“It is not worth the while to go round the world to count the cats in Zanzibar” - Henry David Thoreau
There is one religion in the world that kills you when you disagree with them and they say ‘look, we are a religion of peace and if you disagree we’ll f—ing cut your head off,’
Bill Maher, and Andrew Sullivan, and Eliot Spitzer, ELIOT SPITZER for Gods sake, of all people, as well as some anchor from BBC America, all talking sense!!!!!!
Free speech is about the state dictating what is or is not acceptable, it is not about free people freely expressing contempt for contemptible behaviour.
Refusal to finance a platform for thugs to spew their venomous bile does not constitute censorship.
Financing a platform constitutes support.
paraphrased from Lord Vetinari
"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."
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Sense from Andrew Sullivan..?!? Is this one of the Signs of the coming Apocalypse?
When they say Islam is a religion of peace what they mean is that they are working towards the peace they believe will come when the whole world is under Islam. To get to that point they will have to kill a whole load of infidels like me.
Well damn! Not before bloody time.
What is significant from that video is there is an admission that Karzai was actually behind this, that he is just as (religiously) bad as the nutjobs we kicked out to make way for him, and the realisation that US/UK soldiers are still shedding blood for him to keep him there.
Afghanistan has been a classic end game clusterf*ck, the golden opportunity of spreading liberty to that part of the world was strangled when they allowed Shariah as part of the new constitution, this may have been considered a mistake but they’ve done it in Iraq as well, so it’s really a tragedy.
It’s as if the allies liberated France in 1944 and put someone like Le Pen in charge.
Ian,
We already knew that about Karzai. That is old news, and a reason to treat him as part of the problem, not the solution.
Refreshing to hear the MSM talking sense indeed, but the bottom line here is freedom of speech, some folks, like the Pastor or the lady on Lynne’s thread below, have it, courtesy of the first amendment of the American Constitution, and we, in Britain don’t.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/apr/09/bnp-candidate-arrested-quran-burning
However childish and futile we may think burning a Koran to be, in America you will not be knicked for it. As mentioned, the likes of Senator Graham would like people to knicked for it, but he’s out of luck.
In Britain on the other hand we had one of our cuddly Muslim brothers fined for burning a poppy. There was an outcry! The outcry was that he had only been fined £50. Well my outcry is that he was prosecuted for anything at all. Yes he’s an evil little fuck, and we’ve got his cards marked, but he should be entitled to be an offensive evil little fuck if he wants to be.
Free Speech is dead in the UK.
“Free Speech is dead in the UK”
I don’t hold with premature death certificates, mainly because waking up in a coffin isn’t nice.
Free Speech isn’t even dead in Ecuador, even though the President currently has various criminal proceedings open against journalists for daring to criticise him (assuming a guilty verdict is returned, they will get jail time, as well as owing Correa hundreds of millions of dollars). How many people spent years in jail for calling Blair a liar? There you are then. Free speech in the UK and elsewhere is riddled with various life threatening diseases in various stages of progression, by all means. But pronouncing something dead is a way of going gentle into that good night, where rage would be a much more constructive response.
Free speech either is or it isn’t. It is not a relative concept.
So I stand by my statement. Freedom of speech is dead in the UK. As the link above says… Burn a Koran in Britain and you get arrested. Burn one in the States and the Man can do nothing about it but Tut Tut.
We have a relative freedom of speech in Britain, so no freedom at all, using the little bit pregnant metophor. We now have Hate speech laws, mingled with Race Laws, with Human Rights laws, that you have to look over your shoulder every time you open your mouth for fear of offending someone, because taking offence is now all it takes, whether real or imagined. What happened to sticks and stones…? I LIKE offending people! Where are my human rights?
Bill Maher talked sense - but remember he (look everyone on the left) GETS A PASS.
If someone on Fox News had said these things about Islam and Muslims - the media would attack them savagely, and their would be campaigns to get them off television (violent threats to advertisers and so on).
Not just from radical Muslims - but also from the mainstream secular left. But when Maher says ….. then nothing (no campaign to get him off television - nothing). It is easy to say things - when you do not have to pay a price for saying them.
Remember Mr Maher has even has the radical Muslim Congressman on his show (the one who forced out phony tears during Congressman King’s hearings - to show how “hateful” the very idea of holding hearings was). Bill Maher attacked Islam in front of the Muslim Congressman and…. NOTHING, no campaign against Maher.
The alliance between the left and radical Islam would be under theat of Maher was attacked - so FOR THE PRESENT he gets a pass.
As for the others.
One guy did not speak at all.
The Kitty Cat lady spoke sense - agreed.
So did former Governer Spitzer - especially about President K. who is a total scumbag (when the Obama Administration allowed him to rig his reelection the Afghan war was doomed).
But Andrew Sullivan mainly used the event to smear John McCain.
I am not a McCain fan - but he was not the person murdering people in Afghanistan.
Oh by the way - it IS Muslims in the West Andrew Sullivan (”just places like Afghanistan” NO), you stupid man.
Muslims in the United States (not far from the studio where you were broadcasting from) would kill you - just for your homosexual acts (even leaving aside what you say).
Free speech in Britain:
RAB is correct.
I wish he was not - but he is.
“But you talk freely Paul”.
Yes - and by mainstream interpretations of existing statutes I already break the law.
Being a person who is prepared to risk punishment is not the same thing as a country that has free speech.
So in terms of free speech there are no significant differences between, say, China, Cuba, Venezuela, Germany and the UK, since it is simply “dead” in all those places? (And since the difference between two corpses are of interest only to coffin-measurers).
Well, it’s one point of view. I guess all that’s left then is to get pissed and to welcome our new ant overlords.
Endivio, this is what I mean…
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/brendanoneill2/100083484/court-injunctions-that-prevent-the-little-people-from-gossiping-about-celebs-are-a-flashback-to-feudalism/
EndivioR
Some countries are indeed worse than Britain.
But freedom has declined in Britain, and is declining - and this decline should be reversed.