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Such discussions are not easy because they require to take a lot of things in account. But when it comes to this specific point :

Whether the reaction is disproportionate is irrelevant. What matters is that a reasonable person can foresee its extremely likely. If you do something knowing it will probably lead to something terrible happening, which wouldn't have happened it you hadn't done it, then you hold some responsibility.
Isn't this also the argument that is made about Ukraine, claiming that merely eyeing the UE or NATO was an irresponsible trigger of the Russian bully, and therefore should have been prevented regardless of how wrong the bully is ?
 
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Thaluikhain

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Isn't this also the argument that is made about Ukraine, claiming that merely eyeing the UE or NATO was an irresponsible trigger of the Russian bully, and therefore should have been prevented regardless of how wrong the bully is ?
Erm, stretching it a bit there. Book burning is done for the sole purpose of provoking the reaction, whereas Ukraine's foreign policy has other goals.
 

Absent

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Erm, stretching it a bit there. Book burning is done for the sole purpose of provoking the reaction, whereas Ukraine's foreign policy has other goals.
Yeah, so the foreseeable reaction of the bully (that is, in practice, compliance with the rule of "might is right") matters less than the intent of the action. Or, more probably, it's a balance between intent and foreseeable cost.

But the responsbility game is complex. These are complicated spectrums (of apples) to weight in front of complicated spectrums (of oranges), with a large freedom of interpretations on both sides (and I say "both" generously, because there are a lot of them that get arbitrarily lumped together). Especially when in comes to purely symbolic warfare, as symbols are never univocal.

Anyway, I was reacting to one specific line of reasoning, which is a pet peeve of mine (accomodating violently injust people in order to avoid trouble). As I said, that specific story is an entanglement of elusive stakes. In a context of russia-doll like nesting bullies (religious fundamentalists are bullies in the territories they control, but within a colonial story where muslims have been bullied by the West, and generally far from migration areas where muslims are bullied minorities). This is the kind of complexity, in a world of international over-visibility, that makes for instance charliehebdoing difficult.

A few days ago, we had this forum discussing a song in which people who stomp or burn the american flag were proudly threatened to be gunned down. It's interesting to see how the rhetorical frontlines shift and on which (legitimate or illegitimate) grounds. I suspect a contrast between "punching up" and "punching down", but it's always fragile, and the issue with islam is that you always simultaneously punch it up and down.
 
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Silvanus

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Well, this may be splitting hairs, yes, but I'd say there's a difference, I don't know if it's a "substantial" one. For instance, you brought up nudity. Nudity may be illegal in public but legal at home, but nudity isn't really hurting anyone.
Well, its harmless at home but can cause distress to others when in public-- that's the 'harm' when in public. And that's the logic behind banning it in certain contexts but not others. Book-burning is also harmless in private but can lead to harm in public (intimidation and provoking violence).

Well first, I would argue that the proportion of reaction IS relevant. It's certainly relevant in law. If people broke into my house, and I ended up murdering them after they'd surrendered, I'd likely be charged for my actions because they would be disproportionate to the crime.
It's obviously relevant to the question of how to prosecute the retaliator. What we're discussing is whether it's relevant to the question of if the first action should be banned in certain contexts. If you fully well know that your action will provoke disproportionate retaliation against others, then you must take that into consideration.

Second, again, consider the context at hand. If your criteria is to not undertake certain actions because they might result in certain outcomes, that's fine in of itself, but consider the implications - that the threat of violence is sufficient to dissuade protest from being made. I know, realpolitik and all that, but again, by those standards, any number of actions, protest or otherwise, would never occur because the threat of violence is too great. The responsibility for violence usually lies with the people inflicting it.
It's a balancing act. You weigh the damage of banning it against the harm prevented. Banning protest in general would cause enormous damage to society, because protests are essential to civil and political life. Banning book-burning doesn't cause any great damage to society, because book-burning brings zero benefit to anyone anyway.

Okay, then we're at a crossroads. I don't think it's shitty to burn religious texts (or anything, really) at protests, I think the shittiness lies with the people inflicting violence.
OK, but remember that a big part of why I think it's shitty is that the former leads to the latter, and my concern is preventing that violence.

