The Fonzi of Freedom:
“Why We’re Having an Everybody Draw Mohammed Contest on Thursday May 20”
Because you’re idiots.
Anyone who thinks this will strike a global blow for freedom or will in any way change the way crazy Islamic radicals feel about cartoons of Mohammed seriously should just step back from the bottle. Although an “Everybody draw a glibertrian day” could be entertaining, and if this keeps the 101st Chairborne busy instead of advocating for the invasion/carpet-bombing of Iran, I fully support the endeavor.
*** Update ***
Forgot to mention they had to shut down the comments because of “gratuitously insulting imagery”. HOOCOODANODE!
Clowns.
Mike Kay
Will Reason have a let’s make fun of Jesus day?
How about let’s make fun of the Holocaust week?
The Moar You Know
I don’t even know what the dude looked like, how the fuck am I supposed to draw him?
Easy, I can do that in ASCII. One asshole, coming up:
( * )
Ash Can
Saying what they mean.
Shalimar
We need to have an Everybody Draw Jesus Drunk Driving Home From A Bar contest. FREEDOM!!!!!
William
How, exactly, is this not them being assholes for kicks?
The normal justification for in-your-face protesting is that you’re speaking truth to power, bringing down the man, etc. I don’t always agree, but still appreciate it when people take an actual risk to fight an actual dominant power structure. Here, though, it seems like just the opposite is going on.
I have plenty of libertarian leanings myself, including a devotion to the principle of free speech, and so it fills me with rage when glibertarians act as if libertarianism is mainly about freedom from the consequences of one’s actions, or the unthinking exercise of unearned privilege.
This bullshit is no more about freedom of speech than a toddler’s tantrum.
Mnemosyne
I don’t see why they’re bothering — Roy Edroso won the crown years ago.
Evinfuilt
So we found John Coles limit to freedom. Speech can be regulated when someones feelings got hurt.
This isn’t about Libtards, this is about a nation deciding that its better to be nice to people than to have the freedom to draw a stickman and point to it and say its not my religion that says I can’t draw it.
I’ll be nice, and assume that you only heard about this through Reason, so you don’t know the full story. How about read up on the day and realize this isn’t about being an asshole, but actually doing a peaceful protest.
Poopyman
@Shalimar:
Here ya go….
ETA – FYWP – total ascii art fail.
Hob
Shalimar: Drunk driving is dangerous enough without trying to draw Jesus while you’re doing it.
Shalimar
@Evinfuilt: Since when did he advocate regulation? Mocking someone for being an idiot is not regulating their behavior. It’s shaming them into not doing stupid shit. Big difference.
William
Oh god, they get worse. With no apparent sense of irony, they closed down the comments on that blog entry due to too much “gratuitously insulting imagery”.
Mnemosyne
@Evinfuilt:
Inviting people to come witness something that you know they will find offensive is not being an asshole? I’m assuming that on Easter you invited all of the campus Christian organizations to watch you put on a reading of “Corpus Christi” since you’re so concerned about death threats against artists.
I hate to see what you come up with when you say you’re actually going to try to be an asshole.
MikeJ
@Evinfuilt: Fuckwit. You want to act like an asshole and have people like you for it. Everybody agrees you have a right to act like an asshole, but we’re still going to think you’re an asshole.
William
@Evinfuilt:
Where does he advocated government-regulated speech? As far as I can tell, he’d just like a little self-regulation.
Shade Tail
@William @5:
That’s exactly what it is. This is just childish bullshit on par with kindergarten playground taunting.
But what else would you expect from a bunch of right-wing glibertarians? Their entire philosophy is the “I’ve got mine so screw you Jack” selfishness of a kindergartener who doesn’t want to share his toys.
jrg
@Evinfuilt: this.
I don’t see the point in treating Voodoo bullshit with reverence, particularly when demands for reverence are accompanied by threats of violence. Fuck ’em if they cannot take a joke.
Tattoosydney
Yay!
Oh, wait, you aren’t talking about us. Carry on.
Bullsmith
Not that it’s directly comparable, given Islam’s restrictions on even depicting the Prophet versus, say, Catholics obsession with putting little bleeding semi-conscious Jesuses on everything but…
How would a let’s all draw Jesus cartoons* fest go over in real America? Just wondering.
(*N.B. cartoons to be drawn with the underlying aim of mocking and belittling Christianity as a vile and violent cult.)
celticdragonchick
@William:
I have to disagree. Radical Islam has been rather distressingly successful in forcing censorship. (South Park is the most recent case) The threats of violence, bolstered by actual murders and assaults on prominent artists gives the threats credence.
There is no place for that in our society, but we are giving it a place.
I was a student at Cal State Fullerton when Salman Rushdie was forced into hiding after the death sentence fatwa was placed on him. There were public readings of “The Satanic Verses” in many places, including my school, to protest the violence being done to freedom of speech.
I see this ‘contest’ at Reason in a similar light. Radical religions of any stripe need to be confronted (and mocked if need be), and radical Islam has earned this in spades.
Joel
translated fonzi of freedom:
today is everybody be a douche day!
flukebucket
Mama always told me that just because you can do it does not mean you should do it.
JGabriel
The Offend The Religious With Drawings campaign seems awfully selective, coming from a bunch of supposedly libertarian agnostics and atheists.
I mean, why limit the drawings to Mohammad? Why not draw depictions of Buddha shooting smack, Jehovah with a dildo up his ass, or Jesus raping a 6 year old?
The Randroids at Reason seem very parochial in their targets. Hell, I bet Ayn Rand would love that last image: she’d probably even have the 6 year old enjoying it.
.
ThatPirateGuy
I think muslims are demonized in the media too but draw mohammed day is about freedom of speech it really is.
Non-muslims have the right to mock the muslim religion and it’s rules without death threats. This is like the danish cartoons. You can think that they were a dick move but you have to side with them against those who would prohibit their publishing.
Blasphemy is a victimless crime.
David Hunt
@Evinfuilt:
He didn’t say that they shouldn’t be allowed to do it. He said that they were idiots for doing it and implied that they were being assholes for doing it. This is the essence of a Free Speech argument. You don’t try to stop speech that you disagree with. You criticize it. The cure for bad speech is more speech, not less.
You are also missing the price of Freedom of Speech which is that it is a freedom also enjoyed by your critics/opponents. Freedom of Speech explicitly means that you are not free from criticism. You are confusing supression of speech with criticism just like Republicans in general are confusing tyranny with losing an election.
John Cole
@Evinfuilt: They can say whatever they want. I can call them simpletons.
What is your problem with this?
pharniel
@Evinfuilt:
Logic, knowledge and self-awareness EPIC fail.
Freedom of speach means you’re free to be an asshole, and everyone’s free to call you an asshole.
Freedom means the Freedom to do whatever you want and the Freedom to accept the consequences of that action.
I swear to every god I know there’s more crying, wailing and hyperventilating in the Glibtard and teabagger community than in all the EMo, Scremo and goth band albums COMBINED!
Mike Kay
@celticdragonchick:
I’ll believe it the day they make fun of christians and jews. until then it’s just another chapter in let’s bash the brown people.
Silver Owl
What immature idiots. It seems to be a common trait with today’s conservative, especially the males.
JGabriel
@ThatPirateGuy:
And they should also have the right to draw Jesus raping a 6 year old without death threats.
And yet, Reason is not organizing a “Let’s Draw Jesus Raping Kids Day”.
Like I said above: Parochial.
.
Roivas
This is more than being assholes. At least for some people.
I can’t speak for Reasonoids, but for many atheists like myself, this about highlighting both the silliness of religious taboos, and their danger.
Tell me, why shouldn’t we draw Mohammad? Because its against the religion of Muslims? Why should that matter. Last I checked, I don’t need to not eat beef to avoid offending Hindis, I shake hands with the opposite sex even though Orthodox Judaism forbids it, and I have premarital relations even though have a dozen different Christian sects consider that the worst kind of sin. What makes Muslim’s so special that we have to cater to their preferences?
celticdragonchick
@JGabriel:
Because nobody is afraid of being decapitated by angry Buddhists or Christians. The most you get after something as disgusting as the Robert Mapplethorpe pictures of crucifixes in urine is an angry newspaper column or two and some free publicity.
You are missing the point of the protest.
Being offensive to religion is not the point. It is the tool by which freedom of speech (in the face of threats and actual murder) is being demanded.
ThatPirateGuy
@JGabriel:
See south park they had buddha snorting cocaine, while the other dieties did seriously screwed up stuff around him. They weren’t allowed to even show Muhammad image.
Remember what they did to Jesus at the end of the original “Cartoon Wars” series of episodes. All religious figure need to be ok to make fun of.
Sentient Puddle
@JGabriel: I think you’re almost on to something here. They’d probably reply saying “OK, go ahead and draw Jesus too” or something. He’s not their messianic figure, so what do they care?
What we need is a Draw John Galt Day!
jrg
@Roivas:
The threat of terrorism. SATSQ.
Tattoosydney
@David Hunt:
Nice.
Poopyman
@David Hunt:
Wow! I liked what you wrote, and then John Cole at 25 said it with a lot fewer words!
Economy of words, indeed.
celticdragonchick
@Mike Kay:
Again, adherents of no other major religion are insisting that other people observe their particular religious mores under threat of death.
Their skin color is not an issue. Killing people who offend them is.
William
@celticdragonchick:
I’m totally in favor of fighting censorship where and when it actually happens. I’m a flaming atheist, and I have no time for theocrats of any stripe.
However, I also don’t have a lot of time for the rich and powerful using their positions to reinforce their dominance at the expense of minority groups. I also don’t have a lot of time for hypocrisy and double standards. And I’m pretty fed up with the American right-wing use of Scary Brown People to build up tribalism and fear.
For an Indonesian or an Iranian or a Dutch Muslim to do something like this? That could be a brave stand against censorship and theocracy. For the rich white jerks of Reason to do this from behind their keyboards? I see nothing brave, and nothing accomplished except convincing a few more wavering Muslims that America has no respect for them or their faith.
JGabriel
@Roivas:
Why shouldn’t you draw Jesus raping kids? Drawings of Mohammad offend Muslims; drawings of Jesus raping kids offend Christians. If it’s all about Freedom of Speech in the face of Religious Censorship then both examples are equally provocative, and equally defensible.
If you don’t consider both examples equally defensible, then it’s not about freedom of speech – it’s about offending Muslims.
.
pharniel
@celticdragonchick:
Pretty sure Dr. Tiller would disagree with you.
Or the people that got death threats for Corpus Christi..oh but those are just lone nutz…
Mike Kay
@celticdragonchick:
Yeah, christians never lynched anyone or blew-up black churches or bombed abortion clinics. Happy Kristallnacht.
Bullsmith
Roivas
I think the difference is that if you want to draw Mohammend, you should of course go ahead and do it. But if you are simply drawing Mohammed to try and piss of Muslims, you are exercising your freedom to be a dick, more than your are exercising your freedom of speech to any positive purpose. When cartoonists mock things I’m all for it, Mohammed very much included. When people decide to use their free speech to shout insults and taunts at others, they deserve to be criticized for being bullies. The cause of free speech is not well served by the guy on the street corner yelling swear words at passing kids. We all know what most of these drawings are going to be like.
Ash Can
@celticdragonchick: The thing is, this isn’t offensive just to the extremist Moslems, it’s offensive to all Moslems. There’s a difference between addressing the problem and simply being a dick about it.
@ThatPirateGuy:
As long as we don’t consider those offended as “victims.”
Karmakin
My understanding of all this basically says that most of what’s said here is well…wrong. This isn’t coming from the Glibatarian/”islamofascist” sector, it’s coming from the (generally liberal) moderate atheist sphere.
Here’s the backstory. This all started with the whole South Park controversy a few weeks ago. We all know that, blah blah blah. So a few college atheist groups decided to show their displeasure about the whole thing by drawing chalk Mohammad’s, just to reinforce the idea of respecting free speech.
Now about these drawings. they’re not inflammatory. They’re smiling happy stick figures. Really. So the college Muslim groups went and erased/changed the pictures. And moderate Muslims went on a tirade about how offensive it was and how all people should respect and follow their religious beliefs and blah blah blah.
And the “Draw Mohammad day” is a wider follow-up to that, as a show by the greater non-belief community that we won’t be intimidated, and more so, to that that we won’t follow demands for religious fealty just because they’re a minority religion.
That’s what this is about. It’s not about “the threat of Islamofascism” or anything you might see on the far right. This is about free speech and religious debate and plurality.
Shade Tail
@celticdragonchick #31:
Tell that to the abortion clinics. Does the name “Dr. George Tiller” ring a bell?
I can agree with this in theory. But the fact that, in your previous post, you compared childish drawings done for shock effect to readings of Salman Rushdie’s book rather undermines your point. Refusing to be intimidated by their attempt to ban a book (or a cartoon show for that matter) is one thing. Deliberately taunting them simply because you can is just childish bullshit.
Poopyman
@celticdragonchick:
The disciples of capitalism do.
JGabriel
@celticdragonchick:
This sounds suspiciously like the point is to provoke violence.
That’s even stupider than the “protesting censorship” defense.
.
celticdragonchick
@William:
I thought we were talking about Reason Magazine. They are not generally confused with “rich and powerful ” (although they want to be).
They are certainly not associated with anything in the right wing power structure (whom they loathe almost as much as the left wing power structure).
Brachiator
It’s stupid, mean spirited, insulting and will no doubt enrage and infuriate some.
Which is exactly why it’s an excellent idea.
Been there, done that. Nothing is sacred.
@William:
Freedom of speech doesn’t actually require a justification or a “worthy cause.”
@celticdragonchick:
This seems as good a reason as any.
All religion is deserving of mockery. Has everyone forgotten that we must always look on the bright side of life?
Tattoosydney
@William:
Thankyou for quite eloquently saying what I was thinking.
jrg
@JGabriel:
I call bullshit. Look at what SouthPark gets away with when mocking Jesus and/or Christianity. Now look at Comedy Central’s response to the Mohammad cartoon.
How is it so fucking hard to understand that the threat of violence is the deciding factor when certain religions are mocked, and others are avoided.
This is not about being an asshole, or not being an asshole, it’s about caving to the will of fundies simply because they are violent.
Sentient Puddle
@celticdragonchick:
I bet if I looked hard enough, I could find Christians who kill (or attempt to kill) in the name of their religion. And I mean more modern than the Spanish Inquisition, since that’s one anyone can casually toss off.
I’m not entirely sure what the point of singling out a single religion here is. It sort of comes across as cherry picking data that may or may not be particularly reliable to prove a point.
Bullsmith
celticdragonchick,
Ever heard of an abortion clinic, and the people who exercise their rights to work at them? Muslims have got no more monopoly on violence than they do on crazy.
But I do agree the right to criticize and mock Islam must be fought for. I’m outraged at what happened with South Park. I also think these people are idiots. Again, the cause of free speech is not well served by loud-mouthed-assholes whose “jokes” aren’t jokes.
suzanne
@celticdragonchick:
Not to be pedantic, but that was Andres Serrano, not Mapplethorpe. Mapplethorpe was the whip-up-the-ass dude.
ThatPirateGuy
@Bullsmith:
Like the Bullies that say you can’t criticize my religion, or break its rules?
Morbo
“Why We’re Having an Everybody Draw Mohammed Contest on Thursday May 20”
Jihad envy.
celticdragonchick
@JGabriel:
Kinda like sitting on a seat in a bus in Montgomery, Alabama.
The comparison is silly, but so is your sentiment. If you are not willing to provoke the idiots who threaten your freedom, then you don’t deserve it to begin with.
