind.
Let the man burn his books and live his hate filled life, just ignore him and his 50 congregants. There are 310 million other people in this country who disagree with what he is doing, if one person burning copies of the Qur'an can cause so much harm and the Extremists can't look at the rest of the nation that is appalled by his action, then maybe he is right to do so after all.
It's just a bunch of religious ramblings. They should throw the bible and other religious text on the bonfire as well.
However - my issue, and possibly Rackspace's, is burning the Rainbow Flag. They're burning the flag in hatred of homosexuals, and homosexuals are definitely protected under hate speech laws.
It's a shame I don't live in the US. It would be fun to test this church's true stance on free speech by arranging a burning of the Bible protest in their backyard. For good measure I'd burn an effigy of Jesus on the cross while I'm at it.
I mean - it's the same thing, right? Right?
--Brad Stine (misquoted horribly)
Not "Insightful" if you think about it!
That's a lie designed to give superstition a pass so SUPERSTITIONISTS CAN BAN ANYTHING THEY _CHOOSE_ TO CONSIDER "INTIMIDATING".
Burning any other _POLITICAL_ book would be fine, religion is _not_more_than_ superstitious politics, and burning inanimate objects is peaceful protest.
Burning a cross in a FRONT YARD (private property not belonging to those doing the burning) is intimidation.
Burning one elsewhere can certainly be protected speech:
http://www.aclu.org/free-speech/us-supreme-court-upholds-va-cross-burning-ban-sends-law-back-state-court-refinement
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Burning qurans to upset islamists is like burning bibles to upset the WBC.
Except for the fact that all the WBC ever does is show up with signs and stage a protest. They don't show up with grenade launchers, sharp knives, bombs, and guns. WBC is a significantly less harmful bag of nuts than radical islam. And what these radical muslims have discovered is that threats work to make people in the west roll over so they can get their way, or to strike the right amount of fear in them to make them willing to have full body scans to get on an airplane and give up their rights in the name of terrorism.
Reply to That ||
...it's just plain ugly, and we just don't need it. This begs the question "what is hate speech?," but that's not my department (I am not a SCOTUS Justice).
But we certainly don't need hate speech.
We seem to tolerate, even not care when others burning items that are meant to offend us. We say they have a right to do so and many just don't care about people burning, stomping, defacing items that are really targeting us. When some idiot goes to target them, now we're upset about it?
Rackspace has a right to pull the plug, the government should not step, and burning a Koran is wrong and should not be done. BUT where is our spine when others are doing this to offend us?
I'm tired of our liberal wimps who have the balls to turn the screws to people who are under our law and likely wouldn't bring harm to them over their actions and works. But we have lost our sense of values and ideals when we don't stand up and stay to people in other parts of the world that do these things to offend us. Do we protest, no, we give them money, aide, the shirts off our back. Good job people, way to reward our enemies.
Stand up for your values and ideals and grow a spine.
Now, I'm going to get a latte and flip on the Disney channel. :)
There's no question of rights or freedom here. This is about a guy being an absolute asshole and other people telling him that he should stop being an asshole.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
The leader of the free world came down from on high and told this guy to stop. The day after Obama speaks they pull his site down. Now if they had pulled it down immediately after this guy started talking about koran burning that would have indeed been all Rackspace and totally within their own rights to serve whomever they please. But once the POTUS comes down on the guy I'm sure Rackspace though "IRS(FCC,CIA,NSA,FTC etc) Audit time, this guy has got to go.". They obviously want to save their own skin not just from the political fallout but more from any retaliation from an openly hostile government.
Whether or not you agree with the guy you must admit that the government has no right to speak negatively about what this guy is doing, without giving equal feigned outrage at the burning of our flag, bible, constitution etc... Strange he[POTUS] only speak up now. Whatever happened to equal protection? If you say burning the koran is bad, why not through in the bible and the flag too.
But of course Christians and patriots don't go all jihad on people, so really the government is even more pathetic than first thought. Not only are they stopping out this guys rights to free speech but they are doing so at the behest of foreign invaders whom we are at war with. If the government isn't going to protect the rights of its citizens from foreign invaders what the hell good is it?
The chain of events is undeniable:
Obama speaks out publicly against this guy's speech > Rackspace takes him down.
If that's not government suppression of free speech rights - what is? How far does the government have to go in condemning what you say before you call it an infringement? When do you say "enough bad mouthing this guy just because of how he feels about Islam."
http://news.google.com/news/more?pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&topic=h&ncl=d1QWPuXxsUx51TMtOVUme7-2SzXLM
The buzz phrase "Political Correctness" has replaced reasoned dialog AND debate in in this country. We've become a nation of fanatics.
If I have a restaurant, brainiac, and someone wants to shout about their religion and bigotry, they have every right to do so on public property. They will get a boot in the ass if they try it on my property. I don't have to support bigots because, and I quote:
"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'm not Congress and I'm making no law. Perhaps a state law would do it. City ordinance? And I find it interesting that people defend the free speech of bigots from... the free speech of those against bigotry. Hypocrite.
In conclusion, as I there is no legal imperative for me, as a non-elected official, to respect your freedom of speech, I will exercise my own and tell you to shut the hell up.
Omnes tuae crepidines sunt nobis sunt. Ascendo tuum!
Simple. Don't take this analogy too literally (yes, you can nitpick at the specific details, but that's not my point), but think about this:
Suppose you decide to build an extension on your house that blocks my view of some scenery. I go and tell you that if you build the extension, I'd burn your house down. You stop building the extension on your house. I don't burn down your house.
Is that a compromise?
See the problem is that the provocative act (burning Korans or the threat of burning down your house) isn't made because the provocative party WANTS to do it. The provocative act is done to induce the other party to do something (stop building the extension on the house, or stop building at the Park51 location). So by bowing down to the threat of the provocative act, what you do is that you reinforce in the provocateurs that if you make a big enough threat, people are going to cave and bow to your demands. Not a good precedent to have.
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
I'm confused by all the common book burning references too. These people are not purging a school or library of korans and burning them. They're buying new ones to make a statement. They're destroying nothing, no more than if they bought the books and simply kept them on their private bookshelves.
but would Kurt Westergaard's cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad also violate Rackspace's AUP? How about Christopher Hitchens' Slate articles? Could articles from one-time Rackspace poster child The Onion pass muster?"
that pastor's call for koran burning is hate speech. here in basil he'd be in jail for it by now.
i don't about hitchens, but the onion is satire, something that's constitutionaly protected here and, IIRC, in US as well.
What ? Me, worry ?
Political Correctness has replaced both freedom of religion AND freedom of speech in this country.
No. You are still free to practice any religion that you want. Please explain when and how the government has prevented you from practicing your religion. Likewise, please explain when and how the government stopped you from exercising your right to free speech.
We've become a nation of cowards.
Please post a YouTube video of you burning a stack of Korans, Bibles, Torahs, etc. to prove you aren't a coward.
No. I keep seeing this repeated, but it's absolutely not true. Constitutionally-protected free speech only applies to the government's interference in forms of speech. Free speech refers to lack of any interference. If a lynchmob attacks the idiot ranting on street corner, he is not able to exercise free speech. If someone can not publish a book critical of Islam because an Ayatollah will put a fatwa on him and someone will kill him if he does, then it's not free speech.
That Voltaire quote that everyone trots out says that he would 'defend to the death your right to say it' not that he would 'defend to your death the right for the government not to interfere with you.'
The entire point of free speech is to allow people to say unpopular things. Personally, I think that burning Muslim and Jewish[1] books is a pretty idiotic statement to make, outclassed in stupidity only by the Muslims threatening violence if he does it. Burning books harms no one - it is simply an expression of an opinion. He has just as much of a right to do it as I have to call him an asshat for doing it.
When it comes to Rackspace, the situation is more difficult. As a private company, they have the legal right to refuse to provide a service, but what happens if everyone does? It is not possible to publish information on the web without using some privately owned infrastructure. Does this mean that it's okay to stifle free speech on the Internet, as long as it's done via corporate collusion rather than government mandate? In the US, the legal answer is yes.
Of course, it's also within the rights of Rackspace's customers to decide to move elsewhere. If I did business with them, this would cause me to notify them that I was leaving at the end of the contract period. My hosting provider will object if I use their service to do anything illegal, but beyond that places no additional restrictions. I would be very nervous about using a provider that would pull your account because your posted material that was in some way objectionable to some arbitrary group.
[1] Yes, he's also burning the Talmud, but apparently we only care that he's burning the Qur'an. Oddly enough, he's not burning any books from non-Abrahamic religions.
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I have to admit I take perverse pleasure in this idea. But I'm not sure how much my own ignorance buttresses that pleasure—hence my reluctance to admit to it.
Intolerance is something I just won't tolerate.
Muslims, and maybe Scientologiests.
The reason is that these groups make a bigger fuss about it. If Christians had the same "hair trigger sensitivity to slightest perceived insult" (quoting Pat Condell) then Christians would be given the same consideration.
If Christians were to start rioting, murdering, or at filing lawsuits, over every silly little thing, then Christians would be given the same consideration.
are you kidding me? there was an anti-islam frenzy in the media for the past month. and it's really sad that you view the suppression of hate as political correctness. criticism and hate can be separate.
--- widget evolution: enhanced, plus, super, ultra, extreme, exxxtreme, ultra-extreme,
I'm quite sure the suits of corporate media don't think that far ahead. More likely, they saw this as an awesome opportunity for giving their ratings a shot in the arm. And I bet it did.
Omnes tuae crepidines sunt nobis sunt. Ascendo tuum!
We've become a nation of cowards.
People have been saying that exact same thing for decades, it's a common right wing whine. The 'pastor' is not having his freedom of speech imposed on, let Fox News carry his message. However, personally, I won't do business with anyone who gives that guy a platform.
"When most people talk about free speech, they're talking about the principle of free speech, not the legal right."
Right... except you're not guaranteed the principle of free speech by anything. Also, even if the principle of free speach has any backing, Rackspace is not obliged to broadcast it for you. Their version of free speech is to not be required to echo your speech.
Where was the Liberal outcry against Serrano when he portrayed a crucifix in a jar of urine as "art" PAID FOR BY U.S GOVERNMENT MONEY?
I guess when it's against Christians who faithfully turn the other cheek, it's OK, but when it's against Muslims who threaten violence, it's not OK.
To all the people claiming that murder violates a person's right to life, please inform me of how it is a government action. Because what is enumerated by the constitution is a set of powers that the US Federal Government has, it is not a list of all rights that a person has. Hell, it's in the preface to the Bill of Rights.
Newsflash: The constitution does not guarnatee free speech, it guarantees that the Federal government will not interfere with free speech. That doesn't mean that it's not still free speech when someone else is interfering with it.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Jee, what was voltaire jailed and banished for again ? Hmmmm, ... for doing things against the prevalent dogma.
Weren't we supposed to be better than medieval frenchmen ? Clearly you aren't.
Is it honestly so hard to tell that drawing a cartoon and burning a book are not just not the same thing, but opposites?
To burn a book is to engage in censorship, even symbolically. This is not tolerable, and to hinder it is not a violation of free speech; it is the assertion of free speech. It's not about holy books or sacrilege. If he were burning the Origin of Species, Terry Jones would be just as much of an asshole.
The guy's a nutcase. He's been a nutcase for years.
Whilst I agree that burning the Koran is probably not the smartest of moves, precisely because it will lead to violence, I do take issue with the double standards here.
We have for example countries like Malasia, Indonesia, and Afghanistan complaining about how someone burning the Koran is offence and insisting the US government step in to stop it, but where are these country's governments when people in these countries burn western flags, or effigies of foreign people? or even Christian bibles? or the star of David?
So I'll admit I'm not really sure what stance to take here, on one hand I agree that this pastor is clearly a little Hitler, but on the other, I'm concerned that no one is taking a step back and saying, well hang on, a lot of muslims burn sacred symbols from other religions and important symbols of other cultures, so are they now going to stop doing so if we stop this book burning?
I don't like this guy, in fact, I don't really like any religion at all if I'm honest, I think it's all a waste of time and money, but I'm concerned that the battle for freedom of speech and expression has already been lost- if we have the whole world condemning this pastor, whilst a blind eye is turned to the burnings of various things by muslim protestors, than hasn't the rest of the world effectively been forced to yield to Islamic values, whilst Islam as a religion has yielded nothing in return?
It's a difficult problem for sure, largely because both sides are just as bad as each other.
He's just burning some books. Our soldiers are being attacked because they are occupying peoples' homes and supporting a new government they don't all accept. The argument that burning these books would put our soldiers in more danger is not only incorrect, but irrelevant as here we are...giving up our rights and freedoms because we fear the terrorists. Another victory for fundies.
Talk about gross oversimplification. Our soldiers are being attacked because the people they displaced from power want it back. Oh, by the way, the people we displaced from power are Islamic Extremists, who deny basic education to women, recruit children into their armies, and are all around bad guys. The "regular" people of Afghanistan are all too happy to be out from the thumb of the Taliban. Not that our actions have been overtly friendly with civilians as of late, but that's the cost of a guerrilla war.
ASCII tastes bad dude.
Binary it is then.
Remember when the name Palin just meant Michael Palin?
Because it is (considered) holy a worn koran should not be tossed away but burned. So, little wrong with burning them but I guess the intentions (my religion is better than yours. No, it is not! I hate you) will suffice to raise the temper of any grown up five year old believer.
Bert
Who believes that everyone should be taught about retroviral evidence that we were not created by yagolah
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbbh1P6DW5I&feature=player_embedded
If the religion is kept in perspective there is less likelihood to impose bad things on others (I hope)
This is not a question about rights. No one is denying this man has a right to do what he says he will do.
What we are saying is that he is a fucking lunatic for exercising this right. Yes it will act as a recruiting sergeant for the Taliban (who must be laughing their heads off about this). Yes it will be used by demagogues to whip up mobs to attack Christians in many countries. Yes it is really just fucking rude and unnecessary.
If we were talking about cartoons of Mohammed then I might agree with you - there is an important principle about parody there - but this guy has just picked the most offensive thing he could do to the world's 1.3 billion Muslims, and is then going ahead and doing it. Irrespective of any arguments from common sense, principled tolerance, or basic good manners.
Lunatic is too kind - it suggests he is not responsible for his actions. This man is a crazy evil shit.
This sig all sigs devours
Those cartoons of Muhammad were social satire in the vein of every political cartoonist. The Slate article is an op ed piece. And The Onion... are you friggin' serious?
Omnes tuae crepidines sunt nobis sunt. Ascendo tuum!
Except burning the Quran is viewed as a direct insult to the religion. Think of someone taking a shit on baby Jesus in a manger, or pissing in the holy water.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
Maybe, but really what do you propose? There is not much way to, for example, protect freedom of the press if company don't have rights. Because even back in the day, newspapers tended to be incorporated as a company, rather than being one-man operations.
Plus, see again what I wrote. If Government could tell a company "you have to publish and distribute Mr Hugh G Asshole's Quran-thumping rants", then what's to guarantee that it stops there? Why not then "you have to publish Mr Toadie's daily praise of the government" too?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
are web sites that say vote for guy over a other one hate speech as well? It's real easy to spin a ad that way one guy may be white and if other one is black then is that hate speech? NO.
Rackspace just took away that Church's civil rights!
Freedom of speech and freedom of religion do not mean that you can say or do whatever you want and no one is allowed to react. The freedoms are only meant to protect you from governmental retaliation.
So, for example, you can criticize the government all you want, and e government can't throw you in jail for that. However, if you criticize me, your freedom of speech does not prevent me from ceasing to be your friend or refusing to do business with you. Your freedom to speak the way you want to does not necessarily trump my right to conduct myself the way I want to. As long as Rackspace has fulfilled it's legal obligations, it can cancel service whenever it wants.
And Islam is not "the only religion above criticism". First, it gets criticized all the time. Second, you're much more likely to get in trouble by criticizing Christianity than Islam. A bunch of terrifyingly ignorant bigots are going to burn books for no reason other than to insult a large and diverse group of people. It's stupid. Yeah, they have a constitutional right to say stupid, inflammatory, bigoted things, and nobody is stopping them. Still, I can't blame Rackspace for wanting to make sure no one thinks they're endorsing such things.
All the minister in question is doing is having the courage to follow what his faith requires.
That's simply crap. He's not doing anything that's likely to lead anyone to his faith at all. He's doing something specifically designed to insult and anger other people with no good purpose. Nobody's going to see this episode and convert to his faith because of it, so telling anyone that he's doing anything other than being hateful is a load of crap, and you know it.
It is an outrage that Christians who do nothing but declare a doctrine that the church has embraced for 2000 years can be accused of hate speech.
What he's doing isn't a declaration of doctrine, it's an effort to hurt others. He's being hateful, so accusing him of hate speech is entirely appropriate.
Virg
The first amendment applies to _government_ restrictions on speech. Extending the right to free speech to cover private companies would make spam filtering illegal, it would make forum moderation illegal, it would make filtering bad words in online chats illegal, etc...
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/
Your moral equivalence bullshit only works amongst the stupid. Where are the Christian terrorists?
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
...you'd allow a web-hosting company whose CEO and Board of Directors was Pro-Life to shut down the accounts of any blogger who advocated for abortion rights?
...you'd allow Comcast to shut down the blog of anyone arguing for 'Net neutrality?
Yeah, I didn't think so...
Actually, even for government agencies, they still don't have to provide everyone an outlet for their opinions. You can't demand that the CIA puts someone's anti-globalization rant on their front page, nor that the FBI publishes a rant about how pot should be legal, although both are completely funded and run by the government.
I don't see why an ISP would get to have even less freedom than those, just because it may or may not get some government subsidies.
Plus, I'm not sure if getting some government subsidies automatically trumps someone's rights. Otherwise the government could tell all those corn farmers what they can say and what not.
Plus, I'm really not sure if a web hosting company actually is receiving any government subsidies at all anyway.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
These guys are doing -nothing- of consequence. The Koran comes off of a web press in the tens of thousands, just like any other book these days. So all they are doing ultimately is making a bit more business for some printer. It isn't as though they are destroying some special, ancient Koran that has historical and cultural significance, they are just burning a mass produced book. If they can't see the futility of that, well then that makes them the retards.
Is it offensive? Probably but then when did anyone have the right not to be offended? I see offensive shit all the time out there, particularly against religions. South Park has been positively brutal to the Catholics, the Mormons, the Scientologists, etc. They have been some of the funniest episodes (the Mormon one kills me every time) but I'm sure they offended the hell out of a bunch of people. Tough. Nobody says you have the right to go through life and not be offended.
So these guys want to go offend Muslims. Big deal, who cares? Let them.
Tolerance means letting people do what they want, more or less. There has to be limits, you can't harm others, but there's no reason you can't offend them. Also real tolerance would be on the part of Muslims says "Ya knock yourselves out. Retards," and just ignoring the whole thing.
We host the Church of Scientology, so hosting this site was mildly tame compared to some of the customers we host. The media just so happens to be making a sensation out of this, and it will come across in our favor to drop them as a customer rather than to keep them and stand behind their free speech rights. There have been extreme cases wherein I will refuse to work for a customer because of my own ethical beliefs, and this would have been one of those times.
"It is basic to Christianity that there is one true faith and that Christians will work to eliminate any faith other than Christianity."
I would agree with much of what you say but that. Christians aren't commanded to eliminate other faiths. Rather, to convert the unsaved. It's about changing minds and hearts. The word "eliminate" brings to mind more extreme behavior. That was probably not your intent, though.
OTOH, I'm not sure burning the Quran in this instance is anything more than grandstanding. But I could be wrong. Either way, they have a right to do so and Rackspace embracing the foolish notion of "hate speech" is sad.
Does anyone else find it odd that so much discussion is taking place regarding free speech responsibilities for the ISP, while the church's agenda calls for BURNING BOOKS?
Funny guy. Point is that burning a representation of something you dislike is crude and unimaginative. Legal and moral issues aside, it isn't even in the same league as sophisticated satire.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Each philosophy (including all religions) thinks it is the right one.
Two or more cannot coexist in the same space.
People have the right to be intolerant... because without intolerance, they allow themselves to be assimilated.
RackSpace made a stupid error by getting involved in a political issue. Now people will expect more webhosts to do this, and they will waste many more hours trying to figure out what is and is not "hate speech."
Remember, if you're criticizing a majority (whites, Christians, Jews/Judaism, conservatives, men, heterosexuals) it's OK, but if you're criticizing a minority (African-Americans, Muslims/Islam, homosexuals, polyamorists) it's a "hate crime" (NewSpeak for unsanctioned thought).
Futurist Traditionalism
To be free from persecution.
Please explain to us how burning a book equates to persecution.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
You make a fair point about bowing to provocation acts but I disagree with your assessment of the situation. I think a more appropriate analogy would be this:
I decide to build an extension on my house that blocks your view. Meanwhile, you decide to cut down a tree in your yard that I particularly like. So we come to a compromise, you don't cut down your tree and I don't build my extension.
That is a compromise.
To the best of my knowledge (and I could be wrong) the Koran burning is something the reverend wants to do to show what he thinks of the Muslim faith. He is not depriving anyone of their property and doing nothing legally wrong (assuming he can get the permits for the fire). He isn't making any demands, he is just staging an act of protest against a religion in general. The offense the muslim people feel toward the Koran burning is similar to that of what Americans feel towards building a mosque so close to ground zero. There is nothing legally wrong with either action but people find both actions distasteful. This solution stops both actions without the government getting involved and shows a willingness for compromise and respect from both parties. I think that is a good thing.
"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh. " -Voltaire
The FBI already contacted him to tell him to knock it off. Now all they have to do is legally detain him for 72 hours during the 9/11 window and the book burning is off. I can think of a hundred ways they could do this. It's not a long stretch of "reasonable doubt" to assume this guy is a menace to society. Put him on ice for a while and let the foaming-at-the-mouth masses cool off a little. Problem solved.
ASCII tastes bad dude.
Binary it is then.
Actually, even for government agencies, they still don't have to provide everyone an outlet for their opinions. You can't demand that the CIA puts someone's anti-globalization rant on their front page, nor that the FBI publishes a rant about how pot should be legal, although both are completely funded and run by the government.
True but they are not in the business of publishing for the citizens. If they were, I don't think they could discriminate. I think for anti-discrimination to apply to a service, you have to be engaged in offering the service to begin with.
Plus, I'm not sure if getting some government subsidies automatically trumps someone's rights. Otherwise the government could tell all those corn farmers what they can say and what not.
You're right, I think the government can only encourage people by threatening to cut off their subsidies if they don't meet certain obligations. That's how it works with things like the old "55 speed limit on all highways" stuff, from what I've read.
Regardless, all laws come down to protecting a social function. To me, in the modern internet age, the types of speech and the methods of production of speech are different enough from 200 years ago that maybe we need to reevaluate how speech is protected.
The first amendment says that you have the RIGHT to say whatever you want. You can publish your websites, your books, your radio stations. BUT, there is NOTHING in the constitution that gives you the right to tell others that they must listen to your words, or even propagate it.
Rackspace is a private company and has the RIGHT to simply say NO!