That's highly debatable.

Bob bullies Ben. Ben stands up to Bob. Bob takes out his frustrations on Betty. That doesn't make Ben at fault, that makes Bob even more of an asshole.
There's context missing here. Ben isn't just "standing up to Bob". Ben is choosing to respond by denigrating anyone who shares a characteristic with Bob, and he's doing so in /full knowledge/ that a number of them will then target Betty.

But more importantly, in this specific situation...the moral implications? Okay, what ARE the moral implications of burning a book that leads to a group of protesters burning down an embassy in response. You're technically correct in that the Swedish government paid the price for the protest against the Iraqi government, but the ones morally at fault are the ones doing the rioting. Far as where I'm standing, the moral implications are clear - the people doing the rioting are at fault.
I'm just not sure why you seem to believe only one party can hold responsibility. If you take an action that you know will lead to an outcome, then you hold some responsibility for causing that outcome, regardless of whether there are additional steps or additional parties in between.

News just in, protesting in front of an embassy is "bullyng" people.

Sorry, no. Just no. Again, crossroads. Peaceful protest isn't bullying, book burning isn't bullying, hurting people's religious sensitivies isn't bullying. It certainly can be, but not inherently.

If burning the Quran is "bulleying" in your view, well, fine, that's your view. It isn't mine. Also, bear in mind that Charlie Hebdo was a case where people doing the "bullying" DID pay the price.
I've never said protesting in front of an embassy is bullying. Stop equating book-burning with protesting in general.
 
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Silvanus

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Isn't this also the argument that is made about Ukraine, claiming that merely eyeing the UE or NATO was an irresponsible trigger of the Russian bully, and therefore should have been prevented regardless of how wrong the bully is ?
There's rather an enormous amount of additional context there.

Banning some asshat from burning a book has very little negative impact. Banning a country from determining its own foreign policy does.

Plus, Russia would be pursuing invasion and subjugation of its neighbours regardless. It already was with regards to numerous other neighbours for whom it doesn't have the same excuse anyway.
 

McElroy

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Is that "woke?" Not really, IMO - not in any serious way.
It's harmless, obviously. It is a flavour of... I dunno, diversity pushing from Down Under that is now displayed on international broadcasts. Native Oceanians have little to do with football after all. I've heard Maoris play much more rugby and there is the Australian ruleset for football too.
Brought over?
Yes. That's the idea of reducing immigration. The desired reaction from law-abiding muslims is to get them upset about "religious freedom" which they think should fireproof their books. Largely silent is such a cop-out. The masses are almost always largely silent. Like, there is vocal opposition against multiculturalism but the majority is largely silent about it. Same with vocal support for climate change efforts and so on. Now, betting on the silent majority being on one side or another is uncertain, but it does show in polls and voting eventually.
 

Casual Shinji

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Yes. That's the idea of reducing immigration. The desired reaction from law-abiding muslims is to get them upset about "religious freedom" which they think should fireproof their books. Largely silent is such a cop-out. The masses are almost always largely silent. Like, there is vocal opposition against multiculturalism but the majority is largely silent about it. Same with vocal support for climate change efforts and so on. Now, betting on the silent majority being on one side or another is uncertain, but it does show in polls and voting eventually.
Yeah, but violence isn't being brought over from foreign countries, is it? With all the immigration that we've had - that's supposedly making european countries more dangerous - this foreign "culture and attitude of violence" has yet to make itself known. That's what I mean by largely silent. These burnings are to protest muslims doing... what?

We see more harm and destruction caused on a yearly basis by soccer matches, yet we don't get political parties or even policies formed over that.
 

McElroy

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Yeah, but violence isn't being brought over from foreign countries, is it? With all the immigration that we've had - that's supposedly making european countries more dangerous - this foreign "culture and attitude of violence" has yet to make itself known. That's what I mean by largely silent. These burnings are to protest muslims doing... what?
Wasn't there some festival riot two days ago? Then you have the torched cars, crime rates over a longer period of time. Sure if every immigrant bottles it all up and keeps private about their feelings when Qurans get burnt then it seems like little harm is done if that's where the line is drawn. In that case it would just be a political protest against Islamism in general, and if all muslims merely scoff at it then a W for the muslims, I guess.
 