William
@ThatPirateGuy:
I am happy to side with people who are exercising free speech when they have something to say. As far as I can tell, the people at Reason are just being offensive to prove they can, which was not ever question.
However, you’re technically correct. I have to side — I am forced to side — with the legal right of jerks to say whatever they want, no matter how jerky it is. I resent jerks using my strong belief in the principle of free speech to compel me to defend even them and their jerkiness. And I’m happy to say so.
Karmakin
@Ash Can: What about my right not to be offended? Because Theism offends me.
The truth is that being offended isn’t really something that’s a real harm. It’s something that we all have to live with. Now, incitement towards violence and discrimination is something entirely different. (Which is why the “Mohammad Bomb” cartoon really is a bad thing, FWIW) But mere being offended really is a choice to acknowledge things outside your sphere.
JGabriel
@jrg:
We’re not talking about South Park. We’re talking about Reason magazine.
If Reason wants to take on all comers, as South Park has done, then there’s no issue. That’s obviously implicit in my argument.
If not, then this isn’t about freedom of speech; it is parochial, and, as I argued above, about offending Muslims.
.
celticdragonchick
@suzanne:
You are correct. My bad.
LD50
@Shade Tail: This probably captures my feelings about this business best of all the posts here. I have no use for Christianity, Judaism OR Islam, but most of the “let’s draw Mohammad!” crowd seems to consist of conservatives gleefully insulting ragheads for its own sake when they’re MORE THAN happy to ignore the slimiest behavior from nice white conservative American Christians.
jrg
@Shade Tail:
Oh, give me a break. Using the logic here, we should all pile on abortion providers because they are assholes for pissing off fundamentalist Christians.
Bill Rutherford, Princeton Admissions
I’m all about provoking idiots who threaten my freedom. I just think it’s really spineless to do it from the comfort of your computer. Really, do you think hordes of Muslims are going to cut your head off? No? Then shut the fuck up.
Comrade Darkness
@JGabriel: Given the current political climate on the right, a Drawing Jesus Helping the Poor contest would be even more offensive.
LD50
@jrg: And this week’s winner in the Missing The Point competition, we have….
ThatPirateGuy
@Karmakin:
Karmakin is exactly right.
As a lefty atheist I’d love it if the rest of my lefty friends would stand with me on the freedom of speech and anti-censorship issues.
I don’t want to blow up Muslims at all. I just don’t want to be told that I can’t even draw a happy stick-figure Mohammad. Heck I don’t even want to until someone tells me I can’t.
Though the Guy who writes Jesus and Mo does.
I don’t let violent anti-choicers scare me either.
Tattoosydney
@Brachiator:
Dammit, now I agree with you. I feel so conflicted.
ETA: Actually, this might be more apt a link.
JGabriel
@Comrade Darkness:
WIN!
.
celticdragonchick
Reason Magazine on anatomically correct “Chocolate Jesus”.
Shade Tail
@jrg #63:
Could you possibly be more obtuse? There is a rather obvious difference between being attacked while minding your own business (abortion providers) and deliberately attracting their attention to provoke outrage (reason’s drawing contest).
debbie
@LD50:
It also seems to me that those who most vigorously demand their rights to be deliberately offensive are often the same people who are so easily offended when they become the targets.
NobodySpecial
Where’s the happy stick figures of Jesus beatifying the poop chute of a first grader?
dadanarchist
.
You need to get your ignorant wingnut outrage straight: Robert Mapplethorpe took photographs of gay men fisting each other; Andres Serrano made “Piss Christ.”
As for Christians not killing, what the others said. Also, too: Lord’s Resistance Army.
celticdragonchick
@JGabriel:
True, and how effing sad is that?
Silver Owl
@Comrade Darkness:
LMAO! No kidding.
suzanne
1) They’re being dickheads.
2) They have the right to be dickheads.
Both of the above can be simultaneously true, or, “just ’cause you have a right doesn’t mean you aren’t a douche for exercising it”.
Art
Tip to libertarians: if you really want to grow your movement, stop acting like assholes.
celticdragonchick
@dadanarchist:
I already acknowledged the error above. Go get some coffee and calm down.
Two days ago a right wing asshole called me a putrid whore and suggested I should be raped with a jackhammer. Now I am an ignorant wingnut myself.
Balloon Juice is never dull.
Bill Rutherford, Princeton Admissions
@suzanne:
1) They’re being dickheads.
2) They have the right to be dickheads.
Both of the above can be simultaneously true, or, “just ‘cause you have a right doesn’t mean you aren’t a douche for exercising it”.
Yes, and 3) we have a right to make fun of them for being dickheads, among other things.
Maude
Packistan blocked Facebook.
Bullsmith
To clarify a bit, I’m all for supporting South Park and fighting to keep satire of Mohammed in plain view. I just think, given the political climate (i.e. the widespread and often slobberingly giddy demonization of Muslim stereotypes) that even if this was supposed to be about stickmen and supporting South Park it’s an idea that’s bound to attract morons.
Wouldn’t a “let’s all contact Comedy Central and make them show South Park” day be more to the point. My objection is to the censorship, but I notice the “let’s draw Mohammed day” only goes after Muslims. Those who are censoring discussion are not addressed.
jrg
@Shade Tail:
Riiight. Except that:
1) In the case of abortion, there is a third party involved (the fetus – this is how the fundies see it), and
2) It is some people’s “business” to attract attention and provoke outrage (comedians and writers come to mind).
It’s amazing the contortions you all go through in order to prevent admitting that fear of religious violence is the primary motivator here.
I say again, because clearly you all don’t get it: “Using the logic here, we should all pile on abortion providers because they are assholes for pissing off fundamentalist Christians.”
Shade Tail
@suzanne #77:
This, by far. You’ll not find anyone here claiming Reason can’t do this, just that they’re childish assholes for doing it.
flukebucket
I am not willing to die for my right to draw Mohammed.
Maybe I will get there but I ain’t there yet.
JGabriel
Reason Magazine via celticdragonchick:
You’re confirming my argument, CDC. Reason’s “Draw Mohammed” contest is at least as silly as Chocolate Jesus or Serrano’s Piss Christ.
Reason doesn’t see the double-standard. So, unlike South Park, it’s not about freedom of speech or censorship; it’s about offending Muslims.
Why is this so hard to comprehend? South Park has been targeting religious censorship and hypocrisy since it’s first episode featured a kung fu fight between Jesus and Santa; Reason is selectively choosing a single and unpopular target.
.
Ash Can
@Karmakin: But does theism exist to be nothing more than a thinly veiled personal attack on you and other atheists? That’s the difference here.
Sentient Puddle
@celticdragonchick: Well, I think in regards to the Draw Mohammed Day, they’re missing this point that they got the first time around:
Because if nothing else, they’re basking in the silliness and pretentiousness of it all.
Oh and to me, it’s somewhat more than “venial.” I have no use for people that are jackasses for no better reason than the fact that they can be. They can fight for that right, but I’m going to call them morons the whole way through.
Joel
@Evinfuilt: Yep, no restrictions.
Sort of like how I can call you a self-righteous, pretentious dickweed with nothing better to do than troll on the internet.
toujoursdan
@William:
Yes this.
And I certainly remember some Americans threatening violence when flags were burned at anti-war protests. Some even tried to pass a Constitutional Amendment banning such a thing. That amendment still may be on the manifesto of the GOP.
Punchy
So I have to assume, using this mentality, that you’re a STRONG proponent of the Iraq and Afghan Wars. Cuz otherwise you’d be one heck of a hypocrite.
celticdragonchick
@Art:
I can only defend them to a point. Being a contrarion asshole is part of the whole Libertarian gig. (It can be charming at times, and less so at others)
It goes with having a touching faith in magic sky pony theories of human infallibilty where free markets are concerned.
Violet
@Maude:
From here:
Facebook owners probably don’t quite know what to do with this grenade.
suzanne
Am I the only one who thinks “Piss Christ” is actually really beautiful?
Stroszek
So when is Reason’s “Everybody Draw Jesus Having Anal Sex with the Pope” contest?
Shade Tail
@jrg #83:
And yet, you admit, in the parenthetical, that this is the fundies acting on their own volition, not the abortion providers provoking them.
Comedians and writers aren’t abortion providers. So you still admit that it isn’t the abortion providers doing the provocation.
As opposed to your contortions to avoid admitting that you are proving yourself wrong by contradicting yourself?
You are wrong. Deal with it.
Mnemosyne
@celticdragonchick:
Of course not — Americans shoot people who disagree with them here in the US, which is much more civilized than those nasty beheadings.
I guess it’s perfectly fine for Christians to kill people who disagree with them as long as they don’t behead people. That would just be wrong.
Sorry, I ain’t buying the “but Muslims are killers, unlike our peaceful American Christians!” defense here. American Christians are on a killing spree against their opponents here in the US and issuing
fatwasdeath threats, but apparently that’s no problem because it’s not, you know, those people doing it.celticdragonchick
@Punchy:
What in the hell are you talking about?
I am discussing personal autonomy (like in getting on a bus in 1958, or saying something offensive in 2010)
You just started in on a fucking enthalpy problem while I am working on 18th Century Literature.
WTF?
Zuzu's Petals
@Mike Kay:
My thought exactly. It’s all about free speech, right?
toujoursdan
@suzanne:
I thought it was too, and I am a Christian.
slag
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
How long are they going to go on like this before they finally put the Quotes of Irony around “Reason”?
MattR
@Punchy: It did not hit me until I read your reply, but boy am I glad that JFK did not take the “provoke the idiots who threaten your freedom approach” to the Cuban Missle Crisis
JGabriel
@Evinfuilt:
This is idiotic. NO ONE is arguing that Reason should be legally blocked from having a “Draw Mohammad” contest.
We’re saying it’s stupid and offensive, not illegal.
.
dadanarchist
@celticdragonchick:
My mistake; you may not be a wingnut but you are still ignorant.
scav
mmmmm. probably the same crowd that goes ape-shit when not addressed in Dec. with the greeting that specifically names the exact holiday of their personal preference, bedamned to all others. large overlap with the crowd that is trying to enact regulations biased against the survival of women threatened by carrying fetuses to term — but that’s not killing because they’ll impose their biases by law.
David Hunt
@Tattoosydney:
Well, Jon Stewart said the second part of that. I steal from the best.
celticdragonchick
@Mnemosyne:
I was not aware that we now had a confluence of church and state. Are we now Calvanist?
Stop with the fucking strawmen. We are not talking about national policy hypocrisy…which is rampant in any event.
Stay on the subject of religion.
JGabriel
@suzanne: No, I actually agree with that assessment too.
.
Mnemosyne
@celticdragonchick:
Please scroll up to my comment #12 about the performance of Terrance McNally’s play “Corpus Christi” being canceled because of — wait for it — death threats from Christians who said that it offended their religious mores.
Again, it seems you’re much more offended by Muslim death threats when they feel their religion has been offended than you are by extremely similar Christian death threats. Why is that?
Punchy
@celticdragonchick: So you are, or are not, in favor of “provoking idiots who threaten freedom”? I have a confused. Becuase I’m pretty sure I quoted you verbatim.
Mnemosyne
@celticdragonchick:
People have been complaining about the Dutch cartoonists being oppressed by Muslims. Please let me know when the Netherlands became a Muslim theocracy.
ETA:
So your argument is that abortion providers in the US are not being murdered for religious reasons? The students who wanted to put on a production of “Corpus Christi” did not receive death threats because of religion?
celticdragonchick
@dadanarchist:
I grovel at the thought of your vast and infallible grasp of all things. I beg your indulgence for my craven and appalling ignorance.
David Hunt
@Poopyman:
Yes he did. I was hoping that repetition would help the point seep in. I’m not sure if Cole had more faith in that guy’s intellect by assuming that he didn’t need to hammer the point, or less because he assumed he wouldn’t get it no matter how much he made the point, therefore making any more a waste of his time. Of course, it’s likely that neither of my scenarios capture Cole’s main reasoning, so I’m going to stop trying to interpret his motives.
Dork
This is great news for Arlen Specter.
Karmakin
@LD50: Read my post above. It’s not. The libtards/conservatives are hangers on.
It’s not about “Islamofascism”. It’s about freedom of speech and not enforcing observation in religious beliefs you don’t believe in.
And people saying that the mean atheists only do this to the Muslims are fucking wrong. To be honest, most atheists focus most of their criticism/mockery on Christianity, mainly because it’s the closest influence.
That’s simply the way it is.
Roger Moore
@celticdragonchick:
Tell that to Dr. George Tiller, or to gays in Uganda. Tell that to many gays in the United States, who fear coming out of the closet because they’re threatened with violence for being who they are. Christians are more than happy to threaten people with death for failing to follow their religious beliefs. It’s just that we’re so used to it that we forget about how often they do it.
Stroszek
@celticdragonchick: Someone has clearly lost this argument and knows it.
celticdragonchick
@Mnemosyne:
I think it had something to do with a film about Islamic women being brutalized by Islamic men, then the film maker being gruesomely murdered in public and his partner (a member of Parliament) having to be put under 24 hour security and eventually flee the country…
Followed by riots and additional killings after the cartoons mocking violent behavior were published.
someguy
@Sentient Puddle:
Meh. He already left. Didn’t leave a forwarding address. Though he’s rumored to be working in stock trading, the medical profession, or as a NY Times columnist.
Ash Can
No one could have predicted…
Mnemosyne
@celticdragonchick:
So Reason magazine is a bunch of hypocrites who think that upsetting Christians is pointless but upsetting Muslims is A-OK?
Color me surprised.
Xenos
Maybe the best approach is to have a ‘Draw Cartoons of Ayn Rand’ or a ‘Draw Cartoons of the Members of the Koch Family’ contest. But really, who wants to dwell on such obscenities?
celticdragonchick
@Mnemosyne:
Is anybody afraid of mocking these people?
Are you concerned that making a cartoon that eviscerates an assassin who murders Planned Parenthood doctors will get people killed in a protest riot in Topeka (as opposed to Karachi, Pakistan)?
I think not.
grimc
@celticdragonchick:
Well, that and the death threats. Serrano got death threats, as did Scorsese for “The Temptation of Christ”. Christian extremists aren’t more respectful of the First Amendment; they just don’t announce their threats publically.
Zuzu's Petals
@celticdragonchick:
Yet it is being done in a way that offends ALL Muslims.
gnomedad
@toujoursdan:
Hmm, how about “Draw Mohammed on a Flag and Burn It” day?
celticdragonchick
@Mnemosyne:
What is hypocritical about it?
The art was offensive to many people, but advanced no cause and therefore served no purpose. Nobody was seriously afraid that the Catholic League was coming with the Inquisition to burn them at the stake.
Legalize
@Bill Rutherford, Princeton Admissions:
Yes. And discussion beyond that is pretty pointless. Whether or not the folks at Reason are being assholes is irrelevant. Everyone should agree that anyone has the right to mock any religious group without fear of violent reprisal. Regardless of the assholishness of the mocker and regardless of the delicate sensibilities of the mockee. If everyone in this life behaved like adults when someone said something that hurt their feelings toward their imaginary sky fairy, we wouldn’t need the first amendment. But people don’t behave that way. They behave like fucking assholes, and shoot abortion doctors or threaten to blow up Eric Cartman. I say fuck them all, and mock the shit out of them.
SensesFail
@JGabriel: Drawing Jesus raping a child is not analogous to drawing Mohammed, since the latter “offense” is based purely on religious dogma.
Where do you draw the line? What if the act of wearing a red shirt offended Muslims?
