Germany embassy in Sudan stormed

[BNguyen]

What bothers me is the US government's noncommittal response. By not defending our citizens actions (no matter if we personally agree or not), we are abandoning the freedoms laid forth in our constitution. If citizens of another nation can silence American citizens by protest, violence, and murder, then all that America stands for is truly dead.

Free Speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences.

This is not a consequence. This is a violent mob response to an "offensive" video (from a group who get murderous if you even DRAW He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Insulted). This is an American making a (poorly-produced) protected statement, and being thrown to the wolves in order to appease those same wolves.
In essence, the US is saying "These people's request that you not insult Islam matters more to us than your freedom of speech or expression."

Put it this way.

I child is poking a sleeping bear with a stick.

Now that child has all the right in the world to poke that bear with said stick.

Just don't be surprised when the bear wakes up and mauls him.

Freedom of speech isn't some infallible defence to say what you want. I'm sick of people claiming that it is, and that any action taken against someone because of what they said is impeding their 'rights'.

So "He/she was asking for it" is now a valid defense?
Fact is, I can't draw Mohammed without pissing off a cloud of violent extremists. Who will then use violence and terror to try to control my actions. Do we now negotiate the sale of rights with terrorists?

This is not a bear. This is a belligerent barbarian walking into our backyard and demanding we not look at him funny. There is only one valid response to this trampling on our freedom, and it is not "Yeah, we deserve anything you do to us."

'Trampling your freedom'?

I've got news for you, the US isn't the only country with freedom of speech.

Except the other countries have the foresight to understand that if you kick a hornets nest, you're gonna get stung.

I'm in no way condoning the actions of the radicals, far from it, but being able to say what you want doesn't mean you're free form the consequences of what you say.

Were the Muslim radicals overreacting?

Of course they were.

That's why they're called radicals.

even when we know that there are consequences to what we do we still shouldn't just allow the extremists to get away with what they want and harm innocent people
I should be able to say anything I want to anyone and if they get angry, then fine, get angry, just don't pull a gun and shoot me because you think I don't have the right to say what I want, if you have a problem with me talking then you can at least use words before weapons

 

[Fappy]

Would people please stop quoting me? I really don't care how much you hate Islam, you're clogging up my inbox.

K thanx

 

[bl4ckh4wk64]

(only serve for two terms and what not)

Actually, the 2 term limit wasn't imposed until after World War II. The 22nd Amendment.

 

[Giftfromme]

[

Do these radicals even understand that they are only making us hate their people more?

That is WHAT THEY WANT. They WANT us to hate them as much as they hate us. This is what they LIVE for and what they imagine excuses their behavior--and they think, somewhere in their twisted little hearts, that it'll get them into Heaven. They don't want to live. They want everyone who does, to die.

Some men just want to watch the world burn.

The real horror of Islam is not these murderous beasts, it is that the Islamic credo acts to disarm the decent people who would ordinarily keep the hideous criminals in check. When the book you believe is the word of god tells you to kill the infidel and stone gays and adulterous women and beat your wife if she contradicts you and that non-Muslims are less than human, no matter how much you *personally* believe that this is Stone Age nonsense and not true now . . . you won't speak out. Every person who doesn't speak up just makes the crazies seem more and more like they're the majority. So more and more and more people go along with them and even start to act crazy themselves to "fit in".

Islam is no "religion of peace"--unless by peace you mean "human sheep barely able to speak". It is the religion of making WOLVES into SHEEPDOGS.

Nope, The heyday of Islam is long since over. Its rather pathetic considering the dominance and might that the Ottoman empire once wielded.

[

Do these radicals even understand that they are only making us hate their people more?

That is WHAT THEY WANT. They WANT us to hate them as much as they hate us. This is what they LIVE for and what they imagine excuses their behavior--and they think, somewhere in their twisted little hearts, that it'll get them into Heaven. They don't want to live. They want everyone who does, to die.

Some men just want to watch the world burn.

The real horror of Islam is not these murderous beasts, it is that the Islamic credo acts to disarm the decent people who would ordinarily keep the hideous criminals in check. When the book you believe is the word of god tells you to kill the infidel and stone gays and adulterous women and beat your wife if she contradicts you and that non-Muslims are less than human, no matter how much you *personally* believe that this is Stone Age nonsense and not true now . . . you won't speak out. Every person who doesn't speak up just makes the crazies seem more and more like they're the majority. So more and more and more people go along with them and even start to act crazy themselves to "fit in".