Good for rackspace.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Sweet, so if you don't want a catholic church built in your town all I have to do is threaten to do something hateful and ignorant and public which will lead to lots of american soldiers getting killed in the international backlash and then it would count as a "compromise" when I don't do that in exchange for them not building the church.
they need to be ignored for the same reason you can't give in to the requests of hostage takers, if it works other people see and follow the same approach to achieve their own ends.
it isn't "compromise", that's extortion.
like it or not freedom of religion means more than just your religion.
There's a mormon church in Mountain Meadows in Utah (have fun googling that one)
There's no shortage of catholic churches in Jerusalem
Man up, a muslim temple in new york is going to hurt nobody.
I lived in Beaufort, SC, in 1992, when a small local church decided to become world famous - by creating confrontations with anyone and everyone who walked by. It was a ridiculous zoo; they'd bus these "preachers" in from all over the state, and have them arrested.
Eventually they made the NYT (along with CNN, ABC, etc):
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/14/us/preachers-take-shouting-match-with-city-to-court.html
These idiots would grab bypassers and scream at them that they would go to hell. Really, they'd grab kids and yell at them; they grabbed a 20 year old female runner friend of mine and yelled at her that she would burn in hell for being a runner: "all runners go to hell!"
Anyway, there's always some back-woods idiot who finds a way to get in the paper. Kudos to Rackspace for closing off one of this guy's means of spreading his nonsense.
This guy just published a book. He doesn't care about the mosque - he's driving attention to himself so he can sell his new book.
Agreed. Remind me never to use Rackspace. There's no such thing as "hate speech." It's a socio-political construct designed to limit Freedom of Speech. Yes, Rackspace may have a right to put such PC lingo in their contract but maybe not. This church may be doing something that is politically incorrect, unwise, and offensive to some people but it's their right. There's probably a lawsuit in there somewhere. It's early, I need coffee, but something about contracting away your rights seems fraught with legal problems.
Having said that, this can and will be used as recruiting material for terrorists. It doesn't matter that the biggest reason for soldiers being killed is because they are in a foreign country, this rather simple event can be used as fuel for radicals disproportionate to the amount of effort being put into it.
Propaganda is a big force multiplier, and when your enemy is just giving you things like this, it's a huge bonus.
I'm not saying that he shouldn't have the right to publicly burn a book that is his own private property, and thereby make whatever asinine statement he wants, but just because something like this is not the biggest reason soldiers are being attacked doesn't mean it can't be one of those reasons.
Look at South Park. They have completely and totally slammed a number of religions, drug them through the mud. They had Catholic priests with little boys on leashes as sex slaves (attending a party for Satan), they had a whole episode mocking the Mormon beliefs complete with a brilliant song, they've slammed the Scientologists a couple times. None of these have faced any censorship. However they tried to show Mohammad. Not even insult him, just how his picture, and it got censored.
There is no explanation other than fear. It's clear Viacom has no problem with mocking religions in general. Why would they? Those episodes are popular. However for some reason Islam is off limits. The only reason is because they are scared. Muslims threaten violence at the drop of a hat, and they just don't want to be a target.
It it pure cowardice. We stand behind our freedoms... until someone says they'll hurt us, then we cave.
I'll answer your leading questions with another question-- Who cares? This is a case of a private company deciding which kind of speech/opinion they want to transmit. They had a contract which allowed them to pull this content, and they pulled it. More power to them, it's not like this "church" can't relocate to another hosting provider.
My Photography - http://ian-x.com
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on one hand I agree that this pastor is clearly a little Hitler
So what if he is? If Adolf Hilter was reincarnated tomorrow as an American he would have the same rights as the rest of us.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I'm trying to figure out exactly HOW he believes that this is going to convince Muslims to become Christians...
Think of someone taking a shit on baby Jesus in a manger, or pissing in the holy water.
There's no law against either of those things, assuming that the manger and/or holy water belongs to the person taking a piss on it.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Freedom to decide I'm not going to be the one to provide the soapbox for your speech is also a right.
The same Amendment that guarantees your freedom of speech also guarantees the freedom of the press (e.g. Rackspace) to decide for themselves whether they'll publish it.
It's a pity you couldn't manifest all of this moral outage when we were funding and arming those Islamic extremists to fight the Rooskies.
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
and some flags and some constitutions and a few bill of rights, although IMHO a few phone books would probably burn better
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
The most important part of freedom of speech is protecting the parts you like the least. Yes, that means things like hate, like trolling and so on. Freedom of speech must mean freedom of unpopular speech. If not, it has no meaning.
Too many people on /. seem to have this idea of "All he's doing is pissing off Muslims so it shouldn't happen!" Well yes, that's probably all he's doing. Still should be protected though. The less you agree with something the more concerned you should be with protecting the ability of someone to say it.
Frankly, they are stupid fucked up religious nutjobs - but that isn't the point.
I wonder, and very seriously so, why we do not consider people who feel personally offended because someone burned a book to be insane. In the real-deal, lock-em-up, psychotherapie-required sense.
Would anyone feel like I need killing if I burn the latest Harry Potter? You see, Hitchens is a demagogue (though he's a good one, and he's right in many points), but would he put a bounty on my head if I burned one of his books? That, ladies and gentlemen, is the difference.
I feel like burning a Koran myself. And a bible. And one of Darwins book, and maybe a math textbook. Just to show that "what the fuck is the big deal?" is the proper attitude, not all this hysteria. It's a freaking book, you morons! You know, printed letters on paper.
Yes, I totally agree that this guy wants to burn a Koran as part of his anti-islamic message. What the islamists don't get is that their reaction is exactly what he's looking for. He wanted to insult them, they gave him what he wanted. He doesn't even have to do it anymore, he's already done his personal "mission accomplished".
Why didn't they simply send him three seperate editions plus a box of matches and told him to go and have fun? According to their own religion, he'll be judged by Allah at the end of days anyways, so what's the problem? If you are really certain that you are right about the world at large, you could be a lot less sensitive about it all. Behind all this fanatism is one thing - heavily guilt-ridden deeply suppressed doubt. The doubt at the core of all religion. You want to believe all this nonsense, but everywhere around you the evidence to the contrary is laughing you in the face. So you must try harder. To ignore it, to re-interpret it in ways that fit the scriptures, and yes you develope a very serious case of psychopathic hatred against anyone who points out the flaws that already hurt you so deeply. If you were conscious about this process, you'd bring yourself to the next doctor and ask for the strongest medicine he can legally give you, as well as a therapy, starting right now. But the process is unconscious.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The main problem, unfortunately, is that ulama in the middle east will use footage of this to incite hatred against westerners.
To prevent this day from getting worse, I'll just read ERROR as GOOD TH
I don't see much to be offended by.
... ...
- but this guy has just picked the most offensive thing he could do to the world's 1.3 billion Muslims
Oh, there are much more offensive things you could do.
Much more.
Dave
I don't, by and large, support the destruction of any books, even ones I despise, but I do support the freedom of expression. What events like this accomplish is the unveiling of the stark contrast of those people who support freedom of expression (who more likely than not support many different forms of freedom, though not in this case) vs. those who would gladly throw it under the bus for their agenda, whether that agenda is a global caliphate or multiculturalism is irrelevant and immaterial. I oppose all those who would stifle any expression which is in and of itself harmless.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
You'd trade on freedom of association and freedom of contract for such a marginal increase in ability to exercise freedom of speech? Seriously?
Taken to a logical extreme, if I hire an advertiser who happens to be staunchly pro-life, would you think it fair or conducive to freedoms for him to be unable to dump me as a client or refuse the work when I ask him to promote a benefit for a pro-choice cause? After all, by refusing to do that work for me, he would be restricting my freedom of speech... in just the same way as Rackspace is "muzzling" this church.
"government has no right to speak negatively about what this guy is doing"
There is no "official" government view, the President has a viewpoint, the congress has its viewpoints,etc,etc,etc
The President of the United States has the same right as any other citizen to express his views, the fact that his views may have persuaded rackspace to yank the nutjobs
account is irrelevant as long the President took no official action to cause this. Auditing someone in retaliation for refusal to do what the president says is illegal and isnt necessary.
The bully pulpit of the presidency has been used many times and is completely within the Presidents perogative
To some people, the Quran is just a book.
To some people, the American flag is just a piece of cloth. No problem burning it, cutting holes in it, using it as clothing, etc. even if all those things are disrespectful.
To some people, ethnic slurs have no malicious meaning. To others, they hurt more than violence.
You have no place in judging the value others place in any action -- including burning a specific book. Personally, I'm of two minds. I think we need to find ways to reach out to those cultures who appear offended by ours and help them realize we're simply people. We need to find common ground and work forward from there finding ways to eliminate hate through mutual understanding. There's quite a bit of self reflection we can do to realize why people in that region think we're in a holy war. I also think we've tiptoed around for far too long. Our culture is increasingly based on non-offense and tolerance, and not based on learning how to accept others' actions with a tough skin. We're in a time when even the phrase "those people" can have a negative meaning. Maybe it's time we all grew up a little.
Now the fanatics of both faiths will be in an uproar. Maybe they will find some common ground and join hands to hunt down the herectic.
World peace and one book burner less.
You're welcome world, now to solve world hunger.
...the government announced IDIOT, the International Determination of Islamic Offense Team. The team will be charged with analyzing any and all public actions with awareness factors above 0.5 Lohans (note: the Lohan has now superseded the Hilton as a media awareness unit of measurement by NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology), and determine at what level the Religion of Peace will be moved to violence.
The rough first cut ratings are:
G = General discontent and hate speech directed at the West
R = Rioting and demonstrations
B = Burning of American flags, French cars and other related items
M = Murder of Westerners and the members of other, less peaceful religions
T = Planned acts of terrorism
W = Planned acts of war
X = Global thermonuclear devastation
Z = Zombie hordes (The IDIOTs failed to fully explain this one. Inquiries are pending)
Rackspace is certainly not the only hosting company around. It's more akin to a publisher than a blog or a magazine or even a phone company. There are enough of them around that they can have standards. It's not like a phone company where there are still only a handful in town. You can usually find somone who will host you and if you can't, you can set up your own server.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
Me personally? Well, considering I was in middle school at the time...
Now if we're talking about "Me" as in Americans, that's something different. History is replete with mea culpa moments like that. In fact, two of the biggest threats to US interests were aided into power by America (Afghanistan and Iran). The same lens that we use to pick apart history can't see as well into the future. What's your solution?
ASCII tastes bad dude.
Binary it is then.
I would agree with much of what you say but that. Christians aren't commanded to eliminate other faiths. Rather, to convert the unsaved. It's about changing minds and hearts. The word "eliminate" brings to mind more extreme behavior. That was probably not your intent, though.
Really?
"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." - Mat. 28:19-20
Seems pretty clear cut and extreme to me. There is no room in that command for leaving people to their previous beliefs. Just like Islam.
All that is necessary for the triumph of good is that evil men do nothing.
Indeed, also considering you have to visit the site to read it, I think it is safe to assume that anybody who had visited the site already had something against Islam.
Personally I hate "hate speach"/"hate crime" laws, they sound too eerily similar to though crime.
But... the future refused to change.
Uhm.
To the people who say 'Why doesn't the government condemn radical Islam?" , the fact is, we do.
The US Government, like all good government, speaks mostly through action rather than words in condemning radical Islam. Think about it.
-Supporting dictatorships in lieu of radical Islamic Groups (The US's support for Pakistan, and propping up the Shah of Iran)
-Supporting a dictatorship's war against a theocracy run by radical Muslims (Iran/Iraq War)
-Targetted killings of radical Islamicists in Iraq and Afghanistan
-Huge bounties on the heads of radical Islamicists (The hunt for Osama Bin Laden)
-Wholesale invasions of countries and the dissolution of governments that support radical Islam (Invasion of Afghanistan and the fight against the Taliban)
-Supporting moderate Muslim governments over radical ones (Visits to Egypt, funding for Pakistan and Iraq)
In fact, the American military's main goal over the past 9 years has been the suppression, destruction and dissolution of radical Islam over the years. Pretty much every armed force from the Army proper, to the CIA has been devoted to taking radical Islam to task.
***
Paster Terry Jones is acting like an asshat and ruining our work against radical Islam. THAT'S why we're condemning him.
When Muslims burn bibles, the Western world DOES get upset. Infact, we get so upset we make lists of the incidents and eventually take armed actions against groups that go too far. Obviously we hope that the local governments take care of things, but do you think that the US is so naive? We have diplomats and ambassadors all over the world busy 'nudging' governments whenever such actions occur.
Radical Islam taking action against blasphemers isn't a threat, it's a fact. We have armed men and women protecting us so we CAN do blasphemous acts safely. But doing them makes their job harder. It's just like you don't randomly provoke local gang-members or mafia-men: it's well within your rights to do, but is it SMART? No. Can the government protect you from retaliation? They'll TRY, but whether they'll succeed is a different matter.
Radical Muslims, like any radical members of a religion, are generally brainwashed ignorant thugs. Pastor Terry Jones is a radical Christian. Why should we treat him any differently? We should condemn his sentiments and desires, and make sure to take action in case things turn violent.
Like the topic says here, by my reasoning no principles have really been compromised here.
I defend the disconnect, because the douchebags broke the agreement of AUP. They agreed to their TOS when they bought their hosting plan. If they didn't read their TOS, their fault. These agreements can be as innocuous as IRCDs but they're generally decisions made as a matter of protection for the company against attack(legal, political, & digital) which can cripple the business and the service of other users. Read your TOS, find a host that's willing to put up with your needs. However,
I also support the douchebags here. They purchased their own qurans, and decided to burn them... what's the big deal about that? Just because someone's being an idiot doesn't mean you have to perpetuate it! You don't have to give them an outlet to spread their hateful message, and that's exactly the kind of decision that Rackspace is making here.
www.isoHunt.com
I would think the media is devoting so much time to this subject purely to provoke a reaction from certain groups in order to have something explosive to report and moralise on.
People arguing on the internet or watching demagogues on television see way more ads than people simply reading or watching the news. Modern media is all about the trolling.
Jones says he intends to offend radical Moslems. He dosn't care if he offends other people. But, I don't understand why he needs to offend radical Moslems anyway, aren't they already hot and bothered? I believe it says more about Jones and the incredibly small group of people who follow him.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
I can only assume you're making that comment with the decision set clearly in stone in your head that absolute free speech is the only reasonable option, else I'm not really sure what your point is because it doesn't seem to be of any relevance.
If my assumption is correct then my point is that whether you agree with absolute free speech or not, people like this can cause harm to society and can use said free speech to incite violence that may or may not lead to deaths, as such the question must surely be asked whether such free speech really must be supported? The flip side as I've pointed out is that if you don't support free speech even in this case then has society lost a battle against extremist interpretations of Islam?
Please realise that I'm not saying that if my assumption about your viewpoint is correct that you're wrong, I'm saying I don't know what the solution is, but merely pointing out both sides- that sometimes free speech can actually be a bad thing, whilst not defending it even when bad can itself be potentially bad. It's a lose-lose situation, no one can win from it, so the question has to be who wins- do we let the Islamists win and avoid possibly fatal riots and actions, or do we let the pastor win and protect free speech and expression, but at the cost of the lives of both muslim protestors and US troops alike.
So the "so what" in response to your question, is that protecting this guy's free speech doesn't come at no cost, it comes at the potential expense of lives which could otherwise be saved by stifling this one particularly despicable individual's free speech- the question is whether the cost of free speech is always worth it, much like the classic question of whether one should be allowed to shout fire in a crowded theatre (which you should note, US citizens including Hitler were he reborn in the US don't have the right to do without punishment, because it's deemed not worth protecting over the risk of potential loss of life).
Again, I'm not trying to say what's right either way because as I said originally, I'm not sure myself what the best option is because neither is good. It would certainly seem quite ignorant to say outright that in this case free speech should be protected at all costs, even in the case of this pastor, without also justifying why the cost of the loss or potential loss in human life is worth it- obviously protection of free speech in itself is one justification, but is it enough of one? if so, why?
Thanks, I was wondering how I knew this guys name. I was worried.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
You are right a muslim temple/community center isn't going to hurt anyone but one so close to ground zero is still considered offensive by many Americans. People have the right to be offended by anything they wish. Personally, I'm offended by the Christian church across the street and the planed parenthood center but I acknowledge their right to be there. I will even defend their right to build where they did.
If I thought the Reverend was burning the Koran as a way to hold hostage anything then I wouldn't even suggest talking to him. To the best of my knowledge he is merely expressing his feelings towards the muslim faith just like people who burn the American flag to express what they think of the USA.
Like it or not, freedom of speech means more then just opinions you agree with.
I think a solution where you put the Imam and the Reverent together and say 'Both your actions are offensive to the other. I suggest a compromise that fixes it.' This stomps on no one's freedom of religion or freedom of speech.
"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh. " -Voltaire
QFT. Crazy people always want their 15 minutes, he got his. Newsmakers want to make news, so they can sell ads.However, let me add that I have just returned from the Middle East, Dubai, and this guy was everywhere along with the New York Mosque. If you think it was overwhelming here, you have know idea. "Excuse me Mr. [redacted] but I just wanted to know if all Americans really hate Islam." -OR- "I don't understand why Americans hate us." -OR- "I used to believe in American ideals, but now I'm not so sure."
I didn't really know what was going on until I got back, but suffice it to say, all anyone wanted to talk about was why Americans preach one thing and do another. Arab TV seemed to be a 24hr America sitcom, news stories about what those crazy and wacky Americans are doing now. I probably said "Just you wait and see, I'll bet this guy will become untouchable and nobody will want anything to do with him except a few crazy followers," a hundred times that week.
Bottom line, Rackspace apparently felt this was a breach of contract so they declined to continue hosting/co-lo. They probably wanted an out, to protect their bottom line from the possibly many civil suits and canceled services by offended groups or persons, vs. keeping the bare-bones hosting plan this church probably had. This dude can sue them in court if he wants, but good luck buddy, you'll have a tough time proving Rackspace acted with difference towards you. All they have to do is show any number of other instances where they canceled plans for violating that part of their terms. This is like porn, you can't define it, but you know it when you see it.
Because of the heavy government influence, I think there is a legit argument that actions like this ARE a result of the government and thus are a suppression of free speech. Let's not pretend like the government doesn't have great influence, even if they don't act directly. Well, that influence can't be used capriciously either. That would be an infringement just the same as anything else.
I mean let's not forget, Rackspace is a company with some history with the government. They were involved with the whole Indymedia thing, as they hosted Indymedia. So the President and a General both say that these fundies shouldn't do what they are doing. Maybe Rackspace says "Oh shit, we host these guys. Man we do not need more trouble from teh government, pull the plug."
Ok well that wasn't the government acting directly, however it was still the government's actions suppressing speech.
I'm not claiming that is what happened, however it is a realistic possibility.
I'm not saying government officials shouldn't be allowed to express their opinions if asked or informally. However going out and making official statements/press releases against something like this, I think that is dangerously close to the line.
Rackspace is certainly not the only hosting company around. It's more akin to a publisher than a blog or a magazine or even a phone company. There are enough of them around that they can have standards. It's not like a phone company where there are still only a handful in town. You can usually find somone who will host you and if you can't, you can set up your own server.
But, if they aren't smart enough to move their website, there's always Google:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:R-9pV_YNbdEJ:www.doveworld.org/+dove+world+outreach+center&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari
and this (careful, worse than Tubgirl): http://www.youtube.com/v/UZhA3gydf6g&rel=0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xd0d0d0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1%22%3E%3C/param%3E%3Cparam%20name=%22allowFullScreen%22%20value=%22true%22%3E%3C/param%3E%3Cparam%20name=%22allowScriptAccess%22%20value=%22always%22%3E%3C/param%3E%3Cembed%20src=%22http://www.youtube.com/v/UZhA3gydf6g&rel=0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xd0d0d0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1%22%20type=%22application/x-shockwave-flash%22%20allowfullscreen=%22true%22%20allowScriptAccess=%22always%22%20width=%22640%22%20height=%22385%22%3E%3C/embed%3E%3C/object
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
18 U.S.C. 242
Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation,
or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory,
Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any
rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the
Constitution or laws of the United States, or to different
punishments, pains, or penalties, on account of such person being
an alien, or by reason of his color, or race, than are prescribed
for the punishment of citizens, shall be fined under this title or
imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if bodily injury
results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if
such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a
dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire, shall be fined under this
title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death
results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if
such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated
sexual abuse, or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or
an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned
for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to
death.
Ahh look, there is a law that says they can not deprive you of a constitutional right.
BTW, they are using the color of "Hate Speech" law as the reason for depriving them of there right and, well, looks like the qualify but IANAL.
I agree that he's a dick, but i don't agree it counts as hate speech, as for most offensive thing? I guess he could feed the book to pigs... might be even worse :P
You might like to re-read your posts before hitting submit.
Saying "there is no such thing as X", followed immediately by "X is..." makes you look like a fool.
But then again, maybe you are a fool?
The Streisand effect is about something that is public, for which someone claiming to be the owner wishes to suppress it.
This is the opposite - it's blatant hate speech someone wants public, but rackspace declining to be the podium for this.
See it from this point of view - it's nice for you to sit home and complain about rackspaces actions.
If a US soldier dies as a result of someone killing him because of hatespeech published via rackspace... ...someone with deep pockets...
I could smell a lawsuit.
Also, rackspace might lose customers that do not wish to be associated with such hate-speech. (much in the same way that if you host a party and Terry Jones comes round burning copies of the Quran, guests might leave. Or - you as the host might toss him out because you value the other guests more).
(this is not even looking at the possible issue of some 'radical' seeing this as the last straw and bombing rackspaces HQ for carrying the hatespeech... Again - something YOU might not mind - but I guess rackspace DOES).
If I own a megaphone, and I don't lend it to you because I don't agree with you, am I violating your free speech rights?
More accurate analogy - you are a megaphone rental company and one day someone walks in of a political / religious / ethnic / sexual persuasion that you don't like. You continue to hand out megaphones to everyone else, but tell this person they're not allowed to rent one from you.
On the way home, that person also has to sit at the back of the bus.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
But no one is guaranteed freedom from being offended. If people decide to go off and do something violent just because they were offended, then they are clearly in the wrong, and THAT is the behavior that needs to be checked. Being overtly offensive is less than good, and it should be discouraged, but being violent simply because you are offended is something that should be stopped, controlled, prevented, etc. Attempting to control others' behavior via the expressed threat that, should their behavior offend you, you will become violent, is also something that should not be tolerated. You know, unless you are a government.
The Muslims have the right to religious freedom to build a mosque right near ground zero, no matter who it offends, but the American "Christians" don't have the right of free speech to burn a few books.
I do think the so called pastor is an asshole, but I thought that he had the right to be an asshole.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I don't think it does, actually. (IANAL, but you can find the text online and see for yourself: http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=97&page=transcript)
The key to understanding is that it only forbids discrimination based on "race, color, religion, or national origin". Which are not the same as, basically, "being a flaming asshole in the name of race, color, religion, or national origin". You can't deny someone service for being a white, but you can deny them service if they start harassing other customers with white supremacist crap. And more in line with TFA, you can't discriminate against someone for _being_ an evangelical Christian, but there's nothing to stop you from kicking them out if they start acting like a bigger asshole than Goatse on the premises in the name of their religion.
Basically just because they can't discriminate against you for (certain categories of) what you _are_, doesn't mean they can't discriminate against you based on what you _do_. There's a difference between "being X" and "being an asshole in the name of X".