Mnemosyne
@celticdragonchick:
And yet you find that more horrifying than an abortion doctor being gunned down in his church, or a guy walking into a Unitarian church during a production of a children’s play and killing two people, or a college shutting down a production of a controversial play because of death threats.
I guess it’s easier to get outraged about these things when they’re safely happening thousands of miles away.
Geoff Wittig
Next up: pissing on the third rail, and whacking that hornet’s nest in the backyard with a baseball bat. Just because we can.
Thought for the day: how would these lunatic wingnuts feel if newspapers in the Islamic world starting running gratuitously offensive cartoons featuring, oh, let’s say Jesus and Mary as pimp and hooker?
(Heads explode in 3…2…1…)
MattR
@Xenos: Well, the actual orginator of this idea, Molly Norris, has changed her mind and now supports an “Everybody draw Al Gore” day.
But of course, we all know that is really a fiction made up to cover the threats of violence that Ms. Norris must have received.
JGabriel
@Mnemosyne:
Bing-O.
.
Mnemosyne
@celticdragonchick:
Since the college shut down the production of the play after receiving death threats, you tell me. I guess in your mind the shutting down of the production was just a total co-inkydink and had nothing to do with the death threats they received.
Litlebritdifrnt
OT – I’m listening to Rush. He began the show by stating that there is no oil spill. “They can’t find the oil!” Blah Blah, I am eagerly awaiting his take on the elections last night.
Brachiator
@JGabriel:
Don’t pedophile priests have these posters up on the walls of their rooms, something to tempt altar boys?
It’s not an either/or here.
I’m outraged that the boneheads at Reason apparently are the main people behind this. Everybody should be jumping into this.
@suzanne:
The conflation of imagery of dickheads and douches is really messing with my mind.
Xenos
And who says ‘Chocolate Jesus’ is silly? Good satire is not very silly at all.
Of course, one can always ponder this while listening to an outstanding cover by a Polish pornographer/death metal entrepreneur. Warning: rendition is not edgy at all. Like in Mapplethorpe, the composition is remarkably conservative.
jrg
@Shade Tail:
You’re assuming that the ultimate goal is to piss off fundies. It’s not. The ultimate goal is to ensure that free speech is protected by exercising it in a controversial way. Pissing off fundies is just a proximate goal.
Put another way, would we be better off now without Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, or Bill Hicks? Did they achieve something beyond making some people laugh, and making others uncomfortable?
Joel
@SensesFail: vis-a-vis, the act of drawing mohammed isn’t the deal here. it’s the provocation behind it that indicates wanton douchebaggery, or at the very least, the abandonment of social graces that form part of the foundation of civilized society.
now, before you spurt off about the bizarre actions of muslim fundamentalists, let me say up front that I’m right there with you. but if we want to aspire to be civilized and that the foundation of our society, based on freedom and equality, is morally superior then we should act in a manner that indicates moral superiority and not equivalency.
celticdragonchick
@grimc:
They got some threats, but nobody thought enough of it to cancel anything.
Why should they?
When “Christian” idiots get on a phone to make an anonymous threat, people yawn.
Nobody shrugs off a threat from Islamist idiots.
The fact that this has to be pointed out is staggering. False equivalency in political matters has been excoriated here, but accepted with nary a whisper when people want to defend religious
repressiondifferences.Mnemosyne
@celticdragonchick:
What cause does it serve to offend all Muslims — not just radical Muslims, but all Muslims — by drawing offensive pictures of Mohammed?
Notice our little friend up above who is trying to get the Muslim Students Association at his college to come watch him draw pictures of Mohammed. What cause is he advancing other than demonstrating to them that he’s an asshole who doesn’t respect their religion?
I disagree with the radical Zionist settlers in Israel — do I get to make Holocaust jokes as long as I claim I’m insulting them so any non-radical Jewish person who might be offended has to STFU because what I’m doing is important?
JGabriel
@SensesFail:
They’re similar enough. People are drawing Mohammad as a terrorist to mock Islamic terrorists; drawing Jesus as rapist to mock the Catholic child molestation scandals would not be significantly different, except for minor cultural variations.
That’s why I chose that particular image; I expected someone to eventually try making that point.
.
Larv
While I’m somewhat sympathetic to the reasoning behind Draw Muhammad Day, I think it’s a serious overreaction to the supposed grievance. Should you be able to draw pictures of Muhammad? Of course, and generally speaking, nobody’s stopping you.
Comedy Central wouldn’t air the South Park stuff because they didn’t want to deal with the inevitable shitstorm that would follow, not because they were afraid of terrorists and extremists. If that’s censorship, it’s the kind that happens every day, on practically every network. Sure, they’re okay with tweaking the other major religions, but I’m not sure there’s really an analogue to the Islamic prohibition on visual depictions of Muhammad. South Park’s depictions of Jesus and other religious figures are no doubt offensive to some followers of those religions, but there’s no Christian doctrine explicitly forbidding it, and most Christians don’t particularly care (Bill Donohue excepted). It’s my understanding that objections to depictions of Muhammad is much more mainstream among Muslims (at least Sunnis).
More to the point, the proponents of this day are seriously misreading the context. Muslims are not a powerful group in this country, and the last ten years has seen unprecedented levels of anti-Islamic bias. Rather than striking a blow for free speech, the result of this is far more likely to cause American Muslims to feel even more marginalized and disrespected. We aren’t talking about incidental depictions, we’re talking about intentional attempts to piss people off. Not just terrorists and extremists, but mainstream Muslims, too. And I don’t think that’s a good idea (and not because I’m afraid of being beheaded).
It’d be helpful to hear from some actual Muslims on what the mainstream position on this is. If it really is just the extremists who object, then I have less of a problem with it. But that’s not the impression I’ve received from coverage of the issue.
SensesFail
Those of you here who are equating the act of drawing an offensive picture of Jesus with A PICTURE of Mohammed are WRONG, since the latter is considered offensive ONLY BASED ON RELIGIOUS DOGMA.
Mnemosyne
@celticdragonchick:
Other than the fact that Reason magazine has zero reason to believe that they will get any reaction from American Muslims beyond what the chocolate Jesus guy got from the Catholic League?
It’s funny that you keep talking about there being no Christian riots in Topeka but don’t seem to have noticed that there haven’t been any Muslim ones in Topeka, either. Or anywhere else in the US, for that matter.
It’s pretty easy for us to tweak Muslims from our nice, safe seat thousands of miles away from the Netherlands, isn’t it? It’s easy to “support” people when you know you’re not going to have to pay the same penalty they will.
celticdragonchick
@Mnemosyne:
That is the first solid indication I have heard that anybody did take a threat from “Christians” seriously.
Why is that?
Oh yeah.
After 9/11, we have to wet ourselves when anybody makes a threat.
I’ll be happy is somebody manages to find the asshole and prosecutes them for terroristic threats.
You are still trying to equate actual proven track records of threats followed by body counts wrt Islamist assaults on free speech with some mouth breathers who scared a local college.
OOPS!!!!
An Islamic group has issued a death sentence fatwa against the author of…wait for it…Corpus Christi!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/493436.stm
Any takers for a risk analysis of which threat to take more seriously?
celticdragonchick
@grimc:
It seems that somebody somewhere got in a lather and canceled a controversial play because of threats from self described Christians here in America.
Amazing on so many levels.
Mnemosyne
@Larv:
But apparently American Muslims and Muslim extremists in Europe and the Middle East are all exactly the same, so insulting the Muslim Students Association at your college really means you’re taking a stand against Theo van Gogh’s murderer.
At least, that’s what celticdragonchick keeps telling us.
dadanarchist
WRONG. If people were just to draw pictures of Mohammed, they would piss off some Sunnis and most Islamic extremists, as they are iconoclasts . If they draw offensive pictures of Mohammed, they’ll manage to piss off all Muslims, from Sunni to Shi’a to Sufi (the latter two not having religious prohibitions against figurative art).
That is why the whole idea is fucking childish. You want to help fight Islamic extremism? Buy a fucking bicycle and grow the fuck up.
Mnemosyne
@celticdragonchick:
And yet you still can’t come up with an example of Muslim free speech threats with body counts here in the United States while I’ve given you multiple examples with body counts of Christians doing the same.
And, no, 9/11 doesn’t count as an assault on free speech, unless you’re trying to claim that the hijackers were, like, totally pissed off about “South Park” and that’s why they killed 3,000 people as opposed to, you know, their actual reasons for doing it.
flukebucket
The Fonzi of Freedom does.
celticdragonchick
@Mnemosyne:
I would settle for taking a stand against self imposed censorship whenever threats of religious based violence start popping up.
That goes for the college in Texas that canceled their production of Corpus Christi as well.
dadanarchist
Exactly. It had nothing to do with fear of Muslim extremists, and everything to do with advertising revenue, that is to say, capitalism.
You would think the capitalist bootlickers at Reason would have figured that out.
Mnemosyne
@celticdragonchick:
Since the Brits did not cancel the play after the threats, and the Americans did, I think that’s your risk analysis right there.
wlrube
You guys don’t seem to understand that all brown-people-hating on the right aside, this sort of semi-satirical semi-serious event is largely an atheist/freethought bandwagon that Reason decided to jump on. There have been more than a few instances of this sort of thing happening to Christianity in recent years, supported by the same general group of people as a lot of the Muhammad stuff. Hell, the Reasonoids even admit that they got this via Dan Savage. They may be hypocritically opposed to offending Christians in the same way, but you’re condemning the entire event via guilt by association out of ignorance.
JGabriel
@celticdragonchick:
Sure. Take more seriously the threat from movements with geographical proximity and greater track records of successful murder events in the US.
We count 9/11 and Oklahoma City as one event each. In addition, the extremist right has multiple successful murder events of gunmen targeting abortion providers in the US(see Eric Rudolph and Scott Roeder) and other people targeted as “liberals” (see Unitarian Knoxville Shooting, for one example).
Given that the fundamentalist Christian and extreme right has had a greater number of successful murder events, even if their body count doesn’t quite equal 9/11’s, and that they have easier access due to geograhical proximity, it seems pretty clear that threats from the American Christian right should be a far greater concern to the author and performers of Corpus Christi than threats from the Iranian Islamic right.
Did you really expect an honest, if rudimentary, analysis to conclude otherwise?
.
Corner Stone
@William:
I’m curious on your take of the al-Alawki incident recently discussed here.
An issue of free speech, or something else?
Mnemosyne
@celticdragonchick:
So far, you seem to think that people should take their stand in the US against self-imposed censorship in other countries whenever threats of Islam-based violence start popping up. Not only that, but you think that “taking a stand” means going up to Muslims in the US who have nothing to do with those threats in the Netherlands and insulting them to their faces.
When you decide to picket CNN during Bill Donohue’s next appearance to protest his championing of Catholicism-based censorship, then I’ll believe you’re indignant about all religious censorship and not just those mean ol’ Muslims trying to censor nice Europeans.
Joey Maloney
@celticdragonchick: Again, adherents of no other major religion are insisting that other people observe their particular religious mores under threat of death.
Jesus Fucking (a 6-year-old) Christ, what fucking country have you been living in? Obviously one without Scott Roeder, Eric Rudolph, James Kopp, Clayton Waagner, and the Army of God.
Zuzu's Petals
@celticdragonchick:
The difference being between mocking people and mocking a religion.
This isn’t an invitation to make fun of religious fantatics, it’s an invitation to make fun of a religion.
JGabriel
@JGabriel:
Correction, that should read:
My error, and it was bad enough to require correcting even though my editing time had run out.
.
SensesFail
@JGabriel and @dadanarchist:
Of course, drawing a defamatory picture of Mohammad is offensive, and that act rightly belongs in the same category as drawing an offensive picture of Jesus (or anyone for that matter).
But should religious dogma stop you from drawing a stick figure and labeling it as “Mohammad?” What if Jews were offended by any declaration of Jesus as “The Messiah” to the point where they responded with violence? Should Christians then just practically scrap their religion?
I totally agree that going the extra step here and depicting Mohammad as a terrorist, for example, is stupid and wrong. However, I support the act of protesting the threat of freedoms by religious belief.
celticdragonchick
@Mnemosyne:
Where? Are you saying that the attacks on abortion providers are attacks on free speech as opposed to attacks on a lawful contracted service?
I am sympathetic to your argument on some level, but they are not really the same thing (although both are forms of terrorism).
What is evident is that while I know of no fatal attacks, this testimony from a Senate staffer and journalist is chilling:
http://www.danielpipes.org/321/how-dare-you-defame-islam
Censorship in newspapers, television (Comedy Central!!) and other media regarding Islam is well known here In America now, and what happend in Holland has had a chilling effect here. You inability to see that is somewhat mystifying.
Brachiator
@Zuzu’s Petals:
And, so? Shouldn’t both be mocked, if someone has a hankering to do so?
aimai
@celticdragonchick:
But none of these people actually are taking any kind of risk drawing this shit. They don’t, in fact, think that the muslim next door is going to come and kill them. They are hoping that some muslim, somewhere, does something stupid so the US has to bomb the entire country into submission. Its an act of sheer political propaganda/provocation not a principled stand. Gay marriage in a Church is a principled stand by a believing gay christian saying “I think I’m entitled to be here.” It seeks to challenge and change a particular religion/dogma from within. Gay marriage in a registery office says “I think I’m entitled to be here and its none of your religious business what I’m doing.” That’s principled too.
Drawing a picture of Mohammed just to piss off complete strangers to prove the “point” that they are dangerous lunatics is not a principled stand–it doesn’t take any courage, it doesn’t reflect an honest need, it produces no significant civil right, it doesn’t educate. Its just an asshole move by assholes. And it comes in the context of an imaginary global war necessitated by the evil acts of uncontrollable muslim rage. Its political propaganda meant to provoke agression and a cycle of retribution: its an attempt to create and recreate a casus belli in a “just war.”
aimai
Larv
@celticdragonchick:
Um, is anyone concerned that the South Park episode would have led to anyone actually being killed here in America? I’m not, and if you are, I suggest you recalibrate your risk-analysis software. Also, if you do think that killings are a serious threat, doesn’t that make Draw Muhammad Day wildly irresponsible?
Joey Maloney
@dadanarchist:
WIN.
Bill Rutherford, Princeton Admissions
celticdragonchick is citing Daniel “OMFG MOOSLIMS!” Pipes to prove that she’s totally not anti-Islam. Thread over.
JGabriel
@SensesFail:
So do I. However, I think the extreme Christian fundamentalism poses just as much, or greater, a threat in the US as extreme Islamic fundamentalism.
And yet, I don’t see Reason attacking the extreme Christian right (as, for instance South Park does) with the same verve as the Islamic right. Therefore, I’m forced to conclude that they’re assholes who are just targeting Muslims rather than idealistically protesting any “threat of freedoms”.
.
celticdragonchick
@Joey Maloney:
Are you afraid to make fun of them or portray them in any way you see fit?
I cannot seriously entertain the notion that single deranged individuals and an obscure sect are even remotely in the same ballpark for threat assessment as radical Islamists of whatever stripe.
In any event, the anti abortion terrorist bombings and shootings were indeed serious enough to greatly effect access to abortion services and the fact that a few people could have such an oversized affect should only emphasize the impact that many more radicalized people can have on our freedom of speech and access to speech.
Zuzu's Petals
From a 2006 Slate piece by Reza Aslan:
Joey Maloney
@celticdragonchick:
Then as someone just said, you need to recalibrate your risk assessment software. Put down Daniel “Crack” Pipes, for a start.