Islam is no "religion of peace"--unless by peace you mean "human sheep barely able to speak". It is the religion of making WOLVES into SHEEPDOGS.

Nope, The heyday of Islam is long since over. Its rather pathetic considering the dominance and might that the Ottoman empire once wielded.

An unsustainable empire, like pretty much every empire in history

 

[AverageExtraordinair]

[

Do these radicals even understand that they are only making us hate their people more?

That is WHAT THEY WANT. They WANT us to hate them as much as they hate us. This is what they LIVE for and what they imagine excuses their behavior--and they think, somewhere in their twisted little hearts, that it'll get them into Heaven. They don't want to live. They want everyone who does, to die.

Some men just want to watch the world burn.

The real horror of Islam is not these murderous beasts, it is that the Islamic credo acts to disarm the decent people who would ordinarily keep the hideous criminals in check. When the book you believe is the word of god tells you to kill the infidel and stone gays and adulterous women and beat your wife if she contradicts you and that non-Muslims are less than human, no matter how much you *personally* believe that this is Stone Age nonsense and not true now . . . you won't speak out. Every person who doesn't speak up just makes the crazies seem more and more like they're the majority. So more and more and more people go along with them and even start to act crazy themselves to "fit in".

Islam is no "religion of peace"--unless by peace you mean "human sheep barely able to speak". It is the religion of making WOLVES into SHEEPDOGS.

Nope, The heyday of Islam is long since over. Its rather pathetic considering the dominance and might that the Ottoman empire once wielded.

[

Do these radicals even understand that they are only making us hate their people more?

That is WHAT THEY WANT. They WANT us to hate them as much as they hate us. This is what they LIVE for and what they imagine excuses their behavior--and they think, somewhere in their twisted little hearts, that it'll get them into Heaven. They don't want to live. They want everyone who does, to die.

Some men just want to watch the world burn.

The real horror of Islam is not these murderous beasts, it is that the Islamic credo acts to disarm the decent people who would ordinarily keep the hideous criminals in check. When the book you believe is the word of god tells you to kill the infidel and stone gays and adulterous women and beat your wife if she contradicts you and that non-Muslims are less than human, no matter how much you *personally* believe that this is Stone Age nonsense and not true now . . . you won't speak out. Every person who doesn't speak up just makes the crazies seem more and more like they're the majority. So more and more and more people go along with them and even start to act crazy themselves to "fit in".

Islam is no "religion of peace"--unless by peace you mean "human sheep barely able to speak". It is the religion of making WOLVES into SHEEPDOGS.

Nope, The heyday of Islam is long since over. Its rather pathetic considering the dominance and might that the Ottoman empire once wielded.

An unsustainable empire, like pretty much every empire in history

At least when The British lost their empire the fucking dream did not collapse on the whole region.

 

[BNguyen]

If anyone wants to know what all this shit is about, here's the trailer for the film. All I can say is... holy crap that film looks terrible. Holy shit... murder and international chaos from THIS! THIS! Damn...

This is all just a sorry state of affairs.

I find it extremely weird that movies with such low quality, low budget, and little effort actually put into their production actually make it to celluloid. I often find myself wondering why did the actors agree to participate in such a project? And if it was just for money, don't they think that participating might actually hurt their careers as actors?
I mean, do these people even take the time to think before they jump into these things like: is the writing any good? did the production team put forth any effort? does the director care?
I mean this movie, if you can even call it that, just looks like something a few kids could produce who are in middle school but with lines written by a punk teenager who could care less other than "here, we'll give you $20 to write some lines and have at least a few of the worlds we give you in them"
I see these kinds of things all the time in low budget films that Cinema Snob and Film Brain review and frankly, it's amazing that these "movies" are still bought and sold

 

[Da Orky Man]

Do these radicals even understand that they are only making us hate their people more?

That is WHAT THEY WANT. They WANT us to hate them as much as they hate us. This is what they LIVE for and what they imagine excuses their behavior--and they think, somewhere in their twisted little hearts, that it'll get them into Heaven. They don't want to live. They want everyone who does, to die.

Some men just want to watch the world burn.

The real horror of Islam is not these murderous beasts, it is that the Islamic credo acts to disarm the decent people who would ordinarily keep the hideous criminals in check. When the book you believe is the word of god tells you to kill the infidel and stone gays and adulterous women and beat your wife if she contradicts you and that non-Muslims are less than human, no matter how much you *personally* believe that this is Stone Age nonsense and not true now . . . you won't speak out. Every person who doesn't speak up just makes the crazies seem more and more like they're the majority. So more and more and more people go along with them and even start to act crazy themselves to "fit in".

