Slashdot Mirror
The Implications of Google Restricting Access To Anti-Islam Film
ideonexus writes "While the decision has been a footnote in most news stories, the Washington Post is raising the question of what it means that Google can shut down access to the anti-Islam film in countries where that film has sparked riots, something the American government cannot do thanks to our First Amendment. A popular meme in the Information Age is that the Internet spreads democracy by enabling citizens to organize and speak out, but we forget that much of that speech is now hosted by third parties who are under no obligation to protect it."
that shutting down access to anything in this country can't be done by the American gubmint "thanks" to our First Amendment then let me sell you this bridge I own...
It's certainly possible that it was a deliberate provocation altough people who want to be offended can always find a reason to do so.
Have you actually seen the trailer? No more funding went into this piece of crap than into a purchase of a Domino's pizza. Anyone with an axe to grind and a green screen could have made this. It in no way "screams Israel".
The film "caused" nothing. Islamists CHOSE violence, which reflects on their Superstition, not the film.
This perfectly exposes Islamists, and is well worth the few casualties the Islamists inflict. If _I_ attack Superstition that makes me not PC and a Bad Man.
Well, have some Superstition direct from the source! In your face, by their choice.
http://www.nowtheendbegins.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/us-ambassador-christopher-stevens-killed-body-dragged-through-streets-by-muslims-islam-religion-of-peace-2.jpg
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
The image of the Hebrew prophet Moses high-fiving Jesus Christ as both are having their erect penises vigorously masturbated by Ganesha, all while the Hindu deity anally penetrates Buddha with his fist reportedly went online at 6:45 p.m. EDT, after which not a single bomb threat was made against the organization responsible, nor did the person who created the cartoon go home fearing for his life in any way. Though some members of the Jewish, Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist faiths were reportedly offended by the image, sources confirmed that upon seeing it, they simply shook their heads, rolled their eyes, and continued on with their day.
A popular meme in the Information Age is that the Internet spreads democracy by enabling citizens to organize and speak out...
A rather one sided meme. The internet spreads hate and intolerance as well using the same principles. The internet is both a conduit and a doorstep shaped by the capacity to make perception what we want.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
And in response, there's the Iranian ex-Muslim Ali Sina, whose site alisina.org and allied site faithfreedom.org are both currently conveniently down. He writes movingly about his journey from being a devout Muslim to one who researched the Koran in its original Arabic and decided to quit the religion as he was appalled by what it teaches. And every statement he makes is backed up with chapter and verse citations from the book, no less.
He makes the case that Islam is by nature a violent and conquest obsessed religion that advocates no mercy towards non Muslims (with full citations from the Koran, no less) and that Muslims who get offended by this statement are living in denial about the true nature of their faith (i.e. that all talk of peace and brotherhood is only applicable to fellow Muslims, that those who don't worship Allah are beneath contempt and should be crushed, and that its ultimate goal is to take over the world).
And well, you just have to look at the history of Islam to see that barring very few exceptions, Islamic rulers have just sacked and pillaged their way around the world.
Islam is overdue for a reformation movement such as what swept Christianity during the Renaissance. Unfortunately most people go on parroting that it's the religion of peace, that terrorists are misguided fanatics instead of the fact that they're actually doing what their book tells them to i.e. it is a recipe for fanaticism, intolerance and murder of non Muslims.
Finally - as most of you will see this as a bigoted rant - there is a distinction between Islam and Muslims. It is the former that should be opposed, not the latter, the majority of whom are content to mind their own business and live their lives without trying to hurt others. But hey, let's all be politically correct because, 'religion of peace', right?
And if you say 'Old Testament'- BITCH PLEASE. There was this little thing known as the Reformation, and do a tally of the number of Christian fanatic inspired terror attacks around the world compared to Islam inspired ones.
Then again, there's no telling how many are going to just blindly mod this as a troll post.
"..One hosts to look them up, one DNS to find them, and in the darkness BIND them."
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
We have now recognised the necessity to the mental well-being of mankind (on which all their other well-being depends) of freedom of opinion, and freedom of the expression of opinion, on four distinct grounds; which we will now briefly recapitulate.
First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility.
Secondly, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and very commonly does, contain a portion of truth; and since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied.
Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole truth; unless it is suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously and earnestly contested, it will, by most of those who receive it, be held in the manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension or feeling of its rational grounds. And not only this, but, fourthly, the meaning of the doctrine itself will be in danger of being lost, or enfeebled, and deprived of its vital effect on the character and conduct: the dogma becoming a mere formal profession, inefficacious for good, but cumbering the ground, and preventing the growth of any real and heartfelt conviction, from reason or personal experience.
Being offended does not mean you have the right to censor someone nor does it mean that you have the right to lash out at others. If the movie bothered you, I refer you to JSM's points 3 & 4. Explain why the movie is wrong and fight against its bigotry.
and do a tally of the number of Christian fanatic inspired terror attacks around the world compared to Islam inspired ones.