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Well, its harmless at home but can cause distress to others when in public-- that's the 'harm' when in public. And that's the logic behind banning it in certain contexts but not others. Book-burning is also harmless in private but can lead to harm in public (intimidation and provoking violence).
Even then, the "harm" wouldn't come just from the book burning itself. There's harmful actions that could come from book burning, but not in this case.

It's obviously relevant to the question of how to prosecute the retaliator. What we're discussing is whether it's relevant to the question of if the first action should be banned in certain contexts. If you fully well know that your action will provoke disproportionate retaliation against others, then you must take that into consideration.
Again, it feels like we're going in circles here.

Yes, burning the Quran can provoke a reaction. Literally any form of protest can provoke a reaction. If the reaction is disproportionate, then that's something worth considering, but the action is still disproportionate. The fault in this context lies with those carrying out the disproportionate action.

It's a balancing act. You weigh the damage of banning it against the harm prevented. Banning protest in general would cause enormous damage to society, because protests are essential to civil and political life. Banning book-burning doesn't cause any great damage to society, because book-burning brings zero benefit to anyone anyway.
Again, this feels like semantics. If your argument is that "protest is fine, book burning isn't," okay, sure, you can make that argument. You can point out, correctly, that protest can occur without book burning, but that's true of any number of things - flag burning, bra burning, placards, banners. Perhaps you'd allow certain placards/slogans, but not others.

OK, but remember that a big part of why I think it's shitty is that the former leads to the latter, and my concern is preventing that violence.
Again, crossroads. Any number of actions can lead to violence. If your sole concern is preventing violence and nothing else, then, well, the Ukraine example's already been used, so just refer to that if you want. And I know that's not a 1:1 thing, but it would certainly be true that there'd be less violence if Ukraine had just rolled over.

There's context missing here. Ben isn't just "standing up to Bob". Ben is choosing to respond by denigrating anyone who shares a characteristic with Bob, and he's doing so in /full knowledge/ that a number of them will then target Betty.
How? To my knowledge, the protester didn't denegrate anyone. He's protesting the government/ideology followed by "Bob." If you see an attack on said religion/ideology as an attack on the followers of said religion/ideology ipso facto, I don't think that's entirely unreasonable, I just disagree, and people are generally able to make that distinction. If I say "North Korea is a hellhole," that doesn't mean I'm attacking the North Korean people. If anything, they have my sympathy because of the status they find themselves in.

I'm just not sure why you seem to believe only one party can hold responsibility. If you take an action that you know will lead to an outcome, then you hold some responsibility for causing that outcome, regardless of whether there are additional steps or additional parties in between.
It's absolutely possible for two parties to have responsibility, but there's different levels of responsibility/accountability, not to mention proportionality. That's true of every conflict in history (conflict extending to protest, disagreement, etc.)

Thing is, I don't see the protester as having responsibility here. I don't. Clearly you disagree, but the discrepency between action and reaction is so vast, not to mention that I don't see religion as a sacred cow. So while I started this part of the post with various examples, I cut them out, because the main disagreement seems to be whether the original protester had any responsibility at all.

I've never said protesting in front of an embassy is bullying. Stop equating book-burning with protesting in general.
Book burning isn't protesting, but book burning can be part of protesting.

I never thought I'd find myself in a position where that was even debateable, but here we are. All number of things may be burnt at protests, flags being the most common. If you think books are a sacred cow, if you think the religion they represent is a sacred cow, if you think protest is fine against these religions along as no books are burnt, okay, good for you, I don't.

And to be clear, I don't think flags are a sacred cow either. If people in Iran burnt the American flag, and people in the US burnt an Iranian embassy, then the people in the US are the assholes in this situation. Flags aren't sacred cows any more than religion is.
 

Hawki

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It's harmless, obviously. It is a flavour of... I dunno, diversity pushing from Down Under that is now displayed on international broadcasts.
Well, it pisses Pauline Hanson off, so that's a bonus.

