The West has lost its freedom of speech

[Value Collector]

Re: The West has lost it's freedom of speech

What are you basing this statement on other than your opinion? I don't really recall any example of Christians or any other religion making threats against these types of satire magazines never mind carrying out an attack. Yet we have many examples of Muslims condemning such coverage with the threat of violence.

Are you limiting your examples to recent years, if so you may be correct, at least in western society apart from a few bombings and murders at abortion clinics and the killing of children to get them into heaven before sin, the western Christians have been a pretty benign group, Christians in other parts of the world are not shy when it comes to killing gays and burning witches though.

And if you want to look into the past decades, the catholic church is probably the biggest book banning organisation in history, it certainly hasn't been a pillar of support for free speech, and a little further back regularly put people to death for blasphemy.

The fact the Christians are not killing people for blasphemy anymore in the west is not a virtue of their religion, it's because secular society won't put up with it, and we have sidelined them out of our government.

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Christians violently beat woman to death in mcdonalds.

 

[overhang]

Re: The West has lost it's freedom of speech

Are you limiting your examples to recent years, if so you may be correct, at least in western society apart from a few bombings and murders at abortion clinics and the killing of children to get them into heaven before sin, the western Christians have been a pretty benign, Christians in other parts of the world are not shy when it comes to killing gays and burning witches though.

And if you want to look into the past decades, the catholic church is probably the biggest book banning organisation in history, it certainly hasn't been a pillar of support for free speech, and a little further back regularly put people to death for blasphemy.

The fact the Christians are not killing people for blasphemy anymore in the west is not a virtue of their religion, it's because secular society won't put up with it, and we have sidelined them out of our government.

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Christians violently beat woman to death in mcdonalds.

Yes this is only based on recent examples in Western society as I can't recall too many satire tabloids in early days and like you have said no doubt if one was around in the late 1800s and early 1900s they would have probably faced the same backlash from Christians as they are from Muslims today. This as you put is probably more due to secular society than Christians tolerance to criticism, for example someone with say Tinks religious passion may call for blasphemes to be persecuted if Tink happened to be around in the late 1800s.

 

[SirRumpole]

Re: The West has lost it's freedom of speech

What are you basing this statement on other than your opinion? I don't really recall any example of Christians or any other religion making threats against these types of satire magazines never mind carrying out an attack. Yet we have many examples of Muslims condemning such coverage with the threat of violence.

I'm not going to enter into a debate about this religion vs that religion, that wasn't the purpose of my post. However Christian churches tried to get Monty Python's "Life of Brian" banned when it first came out.

One thing common to all religions is the lack of a sense of humour.

 

[bellenuit]

Some "cartoons" from other European papers today.....




And will any newspaper be as brave as the Berlinner Zeitung, who chose to run this as their front page (a collection of controversial cartoons from Charlie Hebdo)

 

[Bintang]

I think the media should respond to this barbarous act with an avalanche of satirical humour in the fine tradition of Charlie Hebdo. Unfortunately it looks like the opposite is happening because there are signs the main stream media is censoring itself.

 

[dutchie]

Behead those who want to kill cartoonists and journalists!

 

[SirRumpole]

The fact the Christians are not killing people for blasphemy anymore in the west is not a virtue of their religion, it's because secular society won't put up with it, and we have sidelined them out of our government.

So Muslims are sidelined out of government and that hasn't stopped them killing people. Maybe you just can't admit that Christians have dragged themselves into the modern world whereas Muslims are still in the Middle Ages.

Anyway, if Christians have been sidelined, why do we still get this religious chaplains nonsense ?

 

[Calliope]

I think the media should respond to this barbarous act with an avalanche of satirical humour in the fine tradition of Charlie Hebdo. Unfortunately it looks like the opposite is happening because there are signs the main stream media is censoring itself.

Yes, I doubt there will be any newspaper with guts enough to publish a satirical cartoon featuring "the prophet". So, in effect, the terrorists win.

The two brothers involved have recently returned from Syria, and there are thousands more like them. In Australia we can't do anything to these returnees until after their atrocities are committed..

French magazine Le Point is reporting the two brothers had returned to France from Syria last month, and had ties to an Iraqi network in Paris encouraging young men to join militants in Iraq.

 

[Value Collector]

So Muslims are sidelined out of government and that hasn't stopped them killing people.

There are still plenty of Islamic theocracies.

My comment about sidelining them out of government was talking more about state based executions for blasphemy of the type that happens in countries where the government is closely tied to a religion. There are Islamic countries where you can be tried and sentenced to death for blasphemy, in my opinion this is just as bad as the recent killings, this used to be the case in Christian theocracies also, but we don't see the catholic church being involved in law making and requesting such laws be reinstated because secular society has pushed them out of government.