We’re not talking about me. We’re talking about how you said something that was obviously, jaw-droppingly, eye-poppingly, dead-ass wrong that invalidates your entire thesis. At least, I am. I don’t blame you for trying to change the subject.
artem1s
Man, nothing like a good iconoclastic war to get everyone riled up!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iconodule
artem1s
Man, nothing like a good iconoclastic war to get everyone riled up!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iconodule
celticdragonchick
@Bill Rutherford, Princeton Admissions:
I was not so much interested in Pipes as I was in the testimony of the person in question.
Unfortunately, it gets left to idiots(and outright racists) like Debbie Schussel and ‘Screaming Harpy’ Pamela Gellar to write about this issue.
Why the fuck are we leaving this to the knuckle draggers? Why are only atheist liberals like Sam Harris the only people on our side willing to dig under the rock and see why orthodox and radicalist Islamic beliefs are dangerous to women and children, not to mention our very notions of modernity?
Why in the hell do we keep equating indefensible and risible religious beliefs with race?
Just wondering. *sigh*
aimai
Oh come on, celticdragonchick, our “access to speech” isn’t denied at all by courteously refraining from smearing symbolic shit on someone elses’s religious figures. I don’t know about you but I can make my anti religious points very clearly without spitting on images of the pope or making stick figures of Mohammed with “Fart” drawn out the side (hat tip to Roy at Alicublog!).
What strikes me as hysterically funny is the insistence that this childish form of political hooting and shit throwing is being put up as any kind of principled or thoughtful argument about anything. This is right up there with mailing dog poop, or road salt, to political figures who displease you. Its incredibly dumb, counterproductive, and meaningless. You say I ought not to make pictures of Mohammed???? Well! You’re not the boss of me!!! That’s basically it. IT doesn’t make it more important because “ought not” includes death threats from some hysterical losers in the back of beyond in some other country.
Lysistrata was a form of political protest. Reading Lysistrata at the start of the Iraq war was a form of symbolic political theater. Getting together on a blog to draw pictures of Mohammed in order to piss of strangers is nothing. Literally nothing. It does nothing. It protects nothing. It furthers no kind of program.
And again: people get death threats from the Christian right in this country. Planned Parenthood gets death threats, fake anthrax, and real attacks *all the god damned time* because abortion is considered forbidden to the followers of some versions of the Christian god. There’s no magical dividing line between offering to kill someone for excercising their “Free speech” rights and offering to kill someone for excercising their right to contraception and a legal medical procedure that makes one worth fighting for (drawing pictures of mohammed) and the other somehow not important.
aimai
Larv
@celticdragonchick:
No offense, but maybe you could find a better cite than Daniel Pipes? He’s a blatant anti-Islamic bigot, and I’m not visiting his site.
Is it really? Do you have any examples other than some refusals to display visual representations of Muhammad? Because that’s not censorship, that’s a commercial decision not to piss of their potential readers/viewers by violating a core doctrine of their religion. I happen to disagree with CC’s decision, but it was entirely rational and not fear-induced.
licensed to kill time
Pakistani court orders Facebook blocked in Prophet drawing row
No Facebook for you! Just because some mental 10 yr olds want to scribble on the walls.
Ed Drone
@celticdragonchick:
… and cancel plays and other events.
Ed
Zuzu's Petals
@Brachiator:
If that’s what she meant, she should have come out and said so. Instead she argued a false equivalency.
Rick Taylor
Not quite as dumb as freedom fries.
aimai
@celticdragonchick:
I have to come back to challenge the notion that we “leave it to the knuckle draggers” and that “only Sam Harris” has the courage to say that Islam is bad for women and children.
What the fuck? the “Knuckle draggers” are attacking Islam not for any thing that Islam is, but because its not “our” religion. The whole point that people have been trying to make is that Reason magazine sponsored this blog swarm/picture thing not because its anti clerical but because its anti Islam. No such attacks on the Pope and his crew, or the Jews (except when it suits the anti semites), or organized Protestant religion is anticipated. That’s not because those groups wouldn’t respond with death threats. Of course they would/do/have–Catholics and Protestants have been involved in some pretty serious massacres the world over. That’s because those groups are seen, temporarily, as “of us” while Islam is not.
Second of all, or B, Or something: Sam Harris and other anti religious people aren’t doing anything significant for women or children if they are making such a din and a scandal that moderate members of a given religion are turned off, or sickened, or humiliated by all contact with enlightenment/western thought. Nobody’s more atheist than me but that doesn’t mean that the right way to help men, women, and children leave a constraining religion is to spit on their most cherished beliefs and images and memories. Its absurd to argue that you can move people from an important cultural and emotional affiliation by humiliating and attacking them. That’s not how people leave any organization, let alone a deeply loved ancestral religion.
If you seriously wanted to help the wimmins and the chilluns you’d be thinking of ways to welcome muslim women and children and their parents and spouses into mainstream american society rather than attacking and humiliating them at every turn.
aimai
celticdragonchick
@Larv:
I was not aware of any prior problem with Pipes, since I had never heard of him before. I thought the senate testimony was interesting and it stands on its own regardless of whatever Pipes has to say. I will not link to him again nor will I consider any of his writings as valid if he is a racist.
I am aware, however, that many people here scream and clutch their pearls if you link to anything by John Aravosis. I had much the same reaction when I linked to a story at AmericaBlog.Gay. (IE he is persona non grata for ephemeral reasons not fully understood, but you are automatically NOT A SERIOUS PERSON if you link to him)
If possible, I would track down the actual senate testimony document, but that will be time consuming.
Does anybody wish to refute what the testimony was about?
JGabriel
@celticdragonchick:
Straw man.
No one here is afraid of mocking or portraying Muslims any way they see fit, or arguing that people should be. The argument is that the Reasonoids are hypocritical assholes engaging in pointlessly provocative theatrics, not that they should fear the Muslim threat.
.
aimai
Oh, CDC, Yeah, Pipes is a well known nutcase, an absolute asshole. He was teaching at Harvard years ago. The list of his crazy is too long to go into. Take it as read that he is like radiation poisoning.
aimai
Bill Rutherford, Princeton Admissions
“Does anybody wish to refute what the testimony was about?”
Yes. If it was pimped by Daniel Pipes, it’s probably mostly bullshit, if not complete bullshit.
Any further questions?
Bob L
You guys need to get up to speed here. This was started by Thunderfoot on YouTube, and while he is an atheists and an anti-theist he is certainly no libertarian or a conservative.
Here is his youtube channel to hear him in his own words.
http://www.youtube.com/my_subscriptions?pi=0&ps=20&sf=added&sa=0&dm=2&s=kYZE–5WK6Q&as=1
But it broils down to he is outraged over the Muslim extremists forcing their agenda in the West because they might hurt someone and doing this Anonymous thing to make it utterly futile for the Muslim extremist to attempt censorship threw terrorism. The might be able to bomb Comedy Central, but they certainly can’t bomb the Intertubes.
See Anonymous verse The Church of Scientology.
And yes, isn’t it interesting Reason only shows up to the party when it is the Muslims that are the target?
celticdragonchick
@aimai:
Nice to hear from you, Aimai.
Possibly so. Yet, they are not the targets of this (although they feel that way, unfortunately). Free speech is messy that way.
Brachiator
@aimai:
All this is very true. But isn’t it also beside the point? If the US pulled out of Iraq and Afghanistan tomorrow, would it then be OK to mock Islam?
One consistent criticism here is that the call to cartoonery is an asshole move by assholes? I keep waiting for someone to point out where in the Bill of Rights freedom of speech is reserved for non-assholes, or to explain when free expression got so damned prissy, with these puffed up requirements that it be connected to producing civil rights, educating some worthwhile subject or reflecting some honest need.
Hell, what happened to the good old days when people burned an American flag precisely because it was going to piss off some old biddy and give puffed-up pseudo-patriots the vapors?
This new-fangled urge to weak-sister decorum and self-censorship just ain’t American. Hell, what’s next? Rewriting text books so that the slave trade is renamed the “Atlantic triangular trade?” Oops. Done already.
Zuzu's Petals
@SensesFail:
Yet the Supreme Court building quite famously has a depiction of Mohammed in one of its friezes, and in all these years not a single threat.
SensesFail
@JGabriel:
Well said. I agree with that 100%.
Ramiah Ariya
Posting for the first time; I am East Indian; not a Muslim; let me tell you how this contest seems to me.
Someone above hit the nail when they said that this issue is related to existing power structures.
A more “democratic” “open” society does not always side with freedom of speech; particularly when that “democracy” is engaged in occupying other people’s countries. For example, Britain restricted Freedom of Speech considerably during peace time in India, when India was under British rule. One example is the Swastika, which is a Hindu holy sign, prominently displayed in Indian temples.
The British collector visited the Madurai Meenakshi temple just before WWII. He saw the Swastika displayed on one of the idols and wanted it taken down. The priests tried explaining to him that it was not meant to display the Nazi symbol (the Hindu Swastika turns in a different direction).
They lost and the idol had to be moved elsewhere.
Now, that fountain of democracy did this even though they had several rights protecting British subjects’ freedom to worship. They did it because it was a power relation, and they were dominant.
Similarly, there seems to be an assumption on the part of some commenters that the American society is very open and therefore this cartoon contest represents a fight to protect that openness.
Imagine now something that really challenges that openness – for example, imagine a cartoon drawn by an Iraqi cartoonist in America. Imagine that cartoon shows some form of physical depravity visited on George W. Bush.
Do you think the cartoonist will not get death threats? In fact, I suspect he/she will be in Guantanamo Bay.
Drawing Muhammad cartoons goes the opposite way – it does not really challenge any power structure. It simply re-emphasizes that Americans, after having occupied two Muslim countries, are now intent on rubbing the humiliation in.
It is amazing to me that many Americans do not seem to understand how the people (or the related people) of bombed out countries may feel – do you think they can delink between Muhammad cartoons (freedom of speech) and the American soldiers strip searching their family (UN sanctioned occupation, operating under very excellent, self-verified Rules of Engagement)?
How could you not see that your country can only truly talk about freedom of speech when you actually are not occupying other countries?
JGabriel
@Zuzu’s Petals: Shh, don’t give them Mooslims any ideas!
.
JGabriel
@Brachiator:
And I keep wondering where in the Bill of Rights it says that assholes can’t be criticized for being assholes.
.
celticdragonchick
@Bill Rutherford, Princeton Admissions:
That makes as much sense as a winger saying anything from the librul media is a lie because it’s the mainstream librul media, after all…
The testimony stands and may be instructive whether Pipes uses it or not.
Here is the page on Steve Emerson.
It looks to me like people on both sides of the political isle say nice things about him.
RSA
@jrg:
I think there’s a better analogy: Imagine a group of women saying, “Let’s celebrate our freedom by getting pregnant and then all having an abortion on the same day. (That’ll piss off the conservative Christians.)” Pile on.
celticdragonchick
Anyways, its been fun.
I really need to actually do some housework today…meh.
jrg
@aimai:
Not sure if I agree with you there. One of the reasons that using the Lord’s name in vain is such a sin is because it leads to “semantic inflation”, rendering terms (and in this case images) less meaningful, visceral, or offensive.
That’s why, for example, LGBT folks have adopted (and frequently use) words that used to be more pejorative, like “queer”.
A ThousandFaces
The level of of apologetic bullshit for religious fanaticism and violence is staggering. Using the threat of murder to silence art is bad, mmkay? No matter what religion is doing it. It just so happens one religion’s dogmatic bullshit rule has been highly successful as of late in getting the censorship they want by actually following through on the threats through murder and violent riots. Mocking them every day would be a good thing. And the dumbass straw man of “but, but, but.. christians killed an abortion doctor” is beside the point. For the record, that’s also a bad thing (that many here have inadvertently defended). The fact is that this is about censorship, and there is not widespread fear and censorship in art for ANY other religion (but, but, but.. that Corpus Christi play once.)
Anyone ignoring the facts of the situation is being willfully obtuse b/c they hate Reason Magazine. This is just the opposite of hippie punching. Libertarians are the biggest douches on the planet (which happens to be true) and JC has a hard on for mocking Reason, ergo anything they do must be bad. For the record, I think it’s great to mock muslim fanatcism and hysteria about this issue.
celticdragonchick
@jrg:
Heh!
Citizen Alan
@JGabriel:
South Park, IMO, has not taken on all comers. Pay close attention to Parker and Stone’s choice of targets. They almost always go for the easy target — disfavored minority groups, outsider religious groups, and celebrities who are currently getting negative coverage in the press (or who are liberal and thus always safe to attack).
When South Park goes after Islam, it either depicts Muslims as swarthy, dark-skinned terrorists or else plays these little games with depicting Mohamed for the sole purpose of provoking a threatening response from overly devout Muslims. When it goes after Scientologists, it depicts as delusional nutjobs (and later, renamed as “the Super Adventure Club” as a pedophile cult). It made the (IMO) idiotic suggestion that if there were no religion in the world, all the atheists would start fighting holy wars over the proper name for an atheistic society.
In contrast, all South Park has had to say about Catholicism has been the occasional pedophilia joke (hardly going out on a limb there). To my recollection, it hasn’t even touched fundamentalist Christianity since “Starvin’ Marvin’ in Space” which was 11 years ago. Compare the depiction of mainstream American Christians with that of homosexuals — which on South Park consist entirely of Big Gay Al, Mister Slave and Mr. Garrison.
South Park viciously caricatures Al Gore every chance it gets, but the only time I recall Bush showing up was in “Cartoon Wars II” when he lectured the White House Press Corps on the need for vigorous support of the First Amendment. Let me repeat that: Bush lectured the White House Press Corps on the need for vigorous support of the First Amendment. The only depiction of Sarah Palin so far suggested that she was secretly a stylish British jewel thief/assassin who was merely posing as a stupid hillbilly as part of a scheme to steal the Hope Diamond. Glenn Beck has never been personally depicted, and the episode in which Cartman started a Beck-esque radio show was almost affectionate.
In short, Parker and Stone are very good at passing themselves off as bold satirists who aren’t afraid to exercise their First Amendment rights, without ever exercising those rights to mock someone or something venerated by Americans in the same way that Muslims venerate Mohamed. Let South Park air an episode attacking the Right To Life movement and defending abortion rights, or one which makes fun of the racism of the birthers and tea baggers, or one which suggests that Jesus was gay or even that he wasn’t borne of a virgin. Then I’ll be impressed with their First Amendment credentials.
Hob
@celticdragonchick: I don’t mind that you got Mapplethorpe mixed up with Serrano, but I am curious as to whether you’ve actually seen the photo “Piss Christ”, or whether you’re just describing it as “disgusting” because that’s what you heard about it. I’m guessing that it may be the latter, since the photo itself is rather lovely — its potential for offense is entirely in the religious implication and in the title — and also because you referred to plural “photos of crucifixes in urine” which don’t exist.
Anyway, on your main point, I agree with other commenters who feel that protesting intolerance on the other side of the world, and saying things that might get you attacked if you were over there but otherwise are just weightless provocation, really isn’t equivalent to protesting it in your own back yard to people who might actually attack you.
Your story in #162, even if everything Emerson says is true [and I have no reason to think it isn’t, but honestly, couldn’t you find a better online source than Daniel freaking Pipes?! You wouldn’t link to Stormfront for a news report that could be found elsewhere, would you?], doesn’t really support the notion that saying disrespectful things about Islam is a dangerous thing to do in America. Emerson’s works are specifically about violent Islamic extremists– of course he’s going to be threatened by violent Islamic extremists. Morris Dees reports on white supremacists, and he gets threatened by white supremacists; should people in, say, India therefore express support for his work by starting a “talk shit about white people day”?. If you make a documentary about the Mafia and then you’re threatened by the Mafia, would you conclude that everyone’s being too respectful of Italian-Americans?