In fact, the main rationale behind forbidding discrimination is that people have no influence and can't change their colour or national origin. It's not their fault that they were born in China, for example. Even if they wanted to change to be more acceptable, they can't change that, and it's stupid to expect them to or discriminate based on something that isn't their fault.
But all that doesn't apply to stuff you choose to actively do. If you get discriminated against for shouting "Islam Is Evil!!!" in a restaurant, well, you can choose to freaking stop doing it.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
but this guy has just picked the most offensive thing he could do to the world's 1.3 billion Muslims, and is then going ahead and doing it. Irrespective of any arguments from common sense, principled tolerance, or basic good manners.
If he weren't doing it as a part of his own fucked up insane religious agenda, I might even support him. Because yes, he's done what you say. And by doing so has proven just how stupidly easy a vast amount of people can be offended by something that by rights shouldn't be worthy even a three-liner in a local newspaper.
Doh, he burned a book.
Uh, what exactly is news about that at all? He can burn books all day long as I care. Does it matter which ones, except for the fact that glossy paper doesn't burn as good?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The people that annoy me in all this are the media.
Where I live (UK), the government can often use the thirty year rule to halt the reporting of their mistakes. Two football players currently have injunctions out, stopping the media talking about their adultery. Worst consequence - shamed football player.
When the media see a story like this and have a choice for a change, what do they do?
Give a whackjob like Pastor Terry the oxygen of publicity.
Worse, they act like the annoying small kid in the playground, trying to provoke a fight between two bigger kids.
To Florida!
Pastor Terry, are you still going through with it? Thanks for the story.
To Kabul!
Angry Muslim guys... he's going through with it. What are you going to do? Really? You're going to stone Westerners? Thanks for the story.
Ladies and gentlemen of the press, there probably will be deaths over this.
Oh... but that's a story, too.
Information wants to be beer.
Once you get to the stage of book burning you lose all right to be treated by the normal rules of polite discussion and free speech. Book burning is not speech, it is an act, like murder.
Personally, I think all sensible people should boycott any company that lets itself be associated with book burning fanatics, and that Rackspace made the correct decision to rid themselves of these scum.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
At the end of the day, free speech is a pipe dream. On one hand burning of quran is fine and dandy as Mr. XYZ has freedom of expression, on the other hand building a mosque on ground zero hurts the sentiments of those involved in the 9/11 tragedy. I am not talking about the group on Slashdot, they are a little bit more enlightened than the common folks.
However, the same people who want to burn the Quran oppose mosque on ground zero, clearly this has nothing to do with freedom and American values and more to do with animosity towards Islam and Muslims. How come ground zero mosque is a no no as it hurts sentiments whereas sentiments of muslim a non-issue when it comes to burning of Quran!
Rothbard's argument is relevant, but not sufficient. There's a huge difference between saying that we should consider this from a propertarian viewpoint and that we should consider it only from that viewpoint. Rothbard crosses that line by the time he uses the word "simply" in the second sentence of your quote. As one poster has already pointed out, this situation is complex, and oversimplifying doesn't give meaningful input.
How would Murray Rothbard's argument address any apparent conflict when property is held in common? Do I gain the right to shout fire in a crowded public venue funded from tax dollars? Your Rothbard quote is arguing that all public property is criminal, because all rights can only be sustained where there is private ownership. But, in the US, it took a whole series of special laws in every state's legal codes for theatre owners to gain the right to be treated as though a contract existed without actually having printed one and gained signatures. A right of implied contract exists only because of specialised laws (a privilege or private law, the very word privilege coming from the Latin roots 'Privus' (Private) + 'Lex' (law)) intended to protect theater owners.
Rothbard actually is arguing for the unlimited power of the government to create or destroy rights. How else can the right of contract support all these other rights, particularly when, in his own example, a contract doesn't exist physically, but exists only by government fiat. At the same time, he's arguing against himself, holding that same government fiat is insufficent to grant another right by any other means than through property rights. Since the real US constitution is most emphatically not about how the government grants rights, but how it must rather respect them, neither facet of his argument really sheds more light than heat.
Who is John Cabal?
when the trolls, from the christian world, or the muslim world, or the liberal world or the conservative world, are the ones driving the conversation
the vast majority of christians, muslims, liberals and conservatives are simply good people. but the ones who make the headlines and drive every subject of conversation are the same sort of people you see with a -1 rating on slashdot: the fucking useless trolls
i swear, international relations and domestic political commentary needs something like a slashdot rating system
let the trolls loose on slashdot, with no ratings to tell the difference between something you should read and something you should ignore, and what do you get?: a flooding out of a sane rational commons that anyone with good intent wants to be a part of. you drive good people away, you reward the most useless sort of asshole: the destruction of slashdot
likewise, when the lunatic asshole muslims and the lunatic asshole christians are the ones who set the news headlines aflame and drive the topic of discussion, you get the destruction of the whole fucking world: no civility, no understanding, empty useless seething emotions, until somebody sets off the powder keg. i weep for our children
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
Well, this certainly gives me pause about Rackspace, who has clearly taken a position on the content of this church's preaching, and decided that it constitutes "hate speech". I do some hosting of content for others myself, and I would never dream of deciding whether one of my clients is "hateful" or not -- who am I to judge on such a matter? I can (and do) judge my clients for actions which demonstrably harm and abuse others, such as spamming, etc. But there, the judgment is against the misuse of shared resources, not the content or subject matter itself.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
This is just another case of people claiming to hold beliefs they have not taken the time to understand. It's like me claiming I'm a Democrat because my Daddy said we are Democrats. I am no Christian, but, as I understand it, if there were a Christ as traditionally defined, he would not be burning another's holy book, especially one in which he plays a role as a major prophet. Utterly stupid.
Some pastor who leads a might congregation of 50 members, in a run-down part of a state known for below-average intelligence, has come up with an incredibly short-sighted plan and now the whole world is talking about him. While no reasonable person would overlook the stupidity of such a stunt, this guy basks in the controversy. We can't turn on the news anywhere without seeing either him or his trailer. Even though his event is centered around a group of people smaller in numbers than an average wedding reception he has managed to get himself condemned by people all over the world.
While his actions are stupid, the effects - in terms of drawing massive attention - are brilliant. Just wait for copy-cat backwater churches elsewhere to fight for the next great stunt; my money is on someone to burn Obama in effigy behind their church next. Considering some 20% of the US still believes Obama is himself a Muslim (or "Moslem" as this guy prefers), it might be sold as a sequel to this stunt.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Well whether he's harming anybody else or not, we aren't sure yet. It hasn't happened. But he is certainly gambling and I'm pretty certain that gambling with people's lives isn't protected anywhere. Hell Gambling itself is illegal in plenty of places.
Also, Voltaire didn't say anything about giving the guy he's defending a a Megaphone.
Screw you, Octopus God. Screw you and your mumbing, wax-faced followers. Screw your fish-faced, torch bearing disciples. Screw your stupid devotional violin music. Screw your strange, spectral lights when I'm trying to sleep. U Arkham's football team sucks. Their human-skin footballs are non-standard.
Good game, Mr. Goodgame.
Down with the career politician! SUPPORT TERM LIMITS
As Christopher Hitchens notes :
When I check into a hotel room and send my free and unsolicited copy of the Gideon Bible or the Book of Mormon spinning out of the window, I infringe no law, except perhaps the one concerning litter. Why do we not make this distinction in the case of the Quran? We do so simply out of fear, and because the fanatical believers in that particular holy book have proved time and again that they mean business when it comes to intimidation. Surely that should be to their discredit rather than their credit. Should not the "moderate" imams of On Faith have been asked in direct terms whether they are, or are not, negotiating with a gun on the table?
Obviously, terrorism works. Let's hope the thousands of ideological groups don't get this obvious message. We'll be sorry.
This has to stop, and it has to stop right now. There can be no concession to sharia in the United States. When will we see someone detained, or even cautioned, for advocating the burning of books in the name of God? If the police are honestly interested in this sort of "hate crime," I can help them identify those who spent much of last year uttering physical threats against the republication in this country of some Danish cartoons. In default of impartial prosecution, we have to insist that Muslims take their chance of being upset, just as we who do not subscribe to their arrogant certainties are revolted every day by the hideous behavior of the parties of God.
Can't say it much better than that.
Actually, this shows that freedom of speech and religion are still alive and well. The politically correct thing and expedient thing to do in this election year is to support people like Dove in their disparagement of other religions, to show how Christian you are. The hard choice is to oppose that, and to protect the freedoms of people who don't happen to be Christian.
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
This is not a question about rights. No one is denying this man has a right to do what he says he will do.
What we are saying is that he is a fucking lunatic for exercising this right. Yes it will act as a recruiting sergeant for the Taliban (who must be laughing their heads off about this). Yes it will be used by demagogues to whip up mobs to attack Christians in many countries. Yes it is really just fucking rude and unnecessary.
If we were talking about cartoons of Mohammed then I might agree with you - there is an important principle about parody there - but this guy has just picked the most offensive thing he could do to the world's 1.3 billion Muslims, and is then going ahead and doing it. Irrespective of any arguments from common sense, principled tolerance, or basic good manners.
Lunatic is too kind - it suggests he is not responsible for his actions. This man is a crazy evil shit.
The ensuing violence will only proven his point about Islam being an intolerant, violent, and hateful religion.
False analogy. It's more like you demanding back a megaphone you rented me because you decide you don't like what I'm saying.
Property rights are an arrangement of convenience for deciding who can use a limited resource, such as a shirt. Thinking that actual human rights - such as the right to free speech - derive from them is completely delusional.
But then again, what else can you expect from a libertarian? The whole ideology is just a convoluted excuse for why you shouldn't have to pay taxes despite enjoying all the protections and conveniences of a society.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Tell me, how is book burning representative for that quote popularly attributed to Voltaire now again?
You people out there making a difference between "protected speech" and "hate speech" (which in your arguments should be banned) need to at least be consistent. If burning a flag is considered "speech", then why isn't burning a Koran? Either a demonstrative act is speech or it isn't.
BTW, just to puncture the hypocrisy of the whole "hate speech isn't free speech" meme that's popping up on the web, I'm pretty sure that Luther's 99 Theses, Tom Paine's Common Sense, and even the Declaration of Independence were considered hate speech by their opponents. And I don't want to hear the "fire in a crowded theater" argument either, because in this case, it's stupid and wrong. If you can ban this jerk from burning his Korans over the issue of "public safety" (because of all the people in Bezerkistan that are threatening to kill Americans now), then go ahead and apologize for protecting Salman Rushdie for writing The Satanic Verses. After all, he incensed a lot of people too. Again, at least be consistent.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
There's no question of rights or freedom here. This is about a guy being an absolute asshole and other people telling him that he should stop being an asshole.
He is, of course, completely free to ignore them.
Don't you think at least one person thought even Ghandi was an asshole?
Doing what you believe is right isn't necessarily a popularity contest.
Most important of all, what will be said and done by those of us who take no side in filthy religious wars? The enemies of intolerance cannot be tolerant, or neutral, without inviting their own suicide. And the advocates and apologists of bigotry and censorship and suicide-assassination cannot be permitted to take shelter any longer under the umbrella of a pluralism that they openly seek to destroy.
Christopher Hitchens
...when it comes from the "right". When it comes from the "left" it is always "free speech".
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
No, its not. Network neutrality is about promoting free competition in online content businesses by prohibiting network access providers from leveraging their market power in the access area to stifle competition in content. Its about commerce, not expression.
It certainly is not about prohibiting content hosting companies (whether or not they also happen to be ISPs) from discriminating in the content they choose to host.
Talk about gross oversimplification. Our soldiers are being attacked because the people they displaced from power want it back.
This is pretty close. Our soldiers are being attacked because they stepped in and attempted to do something that only an actual civil war/revolution can accomplish. We sought to replace the existing government without actually being 'from' there. This is infinitely more complex than the actual citizenry standing together to overthrow the seated government.
In short, we're dieing over there because of a longshot, nation-building idea that probably will never work out.
Not that those being deposed don't genuinely deserve it, but it just isn't 'our' job to do it, because at the end of the campaign, we'll all just go home to the only country we genuinely care about.
Doesn't matter, Rackspace can do whatever they want with there service, including telling people they don't like to fuck off for being a douche bag. You can then of course choose not to use Rackspace if you don't want to.
People need to start remembering that here in America, businesses have the right to refuse service to ANYONE THEY WANT TO, regardless of reason. It is ENTIRELY legal to be the most racist business to exist in America ... though you'll find it pretty hard to survive.
I'm sure you're trying to turn this isn't some sort of censorship issue, to which you yourself can ... go fuck yourself, as you don't get to tell someone else what they have to host any more than they get to tell you what to say in your home.
You don't get to tell someone else how to act on/with their property in almost every case that isn't physically hurting someone else.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
How are American public schools doing at educating girls or boys? Does the US military still recruit in the public schools?
Did anyone know about Rackspace's involvement before they made it public?
You don't seem to get it. A private company can refuse to do business with someone, especially if the other party doesn't follow the rules (contract) that they agreed to. That's not denying free speech. The guy can still go out on a street corner and piss people off. But Rackspace has no obligation to continue hosting his page to facilitate his right to free speech. Just as no publisher is required to publish someone's book just because no one else will in order for that person to exercise free speech. They could just as easily print it out themselves and have it bound at Kinkos and sell it on their own. They're not preventing him from exercising free speech. They just don't want to facilitate it for him.
So, this guy can go burn his books if he wants to. But Rackspace doesn't need to continue doing business with him. He violated the contract they agreed to when the church began putting their site up on Rackspace's servers. Therefore, Rackspace can exit without concern of breaking the contract. This church already broke it.
Just as the customer can go elsewhere, Rackspace can, too. It goes both ways. They could even refuse to renew their contract with this church, if they felt like it. It's the right of private companies to refuse to do business, just as it's this jackass's right to go burn books and get blown up by impending jihad over this.
Bite my shiny metal ass!
What upsets me is a religious center burning a book that is fundamentally related to our own religion! Even the very idea of book burning reminds me of, Marge talking about Bart: "There's something about flying a kite at night that's so unwholesome."
sense of security, like pockets jingling...
You're the first I've seen making any reference to "intimidation," which is entirely subjective. How are they being intimidating?
In much the same way as Americans might feel if I started selling toilet paper with the US flag on it.
In and of itself, that would be insulting and disrespectful, but not intimidating. I don't know of any Americans that would feel intimidated by putting the US flag on toilet paper, or burning the flag, for that matter.
I'd have some sympathy for that argument (while still thinking the guy was a dick) if this was a domestic US dispute, and the insulted parties were US all citizens.
But you can't just ignore the global situation - which does lets face it include large US armies in two Muslim countries. Without getting into the rights and wrongs of those wars, you must admit that they are perceived very badly in much of the Muslim world. Telling Muslims that they shouldn't be offended by the deliberate desecration of their holy book because it is this nutter's first amendment right... doesn't really cut it in my opinion.
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Yes, he's also burning the Talmud, but apparently we only care that he's burning the Qur'an. Oddly enough, he's not burning any books from non-Abrahamic religions.
Interesting little detail, do you have a source? But it makes sense, Christians feel most threatened by other Abrahamic religions especially because they are so much alike, it's some evolutionary principle that something just a tiny bit different from you is a bigger competition that something totally different. Buddhism isn't really a direct competition to Christianity for example...
1. Crash planes into buildings.
2. Stand back and watch the USA tear itself to shreds and spend itself into oblivion.
3. ???
4. Prophet
WALSTIB!
Think of it as performance art. Bibles get burned all the time, often in Islamic states. Does that cause major diplomatic incidents? Flag burning? Christian street protests? Presidents getting involved? Does the Vatican or your minister down the street start pronouncing death sentences on people? But merely threatening to burn a Koran causes all of these things to happen: death threats, diplomatic incidents, massive street protests. And we're not talking about the actions of a few crazy extremists and terrorists here, we are talking about the actions of thousands of Muslim clerics and politicians and citizens in Islamic nations. Jones doesn't need to actually go through with the Koran burning, he has already made his point.
Mainstream Islam, as practiced in the major Islamic nations around the world, has an atrocious human rights record and needs to reform, just like the medieval Christian church needed to reform. And just look at what happened with Luther: he called the Pope the "anti-Christ", the Pope excommunicated him (which amounted to a fatwa), and a friendly state sheltered and protected him. Causing offense ("trolling") and conflict are an intrinsic part of reform and social change.
As for supposedly moderate Muslims, if they don't take the burning of the Koran by a redneck pastor in the middle of nowhere in stride, they aren't so moderate. Part of being moderate is that you realize that other people have different beliefs and simply don't respect your religion, and that that's OK.
Since when does free (hate) speech outweigh freedom of religion. To be free from persecution. Burning the Koran/Quran is a form of intimidation, much like burning crosses in peoples front yards.
And if he was burning Korans on some Muslim's front yard, you'd have a point about the intimidation. But he's doing this at his Church's own property.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Sigh. My father fought in Vietnam and his father in WWII. In each war, there were atrocities committed by both sides of the conflict. Does that make it right? Absolutely not. Does that make it unpalatable to Americans? You betcha. Soldiers of all persuasions are put into positions where they are the ultimate power in a given situation and sometimes, they give in to the urge to behave like animals. Wouldn't it be great if American soldiers were immune from that? Sadly, they aren't and our (America's) image is tainted.
ASCII tastes bad dude.
Binary it is then.
More accurate analogy - you are a megaphone rental company and one day someone walks in of a political / religious / ethnic / sexual persuasion that you don't like. You continue to hand out megaphones to everyone else, but tell this person they're not allowed to rent one from you.
More accurate, but still a poor analogy, because what you describe is illegal. As a business, you cannot discriminate on religious, racial or (now) sexual grounds.
Take it from someone who was part of an organization that successfully sued a billboard company, because they were clearly discriminating on one of these grounds.
What Rackspace is doing is not illegal, so it's a poor idea to compare it to your scenario.
A more accurate scenario would be for a megaphone company to refuse to rent out to someone who will use it to espouse views they consider inflammatory, or just plain don't like. As long as they have a clear policy on this, it's perfectly legal. They can, for example, refuse to rent out megaphones for the use of promoting soccer. Silly, perhaps, but frankly, it is simply not our business if they act that way.
Yes, freedom of speech is cool, but my property rights trounce your freedom of speech. I know you have something to say, but if you intend to use my property (megaphone, private server, etc) to do it, you're obligated to do it on my terms.
Beetle B.
Don't foget to bring Marshmallows!
I'll get the Graham crackers.
Now, who is going to bring the Hersheys?
I've heard responses to this along the lines of "it's not a mosque, and it's not at ground zero", but I'm actually not to sure of the facts on this. If it actually is a mosque at ground zero then no, it seems an unnecessary provocation by SOME Muslims and I don't approve.
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This guy in Gainsville, with his mega-church of 50 members, is just an attention whore, plain and simple. But he's stirred up a nest of religious bigotry. I'm a Catholic and I lost a college roommate on 9/11, but I understand it wasn't all of Islam that caused the towers to collapse, it was a small group of crazy radicals. I have a friends who are Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Budhists and Native Americans and they are just like you and me, they just worship God in a different way. I vow to buy a Quran on 9/11 to protest this book burning. I've created a Facebook group to get the word out and have others buy one too. I figure we can buy more than he can burn. Please join the group and consider buying a Quran on 9/11.
In short, we're dieing over there because of a longshot, nation-building idea that probably will never work out.
Which is precisely why I didn't support the invasion of Iraq.
ASCII tastes bad dude.
Binary it is then.
Two totally different kinds of recruiting and you know it. One is forced and immediate. The other is more like propaganda.
ASCII tastes bad dude.
Binary it is then.
As I said in the subject, fuck them. Yes, they deserve a swift kick in the face because we in the West act like this teeny tiny insignificant minority of kooky extremists has hijacked over 1.2B people and held them hostage. That is not even remotely rational or realistic. The simplest and most accurate explanation for why there is a "radical Muslim problem" is that no one in the Islamic world really believes their religion is being sufficiently hijacked enough to make a concerted effort to eliminate them.
If you know anything about how the Druz, Sikhs and Ahmadiyyas are treated by their Muslim neighbors, you know precisely how badly Muslims tend to treat those who they feel have "hijacked their religion." Unfortunately for the Palestinians, the Arab Muslim persecutions and massacres of the Druze ended up creating a community that has provided some of Israel's finest and most dedicated soldiers...
This isn't criticism. This is trolling, and all it will achieve is angering muslims who didn't have anything to do with 9/11 and help those who did.
Well, if those angry Muslims exercise their free speech rights in retaliation, then we have started a discourse.
But that's not what you're worried about with 'angry muslims', is it? You're expecting violence. In short you're going as far as condoning the violence by suppressing the man's rights, because you're afraid of it.
Kinda puts the word 'terror' in 'terrorism', doesn't it?
He's also sullied the good name of Jesus Christ, who would NOT approve of his heathen actions. Everything about this goes against Christianity's teachings.
Free Martian Whores!
Holy crap! One of the links on that page details, pretty extensively, the slave-labor operation these people are running. If there's even just a kernel of truth to it they sound like the second coming of El-Ron. It's a wonder the Feds haven't busted up their cult yet.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Second, you're much more likely to get in trouble by criticizing Christianity than Islam.
The mere threat of burning the Koran by some no-name redneck minister has caused major diplomatic incidents, mass protests, and death threats. Nothing like that happens when you burn bibles. And it's not the first time: look at the Mohammad cartoons or the Satanic Verses; again, diplomatic incidents, mass protests, death threats, and deaths.
A bunch of terrifyingly ignorant bigots are going to burn books for no reason other than to insult a large and diverse group of people.
Mainstream Islam is effectively represented by the Islamic nations around the world: Iran, Indonesia, Egypt, Pakistan, etc., not by the moderate Muslims in the US or Europe. Those nations have a horrendous human rights record, and their politicians and clerics justify their policies with Islam and the Koran. When people criticize Islam, that's what they criticize, and rightfully so. Furthermore, Islam itself rejects the notion that there can be diversity in its beliefs.
I don't think his rights should be suppressed, I just think it's fucking ridiculous. If you want to make a good impression on the non-radical muslims, burning their holy book isn't the way to do it.
http://www.irshadmanji.com/reformist-quran
I've bought one but have not read it yet. A free PDF is also available.
No he is just a PR seeking wack job.
Nope this is freedom of speech. Clear and simple.
I really do not like what he is doing. I think it is wrong and frankly evil. But then a lot of what happens on line I find offensive, wrong and evil.
But what he is doing isn't any different that burning a Bible or the US flag. Frankly it isn't any more evil than many comments I have seen on Slashdot!
You know I could post some vile anti Muslim comments right in this comment. They would be every bit as bad as what this guy is going to do. Should this comment be delete?
Should Slashdot's hosting company take it down if I did that?
I will refrain from actually doing that not out of fear but because I believe it is wrong and my faith teaches that it would be wrong.
It is easy to be for freedom of speech when you agree with it. It is when the speech is unpopular and yes even rude that it must be protected.
So if you are okay with hosting companies doing this then be ready for the fall out.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
>I'm not sure what's sadder. A backwoods pastor trying to provoke a reaction by book burning [...]
The book burning is the reaction.
