We need anti-pollution laws for free speech
Religious nuts belong in padded cells with the other nuts. They think they can say anything they want, no matter how untrue and nasty it is. And because it’s based on something they call “religion,” nobody wants to deal with them.
There was the kook in Florida who was going to make a big deal out of burning the Koran. Apparently in his mind that shows the superiority of something he believes in. That time people died in the Middle East and Africa.
This time another lunatic’s hate speech has led to more deaths.
Ambassador J Christopher Stevens reportedly died of smoke inhalation after a crowd stormed the consulate.
Three other Americans were also killed and the consulate set ablaze.
Update 2013-05-14: The four deaths at the consulate seem to be unconnected to a specific hate speech event. Hate speech repeatedly incites people to kill, but this is not an example of that as it turns out.
Not only that, but Nigeria, Tunisia, Algeria, Afghanistan, Sudan, and probably a score of other places are having to take steps to prevent — they hope! — violence. That’s effort, time, and money better spent on real needs, not on hysteria whipped up by infectious mental patients.
These troglodytes are a terrorists. We have a whole goddamn department of government to deal with terrorists these days. Why are they asleep at the switch?
The Biblebangers have no right to spew hate speech and incite riots. Why aren’t the creeps thrown in dungeons for their flagrant flinging of poo?
What is it going to take for people to wake up to the fact that we have to stop giving religious nuts a free ride? Religion is a belief system. It’s not an excuse.
Update Sept. 14, 2012: Good background, details, and more recent information by Juan Cole.
Update Sept. 15, 2012: [Following link bad 2015-05-07, but this one has the same points.] Roger Ebert adds some points about the complete lack of merit in the clip and its purely inflammatory nature. One real give-away for the intent to inflame: when it didn’t get enough Muslim attention, our local loonies paid to have it translated into Arabic.
Update Sept. 18, 2012: I can’t resist a you-heard-it-here-first remark. Sarah Chayes opinion piece in the LATimes going into more detail as to exactly how much the Nastiness of Christians film is incitement to riot.
Just in case anyone is wondering why this is incitement to riot but the Danish cartoon campaign was not, I want to add some thoughts.
The cartoons depicting Mohammed, directly flouting Islamic edicts not to do that, were drawn as a protest against limits on speech based on what somebody believes.
If beliefs are sufficient grounds to enforce silencing, and let’s say I believe everything you say is wrong, then you can’t say anything. There is no such thing as free speech in that case.
So it’s definitely valid to protest about such silencing, and that’s what they were doing. It was a political statement against having one’s civil rights curtailed by someone trying to impose a belief.
That’s fundamentally different from slandering a religion with utter crap because you want to stick it to them. This is hate speech. The cartoons were protest.
quixote on September 13th, 2012 at 19:40