I'm actually surprised that the whole Land/Country thing is on international broadcasts (I mean, let's be honest, there's little in Oz that would warrant international broadcasts on any subject sans sport), but I don't think it's a bad thing. That Australia was occupied before British colonization was a historical fact, reconiciliation is a big deal, acknowledging prior ownership is minor in the greater scheme of things.

Native Oceanians have little to do with football after all. I've heard Maoris play much more rugby and there is the Australian ruleset for football too.
I can definitely confirm that in both Oz and NZ, rugby is far bigger than football (or soccer, as we call it here) on the national/international level. That's not to say there's no presence (for instance, a lot of people are happy that the Matildas are doing okay in the FIFA Women's Cup), but as a rule, rugby's always been the bigger sport in both countries, not to mention that here, we have AFL as well.

Yeah, but violence isn't being brought over from foreign countries, is it? With all the immigration that we've had - that's supposedly making european countries more dangerous - this foreign "culture and attitude of violence" has yet to make itself known. That's what I mean by largely silent. These burnings are to protest muslims doing... what?
The burning was a protest outside the Iraqi embassy. It wasn't a protest as to what may or may not have been happening in Europe.
 

Dwarvenhobble

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This week in Woke world.

A journalist trawled trough the internet to look up information about everyone who backed The Sound of Freedom,


The best they managed was to find some-one accused of child kidnapping, which buried in the article itself reveals its part of a child custody case.

A reporter discovers the Middle East (Known for in some places punishing gay people by death by throwing them off roof tops) is not very friendly to LGBTQ people, and America is clearly the blame for this


Ignore the fact many very Wealthy Russians fleeing from Putin and the possibility of being drafted have fled to some middle east countries, nope America is to blame for the Middle East Anti-LGBTQ backlash now.

and finally if your boyfriend doesn't get The Barbie movie, dump him

 

Silvanus

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Even then, the "harm" wouldn't come just from the book burning itself. There's harmful actions that could come from book burning, but not in this case.
There's nonetheless a direct line between cause and effect. If X didn't happen, Y wouldn't happen. An extra degree of separation doesn't change that.

Again, it feels like we're going in circles here.

Yes, burning the Quran can provoke a reaction. Literally any form of protest can provoke a reaction. If the reaction is disproportionate, then that's something worth considering, but the action is still disproportionate. The fault in this context lies with those carrying out the disproportionate action.
When you say 'literally any form of protest can provoke a reaction', you're completely ignoring likelihood. Violent retaliation is a clearly foreseeable, highly likely outcome to the book-burning. It is absolutely not with regular protest.

Again, this feels like semantics. If your argument is that "protest is fine, book burning isn't," okay, sure, you can make that argument. You can point out, correctly, that protest can occur without book burning, but that's true of any number of things - flag burning, bra burning, placards, banners. Perhaps you'd allow certain placards/slogans, but not others.
Absolutely I'd allow some placards/slogans and not others. I would disallow placards/slogans containing obvious slurs, threats, intimidating language etc. while I would allow the rest.

Its not 'semantics' to consider the impact of an action when considering whether to tolerate it going ahead.

Again, crossroads. Any number of actions can lead to violence. If your sole concern is preventing violence and nothing else, then, well, the Ukraine example's already been used, so just refer to that if you want. And I know that's not a 1:1 thing, but it would certainly be true that there'd be less violence if Ukraine had just rolled over.
I've already addressed the Ukraine example. Its completely inapplicable. There's an enormous cost to banning Ukraine from pursuing its own sovereign policy, whereas there's no great loss if some asshat doesn't burn a book.

How? To my knowledge, the protester didn't denegrate anyone. He's protesting the government/ideology followed by "Bob." If you see an attack on said religion/ideology as an attack on the followers of said religion/ideology ipso facto, I don't think that's entirely unreasonable, I just disagree, and people are generally able to make that distinction. If I say "North Korea is a hellhole," that doesn't mean I'm attacking the North Korean people. If anything, they have my sympathy because of the status they find themselves in.
It's utterly absurd to say it's not denigrating to followers of the religion. He's making as clear a statement as he can that he despises and wishes to destroy what they believe in, and wishes to deny them freedom of religion.