Consider if America (Islam) had a law that said those that try to become Canadian (Christian) should be killed - wouldn't it be a reasonable reaction for Canadians to burn a copy of that law in protest? Well the Sharia punishment for apostasy is death. Burning the book that suggests that seems a not unreasonable response.
In his effort to look fearless he is acting reckless, and ends up looking pretty feckless. If he wasn't acting in a way that could get a lot of other people hurt, and people were actively threatening only him, then he would be brave. But since there are many people that could get hurt and he couldn't give two flips that makes him reckless. Our state had a campaign against reckless driving that focused on the roles that passengers can play in preventing accidents by holding bad drivers accountable and saying something when they act dangerously. Pretty similar idea here. I do hope that Government will not step in to stop this (freedoms are still important), but I also hope that private citizens and companies will not abet this nut, and that news will not cover him. Everyone has a right to free speech, but that doesn't mean that anyone else has to promote his dumb ass.
We don't submit our civil liberties to a cost benefit analysis. One could easily make the argument that we'd be better off without free speech, protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, the 2nd amendment, etc. Those policy choices are off the table in a Constitutional Republic though.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Know that one? All it takes for evil men to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
All it takes for extreme Islam to triumph is for moderate Islam to do nothing.
And that is exactly what they are doing. NOTHING. And the longer they do nothing to stop the extremists among them, the harder it will become and the more the world will just get fed up.
Popularity of Geert Wilders and other anti-islam people is NOT due to racism, it is the average voter, the middle class, the ones who pay the taxes to become simply fed up. It isn't hate, it is tiredness. And hate makes evil men act. Tiredness makes good men not act. Hitler didn't come to power because a lot of Germans were evil but because a lot of Germans were tired of their current situation and wanted chance. Any chance, no matter how it came.
Instead of so-called moderate Muslims correcting their own extremists, they continue to provecate. Is this new building REALLY necessary? How come moderate Islam is more about protesting burnings of Koran's then about American flag burning by Muslims? Go to Iran, stop one of their many many flag burnings and THEN maybe I am willing to listen to your protests about someone burning the koran.
And this is another thing the average citizen is getting tired off. One rule for Muslims, one for everyone else. Apparently Muslims can insult and declare intifada's on everyone but if anyone dares protest, they are attacking Islam. Where is the Muslim moderate declaring that he will kill the religious leaders of Iran if they declare a single Jihad on anyone? Where is the Muslim who stands up against the extremist of his religion with words and actions that have MEANING?
Islam is not an extreme religion by itself, but it has problems dealing with its extremists. This is dangerous. It would be like US anti-abortion terrorists moving into Europe to spread their hate. Nobody cares if Americans blow up their own abortion clinucs, but keep the nutters to your own shores. Islam fails at this.
And democracy in the west ain't about being nice. It is about the majority dictating the minority. And you better do so, because we don't have a history of being nice against majorities that we hold accountable for something, rightly or wrongly.
I fear this stuff could blow up one day, all because good men did nothing. Because I am tired of Muslims. I admit it. I don't even hate them. I just want them to disappear. For once to open the newspaper and not read about them. Just as I can go weeks without reading about Jews, Christians, Budhists, Atheists getting in the news related to their faith.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
So was I (well, high school). That didn't stop me from seeing the obvious: the solution to our dislike of a country's oppressive government is not to encourage its replacement with an oppressive government theoretically more to our liking. The lack of the Reaganites to heed the then-active lessons of Iran and Lebanon while fucking around in Afghanistan to Fight The Red Menace(TM) was exactly the kind of stupidity I feared from those jackasses.
To use your analogy, the same lens for history may not work well for anticipating the future, but that's no reason to not ignore what you see when you use it on history.
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
Still not our responsibility to remove despots or harmful regimes from power unless they are directly a threat to us (such as Osama). This being the case, I agree that the invasion of Afghanistan was justified with the goal of catching Osama since the Taliban were not cooperative in the slightest with the US. Beyond Afghanistan, the war in Iraq is totally unjustifiable. Revolution is the sole responsibility of those in the country who wish for it.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
"Re:well done (Score:2, Informative)
by Anonymous Coward writes: on Thursday September 09, @10:02AM (#33520938)
This is called Dhimmitude...
Muslims tend to enforce Dhimitude on to non-muslims with violence.
I for one will not greet our new 'Dhimmitude Demanding' Mohammedan Overlords!
link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhimmitude
Razgorov Prikazka "
Plus, it's "I, for one, welcome our new (insert name here) overlords!"
Sheesh! It's just as easy to get these things right.
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
I don't have the URL to hand, but that was reported on the version of the story that I read on the BBC News site this morning. It's probably easy to find.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
As a private company, they have the legal right to refuse to provide a service
You said:
You don't seem to get it. A private company can refuse to do business with someone
Something tells me that you didn't read my post. I suggest that you try again, rather than raising points that I'd already addressed (hint - read the rest of the paragraph that starts with the bit I quoted).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I would like all of you folks who are complaining that X is a coward for 'caving' to Islam:
Please walk up to a coworker
Ask him/her to see his/her latest un-cashed paycheck.
go to the bank with him/her, and get it in cash.
Burn the cash. All of it.
Not going to do it? You are a coward for not intentionally pissing off someone who doesn't have any reason to be pissed off with you.
Going to do it? You are an idiot.
Wouldn't even entertain the thought? kind of strikes you as wrong?
Think there might be an analogy that can be drawn here between Money Loving Capitalist Americans and Quran Loving Islamic Muslims?
No... couldn't be.
Don't insult someone you don't have to.
Don't insult someone you don't have to.
Treat others as you would like them to treat you.
One of those is a golden rule. I don't care which one you pick.
People aren't afraid of violence from Christians? Tell that to Matthew Shepherd's family. Or anyone walking towards an abortion clinic, or performing abortions. Or black people in the American South in the 60s.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
Nothing like that happens when you burn bibles.
When's the last time you heard of a major and highly-publicized protest where people were burning large numbers of Bibles just to piss off Christians? I would bet money that there would be death threats from someone. Some poor Muslim cabbie was almost murdered because of the "ground zero mosque"-- he didn't even have anything to do with the mosque. But no, you're right. No Christians have ever been violent.
Mainstream Islam is effectively represented by the Islamic nations around the world: Iran, Indonesia, Egypt, Pakistan, etc., not by the moderate Muslims in the US or Europe.
Says who? There's a long road to making the point you want to. You have to show (a) those countries are evil; and (b) the evil of those countries is as a result of the dominant religious beliefs, and not socio-economic factors. Then you can begin to blame Islam for those countries. Even then, you still have to show that to be the "mainstream" version of Islam.
And if you really want to make a point, after that, you'd have to show that other religions (e.g. Christianity) don't have similar negative effects. I see Christian nutjobs doing serious damage to the US, but I don't blame Christianity for it.
Why should we let their anger stop us?
But in predominantly Christian nations, you can blaspheme without legal consequences. Predominantly Christian nations do not cause diplomatic incidents over people burning their own Bibles or cartoons that poke fun at Jesus. Christian clerics in those nations do not pronounce fatwas against people who insult Christianity.
In predominantly Muslim nations, blasphemy against Islam carries serious penalties, in some cases even death; homosexuality and atheism also carry severe penalties, and other religions are restricted. Muslim nations do apply diplomatic pressure in response to disrespect of Islam by private individuals in other nations. And it is those nations and their laws that are "representative of the Muslim world". The Muslims that live in the west--many of them tolerant--are the exception.
Not quite the same thing...
Then why ask? Those of you who can't tell the difference between parody and hate need to go back to grade school. This is basic and obvious folks.
I am Jack's smirking revenge.
Muslim pastor burns a Bible, Christians do nothing. Which group is wrong here?
The values are simply put in different places. When it comes to mind control, end results are what count. Our great Christian Nation is working itself up into a lunatic froth over Iran as we speak, just as it did over Afghanistan and Iraq, using the very same lies and media contortions. And we're happily falling for it again. Clearly our populace has only the barest minimum capacity to learn from mistakes.
Basically, we just rationalize murder and resource theft using different tactics. While I'm sure it was considered, there are simply too many atheists in the West for a big, well-publicized bible burning to have the desired effect in motivating people into a nice profitable war. Though, bible-burning would certainly have an effect on a significant portion of the U.S., propaganda needs to capture the hearts and minds of as big a demographic as possible. There are just too many atheists in the West who would laugh at the "insult" and who would instead feel superior and perhaps even pity toward the East for using such a tactic. So the mind-control experts decided to use the whole terrorist line to get both the religious and non-religious involved in self-destructive behavior.
As I said, the end results are what count; murder and misery. That's the payoff for the dark side.
Getting caught up in the oh-so-enticing mind trap of comparing us to them is how they catch us and make us do insane things to each other.
-FL
Everything you said basically says you don't agree with what they did. That by refusing to do service with this guy they were denying them their rights. They're not denying anyone their rights. So your whole post is contradictory. You say they have the right to refuse business, but then you say you wouldn't do business with them because they don't want to do business with a giant a-hole.
Bite my shiny metal ass!
Damn - without media coverage no one in the world would know! I think personally that the MEDIA is the organization putting our troops in danger. If the media left it alone no one would know!!!
Well, that was why the Puritans moved here in the first place.
With views like that, I'd be willing to bet you are locked down in some hopeless position so that the more sense you make and the further your reach, the tighter the thumbscrews become.
There's a reason only church-going cognitively dissonant marionettes get elected these days.
-FL
Exactly, no one can keep you from being an asshole in America. But no one has to let you use their property or services to be an asshole either especially when there's a big NO ASSHOLES clause in your contract to use said services/property.
By a Muslim group? Yes I would see it as a provocative insult, same way as I see burning the US flag. It is a pointless display, and indicates a profound inability to think on the part of the perpetrator.
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Because you're involved in two wars in Islamic countries and you're trying to get them to stop hating you?
Provided the enforcement of such clauses is uniform, in good faith, and not in any way arbitrary.
None of these criteria appear to be the case here.
I would bet money that there would be death threats from someone
From some nutcases, yes. Not from mainstream Christian clerics or politicians. That's the difference.
Says who? There's a long road to making the point you want to.
No, not really. That's where most Muslims live, hence the inhabitants of those nations represent mainstream Islam. "Represent" is all I claimed; the causation is complex.
I see Christian nutjobs doing serious damage to the US, but I don't blame Christianity for it.
There are few self-identified Christian nations left, and the ones that exist generally have good human rights records. And secular nations with predominantly Christian populations (like the US and France) also have generally good human rights records (better than most predominantly Muslim nations).
When's the last time you heard of a major and highly-publicized protest where people were burning large numbers of Bibles just to piss off Christians?
Media don't pick up on Bible burnings because most Christians couldn't care less. There are hundreds of Bible burning videos on YouTube if you care, with no death threats that I could find. Marilyn Manson did it during a concert, and she has a lot more followers than Jones. Even real abuses against Christians in Islamic countries hardly get coverage because few people care.
It is one of the things I respect most about modern Christianity - their ability to tolerate or ignore the sacrilegious. It isn't anything to do with the religion though, it is a fairly recent development from a historical point of view.
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Hear hear - remember "If it bleeds it leads!"
This is trolling, and all it will achieve is angering muslims who didn't have anything to do with 9/11 and help those who did
I was raised Christian. These days I don't follow any religion, but I used to be very adamant. When I was in high school (when I was an adamant Christian) a kid I knew burned a Bible in front of me to get a rise out of me. I laughed at him because I thought it was funny that he was destroying his only copy of some very beautiful poetry. I figured if he didn't want access to some of the impressive lyricism and imagery found in Psalms and Revelations, that was his loss.
What's my point? It's the muslims that are making the choice to be angered by such a stupid act. If someone wants to shit on whatever it is that pleases you, let them. As long as they aren't depriving you of your copy, it's their loss.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
I see where you are coming from, but you are looking at it from a freedom of speech/US constitution basis.
The "Muslim world" is not doing so. They look at it from a historical/geo-political basis, bound up with what seems to many a very convincing narrative of US arrogance and hatred of Islam.
Obama has received formal letters from several heads of state asking him to prevent this from happening. I assume they know as well as he does that he does not have the power to do so, but the average Muslim-in-the-street? Especially with so many demagogues willing to twist any situation?
US relations with the Muslim world are fraught with enormous misperceptions on both sides. A US church burning the Koran is really really unhelpful at this point from whatever way you look at it.
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Uh, what exactly is news about that at all? He can burn books all day long as I care. Does it matter which ones, except for the fact that glossy paper doesn't burn as good?
People are being offended because he is being offensive--aggressively offensive. Sure, I don't care if he has a pile of books and burns them, but that's not what he's doing. He didn't pick just any book, he picked a book that is considered a religious symbol by 1.3 billion people (plus those of us that respect their opinions), with the SPECIFIC INTENT of insulting them. It's not the physical process of combustion that is offensive, it is the guy's advertised intentions.
Likewise, if I held an anti-American rally and burned the American flag as part of the protest, that would be considered offensive by millions of patriotic Americans. But if I had a bunch of trash in my backyard that happened to include a flag and burned it up by accident, no one would give a damn.
Just saying, I'm glad that you are not easily offended, but not everyone can brush off such an explicit affront to their religion, heritage, and way of life.
The sort of violence you're talking about stems from social, economic, and political factors. Religion is the excuse that people sometimes use to justify their own shitty actions. It just happens that, right now, Islam is prevalent in some really crappy countries. The situation can (and has been) reversed.
Burning books which express politically unacceptable view points is a prime marker of an oppressive government or society.
So is shutting down a political or religious website which is viewed unfavorably by society or the government. If it was done out of fear of reprisal by Muslims or because of Political Correctness it says loads about the "land of the free and the home of the brave".
We all condemn the Inquisition because it represented an unholy alliance between church and state. If you think the Inquisition was bad then research the doctrine of Abrogation practiced by teachers of Islam, Sharia Law, and see which version of democracy you'd like to live with.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Its never was about freedom of speech, its about freedom of religion. Religious freedom dosent mean "I can do what ever because I has a religion". It simply mean that "I can do what ever WITH the religion". I am free to ignore any of them, or I am free to worship any of them, but I am also free to shit on any of them. That may make me a asshole to you. But that your problem; deal with your own hatred.
By attaking my freedom to shit on your religion you are destructing your own freedom to whoreship your ugly idols and sick prophets.
And yes, this is troll, but troll in a good way. The kind that force your to think and re-evaluate your positions. Trolls that make the world move on! Trolls that make the world a better place!
I wonder if Rackspace is this high and mighty about kicking pro terrorist and islamic jihad websites off their servers?
Somehow I doubt it.
Hey, I can make up random shit, too! Let's try it:
---
I wonder if WCMI92 stopped raping little girls.
Somehow I doubt it.
---
See, wasn't that fun?
Freedom of speech is a right. Freedom from being offended is not.
Freedom from having your speech taken off of a private organization's servers is also not.
Rackspace has every right to remove content from their servers that they feel violates their AUP. Don't like it? Find another hosting provider.
I'm going to take a wild guess that you are not an Afghan. Quite apart from whether we think we are the good guys, there are certainly factors at work beyond "the bad guys want power back" in determining the opposition we face.
Would you oppose occupation of your country by Islamic Extremists if you believed they were denying us religious freedom and trying to convert us to Islam?
Would you oppose occupation of your country by Islamic Extremists if you heard stories that they killed wedding parties with bombs, or that they were doing outrageous things during searches?
Would you oppose occupation of your country by Islamic Extremists if the quislings they installed in government were building up conspicuously fat stacks of cash in corrupt deals?
It is incredibly stupid to just ignore the force of these claims while trying to conduct a counter-insurgency.
"First, Free Speech only applies to the government law"
No, that has never been determined. The supreme court has never defines speech in any concrete manner like that.
Who enforces contract law? that's right, the government. So is the government enforces a contract that tells people what they can say they are, in fact, abridging someone right to speech.
This issue is very complicated. If you do not realize why it's so complected, educate yourself before expressing you ignorant opinion.
What happens when all hosting companies have that same clause?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Uh, what exactly is news about that at all? He can burn books all day long as I care. Does it matter which ones, except for the fact that glossy paper doesn't burn as good?
The fact that you don't regard something as sacred does not mean other people should not either. More to the point, it's not the burned book itself that is offensive (to me, at least), it's the intent with which he did it. He didn't do it because he needed warmth, he did it because he wanted to express hatred toward Muslims. He's effectively trying to hold all the world's Muslims responsible for the actions of a few extremists on 9/11.
My question is not "why is it news that some idiot burned a Quran?", but rather "why is it news that Rackspace shut down a hate-filled website that violated its hosting contract?"
Someone posted a bad analogy which was intended to show that Rackspace's actions were right (I am precise with my terms, I don't and never did say 'legal'). I took their analogy and corrected it to be more accurate as the quickest way to show where they went wrong. Don't blame me that I'm arguing by analogy in the circumstances. ;)
As regards it "not being our business", I disagree. We're all part of this society and we all bear the consequences of discrimination and censorship within society. Many people in this thread are posting analogies in which they own a megaphone, billboard or somesuch, and ask why they should be forced to use it to support something with which they disagree. That's very different to businesses refusing to serve part of the market based solely on the segment's religious beliefs. In the USA today, there is very little which isn't privatized. Malls, radio stations, newspapers, web-hosting... If your argument is that private ownership allows one to excuse oneself from any restrictions on discrimination, then you've just struck a major blow against fighting discrimination. If your argument is that these particular people don't fall under restraints against discrimination because their beliefs are bad beliefs that it is okay to discriminate against whilst other religious beliefs are not, then I'd consider that a double standard. The double standard applies, incidentally, whether you're talking about ethics or if the double standard is enshrined in law.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
The sort of violence you're talking about stems from social, economic, and political factors.
The death penalty for apostasy does not stem from "social, economic, and political factors", and neither do severe punishments for blasphemy or homosexuality.
It just happens that, right now, Islam is prevalent in some really crappy countries. The situation can (and has been) reversed.
(1) What is relevant right now is what Islam and Christianity are today, not what they can be in the far future or what you think they should be.
(2) Islam and Christianity differ fundamentally both in their epistemology and relationship to society, not just their metaphysics.
(3) Christianity started out grim and murderous but has progressed in spurts towards more human rights and more peace. Islam started out grim and murderous, then experienced a golden age, but then fell into decay again. Very different histories.
I never said that it was a good idea for the Church to burn the Koran.
This church is in the US so from a legal point of view on the US counts. Imagine if the US wanted France to ban a movie because we didn't like.
Maybe I am wrong but I would hope that majority of Muslims would understand that this guy is an isolated wack job. I also have faith that if their news organisations reported honestly about the thousands of people that are protesting this little idiot and the good number of churches that are having Koran readings and trying to be inclusive that they would get a different prospective.
Frankly I do not think that average Muslim in the street is any dumber than I am.
The problem will be if the can get the truth.
Frankly I bet that the average Muslim in the street isn't any different than the average Christian in the street. The issue will be is will they get to here the truth.
And frankly the truth is that if this idiot doesn't burn one some other idiot with an ax to grind and a lust for PR is going to.
Right now I will bet you that 20 members of the KKK and maybe even a few NeoNazis are buying Korans and matches right now.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
"We don't submit our civil liberties to a cost benefit analysis."
Yes, we do. All countries, including the US do, there is not one country in the world that doesn't put limits on the civil liberties it allows. See here for some examples regarding free speech:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_in_the_United_States#Special_exceptions
The view that a country like the US has completely uninhibited free speech is completely ignorant, it's not the case. We put limits on various civil liberties, and fundamental rights, and we do this for one very good reason- sometimes they conflict.
At issue, much like the case of shouting "fire" in a crowded feature we have a choice between allowing free speech/freedom of expression, and someone losing the fundamental right to life. There's simply not an option of protecting both people's civil liberties when they're in conflict- we have to choose one or the other, and this is when we effectively do a cost benefit analysis on that. In the UK an argument that's been going on for years is whether Catholic adoption agencies should have to allow gay couples to adopt- it's a question of whether gay couples have the same rights as straight couples and it's a conflict between the fundamental rights of gay couples and the fundamental right to practice religion, in this particular case it appears gay couples have won.
Taken literally, if rights were absolute, then in the US a muslim could walk into the centre of times square shouting "Allah akbar, death to the infidels" (freedom of speech) towing behind him a nuclear weapon (the right to bear arms) and no one could touch him, not until it was too late.
Obviously this wouldn't happen, because there are limits on what arms people are allowed- that is, we limit some civil liberties, we decide that sometimes, there are circumstances where they cannot be granted in full and must be limited, again, primarily when there is a risk of other's civil liberties being infringed.
The problem I have with your argument is it is the opposite used by those who are OK with the Mosque in N.Y. Even though it offends millions of people, it is defended as Constitutionally protected. Yet here today, we read in this forum how this man has no Constitutional protection and what he is doing is offensive to Muslims. You can't have it both ways.
The left on this site offend Christians on a daily basis so it is really funny to see so many of you upset because some guy is going to offend Muslims. Hypocrites. I am hoping that terrorism goes up 100 fold because of what this guy does. Why? Because on one side we have people who over react and say all Muslims are evil, but on the other side we have people who go to every extreme not to point out those that are Muslim extremist. We don't call them terrorist any more, no terrorist attacks,now they are man made disasters. And the people in power are on that "Muslims are peaceful and do no wrong" train of thought. So perhaps you will wake up and realize that, while you HATE Christians and consider them as evil as any other religion, perhaps more of those that follow Mohammad are a bit more dangerous in today's world. (and I am so tired of idiots bringing up the Crusades or Timothy McVeigh.
Crusades 700 years ago. Muslim Terrorist terrorizing the world TODAY!
Timothy McVeigh is not equal to 120 million Muslim Extremest. (10% of the Muslim population)
The other 90% of Muslims need to step up but who can blame them when they don't? The Extremest kill a lot of people. Penn Gillette said his show Bullshit will not do a show on Muslims because he fears for his families welfare. They have done shows on Christianity and Jesus, no fear. You on the left need to wake up.
American media giving an American church free and abundant publicity about their burning of the Koran gives them legitimacy and a notion of prevalence. The U.S. has spent both the 20th century and thus far the 21st sticking its nose into the affairs of countries around the world whose policies, political makeup, etc. it does not agree with. The extent of which ranges from saber rattling at UN council and other venues, to effecting economic sanctions, inciting civil wars, supporting terrorists, political assassinations, as well as outright military invasions.
To suggest that such a Koran burning event--especially the manner in which it is being treated/covered in the media--is not able to be viewed as a form of intimidation toward Muslims demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding about the situation.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
If Rackspace is going to shut down all sites with "hate speech". they are going to have to kill all the muslim sites they host with burning American flags, All the conservative sites with biting criticism of liberals, all the liberal sites with nasty words about conservatives, etc. If a pastor planning to burn the Quran is hate speech, then I presume other actions offending other religions are also hate speech. There go any muslim sites that have the muslim dome atop the Jewish temple mount. Any atheist sites with the flying spaghetti monster, any Jewish sites (many people view even the existence of a Jew as bad), and sites critical of Jews or Jewish sites. etc. etc. etc. Wiill they have any customers left?