Islam is no "religion of peace"--unless by peace you mean "human sheep barely able to speak". It is the religion of making WOLVES into SHEEPDOGS.

You are aware the religion was by far the more civil one back during the crusades, yes? That the "murderous beasts" were the Christians invaders coming to invade and the like? Please at least tell me you have the mental consistency to call both Abraham faiths the same sort of evil. I mean otherwise you are nothing but a bigot, denying the simplest human element of individuality, the commonality of that religion in the civilized world for the past several centuries, the capacity for religions as a whole to change and grow, the history of a "decent" religion like Christianity and its own evils, and even the present day examples of the crazies you seem to present an entire faith as being.
So, would you care to start with how one religion of war could grow and adapt but Islam in the middle east is nothing but a lost cause? Or how about how a religion that spreads the globe and have MANY variations and interpretations, similar to both of it's sibling Abrahamic faiths, is somehow all making people "human sheep". I'll pass up the irony of the word of sheep and it's relation to the lamb's iconography of the bible...

I think what he means is that, in general, Christianity has altered itself enough to be compatible with current-day laws and values. Islam has not. Sure, there are a good few countries in which it has, but in most, no such luck.

 

[Sniper_Zegai]

I think what he means is that, in general, Christianity has altered itself enough to be compatible with current-day laws and values. Islam has not. Sure, there are a good few countries in which it has, but in most, no such luck.

Didn't quote the entire post but you can see it above. Christianity was one of the most cruel and hideous religions on the planet. Coming up with ways to torture and murder people which even the most sadistic Muslim may even have to turn away from but that period is over. People who look at the Bible in it's entirety and take is seriously have no chance of being accepted in Western culture either socially or politically. Those days are over.

Islam has a long way to go before it can make that claim and that change needs to come from Muslims who actively ignore the horrid parts of the Quran and the Hadith, you can say what you want about the behaviour of the people doing the killing but you can't say they are somehow distorting the message of Islam, it has always been conquer by the sword and spread the faith and a vast majority of the peaceful messages in the Quran are usually about being peaceful to other Muslims, not to the world in general.

What I am saddened by is this attitude that these murderers are somehow justified, the idea that "Oh well, don't piss off a Muslim and expect to live!" is perfectly fine to say. Is this really what society has become? Is this how cowardly we are that we can't look at the beliefs, ideas and actions of a culture and judge them on their own merits instead of meekly looking around for the person who kicked over the bee hive?

The film is appalling, not because of it's criticism or that it offends a religion but because it seems to be terribly made with not even a grain of historical truth. But I refuse to let people think it's acceptable to throw it's director to the dog's for having the audacity to think differently.

 

[DaWaffledude]

Oh shit. WWIII has begun.

 

[runic knight]

Do these radicals even understand that they are only making us hate their people more?

That is WHAT THEY WANT. They WANT us to hate them as much as they hate us. This is what they LIVE for and what they imagine excuses their behavior--and they think, somewhere in their twisted little hearts, that it'll get them into Heaven. They don't want to live. They want everyone who does, to die.

Some men just want to watch the world burn.

The real horror of Islam is not these murderous beasts, it is that the Islamic credo acts to disarm the decent people who would ordinarily keep the hideous criminals in check. When the book you believe is the word of god tells you to kill the infidel and stone gays and adulterous women and beat your wife if she contradicts you and that non-Muslims are less than human, no matter how much you *personally* believe that this is Stone Age nonsense and not true now . . . you won't speak out. Every person who doesn't speak up just makes the crazies seem more and more like they're the majority. So more and more and more people go along with them and even start to act crazy themselves to "fit in".

Islam is no "religion of peace"--unless by peace you mean "human sheep barely able to speak". It is the religion of making WOLVES into SHEEPDOGS.

You are aware the religion was by far the more civil one back during the crusades, yes? That the "murderous beasts" were the Christians invaders coming to invade and the like? Please at least tell me you have the mental consistency to call both Abraham faiths the same sort of evil. I mean otherwise you are nothing but a bigot, denying the simplest human element of individuality, the commonality of that religion in the civilized world for the past several centuries, the capacity for religions as a whole to change and grow, the history of a "decent" religion like Christianity and its own evils, and even the present day examples of the crazies you seem to present an entire faith as being.
So, would you care to start with how one religion of war could grow and adapt but Islam in the middle east is nothing but a lost cause? Or how about how a religion that spreads the globe and have MANY variations and interpretations, similar to both of it's sibling Abrahamic faiths, is somehow all making people "human sheep". I'll pass up the irony of the word of sheep and it's relation to the lamb's iconography of the bible...