Are we allowed to count Iraq invation here ? Bush said god told him to attack Iraq. There are countless other examples, but even this one war would probably tally more deaths than you can find by muslim "terrorists".
Another issue is that it is a fact that the west is oppressing the middle east. Oppressed people, whether they be christians or muslims or any other faith will tend to get violent (at least some percentage of them will) when oppressed too much. I find it strange that people think this is just "illiterates" acting based only on one incident. The constant pressure of oppression over time means that certain events that may not look so serious to you serve as catalysts for such violence.
Also, you have not had your dearest principles attacked along with all the ones you do not hold dear. It is easy to judge from a distance that "ooh, this can't be so bad can it", when it is not your every cultural principle being systematically destroyed, and it is not your people being enslaved by big business (or whatever the force behind it is) supported by military force.
So are idiots in america viewing this as a freedom of speech issue.
This is not a free speech issue, it is a freedom of religion issue. Freedom of religion is not your freedom to censor, it is my freedom to do what I want with religion. I can follow them to the letters, I can take and leave any parts, I can completely ignore it and I can mock it. The right to mock religion is a important part of religious freedom. Consider the following:
Islam claim that Jesus is only a average prophet like many others, he is even not the best one(that would be Muhammad, right?). From the point of view of a Christian, that believe Jesus is the half-devine son of God, this is extremely offensive. Your right to worship is base on your right to mock someone else's religion.
Now take a deep breath and take your stupid hate cult back to the bronze age where it belong.
Thanks,
The civilized world.
Hardly just one. Christianity today is quite moderate (mostly, there are exceptions), but it has had it's inquisitions and holy wars in the past. A large part of the reason the US was founded with a secular government was to avoid the christian-on-christian violence seen in Europe, where Protestants and Catholics had been taking turns slaughtering each other and many minority sects were banned outright. Judaism lacks the numbers to do much today other than take part in some territorial squabbles, but their own historical texts describe how they came to possess Israel by first emptying it of former occupants, and you can see the propaganda still in there describing the previous tribes as so evil the land rejected them and God personally ordered even the children slaughtered to exterminate their line. I don't know a great deal about the other significent religions, but I'm sure a little research would reveal even Buddhism - usually regarded as one of the most non-violent religions around - must have a few skeletons in the closet.
If you're going to convince me that you're truly Muslim - or at least decently educated, then you need to be able to transliterate "God is Great" in a way that follows the accepted norms. Maybe you're being dialectical, but Islam is based on classical Arabic, and there's a "proper" way to render that phrase in English. As it is, it makes me wonder if you're truly Muslim or just pouring gasoline on the fire.
As far as I'm concerned, religious displays of violence are major sins, regardless of whether they're Muslim, Christian, or whatever. They're the ultimate in hubris, because they're basically saying that God, the Almighty, is too weak and too feeble to protect Himself, and so must enlist crowds of murderous men to do the job. God, if He is Who you say he is, could do a Sodom-and-Gomorrah on any place in the Universe, or even wipe the entire planet, if he felt the need to defend Himself. We see every day how the Earth and the heavens can be subjected to earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, plagues, meteor swarms - even supernovae. And that 's just in an apparently undirected way. If God can bind Leviathian, those are the least of punishments he could aim at the infidels if that was His desire. These mobs are about as meaningful as if a nest of ants were to rush to my defense against another nest of ants. As the Qur'an states repeatedly: "Let God be the judge".
Likewise, I'm very much opposed to suppression of offensive speech, because if you have faith, you understand that God is too powerful to be overcome by lies. That lies may eclipse the truth, but the truth will eventually prevail. And that the best way to expose lies is to bring them forth into the light of day for all to observe how their details fail, not to suppress them in the hope that no one will believe them.
There are a lot of ideals that America has discarded in the last 30 years or so, but one that we've managed to hold on to is the idea that free speech means free people. In a more authoritarian country, such slanders as this "film trailer" would either become underground "forbidden knowledge" (with all the appeal inherent), or officially sanctioned. Either way, the message would be legitimized. Instead, the controversy enabled by free speech and the freedom to view and dissect this work has exposed the tawdry underpinnings of this scheme and the lack of moral character of those behind it. Instead of undermining Islam, it may, in fact, have done the opposite. We learn a lot about people (and religions, and ideologies) by the calibre of their enemies.
So are idiots in america viewing this as a freedom of speech issue.
What is it then if not a freedom of speech issue? The only effective way to fight idiocy is to drag it to broad daylight and humiliate it publicly. If you can't criticize others because you might hurt their feelings, they'll never find out there's something wrong. Yes, the movie is retarded and offensive, but you're free to just ignore it or you can respond with another movie that's even more retarded and offensive to the other side.
As long as there are huge masses of people who are willing to kill over a retarded movie, this kind of retarded movies will need to be made. I know it sucks to be caught in the crossfire between two camps of retards but the alternative to a little disgust is to stay sorrounded by retards forever.