Once we get rolling on this whole subjective "hate speech" standard, there may be no sites left on the internet since nearly anybody can take anything as "hateful"
I guess it they still have a lot of customers tomorrow, we will see that their idea of hate speech is rather targeted.
perhaps if this pastor had followers who had a reputation for sawing people's heads off, stoning women, hanging gays, and crashing planes into buildings, rackspace might have been less inclined to pull the plug over some proposal to burn a few dead trees
I smell a lawsuit if Rackspace fails to also pull any sites with muslim "hate speech". This is a bad path our society is slipping down when standards are applied differently to different groups based upon an apparent fear of violence. It matters not whether fear is the actual motive at rackspace; the perception that facilitators of expression are selectively limiting expression based on fear is ultimately the chilling element
Does that make it unpalatable to Americans? You betcha.
That's not actually the biggest problem. The problem with crappy soldiers like that is:
1) You get the general population against you.
2) Genocide nowadays is not such a viable candidate if you need to trade with lots of other countries and their support. And the survivors will "never" forgive you, it'll take many generations.
they give in to the urge to behave like animals.
There's the problem, it's not a shortage of soldiers, it's too many bad soldiers. You CANNOT afford to keep shooting the wrong people/targets.
It takes very brave and professional soldiers to be careful to err on the safe side and not shoot people when their own lives are under threat.
You screw up, next thing you know an entire village is now against you. They may not say to your face, but they now want you out. Previously they might have been neutral. After your screw up, building bridges etc isn't going to win them so easily. You are foreigners, if both foreigners and locals are screwing up, most will prefer the locals.
Screw up enough times and you lose the entire country. I think the US has lost Afghanistan and it's just a matter of time. The morale of the Taliban is higher than that of the US soldiers. Their soldiers take their losses better, they believe in what they are doing, they have supplies and support, they now control most parts of Afghanistan even if not officially.
It's easier for the Taliban to not make mistakes, when in doubt just shoot the guys in the US uniform instead of some brown guy in a shalwar kameez.
Such wars are not easy to win. In my country (Malaysia) they moved many entire villages to new villages ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayan_Emergency ). Foreigners did come in to fight and they did an overall good job, yes there were mistakes, but they were definitely not making trophies out of civilians.
The US can't fight it the way it fought Vietnam. They lost that war. They wouldn't have won. Soldiers in such wars cannot be trigger happy idiots. You need soldiers who would behave professionally.
"much like burning crosses in peoples front yards."
Burning a cross in a front yard belonging to someone else who doesn't approve = "intimidation".
Burning it in your own or a rented yard is protected speech given the right context:
http://www.aclu.org/free-speech/us-supreme-court-upholds-va-cross-burning-ban-sends-law-back-state-court-refinement
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Not necessarily a lunatic.
No one dare criticize Islam because Muslims are fond of violent reprisals against anyone who does so. This has worked wonderfully, chilling debate throughout the Politically Correct secular West.
Muslim reprisals will explain Islam quite nicely, FORCING the unwilling to understand what they would deny and demonstrating the Clash of Civilizations.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
you mean Gandhi?
A nation of cowards is easier to rule.
Its a matter of disrespect. By burning copies of the Koran, which 1.3 billion people hold as sacred, he is just going out of his way to create hatred for the USA and the West in general. By most people's standards that's wrong, not to mention offensive. The fact is as well that it will endanger lives all over the world. The fact that those lives will be endangered by fanatical assholes who don't even understand their own religion and are using it as an excuse to justify their fanatical desire for power and in some cases (Taliban) merely to defend their control of the drug trade etc, is really irrelevant IMHO.
To put it in a more American setting, how would most Americans feel if someone was organizing a protest that involved a group's members shitting on a copy of the US Constitution in public? I can see a few taking very great offense at that, since they hold that document as being all but sacred. Technically, under that document people probably have the right to do so (other than the fact that they would be violating local statutes involving defecating in public of course). It wouldn't be any less disrespectful though, and just as offensive (and note: I am Canadian, the document doesn't mean anything to me personally).
I am not saying we should cater to the sensibilities of religious fanatics who like to murder people in the name of their beliefs. Fuck 'em. However, engaging in an activity that ALSO offense the other 1.399999999 Billion Muslims who are not religious fanatics who like to murder people in the name of their beliefs, is completely beyond the pall of sensibility.
Bravo to Rackspace in my opinion. I hope they lose the backups of the site as well then delete it. Actually I would like to see the domain name itself passed off to some organization like ReligiousTolerance.org so they can put up a message on the issue intended to deflate the hatred.
The one thing this world does not need is more excuses for religious hatred, violence and divisiveness. Its bad enough already I think. Sadly, its primarily the religions that claim to be peaceful that are the cause :(
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
Burning a book filled with fantasies is not 'evil crazy shit'. Insulting someone because they live their life according to said fantasies is not 'evil crazy shit'.
'Evil crazy shit' is believing in such bullshit to begin with in such a manner that you can cut peoples heads off, that you fly airliners into buildings full of people, that you can stone women to death for screwing someone else, and that you're willing to bomb schools full of children. THAT is 'evil crazy shit'. I know it's hard, but try not to confuse the two.
I can't even believe I have to point this out, its quite unreal. As for the muslims, and every other bat shit crazy mother fucker who can't figure out that NO we don't know whats out, fuck em, they need to get over it and if stunts like this manage to help drag their stupid screaming asses into this century, so be it.
A community center in downtown Manhattan can provide plenty of real benefits to the community, burning a pile of books does not accomplish any good.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
Silly. Islam is a bunch of silly superstitions that unfortunately some people believe in enough to do stupid stuff that evil people tell them to.
Of course, so is Christianity.
Perhaps I overstate - I certainly don't have any ability to guess what over a billion people are thinking on an issue.
I have been reading a fair amount of (English language) Muslim news reports on this issue though, some with reader comments, and I've just got the impression of an enormous disconnect between how America views its own actions and the way they are viewed in the Muslim world. Not a question if intelligence certainly, or even of education. Simply of narrative.
Look at Iran for example - the Mad Mullahs of American nightmares, but if you look at Iranian history from their perspective it isn't hard to see why they are paranoid about US (and British) intentions and motives. Invasion by Britain in 1941, democratically elected government overthrown by the US in 1953, strong US opposition to their revolution with multiple crisis, culminating in open US support for Iraq when Iraq started the horrendously bloody Iran-Iraq war. And it has just kept ticking over from there with more US military action on its borders, until we are at the point where America is basically openly debating the merits of military action against Iran in the present day.
Against that sort of backdrop, it is hardly surprising that a US church planning to burn the Koran is not immediately dismissed as a first amendment issue. There is a larger narrative to judge it against, and you can see how it seems to fit right in.
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... when your government threw habeas corpuse under the bus.
The book burning is just a side show. The terrorists already won.
At least there are some bloggers on the right political spectrum like this libertarian who understand the actual issues.
Unfortunately these days something that shouldn't be a partisan issue at all is pretty much completely ignored. The right windbags seem to confuse torture with patriotism or sado-masochistic fun and the lefties shut miraculously up once Obama came into power. So now the policy has the blessing of the US federal appeals court.
Have fun living in a country where due process is not a right but a favor that your government can withdraw at any time.
"Land of the free" what a joke.
From the Wikipedia article on Section Two of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_Two_of_the_Canadian_Charter_of_Rights_and_Freedoms):
"2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
(a) freedom of conscience and religion;
(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
(d) freedom of association."
Also from that article:
"The fundamental freedoms are freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom of thought, freedom of belief, freedom of peaceful assembly, and freedom of association. They are guaranteed but can also be limited by the section 1 of the Charter, and they can be temporarily invalidated by the notwithstanding clause of the Charter."
So there are some exceptions, but generally speaking we have similar rights to citizens of the US.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
Why does the enforcement need to meet any of that criteria? While there are some exceptions (that tend to vary by state), private companies can generally accept and refuse business as they wish (as long as the businesses themselves are legal).
You could argue that this arbitrary enforcement is unfair, but that's just whining, because the world doesn't work that way.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
I think the same thing every time I hear about Sarah Palin. Michael Palin I respect, however Sarah Palin is (in IMHO) just a dangerous, highly ignorant, vindictive and apparently violent US politician. She's an idiot and I am amazed she every got elected. Apparently her former staffers are too frightened to talk about her - a recent Vanity Fair writer tried to interview a few of them and none of them would speak about her, in fact the locals in her town didn't want to be interviewed either, as apparently she has a vengeance streak a mile wide. It would be the worst thing possible for the US to give her any responsibility.
Sadly, my cynical side thinks that means she likely has a good shot at the Presidency. If the US can elect Bush Jr, then they can elect anyone.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
this guy isn't just a lunatic. This is a measured deliberate grab for media spotlight to sell his book and line his own pocket. He learned well from the right wing fringe that has infiltrated the politics of the last several years. Fear sells.
He is an opportunist that puts his own financial enrichment above the safety of americans. Shame on him.
My understanding is that he is very much constitutionally protected - you wouldn't see the entire American military, religious and political (left AND right) leadership begging him to desist if they could just ban the protest. If you just mean Rackspace, you have to respect their rights as well.
For the record, I'm not to clear on the details (is it a mosque? how close is it to ground zero?) but I'm no fan of it. It seems a needless provocation.
Disagree. The comparison should be an Iranian, say, insulting Islam. I think you'd find the same people cheering that as cheer insulting Christianity. This is a political issue rather than religious, although it is religious sensibilities that are being insulted.
I'm no fan of radical Islam, but try to look at it from their point of view. Who's armies are in who's countries? You can come out with as much justification as you please, but you have to accept that invading someone's country is always extremely unpopular. In this situation it is simple common sense not to also insult their religion.
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The way to counter that, is not to provide individual targets - if Fatwas are placed on the heads of millions of people, than those Fatwas become meaningless. So it's important to offend, to offend regularly, and to offend often.
The Koran is an evil book. Fine it's probably not more evil than the Bible or the Torah, but frankly I find the worship of books condoning genocide rather offensive. Burning any one of them will offend people, many of them perfectly nice people who either don't know what's actually written in those books, or have found ways to rationalize the absurdities and read around the evil. I don't particularly like to hurt these people's feeling, because I know they genuinely are nice people. I don't want to lose my right to tell the truth, though. The Koran is an evil book. We need to be free to say that.
I think we'll need more people who are willing to act like Terry Jones, otherwise we'll lose our freedom to say what we think is evil. And that's too much freedom to lose.
Unfortunately, most of us who would have were a little young to properly understand or care about morality on a international level at that time. I, for one, was learning to read and write. What's your excuse?
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
Why on Earth would you want to provoke a clash like that? I don't deny it is a possibility if the lunatics are allowed to dominate the debate, but why anyone would want such a situation... Do you dream of standing amid the ruins of cities saying, "look, I was right"?
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It isn't anything to do with the religion though, it is a fairly recent development from a historical point of view.
Actually it is. More of us have actually started to be able to read the Bible for ourselves. In the past it was someone else telling us what the Bible said. Yes there are violent bits in the Bible, but generally if you concentrate on the "follow Jesus" stuff (which you are supposed to), you'd be a fairly peaceable, turn-the-other-cheek sort. And you can see the results for yourself, nonbelievers can insult Jesus or use his name as an expletive without great fear of reprisals.
Even if most Christians don't actually read the Bible or know it well, the fact that they could easily do so restrains their leaders more. Because some smart aleck could say, hey but Jesus told us to do something different in the Gospel of Matthew. Analogy: it's like Linux, only a few read the source, but only Wackos would dare claim Linux has features that it doesn't.
In contrast many of the muslims don't actually understand Arabic. And many are still firmly believe that there should not be translations of the Quran/Koran, which is ridiculous since you'd still end up with one, just now it's from some guy in a village rather than a group of guys who know their stuff far better. Furthermore Arabic must have changed in 1400+ years. They are still fixated on the form than the substance (see what happened to Yusman Roy as an example).
To back that up: many muslims can actually recite the Quran without understanding it, that's what they study in their religious studies- how to recite the Quran. Then someone comes and gives them his pet interpretation of it, and it's hard for them to know whether he's wrong or right about what the Quran actually says.
Christians around the world can just look at Jesus's Beatitudes and the rest of what he did, and to see that this Quran burning thing is just not how you do stuff.
It sure is not a sign of humility or meekness or peacemaking. Sure it says blessed if you are insulted, but only if it's because of Jesus, not because you're trying to do something that's certainly not peacemaking. All the stuff about burning scrolls etc in the bible, were burning your own stuff as a sign of repentance (turning from your old ways) or stuff[1] in Israel (which was/is to be a holy nation).
This guy bought a book from a different religion and then burns it knowing that 1.5 billion people will take it as an insult.
[1]Even the initial genocidal war against the Canaanites was a judgement against the Canaanites (which came after 400 years) and the Israelites were warned that a similar thing would happen to them if they broke their contract with God. They broke it, and it did happen to them.
How do you know he didn't?
Given some of his other remarks he was probably around 10 years old at the time, you expect moral outrage about cold war era funding from children?
And what if he thought the Russians were worse than the Islamic Extremists?
Freedom OF religion. The church doing the burning is free from any reaction of Islam, just like a group of Islamics are free to burn bibles with the church has a legal course of reprisal.
''The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretence, infringed.'' - Madison
That is exactly what the Freedom of Religeon in the constitution represents.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You are full of crap.
Sexism, racism, ableism, heterosexism, classism and anti-semitism are not about individual acts of discrimination (what some conservative commentator might have specifically said to offend someone or some group). These terms do not primarily refer to acts of discrimination (They refer to systems of privilege that "normalize" a particular way of talking about and thinking about particular groups of people in society.
The effects of some speech when launched into public space are not simply situational. They are another series of burps in the historical and existing framework that has normalized a particular way of thinking about Muslims, gays and lesbians, and other marginalized groups. Is yelling "Fire" in a church/ synagogue or mosque when its crowded (furthermorer, even a crowded mall) protected, or is its intent to cause harm? Do we allow the KKK to burn crosses on people's lawns in the south? Is this acceptable?
People talk about the constitution as though its some perfect shield hat should act as either armor or a sword to defend completely abhorrent behaviour. People who deny the holocaust, or talk about pedophilia as being desirable are NOT what the founding fathers had in mind. GROW UP! You have so sadly been marked as insighful.
sig loading.......
Why? Why would it do anything more than incite a few unhappy folks to burn some bibles and/or some effigies of Mr. Jones?
Are these folks so incredibly insecure and violent that they will kill people over a simple book burning? To me, that in itself is the point of this: to emphasize how ridiculously out of proportion the reaction is and to make anyone who would even THINK of killing someone for burning a book look even more stupid than the book burner.
I seriously doubt that Mr. Jones will kill anyone he hears of burning effigies in his image or burning bibles as a rebuttal.
Knowledge is like ignorance.. too much can be just as bad as not enough.
Wait, did you seriously just compare Ghandi, a dude who urged peaceful civil disobedience and fasted to get religious fighting to stop, with this preacher who's burning another religion's holy books and saying, "this is a warning"?
And yes, there was at least one person who probably thought Ghandi was an asshole; the guy who shot him.
But here, I'll play along; I'm sure there were some people who thought that what Hitler was doing was a bad thing, too, and he was completely free to ignore them.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
we're going to throw Billy Graham on the fire? I'm there.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
There are 1.3 billion Muslims. Very very few of them flew aeroplanes into the world trade centre, beheaded anyone, or do anything else apart from try to make a life for themselves. Why insult the majority when it is the tiny minority that have sinned? This tiny minority is not offended, they are celebrating the marvellous recruiting opportunity.
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This nut claims to be standing up for our freedoms. I say he's full of bullsh*t.
If he wants to make this kind of a statement, he needs to fly over to Afganistan, or Pakistan (or Iraq) and hold his book burning THERE, not from the comfort of his safe little nest in Gainsville. He's putting other people's lives in jeopardy, not his own.
And for what purpose? To prove that Christian extremist nut-bags can be as idiotic as Islamic extremist nut-bags?
What he should do is dowse himself with jet-fuel before he goes in to light the fire. That'd really show them how extremist he can be!
Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.
Contract enforcement needs to be fair, or the terms can be nullified in court.
the people we displaced from power are Islamic Extremists, who deny basic education to women, recruit children into their armies, and are all around bad guys.
That depends on what year it is. From 1979-1988, those were the good guys - the "freedom fighters" as Reagan used to call them. This is part of the hypocrisy that makes it difficult for anyone to take us very seriously when we talk about principles.
The "regular" people of Afghanistan are all too happy to be out from the thumb of the Taliban. Not that our actions have been overtly friendly with civilians as of late, but that's the cost of a guerrilla war.
If the Taliban didn't have the support of the local populace, the war would be over. A few thousand years of their history will show you that the only thing they hate more than competing tribes are foreign invaders.
The real truth is that if we had stayed out of the affairs of these sovereign nations since the end of WWII, there would be no major terrorist attacks against our troops (since they wouldn't be over there) or against our homeland. They would hate America no more or less than they hate New Zealand.
But here, I'll play along; I'm sure there were some people who thought that what Hitler was doing was a bad thing, too, and he was completely free to ignore them.
Excellent example! When Hitler rounded up all the books he didn't like, and burned them, what, exactly did the world do?
In effect, due to the terrorists' impact on our culture, a man seeking to burn a single book he owns is now MORE EVIL than FREAKING HITLER.
How, exactly, does that even work?
I posted this reply above but, since you seem to be saying the same (incorrect) thing, I'll repost it here as well. Mod redundant as necessary.
... questionable statements) coming to speak in Canada - she was warned "Our domestic laws, both provincial and federal, delineate freedom of expression (or "free speech") in a manner that is somewhat different than the approach taken in the United States. I therefore encourage you to educate yourself, if need be, as to what is acceptable in Canada and to do so before your planned visit here. Promoting hatred against any identifiable group would not only be considered inappropriate, but could in fact lead to criminal charges."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_by_country#Canada
Specifically, "The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society. (emphasis added)" Hate speech is one of those limits. That is NOT freedom of speech. It is freedom of speech, within certain limitations. So, no, we do not have freedom of speech.
If you would like a recent example of this, read about Ann Coulter (prominent right wing speaker who has been known to make some
It is basic to Christianity that there is one true faith and that Christians will work to eliminate any faith other than Christianity.
You need to cite chapter and verse for me there, especially since Christ and his disciples were all Jewish and followed the Hebrew faith. Jews and Muslims worship the same God that Christians worship; they're by no means satanic at all.
And unlike Jews, Muslims consider Jesus a prophet. Jews consider him "a good Jewish boy who did well in his life", but they still worship the same God that Jesus (and you) worshiped.
His faith does NOT require or even allow him to ask his congregation to arm themselves! That is the antithesis of Christianity and decidedly anti-Christ. "Love those who hate you, do good to those who harm you" is the Christian way; that's Jesus' own words. When Peter picked up a sword to defend Jesus against the Roman Soldiers, Jesus rebuked him saying "those who live by the sword die by the sword." You are supposed to love the terrorists, strange as that may seem! Just as Jesus loved and prayed for the men who had beat and crucified him as he was hanging on the cross in agony.
This so-called "Christian" preacher is one of the wolves in sheep's clothing Jesus warned about. Beware of men like him; read the bible yourslef, especially what Christ himself said if you consider yourself a Christian.
And your attitude has, through the centuries, caused much evil in the world; the Crusades, for example, and the abuses by the Medevil Popes and Bishops that led to the reformation.
Free Martian Whores!
Gandi was an asshole.
Here is my favorite example, (there are many others)
He told others not to use 'western medicine' Many people died(Including his wife) because of that. When he was ill? he was all about using western medicine.
Yes, that chap was an asshole, and a religious extremist.
But hey, if he didn't lead if Indian Independence, India wouldn't have all the poverty and disease, so he's got that going for him.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
That's very different to businesses refusing to serve part of the market based solely on the segment's religious beliefs.
Your dishonesty for the sake of argument is getting very tiresome. Rackspace did not end the business relationship because of any religious views or bigotry. If that was the case, they never would have allowed the hosting to begin with! They took down the site because it was offensive and inflammatory.
Thought experiment: would we feel any different if Christopher Hitchens were burning a Bible, Koran, Talmud, Bhagavad Gita, and Book of Mormon together in the same pile?
If you were a hosting company, would you want to be hosting these guys in 2 days? I mean seriously, hack attempts are probably going to go up by like 1000% after the burning. What if some of your other customer's websites got defaced/damaged because of it? Personally, I wouldn't risk losing some big customers for some small group that probably pays like $5/month in hosting. If you have a contract that lets you cut them off then I say do it.
What's your solution?
Never get involved in a land war in Asia?
That is all.
He's just burning some books. Our soldiers are...
burning bibles too in Afghanistan.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
You're being stupid. I suggest you actually read up. HINT: Read Madison and Jefferson for starters.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Perhaps I go to far - I am an atheist and it is an easy trap to fall into; thinking that the texts of a religion have little effect on the actions of its followers.
But we both know that I can give examples of atrocities committed by early Protestants, people who had read every word of the New Testament but still were ready to take fire and the sword against the forces of the "whore of Rome". If you want to delve into some Northern Irish history you can find many recent examples as well.
This is an atheist view, and I don't expect you to agree with it, but I do think religious people tend to cherrypick. I probably exaggerate the tendency to far, but you only have to look at liberal Christians tying themselves in knots to get around the pretty clear biblical prohibition on homosexuality, that their modern morality tells them is simply mistaken, to see that it does exist.
Which is just a longwinded way of saying that I don't agree with the "Islam is by nature evil" view that the comment I was replying to seemed to espouse.
This sig all sigs devours
Totally right. Just yesterday I burned a bible I picked up at Walmart for $6 just because I could. But now my actions throw in an interesting quandary. If he wants to defend his right to burn the Qur'an, he has to defend my right to burn to burn the Bible. Disclaimer, I didn't do it to be an asshole to Christians, I was just feeling adventurous; playing with fire can be fun sometimes. And I did it on my own property, which is in a rural area.
Would you not feel insecure if you were a Muslim? However well you can justify America's current military endeavours, the cold facts are that the US has invaded two Muslim countries in the last ten years, still has troops in both of them, and is openly discussing the merits of attacking a third. So yes, I think it is wise to realise that Muslims do feel pretty insecure about the US.
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No. It is the political implications that concern me, not the religious ones.
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I don't think this is even about whether it is hate speech or not. The majority of the people in the world have tough enough skin and don't care, but unfortunately there are a few crazy people in Pakistan, who will definitely do real things that harm everyone else in the world as a result of this, such as recruit more terrorists, and kill innocent people. If the only risk here was whether this offends some people, then go ahead and do it, but at some point, we have to look at the risk vs. benefit of each option. If burning the books results in more killing in the world, and does not help in any way, then it's not a wise choice. Others have argued that it is cowardice to not burn the books - this might be true if there was some identifiable benefit from burning them, but making a choice that only leads to bad things is typically referred to as "stupid". Of course, the identifiable benefit to this guy might just be publicity.
Your dishonesty for the sake of argument is getting very tiresome. Rackspace did not end the business relationship because of any religious views or bigotry. If that was the case, they never would have allowed the hosting to begin with! They took down the site because it was offensive and inflammatory.