It's absolutely possible for two parties to have responsibility, but there's different levels of responsibility/accountability, not to mention proportionality. That's true of every conflict in history (conflict extending to protest, disagreement, etc.)
Yep. So? Do we ignore those with lesser responsibility, even though addressing them remains the single most effective way to prevent the violence?

Thing is, I don't see the protester as having responsibility here. I don't. Clearly you disagree, but the discrepency between action and reaction is so vast, not to mention that I don't see religion as a sacred cow. So while I started this part of the post with various examples, I cut them out, because the main disagreement seems to be whether the original protester had any responsibility at all.
If you know/can foresee the outcome of your action, and you take that action knowing it, I cannot comprehend how you do not hold any responsibility. Its literally what responsibility means.

Book burning isn't protesting, but book burning can be part of protesting.

I never thought I'd find myself in a position where that was even debateable, but here we are. All number of things may be burnt at protests, flags being the most common. If you think books are a sacred cow, if you think the religion they represent is a sacred cow, if you think protest is fine against these religions along as no books are burnt, okay, good for you, I don't.

And to be clear, I don't think flags are a sacred cow either. If people in Iran burnt the American flag, and people in the US burnt an Iranian embassy, then the people in the US are the assholes in this situation. Flags aren't sacred cows any more than religion is.
Here's a question. What about a cross?

Burning a cross is obviously a racist threat. Its associated heavily with the KKK. I would 100% ban it from protest.

That's not because I consider the cross a "sacred cow" or whatever. Its because the impact of that act is enormously harmful, and I have to take that context into consideration.
 

Silvanus

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A reporter discovers the Middle East (Known for in some places punishing gay people by death by throwing them off roof tops) is not very friendly to LGBTQ people, and America is clearly the blame for this


Ignore the fact many very Wealthy Russians fleeing from Putin and the possibility of being drafted have fled to some middle east countries, nope America is to blame for the Middle East Anti-LGBTQ backlash now.
It should be obvious to anyone reading along anyway, but of course Dwarvenhobble is completely misrepresenting this article.

1. Article doesn't blame the US whatsoever. Just says the increase in rhetoric mirrors the increase in the US, which is true.

2. Reporter isn't "discovering" anything, as if they were ignorant of it before. They're merely reporting on a recent increase.

3. The article literally calls out Russia (presumably Dwarven didn't read that far).
 

McElroy

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The burning was a protest outside the Iraqi embassy. It wasn't a protest as to what may or may not have been happening in Europe.
Imo it can't be completely separated from anti-immigration. In that case I'd just agree with Casual Shinji's wondering about the motive of the whole thing. Nobody gives a damn about what Iraqis do in Iraq. Though the argument can be steelmanned in that case (that it has nothing to do with immigration) too: test the limits of protection that a holy text has compared to others.
 

Eacaraxe

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Imo it can't be completely separated from anti-immigration...
The incident at the Swedish embassy in Baghdad, was exactly because of the Quran burning. It was a planned, announced, protest specifically because of the Swedish government's issuing a permit for a protest, at which a Quran was desecrated. There is zero ambiguity in this situation.

That said, it's absolutely connected to anti-immigration and geopolitics. Anyone who doesn't believe so, should ask themselves precisely why Arabs have emigrated en masse from the Middle East since the early 2000's, most notably after the Arab Spring. And, not to put too fine a point on it, why so many of those emigres are refugees.
 
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Hawki

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There's nonetheless a direct line between cause and effect. If X didn't happen, Y wouldn't happen. An extra degree of separation doesn't change that.
Yes, and? Actions have reactions. That's not a revelation.

When you say 'literally any form of protest can provoke a reaction', you're completely ignoring likelihood. Violent retaliation is a clearly foreseeable, highly likely outcome to the book-burning. It is absolutely not with regular protest.
And you're completely ignoring proportion.

If violent retaliation is a likely response to book burning, that says a lot about the people carrying out the violent retaliation.

Absolutely I'd allow some placards/slogans and not others. I would disallow placards/slogans containing obvious slurs, threats, intimidating language etc. while I would allow the rest.