I think what he means is that, in general, Christianity has altered itself enough to be compatible with current-day laws and values. Islam has not. Sure, there are a good few countries in which it has, but in most, no such luck.

Actually, no. Christianity has had to change to become more tolerant while in comparison Islam at the times around the crusades were far far better. Hell, it is often only in spite of the church that much growth in sciences and reason have occurred, contrary to an Islamic ideal of searching for god through examination of nature itself. Then the crusades happened and we saw how the attacks allowed an ideological shift to occur in the religion of islam. Christianity itself kept right on moving, slowly growning more moral (by today's standards), though the general illogic is still there even today in some branches. Looking at you suicide cults. Islam on the other hand had its own changes, and while the middle eastern nations can be pointed at to show theocracy of Islam as bad, the muslims living in the western nations that have been there for a while now that had been and continue to be no better or worse then their fellow countrymen show that it isn't "christianity has become more compatible with present values" so much as "religions in the west have become more compatible" this includes Islam. The primary difference between the two religions in this regard is that geological area and technological growth and wealth created different issues to address and different interactions with the rest of the world. Western nations that stemmed in christianity got better off, went through revolutions and ideological shifts of greater power then muslims in the middle east. If you had more muslims in the west, you'd find them still along the same vein as other religious denominations. Most muslims in the west are not violent fundamentalist assholes for probably the same reasons most Christians aren't. Laws of the nation and cultural pressures to not start wars with one another in the same nation. Also living a peaceful wealthy nation removes a lot of strife that fuels the hate machine.

Honestly, it is not the religion but the interpretation of said religion. This interpretation is influenced the location and nation it is within. And in a theocratic dictatorship, you better believe they will be a hell of a lot stricter then a western democracy concerning fundamentalist stupidity.

 

[Lyri]

Defer to other peoples' culture? In other words, sacrifice "our" deeply held values so other people are not offended. That really won't do, it's a harsh compromise.

You can't have free speech without hate speech. Hate speech is only completely unacceptable when it directly incites violence or persecution against the target of its hatred. I would however support prominent disclaimers and ratings which make it clear that a book or film is considered "hate speech". Bear in mind that large portions of major religious texts could be considered extremely offensive and hateful.

Ah and now you're the one wanting it both ways, your entire argument reads that they should bend and we should not.

It doesn't matter,hate speech isn't covered by free speech it's that simple. There is no place in the world for it than to incite violence and negative feelings of peoples, places, religions and cultures.
This is exactly the kind of reaction hate speech invokes in people and you condemn the people that killed others and yet you still say that we should have hate speech but just label it and warn people.

Riiight.

 

[Lilani]

Yeah, I've been hearing a lot of garbage coming from politicians and talking heads, from both ends of the aisles. While we shouldn't feel the need to defend hate-speech from our own citizens, we shouldn't apologize for it either. No one is responsible for that video except for the moron who made it.

Someone on Fox (some no-name pundit) last night mentioned that we only protest issues within our own country while those in the Middle East protest us. He then went on to say, "if we're going to be on equal footing with them we have to start burning their flags."

I nearly puked in my mouth. You know what you should do in this situation? Stay vigilant. Don't let this kind of thing change you or waver your resolve. If you give in that means they've won. Plus, burning flags is incredibly disrespectful. I'd be really pissed off if I saw someone doing that to Syrian, Iranian, etc. flag.

I agree. Technically, this is less of a problem with religion as it is a problem with free speech. As stupid as that film might be, the filmmaker was perfectly within his rights to make it. And while the Muslims are perfectly within their rights to be offended by it, that certainly doesn't mean they have the right to eradicate it because it insults them. At least, according to the speech standards of the west. The momentum for these protests started in countries that are theocracies in which it's against the law to insult the state religion, not in countries that protect free speech.

Unfortunately, people will do exactly what people do make the conversation about the religion rather than about the specific value that they have a problem with, and why they do not have any regard for that value. The closest thing we have to a religious debate, here, is the theocratic nature of the countries in which this started, and how a more secular government might affect them. Not that I'm saying we should intervene Iraq-style and make them secular, but really that's the root of the problem here. A government that does not allow or protect free thinking or expression, and a culture that does not condone it either.

 

[Lilani]

Put it this way.

I child is poking a sleeping bear with a stick.