I'm not being dishonest. I don't see the distinction between the offensive and inflammatory nature of the Koran-burning and the offensive and inflammatory nature of much of the contents of the Koran. Both are free expression and both deserve the same protection. Seriously, if you are able to explain the difference between why one is free speech and the other is not, I'm willing to listen. I just don't see it myself - there's no "dishonesty for the sake of argument" that I'm aware of. I sincerely consider this church's actions no different in princple to any other expressions.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Your dishonesty continues by changing the focus of the discussion and claiming I made an argument I did not. I don't care what they are burning: they can go ahead and burn Korans, Bibles, HHGttGs, Welsh maps, whatever: it doesn't bother me. I never made any such argument, and you damn well know it.
I'm annoyed with Rackspace sucking up to religious zealots. I don't care what religion they're from. It's worth pulling the chain of each religion once in a while. It makes people think about whether religions should be taken seriously.
Or rather yes, I would feel different. Reading comprehension fail.
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Burning books is not ok. Burning books should be a criminal act punishable by a hefty fine and/or prison.
That's very different to businesses refusing to serve part of the market based solely on the segment's religious beliefs.
Indeed. It's also off topic, as that is not what is happening here. As I pointed out earlier, what you're describing is definitely illegal. What they're doing is not.
That's very different to businesses refusing to serve part of the market based solely on the segment's religious beliefs.
Except that it's not obvious there is discrimination going on - except discrimination against one organization, which is fine. As a business owner, I think it's my absolute right to deny you business if I don't like you. I don't see that as at all being problematic - unless I'm providing a service that is one of your needs (and I mean real needs, like food, water, housing, etc).
If your argument is that private ownership allows one to excuse oneself from any restrictions on discrimination, then you've just struck a major blow against fighting discrimination.
Even assuming I accept your premises, I still disagree. I'm a firm believer in not fixing a broken thing by breaking other things. If the private enterprise has too much power, fix that instead.
If your argument is that these particular people don't fall under restraints against discrimination because their beliefs are bad beliefs that it is okay to discriminate against whilst other religious beliefs are not, then I'd consider that a double standard.
Never suggested it.
Let me state clearly my point. As a private business/person, I believe it is quite OK (legally and ethically) not to do business with someone if they refuse to abide by the terms clearly set. I also believe that they are not obligated to exercise their terms on all infractions committed by their clients. That's where judgment and discretion play a role.
I also believe that a private enterprise has no ethical obligation to uphold free speech via their property, and is perfectly allowed to censor what happens on their property. If I run a blog and moderate comments, my actions are clearly censorship, and completely ethical.
Beetle B.
Your dishonesty continues by changing the focus of the discussion and claiming I made an argument I did not.
What argument? There's been a thread of about five posts discussing the ethics of this and then suddenly you appeared in the thread and said I was being dishonest because Rackspace took down the site because it was "offensive and inflammatory". I responded by asking what the difference was between what this church has done and other things that are offensive and inflammatory which are protected (such as some of the contents of the Koran). That was a direct response and question about something you said and which you were using to support a case that I was being dishonest. So how is it me changing the focus of the discussion?
I made a comment, you posted something in response to it that you think invalidates what I said. I said why I don't think it does and asked you to explain how it could. That request is still awaiting your answer if you would like to go back to my previous post and respond to the question I asked in it.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Good! I'm glad someone is paying attention to these home grown extremists. Perhaps one of you guys at COX COMMUNICATIONS will see the light and get Westboro Baptist Church off your ip space. see: www.godhatesfags.com and: www.godhatesamerica.com
Seriously, if you are able to explain the difference between why one is free speech and the other is not, I'm willing to listen.
Again, your whole premise is flawed. If Rackspace wants to shut down a site that has the Koran on it because they feel it is offensive and inflammatory, then that's quite OK. What's important is what they think is inflammatory, not what you think. Legally and ethically, there's more to it since as a contract, they are obligated to make their terms clear, though. Also, it would be nice if they provide warnings in advance, but it's not obligated (ethically).
And as the person already pointed out, this is a strawman argument. I don't think the poster suggested it's OK to keep a copy of the Koran on the site and not this.
Seriously, there are providers out there who take this kind of stuff quite seriously. If you're going to sign up with a service and intend to put inflammatory material on it, you have no excuse not to do your damn research on picking the proper provider.
Beetle B.
The real truth is that if we had stayed out of the affairs of these sovereign nations since the end of WWII, there would be no major terrorist attacks against our troops (since they wouldn't be over there) or against our homeland. They would hate America no more or less than they hate New Zealand.
What a stunningly stupid thing to say. You been looking in a crystal ball? Consulting with the Tarot cards? How can you possibly know what would have happened if we hadn't stepped in to help any number of countries? Maybe we stopped someone worse than Saddam from taking power in the middle east. Maybe we stopped the Soviets from entrenching in Afghanistan and expanding into Pakistan or threatening China with nukes from all directions? The bottom line is that we have no idea what would have happened.
Of course there would still be terrorist attacks against America. We are the most powerful nation in the world. The best always attract people and organizations that want to take away what they are most jealous of. A thousand years of any country's history will tell you that.
ASCII tastes bad dude.
Binary it is then.
Tell that to Matthew Shepherd's family. Or anyone walking towards an abortion clinic, or performing abortions. Or black people in the American South in the 60s.
Now you're trying to tar an entire group with the actions of a radical few. These actions are not typical of most Chris... Oh wait...
That is all.
And that's precisely why occupying troops must be kept under a very tight scrutiny. It's not just for the sake of the civilians in the occupied zones; it's also for the sake of the soldiers themselves, to help them resist such urges.
Being the "ultimate power" in some situation might seem nice, but it's actually horribly, horribly dangerous.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Remember, if you're criticizing the ones in power (whites, Christians, Jews/Judaism, conservatives, men, heterosexuals) it's OK, but if you're criticizing the ones being oppressed (African-Americans, Muslims/Islam, homosexuals, polyamorists) it's a "hate crime".
There fixed it for you.
Dude, whites aren't even a majority world wide. Christians and Muslims world wide are about equal worldwide and even if Christians are ahead, calling Muslims a minority is not even close. Jews aren't even a majority so I do not have any idea what you are smoking (and my apologies to any Jews for any unintended "Powerful Jewish Cabal" insinuations, I was merely trying to make a point about how totally inaccurate the parent's comment was). Conservatives are also not in the majority by any nonpartisan independent poll that has been taken in the US, it's roughly 50/50 and statistically speaking, and 50.1% does not constitute a statistical majority unless you have been obviously drinking from the font of wisdom that is Fox News.
It should have been clear you are a troll but since you got modded up I'll have to respond.
Each philosophy (including all religions) thinks it is the right one.
Just like science, we have a bunch of competing hypotheses which fight for evidence and dominance until one comes out on top. Yup that sounds about right and within that statement I see no problem.
Two or more cannot coexist in the same space.
Sliding into bigot territory, but you were ambiguous enough to warrant a more broad response. I coexist with people different than me with different views constantly. Philosophies themselves change, grow, die off, etc, but coexisting philosophies have nothing to do with coexisting people. I forget the number but there are about 100 people or so in Iraq who still practice zoroastrianism. If their way of life dies off, that would be sad for them, but if one of them commits a crime and blows up my house, I don't immediately blame zoroastrians. Your weasel words are a way of trying to say that it's impossible for two religious to try to coexist so let's burn everything. That's entirely untrue and in the modern era we've proved that it is possible, you just have to wrap your mind around the idea that your neighbors personal religious beliefs are something that does not affect your ability to offer them a cup of tea and discuss things in a calm and rational manner.
People have the right to be intolerant... because without intolerance, they allow themselves to be assimilated.
The spanish inquisitors were intolerant, do you think we should bring them back? People have the right to their opinion, but not all opinions are equally valid, and that doesn't give you the right to hurt, maim or kill someone just because they have a different viewpoint. Religions constantly change and evolve. If they remained exactly the same, they'd die out. If the Catholic church still tortured people to confess witchcraft, Catholicism would shrink really fast in the modern age.
RackSpace made a stupid error by getting involved in a political issue. Now people will expect more webhosts to do this, and they will waste many more hours trying to figure out what is and is not "hate speech."
Actually Rackspace was probably defending itself against a lawsuit, this was not political on their part. Other webhosts will do it for the same reason, money.
Time spent discussing hate speech will not be lost because this is an important topic. A mean, narrow, bigoted preacher in Florida wanted to grab some attention by basically spreading true hate speech. He got his attention, but by talking about this and calling it what it really is and hopefully growing better for it, we won't have wasted any time.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Do the likes of Taliban recruit by force? Religious zealotry is pretty efficient propaganda, after all...
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
"Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely."
ASCII tastes bad dude.
Binary it is then.
At issue, much like the case of shouting "fire" in a crowded feature we have a choice between allowing free speech/freedom of expression, and someone losing the fundamental right to life.
That example is really worn out. It's not illegal to shout "fire!" It's illegal to commit the crime of reckless endangerment. That crime is usually defined as engaging in acts which the actor knows (or should know) are likely to cause harm to others. It's absurd to draw the conclusion that such a law permits the infringement of speech.
Taken literally, if rights were absolute, then in the US a muslim could walk into the centre of times square shouting "Allah akbar, death to the infidels" (freedom of speech) towing behind him a nuclear weapon (the right to bear arms) and no one could touch him, not until it was too late.
That example is equally stupid. Such a person could be legally killed in any American jurisdiction. They've demonstrated the ability to cause harm, the opportunity to use it and their willingness to do so. The 2nd amendment grants you the right to keep and bear arms. It does not grant you the right to use them unlawfully against another.
I think we are done here, unless you have something more interesting than straw man arguments to proffer.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
It's all evil bullshit. Just annoys me when I see one brand insulting another brand when they are both in the wrong.
Blar.
Well Iran was siding with Hitler in 1941 so yea they got invaded.
The rest is pretty ugly. I fear we believed "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" Sometimes that are just the next enemy in the making.
The thing is that I can not change history. But the thing is that they need to see that a lot more people think this is wrong than think that this is right.
What I do not like is the flap over the Islamic Cultural center near Ground Zero.
That shows a lot more intolerance than this little idiot with a big stage.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
It's pretty obvious to anyone who actually *reads* the Qur'an that it is chock *full* of "hate speech" by any sane definition.
For that matter, so is the old testament. And as Jesus says in the new testament, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law (the Old Testament) or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke or a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law (the Old Testament) until everything is accomplished. (Matthew 5:17-18)"
Seems to me that all the ISP has accomplished is siding with one set of haters against another set of haters.
Better to not suppress speech at all. If you sell a platform to speak from (which is a good part of what an ISP does), then the best path is to let the speech flow.
If you suppress what you don't like, you won't know what those people are thinking or doing, which can definitely work against you. You create an underground; this is always true. Look at alcohol and drug prohibition. Complete failures, and not only that, failures that reek of unintended negative consequences.
Unfortunately, companies aren't looking to do the right thing. They're looking to do the profitable thing.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Why? And does this only apply to burning books, or destroying them in any other way - such as recycling them, or throwing them away and letting them rot, or simply keeping them in non-optimal (or even optimal) storage conditions for sufficiently long periods of time?
Also, does this protection only apply to printed books, or should I be thrown to a prison for deleting a text file? How about deleting the cache in my browser? How about the browser deleting it by itself when the disk runs low?
Also, in some countries burning is considered the only honorable way of disposing old and worn flags; should this be taken into account?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Free speech does not mean, and never has meant, the right to use some particular other person's equipment to spread your message. In the old days, it referred to things like the right to bring a soapbox to Hyde Park and rant at length atop it. The church in question can still have members go to public places and tell people what they like.
In this case, Rackspace has refused to allow the church's speech on its equipment. The church has numerous hosting alternatives. If it winds up being offensive enough that no hosting company wants to touch it, well, they can buy a net connection that allows them to run a server and set one up fairly cheaply. It won't be a good setup, but it does allow them to spread their message, should anybody be interested in listening.
There's a whole lot less corporate collusion on the net than there used to be in any sort of mass media. Speech has never been freer.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I wonder if Rackspace is this high and mighty about kicking pro terrorist and islamic jihad websites off their servers?
Can you find an example of Rackspace hosting a jihad or terrorist website?
If they state that the dove church group is violating its TOS or AUC, it is because of what they have done recently. If a group wanted to open a website to promote jihad or terrorism, it would likely have been rejected beforehand for violating the same.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
You are operating under the incorrect assumption that he cares what non-radical Muslims think of him.
Learn to love Alaska
Can't they just print more books?
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
"That example is really worn out. It's not illegal to shout "fire!" It's illegal to commit the crime of reckless endangerment. That crime is usually defined as engaging in acts which the actor knows (or should know) are likely to cause harm to others. It's absurd to draw the conclusion that such a law permits the infringement of speech. "
This is a laughably bad justification- you're effectively saying that providing you suggest they've been arrested for a different crime, the fundamental point that they have been punished for exercising their right to uninhibited free speech doesn't exist. You could make the same claim about this pastor- if they arrest him for anti-terrorism laws because he planned to cause a riot then that's okay, the riot act covers it. The fact is, in both cases although they've been able to exercise speech, they've been punished for it- their speech most certainly wasn't free.
In the second example you quoted, you seem to be accepting the fact that someone merely bearing arms and exercising free speech should be dealt with because you personally think they will do wrong, they might not, it might all be a bluff, it might simply be to make a point, the bomb may not even be real, it may be a parody- any number of things, but the point is you accept that the situation is serious enough to act against this person for simply exercising their rights if those rights were absolute.
So effectively with your justifications you accept that yes there are cases where speech is limited, you just refuse to realise that this contradiction means that even in the US, you don't really have absolute free speech. My arguments are not straw men arguments because they are valid, and follow logically, whilst yours are logical fallacies, they are contradictory, and they do not follow.
I'm not really sure why you're so scared of admitting that yes, even in America some freedoms are limited where it matters to protect others rights and freedoms- clearly this is the case, you even accept it yourself, although you try and separate it and justify it despite doing so being quite nonsensical.
If you think we're done then fair enough, I guess you'd just prefer to live in a world of ignorance where rights are never limited, except when they are- but when they are it's okay because you personally agree with that specific limitation. Well that's upto you, it's your problem, it doesn't make you any less wrong in reality though.
I don't think he does, which is why I think he's an idiot.
That example is really worn out. It's not illegal to shout "fire!" It's illegal to commit the crime of reckless endangerment. That crime is usually defined as engaging in acts which the actor knows (or should know) are likely to cause harm to others. It's absurd to draw the conclusion that such a law permits the infringement of speech.
Then fraud? Slander? There are a number of laws against spoken words only when those words are intended to harm. The pastor in question is intending on committing an act of expression designed, in his own words, to cause harm. So how can you argue that fraud, slander, and "reckless endangerment" should be illegal and his intended actions not? Is it the level of harm? Or is it your personal and arbitrary line unrelated to the Constitution?
You strike me as the Constitutionalist nutters who claim strict interpretation, yet allow for laws they want to be passed, even when they aren't necessarily in there. It's not that the Constitution is actually an important document to them, but that it aligns with their beliefs just a little more than the other guy, so they claim it is in order to try to claim some false moral high ground. And in my opinion, that puts the other guy on the moral high ground, and you'd just be an opportunistic prat. But then, you'd never do that, right? You can come up with a clear and articulate (and non-arbitrary) line where his actions should definitely be legal, but "reckless endangerment" should be strictly illegal when committed with just the spoken word.
Learn to love Alaska
It is impossible to understand how blindly people are in love with the phrase "freedom of speech". How about the single word "respect"? The man's intended behavior is disrespectful and Rackspace doesn't want to be a part of it. That's all.
literacle.com
If Jesus had a problem with it, he could drop in and tell him. Since he hasn't, then he either approves or doesn't exist.
Learn to love Alaska
So you then would be perfectly okay if the newspapers, television networks, etc. announced tomorrow that no portrayal of Jesus that any Christian was likely to find offensive would be allowed on television or on print--you would be okay with that? Because Comedy Central is going to have a LOT of censoring to do. After all, you're not granting Islam any special status. Same also goes for Buhdism, Mormonism, Scientology. Basically, South Park will just be banned--but that's okay with you because they're just trolling. So will a lot of other shows. We'll just create an Offense Board who can censor our networks and newspapers and make sure that no one is ever trolling in a way that might make someone mad.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
This is not a question about rights. No one is denying this man has a right to do what he says he will do. What we are saying is that he is a fucking lunatic for exercising this right. Yes it will act as a recruiting sergeant for the Taliban (who must be laughing their heads off about this). Yes it will be used by demagogues to whip up mobs to attack Christians in many countries. Yes it is really just fucking rude and unnecessary. If we were talking about cartoons of Mohammed then I might agree with you - there is an important principle about parody there - but this guy has just picked the most offensive thing he could do to the world's 1.3 billion Muslims
Believe it or not, most of the world's Muslims aren't robots programmed to go insane when someone happens to burn a Koran or draws a cartoon of their prophet, and are actually capable of nuance in their thinking. The kind of hyper-sensitivity you want does no one any good - Western societies jumping to condemn and vilify members who actually choose to exercise the rights those societies brag about are simply showing their lack of commitment to their own principles. The West's supposed support for free-speech and free-expression is just a silly joke if any controversial or hateful forms are immediately shouted down and repressed. And casting all Muslims as potential nut-jobs with hair-triggers who must be humored like spoiled, dangerous children is offensively patronizing and only breeds more ill-will toward Muslims. When we act like fundamentalist Muslims are all Muslims, we only harm the mainstream Muslims who despise and resist the theocratic impulses of those fundamentalists.
Yes, that chap was an asshole, and a religious extremist.
If you say "religious extremist" I think of Taliban that'll accept no other religion than their own and slaughter all unbelievers. From everything I've read and seen about him he was very tolerant of Muslims, Christians and other religions not just Hindus. He was very much an extremist in other ways yes, just not religiously.
I'd strongly disagree with the asshole part too, but that's more opinion. He very strongly believed that to be rid of the British, they had to be rid of the dependence on them. Western medicine was holding back their own medical development. to use the fish analogy he wanted to stop buying fish from the British so they'd learn to fish and fend for themselves. I'm not exactly sure about the reference to his use of western medicine, but regarding his wife she was 74 and had suffered a double heart attack. Penicillin may have prolonged her life, but even the doctors agreed she was beyond curing. And contrary to what you claim, Gandhi's did not forbid it.
Devdas took Mohandas and the doctors aside. In what he would later describe as "the sweetest of all wrangles I ever had with my father," he pleaded fiercely that Ba be given the life saving medicine, even though the doctors told him her condition was beyond help. It was Mohandas, after learning that the penicillin had to be administered by injection every four to six hours, who finally persuaded his youngest son to give up the idea. "Why do you want to prolong your mother's agonies after all the suffering she has been through?" Gandhi asked. Then he said, "You can't cure her now, no matter what miracle drug you may muster. But if you insist, I will not stand in your way."
Yeah, a real asshole that man.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
The worst thing about this is that Rev. Terry Jones has sullied the good name of Terry Jones, the ex-Python member.
No kidding. And so soon after Slashdot started doing its best to sully the name of Eric Idle.
While (in general) business' retain the right to do business or not do business with whoever they like and could indeed refuse to rent one because you disagree with the positions held by the rentees that isn't the case here. Rackspace has provided service in the past to them and Dove World Church or Terry Jones personally agreed to a contract which amongst other things agreed that they would not use Rackspaces hosting to produce hate speech. However in spite of having contractually agreed to refrain from doing so, the Dove World Church produced hate speech culminating in this current plan to burn copies of the Koran because 'Islam is the Devil', 'Muslim's are pedophiles', and other offensive racial and religious slurs. Because DWC produced and distributed hate speech on their website, Rackspace not only can but is obligated to terminate their service for breech of contract. DWC should have taken more care in selecting a web hosting provider like 'Bigots 'R Us' who was willing to be associated with offensive behaviour and speech.
In this case, the txtspk is probably warranted because of slashdot's limit on subject line length. Unless he said "4" in the comment as well (I didn't RTFC).
Free Martian Whores!
Some poor Muslim cabbie was almost murdered because of the "ground zero mosque"-- he didn't even have anything to do with the mosque.
By a guy who worked for a non-profit organization working to support building the "ground zero mosque". I have not seen a single article quoting friends or co-workers talking about how he expressed discontent with his employer's stance on this issue. It seems reasonable to me that in his drunken state he believed that doing this would reflect poorly on opponents of the mosque being built at that location. From your post, it looks like he acomplished his goal.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I for one wasn't born yet. Is that a good excuse? :P
I think Atheists tend to cherry pick too (everybody does). So many focus on the harm religions do, and they think all religions are the cause of most of the evils when that's not true.
;). And once they get married they are also supposed to be faithful to their partners for life. I'm not married but judging from the grumbles I'd say some of the married men aren't getting that much more sex ;). So it's hard but I don't see it has that much harder. It might even be easier situation than the people who marry, have kids and have marital problems.
Mao, Stalin and their like sure managed to kill and give people excuses to kill. UK football fans travel across borders to beat up other people, and not because of religion ( Of course if you view football/Maoism/Communism as a religion then almost anything can be a religion and it becomes more of which religions should you encourage and which should you discourage).
Sure religions do cause harm, and do cost their adherents something, but at least some do benefit their adherents or even nonadherents and society overall.
For example: there is plenty of evidence that the placebo effect is real and works for many useful scenarios. Thus if you believe that an all-present omniscient God can help you, you can still more easily tap into the placebo effect by praying (even if turns out God doesn't exist), than a strict Atheist who totally does not believe - who certainly isn't going to ask His Noodleness for help (by strict Atheists won't be praying to anything).
So it then becomes a matter of how much the religion costs vs easier placebo tapping and other benefits of the religion (many top hospitals and schools were set up by the religious, it does cost them, but the benefit to society has endured past their individual death). If there is even a slight net benefit compared to the others or not believing, then multiplied by millions of people over many generations, you will have a belief system that is "evolutionarily fitter" than the others on a group basis.
Not all religions are the same. I suggest that some would provide a net benefit.
In contrast what greater net benefit would Atheism provide to atheists or society as a whole? Religious scientists were and are perfectly capable of rational thinking. Galileo himself was a Roman Catholic.
Are atheists living longer and more fulfilling lives than the religious of similar educational and economic backgrounds?
Many of the major religions have outcompeted and outevolved other belief systems over centuries or even millenia. Assuming that most other animals do not believe in God, then religion has certainly appeared after atheism and done quite well against it for the past thousands of years. I doubt this recent resurgence of atheism will lead to atheism beating religion.
And even if it does, would the world really be better for it? After all, most people seem to have a need to be part of something greater, and to revere/worship something. Whether it is a football team, or "Super Veganism". Would the resulting vacuum be filled much better by whatever replaces "Religion"? I'd think you'd still end up getting religion. After all just look at the Communist countries in the early days or North Korea - the leaders become objects of worship.
As for the the prohibition on homosexual acts (is there really a prohibition against homosexuality?), according to Christianity, it is also wrong for a man to look lustfully and adulterously at a woman. And adultery is certainly a sin. Premarital sex is wrong too. So if heterosexuals or homosexuals cannot get married no sex for them, but hey many slashdotters aren't going to get married or have sex anyway and still manage right?