Its not 'semantics' to consider the impact of an action when considering whether to tolerate it going ahead.
Right, you'd choose which placards to allow. Who decides what is and isn't offensive? Because for instance, is ACAB a slur/offensive language? I would argue yes, Revnak (when he was here) argued no, and neither of us could convince the other.

And it is semantics, however you spin it, to have the idea of "you can protest, just don't say/do this." If we're talking about violence, we're out of the realm of semantics, if we're talking about protest, then it is semantics.

I've already addressed the Ukraine example. Its completely inapplicable. There's an enormous cost to banning Ukraine from pursuing its own sovereign policy, whereas there's no great loss if some asshat doesn't burn a book.
But there is great loss when asshats react to the book burning. Even if nothing was burnt down, it would still be a great loss because you're fine with the threat of violence determining protest.

It's utterly absurd to say it's not denigrating to followers of the religion. He's making as clear a statement as he can that he despises and wishes to destroy what they believe in, and wishes to deny them freedom of religion.
First of all, citation needed on his motivations.

Second, even if they were his motivations, how can one Iraqi refugee destroy freedom of religion in Iraq, let alone deny people the ability to worship? FFS, 90-95% of people in Iraq are Muslim, you really think any of them are at risk of not being able to worship?

Third of all, if you truly believe that any attack on a religion is, by definition, an attack on its followers, as I've stated numerous times, I don't think that's a stance entirely without reason, but it's not a stance that I hold. I draw distinctions between attacking religion and attacking the followers of said religion. These aren't the same thing, and if you believe otherwise, then again, crossroads.

Yep. So? Do we ignore those with lesser responsibility, even though addressing them remains the single most effective way to prevent the violence?
If you want to prevent violence, you should be looking at those with greater responsibility, not lesser. And in this case, only one 'side' has comitted any violence. What sparked the violence was non-violent protest.

If you know/can foresee the outcome of your action, and you take that action knowing it, I cannot comprehend how you do not hold any responsibility. Its literally what responsibility means.
You can hold responsibility, but again, not everyone has equal responsibility.

I find it bizzare that you're more focused on the man with lesser responsibility, than the hundreds of people with greater responsibility. There's any number of circumstances where even a side that's morally in the right should stop and ponder (should NATO provide cluster bombs to Ukraine?), but the gap between 'responsibility levels' is so vast, it's bizzare that you're focusing on the protester and not the rioters.

Here's a question. What about a cross?

Burning a cross is obviously a racist threat. Its associated heavily with the KKK. I would 100% ban it from protest.

That's not because I consider the cross a "sacred cow" or whatever. Its because the impact of that act is enormously harmful, and I have to take that context into consideration.
You're basically arguing that identical actions have identical contexts. If someone says "Bob burnt a cross," that tells me nothing by itself about Bob's motivations.

The KKK is/was a Christian terrorist groups, and burnt crosses as an act of power/intimidation. Y'know, a way to silence protest, among other things. They're Christians burning crosses as part of Christian terrorism.

In contrast, someone burning the cross against Christianity/the Catholic Church/whatever is not terrorism, and it's not racist. There's circumstances where it could be, but not inherently. And I get it, based on your stance, you believe that any attack on a religion is, by definition, an attack on the followers of said religion, but again, I don't. And with this cross example, you're making an equivalence between people protesting for Christianity, with those protesting against Christianity.
 

Silvanus

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Yes, and? Actions have reactions. That's not a revelation.
And direct consequences carry responsibility.

And you're completely ignoring proportion.

If violent retaliation is a likely response to book burning, that says a lot about the people carrying out the violent retaliation.
Indeed it does. And if its a known outcome, and the burner goes ahead anyway, it also says a lot about them: that they consider the outcome acceptable.

Right, you'd choose which placards to allow. Who decides what is and isn't offensive? Because for instance, is ACAB a slur/offensive language? I would argue yes, Revnak (when he was here) argued no, and neither of us could convince the other.
The legislature and the courts, ultimately reflecting (to some extent) what civil society deems tolerable.

And it is semantics, however you spin it, to have the idea of "you can protest, just don't say/do this." If we're talking about violence, we're out of the realm of semantics, if we're talking about protest, then it is semantics.
So, you're just terming it semantics if you're fine with it, and excluding it from that if you're not fine with it. That isn't what the word means. If there's a substantive difference then it isn't merely semantic.