Maybe you just can't admit that Christians have dragged themselves into the modern world whereas Muslims are still in the Middle Ages.

They have been dragged into the modern world because in general society has become more secular.

Anyway, if Christians have been sidelined, why do we still get this religious chaplains nonsense

The same reason you have wisdom teeth. these things tend to hang around, and take many generations to go away. hopefully, like wisdom teeth they get removed when people realise they serve no purpose and have bad side effects.

 

[Bintang]

Cartoons of the future will probably look something like the following:

Source

 

[Tisme]

The West has lost its freedom of speech.

I can only hope the French have not lost their freedom of using the National Razor in public squares for low life scum mass murderers.

 

[bellenuit]

Sky News are reporting that the policeman seen being wounded and then callously murdered while pleading for his life is a Muslim. Though nobody is blaming the majority Muslim population for this, I have no doubt that many apologists will use the policeman story to try and pretend this has nothing to do with Islam. I have just seen a short discussion on BBC with 4 Muslims and one stated that there is nothing in the Koran to justify this murderous attack on the journalists. The interviewer left that pass. Pity they didn't have someone on that is familiar with the Koran and could have confronted him with the many passages advocating such atrocities.

Meanwhile, several arabic speaking people on Twitter have confirmed that about 30% to 40% of #Charliehebdo tweets that are in Arabic support what has happened. A tiny minority my foot.

 

[Julia]

Meanwhile, several arabic speaking people on Twitter have confirmed that about 30% to 40% of #Charliehebdo tweets that are in Arabic support what has happened. A tiny minority my foot.

I simply do not understand the apparent unwillingness to admit that this is terrorism. Surely such an obviously well planned and meticulously executed attack didn't come from some lone nut case as we were repeatedly assured was the case with the Sydney siege.

Perhaps it's my general distaste for all religion, a conviction that it achieves little that is positive in any way, that determines my attitude here, but when the assailants shout Islamist epithets as they murder a room full of their targets, I just don't know what other conclusion can be drawn.

 

[Bintang]

It's not just an act of terrorism. It is a declaration of war on Western democracy. I think it's time for every country confronted by this to get tough and invoke war-like counter measures. There will never be a soft, easy way to deal with these lunatics.

 

[Tisme]

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2d8b020c-5792-11e4-8493-00144feab7de.html#axzz3OERQxq5p

 

[dutchie]

International cartoons

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...s-react-Paris-massacre-poignant-drawings.html

 

[lindsayf]

Re: The West has lost it's freedom of speech

you can't have one without the other. If you raise millions of children with the belief that a certain book is the word of god, a certain percentage always going to take it literally.

Beliefs inform actions, and when a large group believes nonsense, don't be surprised when we have some terrible side effects happening.

We could go another thousand years condemning extremism, but saying moderate religion is good, and we will have thousand years of extremism.

The only way to get rid of extremism is move away from moderate religion and other supernatural stuff in favour of rational thoughts. As long as moderate religion gets respect and is viewed as good, children will continue to be lied to and indoctrinated, and a certain percentage will become extremists.

Fully agree-I fail to see how this is not the case. The attribution of these acts to 'extremists' may be correct at a superficial ( PC) level but they are embedded within the doctrinal nonsense that has spawned them. Until it is the doctrinal nonsense that is named and undermined/transcended it will keep happening.

 

[Tisme]

International cartoons

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...s-react-Paris-massacre-poignant-drawings.html

Yeah that will teach any wannabe killer...if you try to bring a gun to the fight we will bring pen...lookout! And if you persist we will skitch the chronicle of truth, justice and the crony way, the Courier Mail onto you, be warned.

My concern about the media as a freedom front is two fold: 1) are we to be subjected to a politically partisan war cry propaganda machine; 2) why has the Islam pen been mightier than the secular pen of late?

Of course the irony of the Islamics attacking media that attack them as too immature to be insulted have actually behaved the way they were being lampooned ..... life imitating art as it were ...... small minds are easily manipulated.

 

[lindsayf]

; 2) why has the Islam pen been mightier than the secular pen of late?

.

one reason seems to be that we value this life, and the 'extremists' dont....

 

[Julia]

Several callers, including one young Muslim woman, to an ABC Radio program on the Paris situation last night started off with the predictable "of course I'm not condoning violence, but....." and then proceeded to blame the publication for being provocative. "They should be more respectful" said one earnest bloke.
Much more of similar.

Smacks of "The United States brought it on themselves" following 9.11.