What should Christians do about sinners (of whatever orientation)? To me, Christians should stick to doing the fruits of the spirit stuff, and leave the punishing and judging of nonbelievers to God. So far I only see stuff in the bible for Christians to admonish fellow believer
Slander is a civil matter in the vast majority of the United States, not a criminal one, so that example is moot. Fraud is illegal regardless of which form it takes, as is reckless endangerment. Firing a gun across a roadway is reckless endangerment -- is the next strawman going to claim that we have no right to keep and bear arms because using them in such a manner is illegal?
but "reckless endangerment" should be strictly illegal when committed with just the spoken word.
It doesn't matter what form it takes. Reckless endangerment is reckless endangerment. Here's New York State's definition: "A person is guilty of reckless endangerment in the second degree when he recklessly engages in conduct which creates a substantial risk of serious physical injury to another person."
Sorry, but there's no free speech issue there. Claims to the contrary will not make it so.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
> False analogy. It's more like you demanding back a megaphone you rented me because you decide you don't like what I'm saying.
So what? I'll make it even more accurate of an analogy for you. I own a megaphone. You want to use it. We agree on a contract that states, among other things, that you will pay me $X for use of my megaphone, that you will not use it to broadcast hate speech, etc. You then turn around and broadcast hate speech, so I say "give me back my megaphone." Don't like my terms? Get your own megaphone or use someone else's.
That's pretty much exactly what's going on here, and there is no violation of free speech or any other right.
There are situations where this does not hold up - for example, if I had a monopoly (especially a government-subsidized monopoly) on megaphones and you couldn't get one from anyone else. But that is not what's going on here - there are dozens if not hundreds of hosting providers out there that this church can choose to do business with instead.
It's not a justification, it's the truth. Reckless endangerment laws do not criminalize speech. They criminalize behavior that places other human beings in physical danger. I'm sorry that you can't see the difference but the fact remains that it's not illegal anywhere in the United States to scream "fire!"
you seem to be accepting the fact that someone merely bearing arms and exercising free speech should be dealt with because you personally think they will do wrong, they might not, it might all be a bluff
Whether or not it's a "bluff" is irrelevant. If I point a gun (or a nuclear weapon, to use your absurd strawman) at your body and announce my intention to kill you then you can safely assume that your life is in danger and respond accordingly.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Your theory seems pretty paranoid.
Maybe all the Islamic violence is just a vast conspiracy to make Islam look bad?
I believe it is quite OK (legally and ethically) not to do business with someone if they refuse to abide by the terms clearly set.
and
I also believe that a private enterprise has no ethical obligation to uphold free speech via their property, and is perfectly allowed to censor what happens on their property
Dealing with the first, first - I believe there are ethical and unethical reasons for refusing to do business with someone (whether you enforce that by setting of prejudicial terms or some other means). For example you would probably (I'm guessing) think it unethical to exclude someone from your business premises for no other reason than they were black / white / Jewish / Gay, etc. If you've ever been on the receiving end of such prejudice, you'll probably feel quite strongly on the subject. Now if you accept that such discriminations are bad from society's point view, I'd ask why you find discrimination on the basis of religious expression to be not bad or why you don't consider this church's actions to fall under such a category.
Regarding the second premise: that of an obligation to uphold free speech, I think it's both a failure of personal responsibility and hopelessly naive to expect the government to ensure society runs well whilst individuals simultaneously behave without regard to social good. Aside from the sheer amount of power over our lives we'd need to give the government in order to ensure we could depend on it to protect good social behaviour (and I'm of the mind that the government has quite enough power thankyouverymuch), governments are corruptible as is demonstrated again and again. In short, we cannot expect social good behaviour to magically manifest if individuals in society do not practice socially good behaviour. And I'm sure it's pretty obvious that I consider protection of Free Speech to be a good thing for society. So you either reject the premise that it is unethical for a private individual or company to behave in a way that is socially harmful (which is what you appear to be doing) which I find almost a contradiction in terms, or you don't consider protection of Freedom of Expression to be a socially good thing.
I think that covers the points of our disagreement so I wont go into the blog example unless you want me to. A hosting company is not really like a free and personal blog, imo.
Regards,
H.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Maybe we stopped someone worse than Saddam from taking power in the middle east.
We helped put Saddam in power, and certainly helped him stay there. We removed him from the state sponsors of terror list in 1982 so American companies could sell him WMDs. He used them to continue a war with Iran that ended with over one million people dead - coincidentally, Iran had just overthrown our other dictator of choice, the Shah, who had been torturing and killing his own citizens since 1953, when we destroyed their government for better control over their oil resources (Operation AJAX). Also during that decade, we poured billions of dollars to train and equip radical Muslims to overthrow the marxist government that was backed by the Soviet Union.
Unsurprisingly, these three countries have ended up generating and supporting extremely radical militant groups that hate the United States for very real and very rational reasons.
Maybe we stopped the Soviets from entrenching in Afghanistan and expanding into Pakistan or threatening China with nukes from all directions?
The Russian Army was vastly superior to the Chinese Amy at that time, so pretending the additional attack vector of Pakistan -- over the Tibetan plateau, no less -- would be an additional threat to Mao's China is questionable. As we can see from former Soviet satellites in Europe, from the Ukraine to West Germany, countries directly under the control of Moscow are doing far better than the ones we invaded or terrorized to fight communism. The only exception I can think of is South Korea. This is not because totalitarianism is better than democracy, but because a population that has some basic sense of security and stability will always fare better in the long run, even if another system of government is forced on them for a half century.
Of course there would still be terrorist attacks against America. We are the most powerful nation in the world. The best always attract people and organizations that want to take away what they are most jealous of. A thousand years of any country's history will tell you that.
That argument only holds water if ordinary Americans wake up the day after China overtakes our economy and decide that we want to amass an army and invade. Only after China abuses it's military or economic power will we be prepared to start a war.
And last I heard, no Iraqis or Iranians or Afghanis have ever shouted "Death to China."
The Koran is just a book, let it burn. In fact, throw in some bibles while you're at it.
Oh no, please don't. Think of the carbon footprint! ~
You might note that one is in quotes and the other is not. My only mistake might be that both should be in quotes or perhaps only "speech" otherwise it's perfectly logical to argue this way. "X is" is simply acknowledging that there are those who alleged it's validity. I go on to explain the superfluity of the notion. Nice try, though. It's this kind of desperate search for technicality that has our country in this predicament in the first place.
Speaking of the "American media" is lumping together a multitude of mostly private organizations that are loosely connected (if at all).
"The U.S." that you're referring to is the US government.
To suggest that the US media is an arm of the US government demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding about the American system. Also, to suggest that the American media can "give legitimacy" to anything demonstrates a very charitable but extremely naive spirit.
First of all, the KKK violate property rights by doing so. We do allow them to do so on their own lawn. As for pedophilia and the like, I haven't seen such labeled as "hate speech" so I have no idea where you're going with that. I would agree with you that people often use the Constitution as a shield. I don't think this rises to that level, though. I think openly discussing the "support" of pedophilia is wrong and certainly not what the founding fathers had in mind to protect. I think a line in the sand can be drawn. This church burning the Quran doesn't begin to compare to pedophilia. Consider me grown!
Well contracts taken to a logical extreme could be used to discriminate against say blacks, Hispanics, or anyone else. If not, why not? If I can contractually restrict your freedom of expression then why can I not do so with any other right? In this case, it affects Rackspace in no way shape or form. Whether it did or not is irrelevant. I'm not sure they have a legal leg here. I could be wrong. I'm just saying this could apply to any other right.
Actually, burning is explicitly un-Islamic as far as punishments go (it is prohibited by Koran on the grounds that it resembles a pagan human sacrifice).
(Not to say it doesn't happen in practice - there are well-documented cases e.g. in Sudan and Bosnia - but it's generally something perpetrated by folk who don't know their own religion well.)
Now stoning and crucifixion, on the other hand...
Even more accurately, you are a megaphone rental company that tells customers "no hate speech". One day someone walks in, rents a megaphone and starts promoting the burning of the Quran. You tell that person that this comes under hate speech, and stop handing out megaphones to that particular person. If a contract says "no hate speech", then I definitely see the promotion of Quran burning as a valid excuse to terminate the contract and any services provided.
Oh, by the way, the people we displaced from power are Islamic Extremists, who deny basic education to women, recruit children into their armies, and are all around bad guys.
As opposed to the people we've put in power, who wrote a new constitution for Afghanistan which explicitly declares Sunni Islam to be the state religion, Sharia to be the supreme law of the land (overriding the constitution if they conflict), and all relevant constitutional provisions to that effect to be non-amendable?
The "regular" people of Afghanistan are all too happy to be out from the thumb of the Taliban.
The same regular people who approved the aforementioned constitution in a referendum, and who supported execution of a guy who converted from Islam to Christianity for apostasy?
Yeah, you sure are in for the good guys vs the bad guys there!
...and if you'd taken a constitutional law class, you'd know how that came to be settled -- such contracts aren't illegal, per se, but government powers can't be used to enforce them. Private individuals still have full freedom of association, but the courts, being an arm of government, will refuse to take an action which they cannot constitutionally take on behalf of a contract's enforcement.
Given as we have a perfectly reasonable precedent on just how far freedom of contract goes, then, we don't need to go to hypothetical extremes -- we can respect the boundaries as they exist today.
I was going to reply, but this AC has said pretty much everything that I was going to. Depressingly, two more people have replied to my original post making exactly the same error that this AC is correcting, but since it's sitting with a score 0 at the moment, they probably didn't see it. Please someone mod this up.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
"If you can't say anything nice you shouldn't say anything at all."
So if you don't have positive criticism to give someone, you should just keep your mouth shut? You're allowed to voice objection or give criticism to as many things as you please, even if someone else deems it "mean."
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
So is it free speech if a go into a crowded sporting event and yell "fire" at the top of my lungs? Should the people hurt in the resulting panic just have the constitution quoted to them? There is intent to cause harm there. As with burning the Qu'Ran. We can logically assume there will be dead Americans at the end of the day. For what? So some asshat in Florida can pretend impotance for a day?
As for a comparative between pedolphilia free speech and the right to burn Qu'Rans, are you implying that one is more or less right than the other, they are both gauranteed! My point is that for either to use the constitution as a shield is ridicuous. I don't need a law to tell me murder is wrong, common sense does, i don't need a time machine to tell me this was not what the founding fathers wanted for the 1st amendment... common sense does.
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That is the first intelligent argument against allowing this publicity that in this entire thread. I still don't agree with this censorship, but yours is the first argument I've seen that has merit.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Digital books can be copied and redistributed with ease, you can burn flags if you want they are just a symbol. Books are knowledge. You should donate your old books instead of throwing them away but that is more of a suggestion.
Your browser cache is irrelevant. You should aim to preserve rare information even if it is in digital form.
I have a problem with specifically burning books. And when I say you I mean we, as a people.
"Saying that only Muslims subscribe to the "kill the infidel" newsletter is... utterly fucking ignorant."
Some subscribe, the rest enable. Why, exactly, do you defend such a brutally oppressive ideology?
Go live in the nations it creates, and run a Slashdot-like site there. See how that works out in, for example, Saudi Arabia or Iran. :)
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
If a contract says "no hate speech", then I definitely see the promotion of Quran burning as a valid excuse to terminate the contract and any services provided.
Which brings us neatly back around again to people discriminating against people for Freedom of Expression. "Hate Speech" is just a convenient term for subject matter that is politically problematic. The Koran itself (along with the Bible) has examples of "hate speech". Are you going to kick any excerpts from those books off-line as well? Are you going to take it upon yourself to decide what speech should be protected and what should not? Whether you violate the principle of Freedom of Expression with or without advance warning, it's still violated and you're still discriminating against people for their beliefs.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
people like this can cause harm to society and can use said free speech to incite violence that may or may not lead to deaths
Incitement to commit violence is already a crime under U.S. law (you don't have to wait for actual violence to happen - it suffices that the threat of it happening becomes "imminent") - which is as it should be.
I can understand the frustration with my statements. However, one must look from the perspective an outsider to the U.S. to grasp what I am saying. It is quite realistic to expect people to lump disparate pieces into something more monolithic.
One only has to take an American perspective, historical or modern of countries and cultures around the world to see this is the case. The reason this church wishes to burn Korans is no exception. Their reasoning must flow something along the lines of "If Muslims were responsible for 9/11 then certainly all Muslims are evil..."
Making a distinction between the peoples of the U.S. and the U.S. government is delusive. After all, is the U.S. not "for the people, by the people, and of the people?" Accordingly, like the U.S. government which is an arm of the people so too, the American media is an arm of the people. If this were not so neither would be in business for very long.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Do you really want to give Al Qaeda a PR victory? Bin Laden and the Taliban are claiming that the US is fighting a war against Islam itself. What better way to convince the Afghani people that it's true than to show videos and photos of Americans burning Qurans?
Even though very few of them actually do the flying, there sure are a hell of a lot of them throwing candy around, burning our flag and generally pissy towards everyone and everything that isn't muslim. Besides, again, more crazy shit, please stop believing in fairies and mythical beings and join the atheists and the agnostics of the world in trying to move the world forward in a way that doesn't involve prayer/wishing!
Yes, that's what some of the wire reports I rain into said - he was at least trying to initiate talks with the imam behind that NYC mosque idea.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Are our values of tolerance ironically being used to encourage intolerance?
If we play clean and they play dirty, we get screwed - no good deed goes unpunished, eh?
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
There's no law against either of those things, assuming that the manger and/or holy water belongs to the person taking a piss on it.
Yes, and there's no law about burning the Quran or any other holy book, nor did I say there was a law against it. I'm just pointing out how insulting and disrespectful it is.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
I'm an agnostic/weak athiest myself, and my skepticism about this idea thus has nothing to do with acting on Christianity's behalf in particular.
(It's just that the radical Christians are some of the most motivated against *Muslim* crazies.)
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Songwriter and vocalist for indie rockers Bright Eyes, from the song Four Winds:
"The Bible's blind. The Torah's deaf. The Qu'ran is mute. If you burned them all together you’d get close to the truth"
--------------------
Me:
I don’t really like the Christian crazies either, but seeing them as not-as-bad, combined with usual one-thing-at-a-time thinking, might lead me to be willing to cooperate – the enemy of my enemy is my friend, ya know, even if it isn’t literally expressed as scriptures destruction.
(It’s just that the Christian crazies seem to be the ones most motivated to deal with Islam and/or its crazies.)
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Ah yes, in the heat of the 2008 campaign I wrote up a fake TV ad - "Tired of hearing about *Sarah* Palin? How about Michael instead? _Monty Python And The Holy Grail_, today at 1:37 PM on The Comedy Movie Channel
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
So, what is your explanation for why someone, who up until this time has acted to support muslim efforts to build the "ground zero mosque" would suddenly attack a muslim?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Book burning is pretty obviously more hateful than cartoon drawing. Summary is silly. I imagine that a group organizing a book burning probably had something that constitutes hate speech on their site. Violates the ISPs rules. Simple.
There is a big difference between being a dick or making jokes or disliking some group and talking about it and hate speech. Hate speech is only a very small step below inciting violence.
BTW, they are free to burn the Quran. Not an issue at all. Have at it. But Rackspace is also free to drop them. Rackspace has no obligation to keep customers that violate their EULA (even if we all agree that eulas are stupid).
http://www.theodoresworld.net/pcfreezone/Product_361_PrSpare2.jpg You can even get it on a t-shirt.
I don't think there is any consitutional ammendment you can pass to stop people from being cowards. And you certainly can't blame Islam for people being cowards.
I guarantee GUARANTEE that if Rackspace was made aware of a group organizing a bible burning and using hateful speech on one of their sites they would take it down too. This has nothing to do with fear or the constitution to them. It has to do with company policy. This is actually really simple.
Since you apparently missed my earlier reply, chapter and verse, with a handy link so you don't even have to crack your home bible. "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." - Mat. 28:19-20
As for Christian ethics, sure, they are cool, if you divorce them from the deranged concepts of virgin birth, heaven and hell, demon-driven disease, weird hatred of fig trees, misogynistic tendencies, the desire to "bring a sword" to the world and all of the other strange and irrational claims that those ethics are draped in.
All that is necessary for the triumph of good is that evil men do nothing.
"Freedom of speech" only applies to Government's interference in forms of speech. [...]
No. I keep seeing this repeated, but it's absolutely not true. Constitutionally-protected free speech only applies to the government's interference in forms of speech. [...]
Look at the post he was replying to:
I'm usually against listening to any far winged nut job, but this is freedom of expression which falls under the first amendment. [...]
Sentex wasn't explicit about it, but in context it's obvious that he was talking about constitutionally-protected free speech.
This is much worse than burning the Koran (or any other book).
It's plain censorship!
Shame on Rackspace!
Slander is a civil matter in the vast majority of the United States, not a criminal one, so that example is moot.
I can't tell if you are an idiot or a liar. I never said that slander was criminal. But it is illegal. You either don't know the difference, yet assert to be an expert on the matter, or you are a liar that purposefully deceives other because you know you are wrong. Go ahead.
Fraud is illegal regardless of which form it takes, as is reckless endangerment.
Yes, trumping any supposed freedom of speech. At least we agree there is no absolute freedom of speech. Now let's just try to find the line in the sand that defines legal speech from illegal speech. That's the question all along, which you try to confuse with lies and such.
"A person is guilty of reckless endangerment in the second degree when he recklessly engages in conduct which creates a substantial risk of serious physical injury to another person."
So, if you knew that a riot would happen and that there would be a substantial risk of serious physical injury to another person if you were to announce the burning of a Koran, followed by the burning of said book, then that would be reckless endangerment, right? If not, why.
Sorry, but there's no free speech issue there.
If you can say a few words and take no action and be convicted of reckless endangerment, how is that not a restriction on what you can say? Or are you saying that it is a restriction on speech, but not a free speech issue? Between your lies and rambling inconsistent logic, it's hard to follow what you are trying to say. So please be clear how throwing someone in jail for a few spoken words is not related to the freedom of speech.
Learn to love Alaska
Big corporations are, in many ways, functionally equivalent to governments -- like a government, they are soulless collectives with massive power. One of the airports in New York--either JFK or LaGuardia, I forget which--is privately run, and a friend ended up in jail for something he would have been constitutionally protected doing in the other airport. This is where I part ways with my libertarian friends who look only at private vs public rather than individual vs collective. You're right, there's no free speech protections against a corporation shutting you up, but...there should be. (And I can't believe I've somehow placed myself on the same side as a church, especially a book-burning hate-mongering church. Sigh...)
Yes, but the explanations are unimportant. Personally (I'm British) I can understand America's point of view very well - the cold war was the dominant concern and America had to take many difficult decisions for the greater good. They may not all have been right, but they were justifiable and understandable.
But in Iran, and there are comparable situations across the Muslim world (think Israel from a Muslim pov), it has left a situation where what should have been a natural US ally has a coherent narrative of the treacherous imperialistic USA which makes sense to many people. America wants to rule and convert the Muslim world; 9/11 was obviously a CIA plot cooked up with the help of Zionists to get a casus belli to invade Iraq, etc. etc.
As I see it, we in the west would do well to respect Muslim sensibilities. We are on something of a collision course at the moment, and we are in a better state than they are to pull up from it. The high-reaching principles of free speech and the like are of course important, but they are at something of a tangent to the situation in hand.
Basically, I think the world would be a more friendly place if this damned preacher would just shut up.
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I think burning Quran is too much honor to give to a religious writing.
I have bought a few Qurans, Bibles and Toras and now I have fun in the toilet, choose a book at will, open on a random page, tear it off and wipe with one page before using toilet paper.
Extra points for getting some interesting passage in there.
As an atheist, it's the least I can do to show my disdain to religions and believes, but it doesn't make news of-course.
You can't handle the truth.
An interesting post, thank-you!
I do actually agree with a fair amount of what you said, I do tended to lump religions, nationalism, the big 20th century ideologies, and I suppose football teams (well maybe not) into one basket. Not as a direct comparison, but there is a similarity in that they are all big overarching ideologies, and they do have the potential to inspire their followers to do terrible things in the pursuit of some distant but glorious goal. They provide ends, I suppose, and people being people this can lead to some pretty nasty means being employed.
Considered like that religions are much more benign than secular ideologies. Simply due to their longevity, and the number of very smart people who have been working on their theology over centuries, most of the rough edges get smoothed off. It is considerably more difficult to justify killing someone to please the God of Love than it is to ensure the triumph of True Socialism In Our Lifetime. Both do have the potential for it though. (One of my favourite Onion stories is on this issue: here)
I'm afraid I'm going to paraphrase Richard Dawkins when it comes to your arguments about the placebo benefits of religion. Just because believing something provides benefits, it doesn't mean it is actually true!
This is the thing about atheism. It isn't a religion no matter what some religious people like to say. It is the absence of religion, it is not meant to achieve anything since it isn't anything so defined as that. Atheism is simply taking an objective look at the world and at the various contradictory religions, poking around for any sort of evidence to support any of them, and after failing to find any deciding to reserve judgement until some appears.
That said I can see why the comparisons of atheism to religion are made, in particular as there often seems to be articles of the 'faith'. Chief among them being that religion is harmful, and that removing religion would make the world a better place. Like you I'm sceptical along those lines, it may be true certainly, but the case is hardly proved. While it may remove certain tensions between religious groups, I suspect people can find other reasons to hate each other without too many problems. And I agree the change to our societies and psyches is profound. But I'm not an atheist for the benefits package, I'm an atheist because it is the only logical position to take.
I bow to your knowledge on scripture re: homosexuality. I've been watching the Anglican church in the UK tear itself apart on this issue with some interest, and I assumed that the traditionalist side must have some scriptural backing for their position (and not just Leviticus).
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If I own a megaphone, and I don't lend it to you because I don't agree with you, am I violating your free speech rights?
If you're discriminating based on the nature of my use, then yes.
If I falsely scream FIRE in a theater, would I be exercising my free speech rights?
Yes. And I really really hate this one. This was originally used as an example by a Supreme court judge in order to justify a limitation of legitimate free speech. I think you have every right to yell "fire". The only punishment should be if injury is caused by such a reckless action. The reckless action itself should not be punished unless it causes injury.
Any sensible person would answer no to both questions. So where is the limit? Murray Rothbard solved this cleanly by pointing out that free speech is not a right, rather, free speech is derived from, and limited by property rights. This is how he explained it in "For a new liberty"
He's wrong. Free speech is a moral principle. As are property rights. I don't take the property of others partly because the other party has a recognised legal right to his or her property but also because I believe he has an inherent right to his property. Now, he has every legal right to use that property in as unethical a manner as he chooses, but if I disagree with how he does so I am going to be quite critical of his ethics, and make it quite clear that I don't think this is how a civilised person should behave.
"It's not a justification, it's the truth. Reckless endangerment laws do not criminalize speech. They criminalize behavior that places other human beings in physical danger. I'm sorry that you can't see the difference but the fact remains that it's not illegal anywhere in the United States to scream "fire!""
I do see the difference, but you're still missing the fundamental point- however you frame those laws, the very fact that it is the act of speech that initiates those reckless endagerment laws means that that particular speech is not free. If anything it seems you just don't understand what free speech is- it's the ability to say what you want without fear of repercussions, but clearly shouting fire in a crowded theatre does have repercussions- it triggers reckless endagerment laws.
"Whether or not it's a "bluff" is irrelevant. If I point a gun (or a nuclear weapon, to use your absurd strawman) at your body and announce my intention to kill you then you can safely assume that your life is in danger and respond accordingly."