But there is great loss when asshats react to the book burning. Even if nothing was burnt down, it would still be a great loss because you're fine with the threat of violence determining protest.
And there's no great loss if the asshat doesn't burn a book.

First of all, citation needed on his motivations.

Second, even if they were his motivations, how can one Iraqi refugee destroy freedom of religion in Iraq, let alone deny people the ability to worship? FFS, 90-95% of people in Iraq are Muslim, you really think any of them are at risk of not being able to worship?
He explicitly stated he wanted the book banned, IIRC. And he was aiming to influence policy in Scandinavia.

If you want to prevent violence, you should be looking at those with greater responsibility, not lesser. And in this case, only one 'side' has comitted any violence. What sparked the violence was non-violent protest.
Again the either/or, as if we can only address one. We can address both quite easily.

If you want to prevent the violence, the single most effective thing you can do in this instance is prevent the burning. That's undeniable.

You can hold responsibility, but again, not everyone has equal responsibility.

I find it bizzare that you're more focused on the man with lesser responsibility, than the hundreds of people with greater responsibility.
I find it bizarre that you continually insist that just because I want to stop X, I must therefore care less about Y. It simply doesn't follow.

You're basically arguing that identical actions have identical contexts. If someone says "Bob burnt a cross," that tells me nothing by itself about Bob's motivations.
It tells you a damn lot about Bob if you take the context of our shared reality into consideration.

The KKK is/was a Christian terrorist groups, and burnt crosses as an act of power/intimidation. Y'know, a way to silence protest, among other things. They're Christians burning crosses as part of Christian terrorism.

In contrast, someone burning the cross against Christianity/the Catholic Church/whatever is not terrorism, and it's not racist. There's circumstances where it could be, but not inherently. And I get it, based on your stance, you believe that any attack on a religion is, by definition, an attack on the followers of said religion, but again, I don't. And with this cross example, you're making an equivalence between people protesting for Christianity, with those protesting against Christianity.
I can't help but notice that in all this equivocation, you haven't actually given an answer.
 

Hawki

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So, you're just terming it semantics if you're fine with it, and excluding it from that if you're not fine with it. That isn't what the word means. If there's a substantive difference then it isn't merely semantic.
But you're doing the same thing. You've outright stated, in almost these exact words, that protest is fine, as long as there's no book burning.

And there's no great loss if the asshat doesn't burn a book.
There's certainly loss if book burning is banned as a form of protest, though.

He explicitly stated he wanted the book banned, IIRC. And he was aiming to influence policy in Scandinavia.
Source needed.

Again the either/or, as if we can only address one. We can address both quite easily.
Again, you have the non-violent protester vs. the violent offenders.

It would be actually easier to address the non-violent protester than the violent offenders given the nature of violence, that doesn't make it the correct thing to do.

If you want to prevent the violence, the single most effective thing you can do in this instance is prevent the burning. That's undeniable.
Which, again, is true of every protest ever.

I find it bizarre that you continually insist that just because I want to stop X, I must therefore care less about Y. It simply doesn't follow.
Except all your focus has been on X as opposed to Y, by that analogy.

If talking about the war in Ukraine, and I spent all my time talking about Ukranian war crimes while ignoring Russian war crimes, I can certainly claim to care about Russian war crimes, but the trend remains clear.

It tells you a damn lot about Bob if you take the context of our shared reality into consideration.
I don't even know if we're living in the same reality at this point. But snark aside, no, it doesn't tell me anything about Bob. Again, if someone says "Bob burnt a cross," I can certainly infer his motivations, but that's it.

I can't help but notice that in all this equivocation, you haven't actually given an answer.
I'm not sure how I didn't, given I was responding to what you said, but if the question is simply whether it's okay to burn crosses, then of course it is. Burn all the crosses you want. Why the hell would I oppose burning crosses when I've said numerous times that I'm fine with people burning any number of objects in protests? Protest against the Catholic Church, protest against Christianity, protest against the LRA, heck, go for it.