A ThousandFaces
@RSA:
Because getting pregnant for the sole purpose of aborting the fetus and drawing a stick figure are logically similar, right? I’m all for some degree of moral and cultural relativism, but this thread is getting bananas.
Punchy
Wha? Even though dangerous white Christians live down the street, know my name, and have access to my house/work whenever they want, while radical Muslims in Pakistan have access to…..the internet? Or are you going to ref 9/11 again to justify the Code Brown?
Hob
@celticdragonchick: As you yourself just pointed out, Steven Emerson is taken seriously by all kinds of people. He’s frequently quoted as an expert on Islamic extremism, he wins awards, he testifies before Congress all the time. Just because lunatics like Pipes and Schlussel happen to be fond of him doesn’t mean they’re the only ones paying attention; your complaint that “it gets left to idiots … to write about this issue” is simply not true.
[ETA: On the other hand, Pipes unfortunately gets a lot of attention and testifies before Congress too. I don’t think there’s any general positive regard for his scholarship, though– he’s just a successful propagandist. Emerson is relatively mainstream.]
aimai
@celticdragonchick:
But CDC (hi there yourself!) you brought women and children into it when you argued that, somehow, if we don’t attack Islam we aren’t helping the women and children who live *in* Islam. You explicitly made the argument that
anti religious speech/images
will help
women and children living in theocracies.
But, of course, such speech won’t necessarily help those people. And may hurt. That was a pragmatic argument that you made. And I challenged it.
More to the point I’d argue that this isn’t a case of “free speech is messy”–that’s an argument we might make internally, in the US, arguing that although we don’t like it we don’t think the government should limit speech X, or Y, or porn or whatever. We might want to argue that the line between business and politics is blurred and so selling porn is also a kind of free speech rights to which should not be abridged blah blah blah. But our laws about Free Speech are internal laws relating to what our government can do. They say nothing, and have nothing to say, about what others might ask of us in a global context.
Lets say you have a grandma, and I decide I want to attack her memory by insisting on burning up pictures of her, and insulting her memory. I’m legally free to do that in this country, probably. But should I? Maybe I should–if I think I can achieve some kind of goal by doing so. But should I do it just because I think you are an asshole, and wouldn’t like me to do it? Or just because I think you are a nice person, and wouldn’t like me to do it, and it would give me pleasure to hurt you? What I have a legal right to do, vis a vis my government, isn’t identical to what I have a moral or social duty to do. Not by a long shot. And I’m damned if I can see why I have to spend a minute defending assholes for being assholes just because they can. They aren’t protecting my free speech rights by policing the boundaries with respect to muslims in other countries because their acts are null and void and meaningless inother countries. And, in fact, they aren’t going to protect any of my rights vis a vis muslims in other countries because these same assholes, the Reason/right wing crowd, have always shown that when they agree with Muslims in other countries: anti gay, anti woman, anti contraception, anti abortion they will make common cause with them over women’s dead bodies.
Under Bush we routinely agreed with the most retrograde of muslim theocracies on issues like abortion, child marriage, and homophobia. If our own right wing also reserves the right to piss on mohammed that doesn’t mean they will fight for a Saudi Woman’s right to drive a car or vote or leave the country without her husband’s permission.
aimai
flukebucket
This Daniel Pipes?
celticdragonchick
@Hob:
I saw the photo some time ago. Mixing artistic expression with bodily waste is just something I find, well, rather disgusting.
I am more of a pre-Raphaelite type…
I just got this one framed…
http://www.picassomio.com/titania-awakening-poster-2000269.html
Chuck Butcher
I generally try to leave religions alone – including atheism. I do that because as a matter of faith the most I can accomplish is to piss people off without affecting an issue. I can’t see the least reason to offend Catholics gratuitously but I can see a real reason to kick the snot out of Catholic leadership for some of their policies – like abuse or pretending that their religion deserves legislative action. I’m quite happy to kick the snot out of any religion that thinks our government or society has to kowtow to them. Finding representations of your messiah offensive is a faith thing, killing people over it is another thing. Poking a stick in the eye of people who believe as a matter of faith that their messiah shouldn’t be drawn is silly versus stomping the shit out of people who’d kill or harm over it.
Beyond that consideration is the one of being offensive simply to be so and being offensive for a specific reason. One is principled and one is assholery. Mohamad as a bomb has an actual point, simply being rude doesn’t. Reason is simply being rude for the sake of it, if their point was the violence of some in Islam they’d have made a point of running the bomb cartoon rather than just “draw Mohamad.”
You’re free to exercise assholery as speech just as you’re free to put up with being called an asshole for it.
dj spellchecka
on the subject of religious extremists who kill, lest we not forget this flashback from 2003
Discussing the battle against a Muslim warlord in Somalia, Lt. Gen. William G. “Jerry” Boykin, the new deputy undersecretary of Defense for intelligence told an audience, “I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.”
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1016-01.htm
A ThousandFaces
@aimai:
Your grandma illustration would carry weight if the “global context” you speak of was not global. If Muslims were ONLY trying to impose their asinine little rule within their own borders or against their own religious adherents, then I would think their little rule was stupid but I might respect their right to it. That is not what is happening. They are using acts of violence to IMPOSE their stupid little rule on everyone else. That is wrong and should be openly mocked, ridiculed and fought against every day.
Morbo
@celticdragonchick: Alright, seriously, are you SE “I’m an atheist, but please stop attacking all the Christians” Cupp? Come clean.
maus
celticdragonchick:
Because we’re supporting the groups INSIDE THESE COUNTRIES fighting for their liberties, rather than suggest we bomb the fuck out of these ladies’ children for their own good and under the pretenses of “feminism”? Because responsible individuals look for ways to encourage modernization that don’t involve mocking the absolute entirety of their culture and beliefs?
You seem to be paying too much attention to the media’s depiction of the neocons as the great world leaders, just because they get the most attention, doesn’t mean that they’re doing the most “work”, or certainly doing the most “good”. Do some independent research, because the mainstream and cable media is never going to give proper attention to liberal causes unless it fits a pre-existing narrative.
celticdragonchick
@aimai:
Not really. I wrote that it should not be left to retrograde idiots like Pam Gellar and Debbie Schussel to do the investigations on a religion that enshrines beliefs that are harmful to women and children (and just about anybody else outside of the religion, for that matter).
Anti religious lampoons of the sort that Reason is talking about will not have any direct positive effect on people within Islam who are suffering from misogyny, lack of education or access to health care etc etc. It is meant to demonstrate that threats from groups like RevolutionMuslim.com will bring about more condemnatory and abusive imagery/speech, and not less.
Brachiator
@JGabriel:
RE: I keep waiting for someone to point out where in the Bill of Rights freedom of speech is reserved for non-assholes …
But it’s not really criticism, which would be fine with me. What I am reading here is some kind of ad hoc pseudo-liberal etiquette in which being an asshole is social sin and a supposed justification for calling for censorship.
I understand the concerns. I got no love for the chumps at Reason. I got no beef with Muslims. People believe whatever they believe. On the other hand, I have a beef with the ignorant superstition that is religion, and my hackles are up whenever any representatives of any religion demand that their faith is out of bounds for criticism, insult or mockery.
@jrg:
I’ve read that Christians have totally misunderstood this and reduced it to a prohibition against swearing, when the Hebrew appears to be more about not using the deity’s name to strengthen an oath.
Indirectly, I view this again as a caution against taking religion and all its baggage of theology, interpretation and redaction as anything other than a humbug.
aimai
@jrg:
jrg,
I don’t get your point here:
That’s historically incorrect and kind of a non sequiteur to boot. “Taking the Lord’s name in vain” was illegal, under early laws relating to blasphemy, because it was supposed to fall under a ban dating back to the ten commandments. When blasphemy laws were allowed to lapse, or not enacted, in new communities there remained a strong taboo against using the name of (a) lord as an intensifier or a curse. This was just customary and, like all local customs, co-existed with frequent usage under certain circumstances. Some people (men) at some times and places (in all male groups, in informal settings) used otherwise blasphemous language freely while restricting themselves in mixed settings. Cultural shifts have produced a modern American vernacular that includes both old euphemisms (Suffering Cats instead of Suffering Christ) and fairly robust and commonplace usage for things that would previously be frowned on (Christ on a cracker). I don’t see what this has to do with queering the language or with various social sub groups taking power over their own language/definitions.
Here’s where your implied analogy breaks down. Reason magazine didn’t ask *well known muslim scholars* and younger, westernized Muslims, and Muslim women, to reflect publicly on the ban against images of Mohammed, what it means to them, and what they think should be done about it. That would have, indeed, been to give them a platform to think and reflect about how they want to take back their own religion from the fundamentalists.
But Reason assumed, and quite rightly, that all the picture and attacks would be drawn by non muslims expressing their contempt for Islamic tradition. I don’t have a problem with that–free speech is messy! as Celticdragonchick said– but we can’t confuse that with any kind of revolutionary or liberation oriented action within the muslim community. It has nothing to do with allowing, or encouraging, actual Muslims to think through and challenge their own experience of their religion. Its explicitly an attack on muslims and on islam wherever they are on the cline from more iconoclastic to less.
aimai
A ThousandFaces
@Chuck Butcher:
The point is that there has been censorship and violence over merely drawing the Prophet. No extra “political cartoon” point is necessary in the act anymore to actually say something, b/c the religious fanaticism has gotten that absurd. Simply making the drawing is the statement. It is NOT rude to draw a picture. It may be offensive to someone for reasons that are entirely unclear to me, but that doesn’t make it their right to threaten violence against someone else b/c they don’t practice the same religious rules.
celticdragonchick
@Morbo:
I am not an atheist, but I am not particularly worried when my faith is targeted for criticism. I am not offended by the play Corpus Christi, although it seems many other Christians are.
I am very offended that I may not be able to see it because some illiberal pre-enlightenment types want to make my entertainment decisions for me and threaten anybody who tries to put it on. Nice.
Citizen Alan
@toujoursdan:
Thank you. That’s another example that I was thinking of but forgot to mention. If Parker and Stone want to impress me with their commitment to Free Speech, let’s see an episode in which Stan and/or Kyle, in response to outrage against some government action, burn an American flag. Then we’ll see some death threats, and from some folks a lot scarier and a lot closer to home than Islamic fundamentalists.
dadanarchist
Exactly the reason I called her ignorant, a suspicion confirmed when she linked to Daniel Pipes…
aimai
@Brachiator:
This is wrong, though:
No one on this thread has called for censorship of Reason or its readers and commenters. Or rather, the only people who have censored this moronic contest are those who called for the contest themselves and then shut down the comment thread when it got too ugly.
Criticism of a practice by non governmental actors is not censorship, its not even on the slippery slope to censorship. Calling for thoughtful political action in place of rabidly stupid pseudo action isn’t censorship its is criticism of a specific practice on the merits.
aimai
maus
@Hob:
Well, I’d say that the media selection bias is why it always seems to appear like the liberals are failing at whatever subject the conservatives claim themselves “morally superior” on. Not that ambiguous moral superiority is what we aim for, but we can usually best them at their game(s), even using their rules.
A ThousandFaces
@aimai:
While it would be nice to have an internal Muslim discussion of the merits of a lot of the things that are happening in their religion, it doesn’t make outside critique invalid. Particularly in this case, because it is no longer an internal matter. Radical Muslims have projected their religious dogma outward. It is now entirely fair and reasonable for “outsiders” to critique the rule that Muslims have decided they want to impose on non-adherents.
Mnemosyne
@celticdragonchick:
So a guy testified twelve (12) years ago that we would see all kinds of Islamic violence happen in our country very shortly and the fact that it, you know, hasn’t happened is absolutely no deterrent to your conviction that it’s totally going to happen one of these days? The fact that he is not only still alive but has published three additional books since this testimony is proof to you that Islamic terrorist threats are censoring writers and journalists in the US?
There are the scary Islamic terrorists in your head, and then there is reality. You really need to be making decisions based on reality, not on what the scary imaginary terrorists in your head are doing.
celticdragonchick
@dadanarchist:
Your overwhelming powers of persuasion leave me speechless.
In the time honored fashion of agumentum ad homium, you make snide, flippant assertions about my intelligence without actually arguing against any point I make. You then wait to cherry pick statements or minor errors in order to build a strawman that has nothing to do with the original argument.
The name of the artist responsible for the oicture is utterly irrelevant to the argument, but you would rather attack that. Pipes has nothing to do with the senate testimony of a journalist targeted for assassination by Islamic extremists, but you would rather attack the host site for the quote rather than attack the quoted testimony.
By all means, please continue. You amuse me.
tim
Call me crazy, but I think “gratutitous insulting,” whether in words, pictures or otherwise, of society’s questionable sacred cows, be they images of Mohammed, Jesus, or Captain Kangaroo, is A VERY HEALTHY THING.
Any act or product that makes people think, pisses them off, or otherwise challenges the bogus status quo, is a good thing.
And I say all of that as a agnostic-leaning Christian.
People just need to deal, and if they can’t deal, then fuck them.
jrg
@aimai:
Other than the fact that one example is intentional, the other is not, I don’t see the difference.
I do see your point WRT lack of input from Muslims, though. Cheers.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
If assholes are going to claim that their assholery is in service of education or taking a principled stand, we have the right to point out that, no, it isn’t, it’s just assholery. That’s what Reason is doing — they’re claiming that their assholery is really a principled stand against censorship by radical Islamists who don’t actually, you know, exist in this country.
If you want to be an asshole about religion, go ahead. Just don’t try to claim that you’re drawing stick figures of Muhammed farting because you’re protesting the excesses of radical Islam so therefore you should be above criticism.
dadanarchist
@celticdragonchick:
Main Entry: ig·no·rant – Pronunciation: ˈig-n(ə-)rənt – Function: adjective – Date: 14th century
1a : destitute of knowledge or education ; also: lacking knowledge or comprehension of the thing specified b : resulting from or showing lack of knowledge or intelligence .
You don’t know who created the image. You express an uninformed opinion on its aesthetic status (“disgusting”). You don’t know who Daniel Pipes is (“I was not aware of any prior problem with Pipes, since I had never heard of him before.”). Apparent unawareness of the different degrees of iconoclasm within and among different branches of Islam. Delusional belief that the idiots at Reason (other than Radley Balko) do anything in good faith.
Yep, you fit the definition.
Instead of snarky righteousness, try refuting Aimai’s points.
tim
@John Cole:
Many acts of mockery or protest or challenge are sincerely intended to make a point, make a difference, whatever.
Simply because many douchebags ALSO perform the same act with intentions you deem impure does not negate the validity of the protest’s core meaning.
tim
@JGabriel:
Drawings of Mohammed can also be a challenge to Muslims to rethink their own reasoning; for instance to confront the fact that many times over the centuries Muslims themselves have depicted Mohammed in visual form.
Stupid thoughts need to be challenged, just because they are stupid.
Also…do you really not see the difference between a picture of Mohammed by itself, and a picture of Mohammed raping kids, as far as where each would land on the scale of alleged “offensiveness” to someone?
That said, I’m all for pictures of Jesus OR Mohammed raping kids. I wouldn’t enjoy looking at them…so I wouldn’t look at them. And that would be the end of it.
celticdragonchick
@Mnemosyne:
I beg your pardon?!
We haven’t seen a lot of Islamic violence directed at suppression of speech….
We have seen rather a lot of Islamic violence in this country.
I seem to recall being put out of work for months on September 12, 2001. I was an aircraft mechanic.
But maybe that Major who shot up the Ft Hood was really a disgruntled Presbyterian.
Now, we all know perfectly (and sadly) well that America is rife with spree killers and workplace shootings. We know that there are some (a handful) religiously motivated Christian killers.