Now that child has all the right in the world to poke that bear with said stick.

Just don't be surprised when the bear wakes up and mauls him.

Freedom of speech isn't some infallible defence to say what you want. I'm sick of people claiming that it is, and that any action taken against someone because of what they said is impeding their 'rights'.

I'm sorry, but I'm really tired of seeing this sort of analogy. If a guy insults another guy at a bar, and the other guy shoots him in the face, then yes. He brought it on himself. However, that doesn't make the other guy's reaction right. He's still going to get charged with first-degree murder, because unless the first guy was directly threatening his life, he had no legal reason to shoot him in the face. And the same would go if he'd simply beat him in response rather than murdering him.

No, free speech doesn't exist to allow you to say stupid things. However, because of the way it works, it is against the law to respond with violence against non-threatening speech, however "stupid" or "offensive" it might be. You're not expected to not get offended, however you are expected to be a grown-ass adult and get yourself out of the situation if you don't think you'll be able to resist punching the person in the face.

That is the difference in values on display, here. The west values free speech at the expense of getting offended sometimes, and the countries and cultures in which these protests most violently erupted value nobody getting to talk about their God except in honorable ways over speech.

 

[Eternal_Lament]

If anyone wants to know what all this shit is about, here's the trailer for the film. All I can say is... holy crap that film looks terrible. Holy shit... murder and international chaos from THIS! THIS! Damn...

This is all just a sorry state of affairs.

I find it extremely weird that movies with such low quality, low budget, and little effort actually put into their production actually make it to celluloid. I often find myself wondering why did the actors agree to participate in such a project? And if it was just for money, don't they think that participating might actually hurt their careers as actors?
I mean, do these people even take the time to think before they jump into these things like: is the writing any good? did the production team put forth any effort? does the director care?
I mean this movie, if you can even call it that, just looks like something a few kids could produce who are in middle school but with lines written by a punk teenager who could care less other than "here, we'll give you $20 to write some lines and have at least a few of the worlds we give you in them"
I see these kinds of things all the time in low budget films that Cinema Snob and Film Brain review and frankly, it's amazing that these "movies" are still bought and sold

Here's the real kicker with this movie. Recent interviews with cast and crew seems to show that the actors came onto the project under the assumption that this was just a small movie about some guy in Egypt, not about Islam or Muhammad. Most of the lines have actually been re-dubbed so that we get the piece sitting in front of us today.

 

[Erttheking]

(only serve for two terms and what not)

Actually, the 2 term limit wasn't imposed until after World War II. The 22nd Amendment.

Yes, but Washington decided to only run twice, and until then it was pretty much tradition that USA presidents only ran for two terms. FDR was the only one who did it more than twice, and after that they decided to make it law and not tradition.

 

[MammothBlade]

Defer to other peoples' culture? In other words, sacrifice "our" deeply held values so other people are not offended. That really won't do, it's a harsh compromise.

You can't have free speech without hate speech. Hate speech is only completely unacceptable when it directly incites violence or persecution against the target of its hatred. I would however support prominent disclaimers and ratings which make it clear that a book or film is considered "hate speech". Bear in mind that large portions of major religious texts could be considered extremely offensive and hateful.

Ah and now you're the one wanting it both ways, your entire argument reads that they should bend and we should not.

It doesn't matter,hate speech isn't covered by free speech it's that simple. There is no place in the world for it than to incite violence and negative feelings of peoples, places, religions and cultures.
This is exactly the kind of reaction hate speech invokes in people and you condemn the people that killed others and yet you still say that we should have hate speech but just label it and warn people.

Riiight.

That is exactly what I'm saying. We should not give an inch to Islamic extremists or otherwise. That's having it the way of secular free speech and not the way of theocratic censorship.

I said you can't have free speech without hate speech. That's my opinion more than anything, I don't care what the law says - laws after all can be changed- but that's how I view it. You can't have love without hate, trying to eradicate bad feelings and unpleasantries is just delusional, sweeping them under the rug. The expression of hatred is not pleasant but it serves a purpose. It has to be understood, not censored.

Also, I said that anything which explicitly calls for violence towards one group or another is one of the few exceptions that has to be made. I don't think this film is asking for attacks on Muslims or anything of the sort. The reaction of said angry muslims is their fault alone. They could have responded with peaceful protest but instead, they got so offended by one man's opinion that they took to the streets. They need to be confronted, not appeased by restrictions on freedom of speech. We need to be decisive here, and not resort to "safe" compromises which only delay eventual confrontation.