Exactly, you don't take the chance- despite the fact he was just exercising speech, you realise that it's not worth the risk to treat it as free speech, you wish to bring down repercussions on him for his speech because it's better than the alternative- risking the possibility that he's not bluffing. This is my point- you seem to implicitly realise we sometimes have to limit people's rights because the alternative is much worse, yet you're refusing to acknowledge explicitly that this is the case. You're agreeing with my point whilst claiming you're not- you recognise that we do sometimes need to limit and balance rights and freedoms without actually being willing to explicitly admit it. This is precisely the debate here- do we stop the pastor's book burning because it might potentially lead to otherwise needless deaths, just as shouting fire in a crowded theatre might?
The First Amendment, like the Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, or Tenth does not grant, and was never intended to grant, any rights. They were added to guarantee fundamental, unalienable human rights, generally accepted by those supporting and those opposing the Constitution as granted by or derived from “the laws of nature and of nature’s God.” The same argument that the Tenth Amendment was a legal nullity because it was “merely declaratory,” could be made, and exposed as fallacious and false by making, the same argument about the First Amendment. Of course, the Constitution deals only with governmental action, but, in this case, there was pressure to stop this demonstration, applied by General Petraeus as Commander of our war effort in Afghanistan, the Secretary of Defense, the White House, and many others influenced by them, so the governmental-private distinction Some smart and thoughtful conservatives, as well as liberals, on and off the Supreme Court, realized that laws against burning the American flag as a political protest, however repugnant the act, violated the intent of the First Amendment. The opinion failed to mention that the same law would also have criminalized the burring of the flag of North Vietnam with whom we were then at war, the subject of that protest, the Nazi flag, the red flag and hammer and sickle of Communism, etc. The same problem arises with many laws intended to protect other “venerated objects,” the damaging or destruction of which causes particular hurt and anger, beyond the economic value of the object, which laws would protect cemeteries and headstones, religious symbols, Bibles and Qurans, etc. Our law does recognize many instances of intentional infliction of severe emotional distress. Intriguingly, the opinion also appeared to overlook the fact that the flag burned in that case did not belong to the flag-burner, which raised another issue altogether. A retired Texas lawyer, I’m not up on the laws of Florida or wherever Rackspace is based, but a contractual provision against a customer of a web host, an ISP, a media outlet, a publishing company, a quick print shop, or a supplier of chicken feed using the service to promote anything likely to get the web host, etc., entangled, fairly or not, in someone else’s fight, would appear to be reasonable and valid. This could, however, certainly be abused. Microsoft, Google, etc. are big enough, and virtual natural monopolies, that their refusal to deal with someone who disagreed with them or their favored candidate for President could raise some very significant issues, but that’s not the case here. Now what I would want to know, in order to judge Rackspace’s action, might include who else, pushing whatever else, they are and are not willing to serve. Al Qaeda and some other violently militant Muslim terrorists, with whom, unlike “Islam,” we really are at war because they are at war with us. Child porn distributors. People and groups who promote hate and violence. Scandal sheets that habitually invade privacy or publish libelous lies under color of the public-figure rules. I would prefer not to do business with an ISP, a hosting company, a telecommunications company, etc., that don’t guard and take action against such abuses. There were clients I wouldn’t represent in their ongoing business activities when practicing law, though I had no ethical problem representing criminals in court after they got caught or charged, about which there are rules prescribing what defense lawyers may and may not do. I happen to agree with the prevailing view, across the religious and political spectrum, that this Quran-burning protest is wrong for several reasons. I can find nothing in Christian scripture or belief that sanctions it, and it can and will be used against us not only by our real enemies but by others in the Muslim world with whom our country is trying to conduct necessary relations. It could well incite deadly violence against Americans and harm our war effort. It also appears to be a publicity stunt.
FWIW, although I think they have a legal right to do whatever they want, I strongly oppose their actions for other reasons:
TCP: Why the Internet is full of SYN.
Free speech refers to lack of any interference.
Pure horse crap. You have the right of Free Speech. You do NOT have the right to Free Speech without Repercussions.
If you say something offensive, people will be offended. You don't have an unalienable right to make people not be offended by the things you say.
Now, if everyone sticks to the legal realm, the repercussions should be limited to other people exercising their own right to free speech opposing you, or to sue you, or to convince people to stop listening to you, or even, here's a shocker, try to convince the people who support you to stop supporting you.
Our actions have repercussions, and if you want to do something highly offensive, you're going to have to deal with it.
Now, if those offended people turn to violence, then we've got issues. But your right to free speech does not bar any other individual's right to free speech.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Yes, the man should have the right to burn the islam's holy book. However, he should only have that right if he will allow me (or a moslim) to stand next to him, burning *his* holy book.
Freedom of speech is wonderful, but if it doesn't go both ways, you're nothing but a filthy hypocrite.
What a depressingly stupid machine.
Thanks for your response :)
<quote>Just because believing something provides benefits, it doesn't mean it is actually true!</quote>
Sure, but I was arguing that:
1) The placebo effect is real (lots of scientific research shows it exists). There are limitations to it, but it works.
2) So even if God does not exist, a person who is able to pray to God and get pain relief or other stuff (for which placebos do work) has an advantage over someone who can't. Even if this advantage is slight, a large group of such individuals would be evolutionarily fitter in the long term than a large group who can't, assuming everything else is equal.
<quote>It is the absence of religion, it is not meant to achieve anything</quote>
I know that, but if religion does provide benefits and the absence of religion does not, then all else being equal, from a evolutionary perspective it is better to have religion than not.
Some religions do cost more (e.g. human sacrifices), and some may do better just because they are more effective at eliminating the others.
So not all religions are a net benefit.
And last I heard, no Iraqis or Iranians or Afghanis have ever shouted "Death to China."
Not yet...
ASCII tastes bad dude.
Binary it is then.
Its a matter of disrespect. By burning copies of the Koran, which 1.3 billion people hold as sacred,
Yes, but so what? You eat steak? Cows are considered sacred in India, and they have more than a billion people there as well. The difference is that they've accepted that not everyone in the world must abide by their rules. Or when's the last time India called for death to the great satan america because they serve steaks there?
he is just going out of his way to create hatred for the USA and the West in general.
As I said multiple times: I consider this asshole to be pretty much the same kind of religious nutjob that he's provoking on the other side. I don't support his actions. But I strongly support that he not be hindered at being an asshole only because someone feels offended. If offending someone would be illegal, we'd have no more satire, political commentary or pretty much anything. I'm sure someone is offended at the colours of my clothes or the way I have my hair.
how would most Americans feel if someone was organizing a protest that involved a group's members shitting on a copy of the US Constitution in public?
Wrong question. Right question: How many would ask for his death ?
I am not saying we should cater to the sensibilities of religious fanatics who like to murder people in the name of their beliefs. Fuck 'em. However, engaging in an activity that ALSO offense the other 1.399999999 Billion Muslims who are not religious fanatics who like to murder people in the name of their beliefs, is completely beyond the pall of sensibility.
On the contrary. I think people are not being offended enough. Our believes are not being challenged enough. We are not being ridiculed enough. Yes, I know it hurts. I know I don't like it when it's being done to me. But I also realize that what hurts most is when it's true, and when there really is something about you that you should change.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Likewise, if I held an anti-American rally and burned the American flag as part of the protest, that would be considered offensive by millions of patriotic Americans.
Which is why they do exactly that every now and then in the... ugh... islamic countries of the world. Pot, meet kettle. ;-)
Just saying, I'm glad that you are not easily offended, but not everyone can brush off such an explicit affront to their religion, heritage, and way of life.
I know, and I accept that. What I can't accept is how we support and defend those people, instead of offering them treatment for their condition. If it were anything except religion, we would certainly consider them insane, no? What do you think would be the fate of someone who went on prime time TV saying he wants to kill someone because that someone burned, say, the latest Harry Potter book? Even if he did it intentionally to insult him? We'd understand that he could be a bit angry, but the moment he threatens death, we would all agree he has some serious issues, wouldn't we?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
f anything it seems you just don't understand what free speech is- it's the ability to say what you want without fear of repercussions
No, that's not what free speech is. Free speech does not come without repercussions. I can tell my boss to go fuck himself -- perfectly legal speech in any civilized nation -- are you going to claim that I don't have free speech because he can fire me for having said that?
Exactly, you don't take the chance- despite the fact he was just exercising speech
He wasn't "just" exercising speech. He had a weapon and stated his intention to use it.
do we stop the pastor's book burning because it might potentially lead to otherwise needless deaths
The action of burning books harms no one. The reaction to that book burning is the problem, but we don't restrain people from engaging in speech based on the inability of others to control themselves in the presence of that speech.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I never said that slander was criminal. But it is illegal.
No, it's not. Your only response to slander is to sue me for damages inflicted upon you. If you can't prove damages (I could post right now that you are a child molester but I doubt anyone would take it seriously on /.) then you don't have a case.
At least we agree there is no absolute freedom of speech.
Actually there is.
So, if you knew that a riot would happen and that there would be a substantial risk of serious physical injury to another person if you were to announce the burning of a Koran, followed by the burning of said book, then that would be reckless endangerment, right? If not, why.
Read the law I quoted. It requires that the actors actions place others in harms way. The action of burning a book harms no one. The reaction to that book burning by certain extremist elements is the problem -- but we don't muzzle speech based on the inability of others to respond in a mature manner to such speech.
If you can say a few words and take no action and be convicted of reckless endangerment, how is that not a restriction on what you can say?
Because there's no law against saying "fire!" There's a law against placing other human beings in harms way. I'm sorry that you can't comprehend the difference.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
So what? I'm tempted to burn a Quran just because of the goddamn overreaction to this whole thing. You realize that if the media and President Obama had just ignored this moron it would have passed without much fanfane? Who knew that all you had to do to get the attention of the leader of the free world was to act like a jackass? Wonder if I can get the President to acknowledge me if I do something equally stupid?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Sorry, I wasn't really arguing against your comments, simply explaining my own atheism.
I read a book once about "cultural evolution" which I think is similar to what you are saying and it is an interesting idea. I would say that while it makes for a good argument that religions have become better (in an evolutionary sense) over time, I'm not sure that you can infer that it gives evidence that any particular religion is better than atheism. Simply because widespread atheism is a pretty new phenomenon; there probably hasn't been enough time for evolutionary factors to come into play. You assume that the placebo effect means that it is beneficial, and that certainly makes sense, I don't have a counter argument. But might there not be some non-obvious factors that work in the other direction?
Like most social science theories, religious or cultural evolution does suffer a little from a lack of hard evidence. It sounds reasonable, but how exactly does one prove it?
This sig all sigs devours
Gandi was an asshole.
Here is my favorite example, (there are many others) He told others not to use 'western medicine' Many people died(Including his wife) because of that. When he was ill? he was all about using western medicine.
Yes, that chap was an asshole, and a religious extremist.
But hey, if he didn't lead if Indian Independence, India wouldn't have all the poverty and disease, so he's got that going for him.
If he didn't lead the Indian independence movement, the way he did... India would have been like Afghanistan.
Afghanistan was in a state of commotion. India too had its problems.
The Soviet Union stepped in and took over. The British empire stepped in and took over.
Mujaheddin overthrew the Soviet Union using violent means. Ghandi's peaceful movement overthrew the British rule.
Afghanistan is still in a state of war, even after 20 years. India has been enjoying a peaceful freedom for the past 60 years.
Calling the Mahatma an asshole just shows how big a hole you've got. He was called Mahatma by the British, that counts for something. Don't make insightful comments, rather just read and move on.
Doh, he burned a book.
Uh, what exactly is news about that at all? He can burn books all day long as I care. Does it matter which ones, except for the fact that glossy paper doesn't burn as good?
YES!
Statements like this completely ignore the power of symbolism. If I were to urinate on a crucifix in public, does that mean upset Christians would be overreacting? I mean, come on, it's just a couple of sticks with a statue on it, right? What about if somebody were to put a big cross on an African American's lawn and set it on fire? Clearly, they'd only be upset because you trespassed, right? Burning a Qur'an is much more than just burning a book. (I would say the same thing if the moron was burning a Bible, the Gita, or any other holy text.) It is burning a religious symbol and showing utter contempt and disrespect for others' beliefs. The fact that the text is considered sacred by that religion's followers does make the act different than burning, say, Animal Farm.
And, yes, a public burning of the Qur'an in the current environment is drastically more of a problem than burning any other religious text. The reason is that there are many, many Muslims who feel that the U.S. and its allies are trying to wipe out Islam, not just terrorists. Acts like this offer yet more evidence to them, making them more likely to take up arms against our troops. GWBush may have been overly simplistic in his world view, but he was at least intelligent enough to understand the importance of this point.
Burning that particular book may not seem to affect you, leading to your indifference. However, burning the Qur'an will actually cost you money, because it makes our involvement in the Middle East more complicated, leading to a longer war there. Or, the extremists may choose to take their frustrations out by bringing the conflict here, like they did on 9/11. You need to accept that the reality of the world requires that we can't just piss everybody off without repercussions.
"No, that's not what free speech is. Free speech does not come without repercussions. I can tell my boss to go fuck himself -- perfectly legal speech in any civilized nation -- are you going to claim that I don't have free speech because he can fire me for having said that?"
Once again you're accepting there are limitations on free speech, but failing to acknowledge it explicitly. Have a look at the Wiki leak I posted for you previously- you'll see threatening behaviour listed under that as exempt from free speech laws. Well done though, you've just found another example of why we don't have uninhibited rights to free speech.
"He wasn't "just" exercising speech. He had a weapon and stated his intention to use it."
Intention is not enough under the law to justify arrest, my previous example involved a world where we took a literal interpretation of the right to bear arms with no restrictions which is how you've interpreted the right to free speech so possession of a weapon alone would also not break laws in said scenario- though you seem to accept that this is another example where putting limits on rights is in fact a good thing, so well done on once again recognising why we need limits on some rights.
"The action of burning books harms no one. The reaction to that book burning is the problem, but we don't restrain people from engaging in speech based on the inability of others to control themselves in the presence of that speech."
The action of pulling a trigger harms no one, it's the result of the bullet that flies out the barrel that's the problem. You see how that works? It doesn't matter what the act is, it's the overall effect of the act that has to be considered, and violence is one inevitable effect of this type of book burning. Again, the shouting fire in the crowded theatre analogy is the closest here- shouting fire harms no one, it's the rush of the crowd that leads to deaths- you mentioned reckless endagerment, burning the Koran could be interpreted similarly.
Why is that? I am "an outsider to the U.S." yet I do not do that, nor do any of my friends.
It is quite ironic how in one paragraph you complain about lumping all Muslims into the same bin while in the other you argue that it is "realistic" to do so with Americans. Perhaps some emotional detachment will help.
Roughly in the same way that North Korea is a "Democratic People's Republic".
You have a a very skewed view of the American media.
The American government is still "in business" because of the two-party system which is based on distracting the people with false dichotomies and capitalizing on the "us vs. them" mentality. The American media is in business thanks to local, virtual and actual monopolies on providing entertainment and communication. Neither of which would last long if respective alternatives were allowed to get traction.
Back to the topic.
1) Announcing the intent to burn religious texts by a private individual is a form of protest. Abhorrent to you, perhaps, but trying to present it as state-sponsored intimidation is specious reasoning at best and intellectual dishonesty at worst. Judging by your double standards as demonstrated above, I conclude the latter.
2) In the US, the people that actually threaten (and sometimes commit) violence over religious disagreements fall predominantly into two groups: Scientologists and Muslims.
Simply because widespread atheism is a pretty new phenomenon
Isn't that at minimum claiming that the default for a sentient mind is theism, and sentient animals millions of years ago were theists? That would be an interesting claim, even more so coming from an atheist ;).
Or would it be agnosticism, but that would also be interesting since it would first require a concept of God to be "agnostic" about.
FWIW that's why I said "resurgence of atheism" in an earlier post :). Of course I could be wrong, and dogs, apes, dolphins etc actually tend to be theists.
I'm not sure that you can infer that it gives evidence that any particular religion is better than atheism
I wasn't and am not saying any religion is better than atheism. Those religions which had regular human sacrifices, and other crappy ones certainly were far worse (good thing they have mostly died out :) ).
I was saying that since the placebo effect exists and is real, so it is reasonable to suggest that in theory a religion could let believers more easily take advantage of it, and if this theoretical religion did not have significant drawbacks, groups following it would be fitter than groups not having a religion at all (all else being equal). A costly but war-happy religion might still be fitter, just because it wipes out all the others - but we wouldn't want to cultivate such religions right?
FWIW, I just came back from a funeral, and sure seems like religion can help many people deal with loss and grief better, and an economist might be happy if such people can sooner return to being productive members of society. Of course I'm claiming this without any proof. It might make for an interesting study - see how well people of different belief systems recover (atheists, muslims, christians, buddhists, taoists, hindus, sikhs etc), but it might take a rather brave (or oblivious) researcher to do it...
Saying "yes, he's definitely gone forever" is normally not helpful to the bereaved.
So even if I was an atheist, I would still think that at least some religions are good to have around even if I didn't believe in them.
Oh, now we're expecting the loonies to be rational?
I don't know that he supported the "ground zero mosque", but he worked for an organization that did. Maybe that aggravated him even more.
The action of pulling a trigger harms no one, it's the result of the bullet that flies out the barrel that's the problem.
You are an idiot. We are done here.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Technically, we didn't displace Islamic extremists, nor a group called the Taliban. What we did was displace a government. Sure, It was lead by a dictator who enjoyed letting off steam by gassing the Kurds every once in a while, and which was restricted to members of the Ba'ath party (8% of the total population), but not the Taliban. They were all around bad guys, I'll give you that, but don't make the mistake of thinking we went an took out the Taliban.
But a clearer understanding is that you make disciples of people, not nations. The idea is go into these nations, teach, and make disciples of them. But this is done by changing hearts and minds, not forcing people to become Christians and therefore isn't extreme at all. How were they to make them disciples? By teaching. Not by war, terrorist threats, and force. Christianity understands that one has the right to reject the Gospel as well. "Almost though persuadest me to be a Christian" as recorded in Acts 26:28. Did Paul issue a jihad to force Agrippa to become one? Did he mount a terrorist attack to capture Agrippa and force him to accept discipleship or die? No. So there is no extreme behavior. That others since the first century church have done so in the name of Christ goes back to a previous point, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." Matthew 7:21.
Well it had to end one way. In an ideal world you'd be smart enough to realise why this is an issue and why there is a tough decision that has to be made based on the pros and cons.
Instead it appears you'd just rather remain an ignorant retard incapable of comprehending basic logical arguments. Sucks to be you.
Why can't people just bone up and realize that Islam sucks and seeks to enslave the world via Sharia law? Mohammad was a pedophile (married a 6 year old girl) and a murderer. Want to compare Islam to Christians - go ahead, but if you compare the founders of the two religions (Jesus and Mohammad) then there is no way one can say that Islam is a peaceful religion in it's original intent, but one can say that of Christianity. Heck, Mohammad was a Christian to start off with and was sitting in a cave one night and had some hallucinations and probably said to himself, 'this Christianity stuff sucks! I'm starting my own religion where I can have all the pussy I want and kill people!' And that is what he did.
The Thing is.
But a clearer understanding is that you make disciples of people, not nations. The idea is go into these nations, teach, and make disciples of them. But this is done by changing hearts and minds, not forcing people to become Christians and therefore isn't extreme at all.
I'm afraid not. Christians have historically forced people to convert, often at the point of a sword. It's common to attempt conversions of people who are in emotional or physical distress. It's common to indoctrinate children with it before they have the mental faculties to even understand the concepts. It's accompanied with threats of eternal damnation and promises of absurd delights. This is the normal mode of operations for all of the Abrahamic religions, from Christians to Muslims to Mormons to Jehovas Witnesses to *insert your favorite group here*.
How were they to make them disciples? By teaching. Not by war, terrorist threats, and force.
Bullcrap. The Paul you so lovingly quoted below also threatened eternal damnation upon everyone who didn't follow his beliefs:
He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. - 2 Thess:8-10
Or how about the whole freaking chapters of Romans 1 and 2? Threatening me with eternal, infinite suffering is only more tolerable than threatening to blow me up because I don't believe in crackpot theories of Hell, while I can see for myself the reality of a car bomb.
Christianity understands that one has the right to reject the Gospel as well. "Almost though persuadest me to be a Christian" as recorded in Acts 26:28. Did Paul issue a jihad to force Agrippa to become one? Did he mount a terrorist attack to capture Agrippa and force him to accept discipleship or die? No.
Of course not. He didn't have the political power to do so. Once Christians did, however, that tolerance disappeared. It only reappeared when they were neutered by outside forces and forced to play nice. Even now, it only takes the slightest provocation for Christians to start killing each other and anyone else who they perceive as a threat.
So there is no extreme behavior. That others since the first century church have done so in the name of Christ goes back to a previous point, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." Matthew 7:21.
You should look up a term in wiki. It's called the No True Scotsman fallacy.
All that is necessary for the triumph of good is that evil men do nothing.
Well, apparently he's decided not to go ahead with it, after a "visit" from the FBI
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
"Basically, I think the world would be a more friendly place if this damned preacher would just shut up."
No not really.
Let's face it we have been talking about a preacher with 50 folks that is going to burn some paper with words on it.
And we are all up set he is going to do this because.
Some people are going to start killing random people because some backwoods preacher with 50 followers where going to burn some paper with some words on it.
I can see being offended and even angry but to do violence over it?
It honestly seems to me that the preacher is a minor jerk. The Muslims that would do violence are the major problem.
Are we all just willing to violate one persons freedom of speech because of threats and crazy talk by a group of fanatics.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I would however like to take up your assertion as to why the U.S. government and media are "still in business." With respect to its government I would assert that you speak of a symptom not the cause. The cause is related to the false assumption I mentioned earlier regarding a highly educated, cosmopolitan culture. Whether or not there are elements of manipulative cultural conditioning is a matter for the conspiracy theorists to take up. The demographics of American are anything but homogeneous. Looking at the following statistics shoots down the highly educated notion. Persons with even a high school education as a percentage of the population has been abysmally low for the overwhelming majority of the 20th century. Those having attained a college education are still below 30%. If you want to understand how a population can be so highly susceptible to suggestion and deception look no further. Even among the educated there is a strong tendency toward specialization of knowledge oriented toward their profession.
As to the media, these monopolies exist because they provide a product the population will accept and dare I say, appreciate. The formulas may have been conceived by the industry but there exists an ever present pressure between companies to out compete the other. This can only be accomplished by providing content that the masses prefer more than the other company. Your notion of "provide an alternative" does exist in the form of public media (TV and radio) companies. They however do not garner the same audience levels--in fact not even close--as your "monopolies." Again the cause of which I'd suggest probably is the same as the cause of the U.S.'s government being the way it is.
BTW: you do realize that you just lumped all American Scientologies and Muslims into a monolithic group right...? To be honest I don't recall any news pertaining to Scientologists threatening nor commiting violence, though they do seem fond of litigation... With respect to Muslims, aside from non-American Muslims such as those responsible for the two separate attacks on the World Trade Center, I seem to recall far more violent/terrorist attacks committed by other groups including and especially those branding themselves Christians. Check out America's history pertaining to white supremacist activities for a start.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once