We also know that something about radical Islam gives “permission” to act out in violent fashion…whether that be any number of texts, fatwas from religious authority or cultural mores that are confused with Islamic practice. This is not (at present) really seen with any other major religion. (Yes, Aimai, up until about 300 years ago, Europeans were busying butchering each other and everybody else all in the name of Christ. Now we seem to do it the name of, well, fill in the blank. I will go with Halliburton)
tim
@Brachiator:
I don’t hold your apparent overall view of religion in general, but totally agree with the track you are on here.
A ThousandFaces
@tim:
This. His fixation with Reason seems to stem from the fact that he used to be one of them.
Turbulence
@celticdragonchick: But maybe that Major who shot up the Ft Hood was really a disgruntled Presbyterian.
To be fair, we did start a war for no reason that ended up exterminating a million muslims and creating 4 million refugees. But you’re right, there’s no justification for muslims to kill American soldiers.
Bill Rutherford, Princeton Admissions
Oh for fuck’s sake, it’s not Reason. It’s equally douchey when Dan Savage and Andrew Sullivan get on their clever anti-Islam kicks.
celticdragonchick
@dadanarchist:
The magical powers of projection. (Snarky righteousness indeed, lol!) Perhaps you would do better to try and refute my points. Aimai (whom I respect and admire a great deal )is far better equipped to defend her POV than you are.
Ramiah Ariya
Frankly, can your country quit killing Muslims in “battlefields” such as downtown Baghdad? Can the people drawing Muhammad cartoons rush out and start protesting THAT? There are actually people getting killed, you know, actual humans. You can all sit and draw your heart’s content after you pull out of those two countries you are occupying.
Cacti
So, when is “Draw an Aborted Fetus Day” to protest violent fundamentalist Christians?
maus
@tim:
Slapping people in the face doesn’t cause them to rethink their assumptions. I suggest you try it in every future argument you get into.
Blasphemy to prove a point to the masses only serves an onanistic purpose. Stop the bullshit pretense that it’s being done for any other purpose than to make someone mad.
atheist
The most pathetic part of the “Reason” drawing contest is that, when pressed, they can’t even admit the obvious: they are doing it because they hate Muslims and want to mock their prophet. Seriously, think about that. Is there anything wierder than an asshole who can’t even admit he hates people?
Larv
@celticdragonchick:
I don’t know about dada, but my objection to your Pipes link was that it forces me to go to his site to check it, and I’m unwilling to do so because I think he’s scum and I refuse to give him hits. It does make me wonder how you came to link him, though.
maus
@Ramiah Ariya:
Thinking is for pussies.
dadanarchist
I’m pretty sure that this is not news to most Muslims.
Yes they do. But there are better ways of going about it than a juvenile contest sponsored by a bunch of idiots with a childish philosophy writing on a wingnut welfare website read by cheap cranks and bankrolled by a group of rich, cheap cranks.
Like I said before: want to fight radical Islam, do something constructive like reduce your carbon footprint or vote warmongers out of office.
celticdragonchick
@Turbulence:
Are you claiming that we went to war with Islam, or are you snidely suggesting that a Major had some sort of legitimate religious provocation to take a handgun into a building and begin shooting into a crowd of fellow service members?
tim
@JGabriel:
Have you ever seen “Piss Christ?” It is a beautiful image. Look at the golden light on the figure of Christ.
http://www.uniurb.it/Filosofia/bibliografie/Bataille_GiuliaFrattini/images/Serrano%20Andres,%20Piss%20Christ%201987.jpg
THIS is one of the things art does best: ask questions. Does it matter that the Crucifix is in pee, especially since the resulting image is so beautiful? Why does it matter HOW the image was created? Would anyone who didn’t already know it was in pee ever have figured it out?
Turbulence
We have seen rather a lot of Islamic violence in this country.
Oh, absolutely yes. Not nearly as much violence as we inflicted on Iraqis for no reason whatsoever, but a lot of violence. I mean, Muslims didn’t start a war that killed a million Americans or anything, but it is the thought that counts, yes?
I seem to recall being put out of work for months on September 12, 2001. I was an aircraft mechanic.
Well, that is certainly significant compared to a million dead Iraqis!
Now, we all know perfectly (and sadly) well that America is rife with spree killers and workplace shootings.
Those of us who know statistics actually don’t know that.
We know that there are some (a handful) religiously motivated Christian killers.
We also know that something about radical Islam gives “permission” to act out in violent fashion…
Human beings from every religious and ethnic group believe they’re entitled to kill innocent people. That’s why you don’t feel any shame at all for being an American despite the fact that we started a war over nothing that exterminated a million people. See? You’ve internalized the belief that pointless violence done by Americans is OK. I mean, that’s why you spend so much more time writing about cartoons than about the million corpses.
This is not (at present) really seen with any other major religion.
Indeed. When American Christians started a war that exterminated a million people for no reason, it had nothing to do with religion. And that’s important because wars that have nothing to do with religion don’t actually kill people. That means the million dead Iraqis aren’t really dead. Right?
3D
@JGabriel:
The Offend The Religious With Drawings campaign seems awfully selective, coming from a bunch of supposedly libertarian agnostics and atheists.
I mean, why limit the drawings to Mohammad? Why not draw depictions of Buddha shooting smack, Jehovah with a dildo up his ass, or Jesus raping a 6 year old?
Because Buddhists aren’t threatening violence against people who draw pictures of Buddha shooting smack. Etc.
It’s a protest against people who say “you can’t do something because my religion says so, and if you do, we will kill you.”
The Randroids at Reason seem very parochial in their targets. Hell, I bet Ayn Rand would love that last image: she’d probably even have the 6 year old enjoying it.
You will get no argument from me that they are idiots, however, that doesn’t invalidate any cause they align themselves with.
dadanarchist
That would be one major objection. The other is that someone supposedly so concerned with Islamic extremism has no idea who Daniel Pipes and why she would want to avoid him.
tim
@NobodySpecial:
why do you equate a simple representation of the Prophet alone, with a representation of Jesus fucking a child?
Larv
@tim:
Boy, you must be fun at parties. Do you spit in the punch just to piss everyone else off? We should challenge the status quo of saliva-free beverages in the name of…something!
maus
@3D:
The idea of blasphemy is not stupid. The execution of this is. The justification for the method of execution is as well.
Doing something to make yourself feel good and causing absolutely no external good is the definition of masturbation.
Turbulence
@celticdragonchick: Are you claiming that we went to war with Islam, or are you snidely suggesting that a Major had some sort of legitimate religious provocation to take a handgun into a building and begin shooting into a crowd of fellow service members?
I’m claiming that a Christian nation started a war that exterminated a million Muslims. And that there was no logical basis for this war. I’m claiming that we brought about the slaughter of a million people. For no fucking reason at all. And in all honesty, that’s a moral wrong that I can’t grapple with.
Did we go to war with Islam? No. But we did kill a lot of Muslims. For no reason. And we would never do that shit to white Christians or Jews. We started a pointless war because we didn’t care enough to figure out the truth since Muslim lives aren’t worth anything to us. Even if we never specifically targeted Islam, the fact that we ended up killing a million Muslims can’t be ignored; only an idiot would pretend that Muslims have no right to be angry or enraged or hateful with Americans.
I’m not sure it was wrong for the Major to kill those people. I mean, the killings were totally pointless. But if it is wrong to kill a handful of soldiers, then it is much worse to kill a million people. And I don’t think Americans are willing to accept that.
celticdragonchick
@Larv:
I was googling about death threats from Islamic extremists.
Predictably, the people covering that sort of thing regularly also have an axe to grind (Schussel, the Shrieking Harpy, worldnutdaily). I disregarded anything from them automatically. I had never heard of Pipes, so I though that may be safe. It seems not.
In any event, we leave it to the knuckle draggers to cover and write about things that we actually should be paying more attention to. I would rather that progressives were less afraid of being seen as “culturally insensitive”.
I am all for having an emic viewpoint when it comes down to anthropology, but i am not a fan of absolute cultural relativism. I do not believe all practices and all mores are equally deserving of adulation and acceptance.
Chuck Butcher
A Thousand Faces (reply fail)
The fact that you don’t understand a religious proscription of images of deities or messiahs doesn’t have shit to do with its existence. There are all kinds of religious proscriptions that a whole lot of us don’t understand, so what? I am in no way bound by their proscription since I don’t practice their religion, I also don’t care to gratuitously insult them and I think the practice is simply that – gratuituous insult. I think the bomb cartoon had a real point and fuck ’em in that regard. Priests who abuse children need to be beaten over the head with a four foot crucifix (or otherwise) in cartoons and jailed. Using religion as a basis for harm is flat out mockable as well as grounds for more serious reaction.
It is childish to think that flying the middle finger to any form of organization is somehow constructive or has a point. The fact of high regard (reverence) has nothing to do with outcomes which are certainly mockable or subject to attack. “Fuck Obama” isn’t more than gratuitous insult to the office and the man while there certainly are policies that do suck. “Fuck Bush” falls into the same room while “BushCo” is another thing. The Reason thing is a bunch of middle schoolers flipping boogers for the sake of doing it, it is assholery.
While I don’t practice it, agnosticism is the most reasonable response to theism, atheism is simply another faith but I don’t spend a bunch of time insulting atheists for their faith since it is subject to just as much reasoned discussion as Islam. Think not? Wait for the reaction…
Hob
@tim:
I agree with what I think you mean, but the way you put it lends itself to a lot of posturing by people who aren’t actually challenging the status quo at all– they’re challenging a bogus one, and reinforcing the real one.
I mean, talking shit about Islam, and equating Muslims with terrorists, is already what people do here. I’ve been hearing it since I was a kid in the ’80s. It’s a popular pastime of everyone from drunk rednecks to talk radio hosts to TV pundits. It’s not about taking a stand for anything, it’s just a general fuck-you thing, and no one in this country(*) is actually afraid of having fatwas called down on them. It’s the same kind of thing as a guy talking shit about how black people are all ignorant gangbangers and then saying “I’m politically incorrect! No one’s supposed to say these things– the establishment wants you to say all black people are great! I’m making you think!” Etc. etc. etc. etc.
(* Except celticdragonchick, who thinks one hideous mass attack by foreigners, plus one local guy going postal, equals “rather a lot of Islamic violence”. By those criteria, we’ve had a shitload of Christian violence in this country. Sorry CDC, if that’s your logic, I don’t think there’s any point in me trying to talk to you.)
Mnemosyne
@celticdragonchick:
Not nearly as much as we have seen Christian and/or conservative violence in the same time period.
It wasn’t a Muslim who bombed Oklahoma City.
It wasn’t a Muslim who bombed the Olympics in Atlanta.
It wasn’t a Muslim who opened fire at that Unitarian church in Knoxville.
It wasn’t a Muslim who went to the Holocaust Museum with a gun and killed a security guard.
It wasn’t a Muslim who shot and killed Dr. Tiller.
It wasn’t a Muslim who lay in wait for cops in Pittsburgh and killed three of them because he thought Obama was going to take his guns.
It wasn’t a Muslim who killed 32 people at Virginia Tech.
Dylan Kleibold and Eric Harris weren’t Muslims.
I can keep this up all day, you know. You are in much, much more daily danger from your fellow white Christians than you are from any Muslim. Why waste all of your energy worrying about what the scary Muslims might do when a white guy could crash his small plane into your office building at any minute because he hates the government?
As other people have said, risk assessment has to do with opportunity and probability. How probable is it that one of the rioters in the Netherlands is going to come here and get American Muslims to participate in massive street riots? You seem to think there’s a high probability, so therefore Reason magazine has to gratuitously insult all Muslims because that will somehow protect us from Islamist street riots in Topeka.
JGabriel
@celticdragonchick:
To paraphrase something I’ve heard is in the Bible: ‘ware the plank in your own eye, before criticizing the splinter in another’s.
There are plenty of apocalyptic and violence-approving sects of Christianity in the US. Should you wish to argue that they’re rare, I would counter that such sects are no more common in Islam than Christianity.
There is nothing in Islam that gives “permission” to act out in violent fashion for which parallels in Christianity and/or the Bible cannot be found.
.
dadanarchist
@celticdragonchick:
No snark.
If you are interested in people who write intelligently about Islamism on the internet, try Johann Hari or Juan Cole.
The problem is that those people who write predominantly about the pending Islamic conquest of the West cannot be taken seriously because they completely exaggerate the threat of radical Islam for their own various interests.
Turbulence
We also know that something about radical Islam gives “permission” to act out in violent fashion…
The Vietnam War ended up killing 4 million civilians. What bit of our culture gave us “permission” to act in such a violent fashion? Seriously, I want to know. It wasn’t the Koran, so what was it? The Bible? The Constitution? What?
tim
@JGabriel:
Have you ever seen “Piss Christ?” It is a beautiful image. Look at the golden light on the figure or Christ.
http://www.uniurb.it/Filosofia/bibliografie/Bataille_GiuliaFrattini/images/Serrano%20Andres,%20Piss%20Christ%201987.jpg
THIS is one of the things art does best: ask questions. Does it matter that the Crucifix is in pee, especially since the resulting image is so beautiful? Why does it matter HOW the image was created? Would anyone who didn’t already know it was in pee ever have figured it out?
A ThousandFaces
>Larv:
You’re right.. widespread, violently imposed religious censorship is very similar to spitting in your friend’s punch bowl. This entire thread should win an award for false equivalencies and straw man arguments.
D-Chance.
We should have a counter-“Everybody Draw Jay-zus Day”, just to tweek the Islamophobic morons…
celticdragonchick
@Turbulence:
I’m not sure there is even any point in responding to you, since you seem to have a knee jerk equivalency problem.
The war was with Iraq, not Islam. By your reasoning, we are anti Christian murderers for killing millions of Christian Germans in WW II. After all, German didn’t kill millions of Americans.
That is unworthy of a response. If your kid got shot tonight, hey, what does that matter next to a million dead Iraqis?
It matters a lot to you when you lose your income, your apartment and are begging for food stamps so your kid can eat, fuckwad. I wasn’t feeling really friendly towards anything Islam related at the time, and I was frightened that another “shoe” was about to drop. The administration was able to manipulate that feeling in me and most of the country to do what they wanted.
I can’t ever forgive that, and I can’t really forgive myself for voting for them.
Like those one million dead Iraqi figures based on highly questionable and unproven dataset assumptions?
You have no idea who the hell I am or what I feel. Your arrogance and presumption is obnoxious.
I’m through with you.
JGabriel
@tim:
I have, and I agree, as noted in 108.
Perhaps I need to explain what I argued above:
That “at least” means that the “Draw Mohammad” contest is as silly or sillier. It doesn’t mean that Piss Christ IS silly, just that if Reason (or CDC quoting Reason) wants to argue it, then they’re not on firm ground.
.
A ThousandFaces
@Chuck Butcher:
You don’t think it has a point. I do. The more the taboo is broken and ridiculed the faster it goes away.
tim
@celticdragonchick:
You can’t cite Glenn Greenwald here either without the regulars pissing themselves…which is why it’s fun to watch when someone cites him.
Chuck Butcher
A Thousand Faces
“imposed religious censorship”
Are you a complete and entire twit? What the fuck do you think happens on all broadcast bands in this country? How much explicit sex do you see on CBS? I suppose you’re going to make a case that this isn’t religion based? Do you hear “fuck” real often on the radio or “God damn?” Obscene is an objective measure?
Every time there is a war or other conflict one of the rules you’ll learn is that other side is guilty and our side isn’t even when objectively there’s little difference.
Hob
@celticdragonchick: OK, I do feel like the following is worth a reply, but then I’m going to do my best to stop arguing…
That, like the “anything that shakes people up is good” principle mentioned by tim, is one of those things that sounds kind of noble and just plain doesn’t work at all. So it’s popular with (a) idealistic people who haven’t paid much attention to how people actually behave, and (b) jerks who don’t actually care about the principle but use it to justify what they already wanted to do, i.e. start fights with (c) other people who like fights.
RevolutionMuslim.com (which as far as I can tell consists of a half-dozen guys with a website) would be an example of (c). When people like that make threatening statements, maybe they’re dumb enough to think they’re really going to change the world that way, or maybe they’re just high on self-righteous anger, but either way it’s not as if they’re basing their behavior on whether it immediately results in a decrease or increase in Muhammad cartoons.
Here are three hypothetical interior monologues. I submit that the first two are plausible, and the third one is really really really… not.
1. “I threatened the infidels– and now they’re flaunting their blasphemy even more! Holy crap, do those guys ever piss me off. I believe I’ll threaten them some more.”
2. “I threatened the infidels– and now they’re flaunting their blasphemy even more! Now that they’ve shown their true colors, maybe I’ll finally start getting some donations on this stupid website. Go me!”
3. “I threatened the infidels– and now they’re flaunting their blasphemy even more! The amount of blasphemy in this already-hellbound world has just slightly increased, and it’s indirectly my fault. How depressing. Maybe I’ll try not threatening instead.”
celticdragonchick
@Hob:
Probably not, since I actually try to make distinctions between violence committed in a religious context and with religious motives, and violence committed for other reasons. I am fascinated to see your ‘shitloads’ of Christian violence, though. By your apparent standards, every day in America is another day for Christian mass murder since most of the criminals are at least nominally “Christian”.
Also, maybe you forgot about the first attack on the WTC, (which very nearly succeeded in bringing down one tower because of the proximity to a critical load bearing structure), the EL AL counter July 4 shooting, numerous plots that are being handled by the Justice Dept, two attempted (and fortunately incompetent) airline bombings…
Selective memory and trying to compare religiously motivated hate with other types of criminal action. I applaud you!
JGabriel
@Ramiah Ariya:
Excellent point, Ramiah. Thank you for contributing.
.
dadanarchist
So, a bunch of drawings of Mohammed by a bunch of embittered gun-humping, cheapskate get-off-my-lawn types on a glibertarian wingnut welfare site funded by cheap assholes is going to somehow help convince 1 billion Sunni Muslims that their objection to images of the prophet is a stupid taboo that should be done away?
Fuck, man, why not just build a Rube Goldberg machine?
A ThousandFaces
@Chuck Butcher:
More false equivalencies. I never said all censorship was bad or unwarranted in ALL things. But if you want to continue to defend death threats and violent riots over stick figures, then have at it.
celticdragonchick
@Hob:
Interesting and probably true, but that is also how this culture (as in America) tends to roll.
Telling me that my speech is offensive to your religion and that you need to kill me IAW your beliefs will not tend to make me shut up. Quite the opposite.
tim
@maus:
Four things: Do you really not get the difference, at least in western society, between physically assaulting someone, and drawing a picture?
And by what omniscient powers do you discern that everyone who draws a picture of Mohammed just wants to piss someone off?
And if that IS all they want to do, what’ swrong with that? The pissed off person is the one who decides to be pissed off.
If I draw a picture depicting the sequence of processes involved in the theory of evolution, am I needlessly pissing off fundamentalist wacko “christians” who believe god created the world in a week?
A ThousandFaces
@dadanarchist:
Yes. Because at a certain point it becomes too much work to threaten that which is ubiquitous. Lrn2History.
Chuck Butcher
ATF
“The more the taboo is broken and ridiculed the faster it goes away.’
You’re pretty damn selective aren’t you – like exactly how often do you fuck in the middle of the street in broad daylight? But your point is that Islam ought to be insulted while you stick to societal behaviors? You propose that sex is more degrading or harmful than warfare or war movies? You want to thrash around to justify rudeness for its own sake on an easy target while ignoring your own that’s your business, but expect a push back.
celticdragonchick
@tim:
I noticed that also. It is a shame, since he is interesting even when he is being annoying.
Turbulence
@celticdragonchick: The war was with Iraq, not Islam. By your reasoning, we are anti Christian murderers for killing millions of Christian Germans in WW II. After all, German didn’t kill millions of Americans.
Look, a handful of Muslims attacked the US and killed a few thousand people. They didn’t represent the governments of any Muslim countries. They were just a random group of nutjobs. And you use that to claim that Muslims are attacking Americans because of their religion. When a Christian nation starts a war that kills a million Muslims, you don’t say “we started that war because we are Christians.” Even though the war represents the approval of a lot more Christians. Do you see the difference here?
That is unworthy of a response. If your kid got shot tonight, hey, what does that matter next to a million dead Iraqis?
Losing your job is nothing like watching your child die. You lost your job. A lot of Muslims in Iraq watched their children die. I wouldn’t have brought it up if your kid had died, but since the worst thing you suffered was losing your job….
It matters a lot to you when you lose your income, your apartment and are begging for food stamps so your kid can eat, fuckwad.
There are a lot of Muslims in Iraq that would dream of having it so good. Seriously, the life you describe is much much better than what millions of Iraqis experienced. In all the writing and raging you’ve done about freedom of speech and Muslims oppressing you, did you ever stop to consider the lives of all those Muslims we killed for no reason?
Like those one million dead Iraqi figures based on highly questionable and unproven dataset assumptions?
Yawn. Another ignorant person who doesn’t know a damn thing about statistics or demography or epidemiology critiquing multiple peer reviewed studies published in respected scientific journals. Look, if you have a substantiative criticism to make, then make it. But if you don’t, then STFU.
You have no idea who the hell I am or what I feel. Your arrogance and presumption is obnoxious.
I’m through with you.
I know that a bunch of fucking cartoons is much more important to you than a million dead Muslims who were killed for no reason. I mean, you write a LOT more about the cartoons than the dead Muslims, right? Maybe I’m wrong…can you point me to where you’ve written as much about dead Iraqis? I’ll wait.
tim
@Larv:
That’s a very stupid reply. As you know, I am talking about exchange and challenge of ideas, and you’re talking about phsyically spitting into punch bowls..
celticdragonchick
@dadanarchist:
I am familiar with Cole. I hadn’t heard of Johann Hari. Thanks.
Ash Can
@Ramiah Ariya: Second JGabriel. Thanks for your insight.
maus
@tim: But it doesn’t change the status quo. Your self-importance is way out of whack, like the people who change their Twitter locations in “solidarity” or the people who sign internet petitions, only far more smug.
@tim:
Both are “challenging social convention” and both achieve just as much success in getting the other side to accept your views as rational.
tim
@Hob:
I take your point, but I am really just talking about people who freak out at a simple, unadorned depiction of a man labeled as Mohammed. Or a depiction of Mohammed as a trasvestite, whatever, for that matter. It’s a fucking picture, get over it.
dadanarchist
I’m a historian and you’re wrong.
Taboo-breaking tends to do two things: 1. Some people stop obeying the taboo (and replace it with other taboos). 2. Those who still follow the taboo do so even more devotedly than before.
I’m sorry to tell you but assholery is not the motor of history.
tim
@JGabriel:
I also thought the Chocolate Jesus was very cool looking. People are weird how they choose to get worked up about these things…and then commenters here rush to defend their stupid reactions.
JGabriel
celticdragonchick:
I don’t really see how it changes the thrust of Turbulence’s argument, or the value of their lives, if we use any of the more commonly accepted counts of Iraqi war dead in the hundreds of thousands.
It’s still a lot of dead people, killed either by us or as a result of our actions.
.
Chuck Butcher
ATF
“if you want to continue to defend death threats and violent riots”
So now you’ve pissed me off asshole. You can shove your self-righteous stupidity up your ass so it can find your head. You stick words and actions of your construction into what I’ve written and talk to me about false equivelence? You are a lying fuckwad, quote me once or own that asshole.
RSA
@A ThousandFaces:
Morally equivalent by some lights is all I was saying.
Turbulence
@tim: I take your point, but I am really just talking about people who freak out at a simple, unadorned depiction of a man labeled as Mohammed. Or a depiction of Mohammed as a trasvestite, whatever, for that matter. It’s a fucking picture, get over it.
So, can you point to any Muslims that have freaked out and threatened violence over the image of Mohammed on the Supreme Court building? If you can’t, will you admit that maybe the driving force here isn’t just stick figures and neutral drawings but public demonstrations of contempt for Muslims?
celticdragonchick
@Turbulence:
Rage on dude. We can write about dead Iraqis 24/7. Maybe you will feel better with your smug feeling of moral superiority.
Maybe you can tell me again how the hell one has to do with the other…especially since we were not talking about Iraqis to begin with.
By the way, maybe you can cite your bullshit one million dead number.
Johns Hopkins came up with 645,965.
Still an obscene amount, but you want to play with numbers.
3D
@atheist: @atheist:
The most pathetic part of the “Reason” drawing contest is that, when pressed, they can’t even admit the obvious: they are doing it because they hate Muslims and want to mock their prophet. Seriously, think about that. Is there anything wierder than an asshole who can’t even admit he hates people?
I don’t hate Muslims, I think most of them are good people. Most Muslims are not threatening violence against people who draw cartoons, only a minority are. The same way most Christians do not really follow their crazy religion by stoning their kids or owning slaves; they ignore the parts of their religion that do not fit int contemporary society.
But some of them do, that’s why there’s a protest.
JGabriel
celticdragonchick:
I can honestly say that no one has ever, personally, told me that.
You meet some interesting people, CDC.
.
maus
@tim:
What a childishly simplistic take on this whole issue.
While I agree that it’s “just a fucking picture” and am an atheist, “get over it” is an absurd mantra and shows you have no interest in what anyone else thinks or believes. Why do you expect that anyone should care what you have to say if you’re just shouting to hear your own voice?
celticdragonchick
@JGabriel:
True. Still, he wants scoff at basic cultural assumptions I work with and then throw around unsubstantiated claims as proof of whatever it is he is arguing.
Corner Stone
@dadanarchist:
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed assholes can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” William “Billy Boy” Kristol
JGabriel
@celticdragonchick:
No wonder we Americans have such a good reputation for cultural sensitivity.
.
celticdragonchick
@JGabriel:
That is basically what happened to the South Park team.
maus
@celticdragonchick: So fucking what? I’ve gotten death threats from moderating an internet site. The people who said it to me probably had more interest in doing so than the people who made the vague threats to Matt & Trey.
celticdragonchick
@JGabriel:
Shall we write about how the Scots were butchered at Culloden? Small pox infected blankets to the Native Americans? Irish men, women and children rounded up by the thousands and shipped to Barbados in Slave ships as nuns were raped in forced breeding programs on the island? The Triangle trade? Violence and sexual degradation of African American women (I have actually written a paper on that one)? The Japanese massacres of Chinese civilians at Nanjing? 20,000,000 dead Russians (give or take depending who you read)in WW II?
I can find a lot to be morally outraged over. I get exhausted.
Chuck Butcher
“South Park team”
If you take that thing seriously as a cultural critique you need a bit of help, it manages childish entertainment for profit by tweaking easy targets. I’m pretty sure that if they bothered to tweak your particular “issues” you’d lose your mind quick enough – since for no more than profit drives their stuff…
atheist
@tim:
Dude, are you kidding me? It’s “beautiful” to submerge a crucifix in piss? It “raises questions”? The only question it raises is, “what the fuck is this nonsense”?
It was dumb trollery when Serrano did it, and it’s dumb trollery now when “Reason” enagages in the same behavior.
celticdragonchick
@maus:
Apparently, Comedy Central didn’t see it that way.
atheist
@3D:
3D, honestly, you can claim whatever you want, but nobody is fooled. Least of all a bunch of Muslims, who are supposedly the target.
celticdragonchick
I’m out for the rest of the day. Keep it down to a dull roar… :)
JGabriel
@celticdragonchick: Perhaps, but overall, I think you might want to take a break from the arguing. You’ve made your points, and now you’re pushing into the land of the absurd.
Nothing personal, I’ve done it too. But once you get there, the responses just turn to mocking instead of legitimate arguments. It does tend to provide easy targets for smart-ass remarks.
Consider this a response to your comment at 300, too.
Edited to add: Oops, you already got there. Take care.
.
dadanarchist
AWESOME
Morbo
@celticdragonchick: Name one example. Revolution Islam does not count.
Turbulence
@celticdragonchick:
Rage on dude. We can write about dead Iraqis 24/7.
I’m not talking about we. I’m talking about you. You do not appear to have written much about dead Iraqis. Am I mistaken? Again, you seem much more concerned about the threat of Muslims killing Americans than with Americans killing Muslims, even though Americans have killed a whole lot more Muslims of late than vice versa.
Maybe you will feel better with your smug feeling of moral superiority.
Thinking about this makes me feel like a german who did nothing when the Jews next door were taken away. That’s not exactly “smug” or “moral superiority” now is it?
Maybe you can tell me again how the hell one has to do with the other…especially since we were not talking about Iraqis to begin with.
The vast majority of Iraqis are Muslim.
You claimed that we had seen a great deal of violent acts committed in the US by Muslims. My point was that Muslims in the US have done absolutely nothing compared to what American Christians have done in Iraq. You can’t even compare the scale of the violence we’ve unleashed. But this Muslim violence is central to your point: if there’s no significant violence, then this whole thing is kind of pointless. I think it is degrading to bitch about how much Muslims kill us because of their irrational Muslim hatred without acknowledging that we, brilliant secular Americans that we are, killed a whole lot more Muslims because we just don’t care.
Look, you seem to make distinctions between Christians killing people for no reason and Christians killing people “because” of their Christian beliefs. Those distinctions are very cute. Adorable really. But I don’t really care. At the end of the day, there’s still a pile of mutilated child corpses. And those children are equally dead whether they were killed because of religion or because Americans just hate brown people or because George Bush was strung out on coke that day. It doesn’t matter. People in Iraq look at us and think we’re insane murdering psychos because…we are. A lot of them probably think that we’re insane murdering psychos because we’re (mostly) Christian. Maybe they’re right. Maybe not. I don’t care. What they are right about is that we kill on a vast scale, without remorse.
By the way, maybe you can cite your bullshit one million dead number. Johns Hopkins came up with 645,965. Still an obscene amount, but you want to play with numbers.
See Tim Lamber’s calculations here. The 600K number is totally reasonable if you believe that violence in Iraq terminated in early to mid 2006. And that might be a reasonable assumption to make except for the fact that right around then violence spiked dramatically, so much so that it was no longer safe to conduct studies in Iraq.
But hey! If you believe that violence goes away when you stop looking at it (i.e., when it becomes too violent to send survey teams into the field), then yeah, “only” 646,000 Iraqis were exterminated by our pointless little war. Whoohoo!
JGabriel
@tim:
That didn’t do quite as much for me. It seemed like an oversized Easter basket candy.
.
Turbulence
@celticdragonchick: Shall we write about how the Scots were butchered at Culloden? Small pox infected blankets to the Native Americans? I can find a lot to be morally outraged over. I get exhausted.
Remind me again: were the Native Americans butchered in the last few years? Has anyone here claimed that Native Americans have killed an awful lot of Americans lately?
I didn’t bring up the dead Iraqis because I think we should always be talking about our mass killings. I brought them up because YOU specifically wrote that Muslims have committed lots of violent attacks against Americans in the US. Are you really so thick that you don’t get that?
Brachiator
@aimai:
RE: a supposed justification for calling for censorship.
I take your point here. However, the tone of the comments lean to hand wringing over the impact of a cartoon depiction, and there is a wrongheaded consensus that such lampooning should not be done. I don’t think any of the reasons against doing the cartooning are valid, and most of the comments try to assert a totally false idea that free expression is supposed to be reserved for “worthy” issues. It is not explicitly a call for censorship, but it is equally dumb.
The call for “thoughtful political action” is actually intellectual cowardice. There ain’t no merit to this.
One might argue a conflict between two equally valid points of view. On the one hand, you have freedom of expression, which can be raucous, impudent and rude. On the other you have an interpretation of Islam that the Prophet can never be depicted in an image. However, the idea that anyone can demand that a secular society is obliged to defer to the tenets of any faith — or even make sure that they never insult any particular faith — is bull pucky.
Larv
Jesus, do you not see how blithe and dismissive this sounds? Iraq is a) something done by our own government and b) ongoing, which differentiates it from all of your cute examples. I’d think somebody opining about the value of the emic perspective would get this. The little rhetorical yawn I quoted above is just gob-smackingly callous. But considering that you’ve been engaged all thread in a defense of random assholery, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.
Felonious Wench
Reason does not have some kind of pure motive of Protecting Free Speech or Speaking Out Against Religious Dogma. They’re not being anti-brown bigots. They’re being assholes to get exactly the reaction we’re providing here. It’s about provoking with no intended outcome other than to provoke. Which, in my opinion, is being a big fucking asshole to say “Look at me! I can be an asshole! Are you offended yet? Huh? Huh?” And of course, as many of us prove on this blog daily, everyone has the right to be an asshole in this country.
Now we’re all talking about Reason. Look at the attention they’re getting! Mission accomplished.
As for Christian violence vs. Muslim violence, all parties are guilty as charged. Full stop. Neither religion has a worse record here. We can quote the Koran for death threats, and we can quote the Bible too. We have violent Muslims and Christians in this country. Neither is a greater threat than the other.
And as a Christian who has no desire to kill any of you today, I could care less how you depict Jesus, God, the Virgin Mary, or any other symbol of my faith. Why should I care? Mock away. I don’t think God needs me to defend her, really. If she’s got an issue, she’ll smite you straight to hell, you godless heathens.
/end affectionate snark
suzanne
@atheist:
I’m with Tim here. Looking at “Piss Christ” led me to think about why we reflexively think of bodily fluids as desecration and filthy, especially because piss is sterile. Also, the crucifix itself is made of plastic, the manufacture of which was probably polluting and wasteful. But anything associated with the body is inherently thought of as unclean (whereas the mechanical production of the crucifix is considered cleaner), which is interesting to me, since Christ was supposedly God in one of those dirty, unclean bodies, and therefore, the dude Himself had to piss.
The composition of the photo and the light quality are really remarkable. Typically, depictions of Christ on the cross are axially oriented, but the crucifix is angled to the picture plane in a way that is typical of human subjects, thereby underscoring again the human rather than God-like quality of Christ. The light and the piss bubbles both illuminate the crucifix in greater relief (again, intensifiying the material quality of the crucifix and by extension, Christ himself) but also give the photo a similar “halo” effect that is common in painted depictions from the Renaissance to the Academy. (The best academic art, of course, had no brushstrokes, all evidence of the artist’s presence was eliminated; in “Piss Christ”, Serrano confronts us with it, even while using the mechanical medium of photography.)
So, um, just because you didn’t get anything out of it doesn’t mean there was nothing to get out of it.
maus
@celticdragonchick:
And it’s their right to not assume the liability.
Sheesh, I can’t believe libertarians and those bigoted against Muslims are making me support corporate self-censorship.
dadanarchist
@Turbulence:
She is executing the classic Will-You-Condemn rhetorical maneuver. It’s a classic distraction technique to forgive the monstrous actions of war criminals.
atheist
@Turbulence:
Turbulence, thanks for saying what I wanted to say about deaths in the “War on Terror”/Iraq, but saying it much better.
maus
@atheist:
So were you angry when you failed community college art 101, or did you take it well?
atheist
@suzanne:
If you say so… to me, “Piss Christ” is just a particularly pretentious form of conceptual art.
atheist
@maus:
Anger is an energy.
gil mann
Me, I’m just looking forward to the deluge of incredibly shitty cartoons. Thanks for convincing everyone that they can draw, XKCD. Thanks a lot.
maus
@gil mann: I also blame Penny Arcade for being an average web comic and learning to successfully draw/write over the years. The also-rans that followed them, not so much. At least XKCD writes better than Userfriendly, barf.
celticdragonchick
@dadanarchist:
I would laugh at your hogwash if it were not so pathetic.
Could you possibly come up with a more portentious and preposterous example of deliberately misconstruing another person’s words?
I get my blood pressure up about a lot of things. All I have to do is read about the latest police state obscenity at The Agitator…
I am in no position to do anything about Hobbesian massacres in Iraq. I cannot stop Shia and Sunni militias from butchering each other. I cannot stop the Janjaweed in Darfur, nor can I free the miserable people in gulags in North Korea. I can affect what is immediately around me, and that is my friends and family.
I do believe in the saying “If you aren’t outraged, you aren’t paying attention”.
Eventually, however, I have to let go to a certain extent.
cartoons!
If, in the current climate, any other religion or creed happened to be in the position that radical Islam is now in — using threats and violence as silencing tools, invading the right to free expression (no matter how wrongly used) — I’d be willing to bet that Reason would take part in an “Everybody ______ ______ Day” (whatever act would actively say “yes, we actually can and will express this), aimed towards whatever radical sect of religion is making the intrusion on expression.
Many varying tyes of radical religious people have been guilty of fear-mongering and abuse. But not right now — at least not to this extreme, over such small things, with (and I really believe this) the cost potentially so high (artists living in fear for drawing a pic).
Reason may be wrong in their blind faith to un-restricted free-market, but I believe their devotion to free speech is honest and consistant.
And I know, killing abortion doctors is wrong, and if there were an “Everybody ____ _____ Day” that would call it out, raise awareness, send a message, and enlarge the pool of targets (ie, put a bit of the risk on myself, to slightly lessen it for others), I’d be for it — even if some may be uncomfy because of it.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
I’m pretty sure the actual consensus is that if you’re going to create cartoons in order to be an asshole, you shouldn’t hide behind a claim that you’re somehow striking out at Islamist extremism and whine that the people pointing out that you’re being an asshole just aren’t getting your serious purpose behind drawing a cartoon of Mohammed as a pedophile.
At least Bill Hicks and George Carlin were trying to get people to look at the world in a different way when they were offensive. What brand new way of looking at Muslims did a cartoon showing Mohammed as a terrorist with a bomb give the world? I’ve been seeing that portrayal of Muslims-as-terrorists since at least 1982. It’s not exactly groundbreaking at this point.
Mnemosyne
@celticdragonchick:
Your defense would make more sense if you had actually used examples that happened within the past, oh, 50 years to explain your disinterest in the current, ongoing war in Iraq.
Seriously, you find outrage about the current and ongoing death toll in Iraq to be exactly the same as being outraged about the massacres that followed the battle of Culloden in 1746? I think that may be one of the signs of a sociopath.
Joel
This boils down quite simply:
“Reason” is afflicting the afflicted, and comforting the comfortable.
Now, if it were satirists based in, you know, one of the fundamentalist nations in the world, that would be something altogether different.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
It’s assholery. So what? Wow. They’re assholes. This is meaningful how? Seriously. I know this is a summary judgment by many commenters in this blog. But again, this is a summary judgment detached from any reasonable argument against doing cartoons.
I have no idea what this means. None.
An earlier comment presents a very good aesthetic argument about the Piss Christ representation. It ignores the question of whether the religious people should feel outraged any denies that the artist is being an asshole about religion. Because it doesn’t matter.
Same with mockery of Islam or any other religion. And that goes double for people who are just “spiritual.”
maus
@Brachiator:
It’s relevant because being an asshole for the sole purpose of being an asshole makes one by extension an asshole :p
Free speech doesn’t make you immune from judgement and being called an asshole. The issue isn’t the argument AGAINST making cartoons, it’s the questionable reasons for doing so. Questionable both in the loathing of Islam, loathing of religion, and in the real-world effect on those areas who follow the fear of graven images.
Turbulence
It is rather stunning how the Reason defenders haven’t grappled with the fact that Muslims around the world generally don’t care about neutral stick figure drawings. That’s why they don’t riot over the Supreme Court facade. They care about people going out of their to say “Hey Muslims! Fuck You!”…especially when those same people just started a pointless war that killed a million Muslims.
Ed Marshall
It’s sort of similar to following around an Orthodox Jew all day and writing the names of God on pieces of paper and tossing them on the ground because it would be funny to have to watch them pick them all up and collect them to take to a Genizah.
You need to explain *why* you are doing that and it needs to be better than one of them might finally get pissed and off you for being an ass.
maus
@Brachiator:
The photograph, while definitely provocative and on the surface level as assholish, achieves a different and more academic context when in a gallery where people are intended to examine the aesthetics and blasphemy, and the interaction between both. The viewers of the web comics are not being encouraged to think in the process and display of such materials.
Larv
@Turbulence:
What Turb said. And maus immediately before him. It’s not drawing cartoons of Mohammed that’s bad, it’s doing so for no reason other than to piss off some extremists, and not caring that you’re mocking and disrespecting a much larger number of not-extremist Muslims in the process.
suzanne
@Brachiator:
Quite frankly, I don’t really know if Serrano was *intending* to be an asshole about religion, but, yeah, you’re right. It doesn’t matter. *Should* religious people be offended? Sure, they can be if they want, and maybe Serrano *was* trying to be offensive and I’m wrong. The thing that just makes me sad for those people is that, in their haste to be offended, they missed out on thinking about the things I was thinking about, which I found really quite personally rewarding.
But that’s what makes good art worthwhile, and Reason’s little thought exercise not very worthwhile. Pissing off people for the sake of pissing them off is legal, defensible, and just fucking boring.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
Really? Reason claims that it’s having its readers send in Muhammed cartoons to strike a blow for freedom against religious oppression and you have no idea what I mean when I say that they’re being assholes and trying to give themselves an excuse for their assholery that’s supposed to make the rest of us shut up?
Reason has a perfect right to act like a bunch of assholes in this matter. I have a perfect right to point out that their actions are actually counterproductive to their stated goal, so clearly their stated goal is not the reason for this demonstration of assholery. See? Everyone’s happy except you, who thinks that freedom of speech means that no one is allowed to criticize people for being assholes.
Mnemosyne
@suzanne:
Have you ever noticed that these right-wing or libertarian writers who claim they’re being “edgy” with their non-PC language always end up sounding like a Henny Youngman routine from 1952?
I know retro is in, but this is ridiculous.
empty
@celticdragonchick:
… and you congratulated him on being a free speech warrior and reevaluated your lifestyle.
maus
@Mnemosyne:
Partially, but I do appreciate that there’s a “South Park Conservative” category of political thought, because it pretty much embodies all the bad libertarian/republican humor of the last ten or fifteen years. Everybody wants to be Stan and Kyle, but all of them end up Cartman who they secretly admire, or actively emulate.
So very pathetic, especially the faux-libertarians.
@empty: oh snap!
celticdragonchick
@Mnemosyne:
I will give that all the due consideration that it deserves, considering your considerable counseling experience with persons in a debate thread. I am excited to learn of any papers you will publishing on this topic in any peer reviewed journals.
celticdragonchick
@empty:
??????????????????
Turbulence
@celticdragonchick: I think empty’s point is this: in this thread, you’ve claimed that efforts to insult Muslims around the world will force them to reevaluate their religion and rethink their lives. But that’s not how people react to being insulted. You were insulted, and you probably didn’t react by congratulating the asshole who insulted you for being such a brave free-speech radical. His insult probably did not motivate you to reevaluate your life in any serious way. Because human beings don’t do those things when people insult them.
empty’s comment was hilarious because it shows how your own behavior is inconsistent with how you expect Muslims to react to the cartoon insults.
celticdragonchick
@Turbulence:
His insult was so over the top I could not take it seriously. I laughed at him.
Other people in the thread did get rather angry at his comment though. My reaction does not really fit into our paradigm here.
I would add that while I agree that people do not change their ways based on insults from another person, it is equally applicable that people in a highly individualistic culture like ours often do not back down and be “polite” when threatened. That is kinda the point of this whole exercise from reason.
maus
@celticdragonchick:
A culture is not backing down and being “polite” when threatened for no purpose but smug satisfaction.
Turbulence
@celticdragonchick: My reaction does not really fit into our paradigm here.
Yes it does. You rejected it. The fact that you didn’t take it seriously does not change the fact that you rejected it out of hand.
Make no mistake, most Muslims who see your little cartoon festival are, at best, going to think “oh stupid white people — is there any religion/culture that you won’t hate on just because you are bigoted?”. They’re not going to take this seriously, just like you didn’t take your asshole seriously. They’re going to conclude, correctly I think, that you and the Reason cartoonists are ignorant people who don’t even understand what you’re insulting. And that you have nothing of value to teach them.
And they’re right! You’ve got no explanation for the fact that Muslims don’t give a fuck about the giant frieze of Mohammad on the Supreme Court building or any of the famous depictions of Mohammad in Islamic art. They give a fuck about being insulted.
I would add that while I agree that people do not change their ways based on insults from another person, it is equally applicable that people in a highly individualistic culture like ours often do not back down and be “polite” when threatened. That is kinda the point of this whole exercise from reason.
Ah I see. There was never any expectation that this would change any Muslims’ minds. This was all about making you and the Reason-oids feel better about yourselves. It was just a primal scream so that you could feel in control. Why you folks needed do this and why you couldn’t find a way to work out your own pathologies without insulting a billion people eludes me. But thanks for finally admitting that this was just cheap therapy for you.
Of course, no one made any threats except for one tiny nutbag group run by a Jewish convert, but hey, the fact that one guy out of a billion Muslims on earth got mad totally justifies insulting the other billion people.
MarkusR
I have to LOL at the Reason’s reason to shutting down comments. They throw a drunken party and then wonder why it got out of control.
William
@Turbulence:
Wow, nicely put.
It amazes me that Osama bin Laden was entirely frank about his desire to stir up enmity between the West and Islam and still has been so successful. But celticdragonchick’s “highly individualistic” people insist on all acting out, in concert, the script he wrote.
3D
3D, honestly, you can claim whatever you want, but nobody is fooled. Least of all a bunch of Muslims, who are supposedly the target.
Who’s trying to fool anybody? The stated reason for the protest is out there. I agree with it. If a US law was passed tomorrow that we’re not allowed to mock Jesus Christ under penalty of death I would support a similar protest. It’s about censorship.
Are you comfortable with the concept that you’re not allowed to draw certain images under penalty of death? How about not being allowed to write stuff? Songs? Is that all OK with you?
Everyone has a right to believe what they want. With that right comes responsibilities, one of them being the responsibility not to try to force everyone in the world to follow those beliefs.
3D
@Turbulence: @suzanne: @atheist:
@tim:
Dude, are you kidding me? It’s “beautiful” to submerge a crucifix in piss? It “raises questions”? The only question it raises is, “what the fuck is this nonsense”?
I agree! And when I looked at it, I laughed it off. I didn’t decide to threaten to kill anyone over it. Did you? Did anyone?
It was dumb trollery when Serrano did it, and it’s dumb trollery now when “Reason” enagages in the same behavior.
The idiots at “Reason” didn’t create this idea, they just latched onto it like a barnacle. It’s an atheist protest.