Islam vs South Park

Well said. The problem I see with this and other discussions is that it is too much of an Us vs Them. Given the interconnected nature of the globe we are becoming more and more one big plural society and as such we need to learn to live with each other.

Unfortunately their are radicals and crazies out there but at the sametime there are people with different views and inevitable some people will be offended so while I value free speech absolutely those who are offened have the right to express their offense also through speech. I don't think it is productive to keep on tarring those people who are offended with the extremists on their side (especially when many of them also condemn the extremists) rather than recognizing that they have a legitimate gripe. To live in a plural society tolerance has to go all ways. As much as Muslims have to tolerate South Park making fun of them the rest of us should tolerate that Muslims are going to be offended and express that offense. As long as it is done peacefully.

Another poster brought that up and I was thinking that might be the case but at the moment I'm not seeing any evidence that would prove that.

 

Agreed. The entire US vs Them is human nature (and even animal nature). People feel like it is easier to know who they can trust, if they have a common enemy. It is IMHO the biggest flaw in human nature. You see it in sports, religion, countries etc. We are all human beings we all want the same, that our loved ones have a good live and have enough to eat and do not get murdered etc. Why can't we all get along. Of course there are many idiots in all societies. but why let them ruin it for the rest of the world?

This thread is evidence for me. The attention south park got with their 200 and 201 episode is exactly what they wanted. What did they lose as a result of this hole situation? Nothing they got even more famous. It was world news.

Agreed.

 

That's a subject for a different thread but my own opinion is that Holocaust Deniers should be allowed to make that argument. In the US they are allowed to and any attempt to legally censor deniers I suspect would be quickly shot down under the First Ammendment. I understand though in some European countries that isn't the case. I suspect that is because the experience with WWII and the continued presence of Neo-Nazi and other violent Right Wing groups means there is an unease that denialist will become rallying points for violence. I can't say how real or likely that is but my own feeling is that at the risk of having Neo-Nazi's rally it would be better to allow Holocaust deniers make their argument and then counter it through speech and the overwhelming historical evidence to the contrary.

Frankly it strikes me as a rather paternalistic attitude on the part of European countries that they can't trust their populations to see some ideas as the sham that they are.

 

you know what else is really screwed up about your thinking...

you equate simply showing mohammed or saying his name w/ showing people jumping to their deaths out of the wtc or showing dead and dismembered marines. that tells me all i need to know about where you are coming from w/ this.

furthermore, in your attempts to draw all these weird analogies (comparing showing an image of mohammed to going around physically assaulting people or showing dead 9/11 victims) you conveniently ignore the most obvious comparison, which would be showing prominent figures from other religions, which as you know, south park does. not only do you not condemn that, but you say its 'funny'. again, seems pretty hypocritical to me.

but good luck on your cartoon showing dead and dismembered marines. sounds like something i would have no interest in watching, but i will defend your right to put it out there.

 

south park is unique in the world of animation in that they can literally write and animate and entire episode in about 2 or 3 days. the day after the 2008 election they had the 'oceans 11' style episode where obama had won the election.

comedy central surely would have censored the image of mohammed in ep. 201 as they have done over the last few years, but the bleeping of the world "mohammed" was the first time they did that. it was indeed a direct response to the rev. muslum threats.

they actually showed mohammed in a cartoon in 2001 and it wasnt an issue then. did it only become offensive to show mohammed after 9/11?

 

I have never said that people should not be allowed to express their free speech, be it outrage, etc or whatever... whether its in the name of religion or in the name of south park. How is that one-sided? Defending Matt/Trey's right to speak without fear of violence defends the same rights that religious people have to speak without fear of persecution. That is no "one sided" defense of free speech.

 

what are you doing here if not questioning our right to free speech?

as south park says over and over again regarding free speech, "its either all good or none of its good".

 

Oh definitely!

I thought Donny was making 2 points:

1) That we should defend free speech by supporting it (not censoring out of fear)
2) We should acknowledge threats as not acceptable (i.e., not blaming the offender)

I don't recall him making other points of significance outside of a claim that religion can and does unnecessarily provoke violence. I could be wrong - there was a lot posted in this thread over the weekend.

 

I thought this was the entire point of the thread. Certainly, the above has been stated many times and in many ways already...

There were tangents (Donny's not-so-accurate complaints about religion for example) but I don't think anyone was disputing the validity of the point you make above.

 

1. It might be uncool to go out and make a cartoon saying Muslims are of the devil and trying to destroy everything that is good in the world. (That isn't what South Park did or what I believe.) If anyone did that, they would be jerks. However, in a society where we believe in freedom, that can be done.

By the same token Muslims are free to protest, boycott sponsors and publicize why that cartoon is baseless, and disrespectful. They go on to point out that being flagrantly disrespectful isn't good for a society. All of those things are fine.

Nobody has the right to be protected from disrespect and being made fun of no matter how malicious or uncool it is. South Park has made fun of plenty of religions and part of their humor comes from being offensive to the point of something being absurd. Nobody has to like it, but they are free to exercise that form of expression.

 

To be fair I haven't seen you say that Muslims shouldn't be allowed to but one of your lines of arguments in this thread has been directed in response to Muslims stating why they are offended in the first place. In that case it seems like you are arguing that they shouldn't be offended in the first place.

It is in the context of a debate though that that would seem more one sided and lead you to the dark side.



I can see that I have failed you since you were the one who was to bring balance to the Force but have instead joined the Sith

 

Whether or not I think it is reasonable/justified for them to be offended is a different matter, because I have always stood by everyone's *right* to be offended.

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No, I had posted that the muslim god or prophet was tied in with people threatening to bomb the place and kill everyone there. To me that was a much harsher depiction that Buddha snorting coke, especially since it refers to the already widespread stereotype about muslims, whose countries we have obviously been at war with the past decade. I also didn't like the "joozians" episode because it just plays into stereotypes and foments more hate against that group, which is also persecuted worldwide. I mean let's be honest here, how many hate-crimes have there been against Catholics and Buddhists in the past 20 years versus Jews and Muslims??

And this has been my only question in this entire thread, being what is the point of throwing fuel on the fire even if it is legal. As DonnyMost already posted that the point is money, it would seem to me that in this case the free speech laws are simply exploited for profit as opposed to being the necessity for protecting society's weak or minority voices. But i guess that's for another thread altogether. The weird analogies were just to ask where do you draw the line. As Hamas as shown this week, the muslims can make heinous satirical cartoons as well (look up Shalit cartoon). After the Danish cartoons, anti-Semitic cartoons were published in Iran. So to me if everyone is out to out-offend their opposing groups then this is just a completely unproductive scenario.

And again i don't care about who condemned who or who made death threats or who should or shouldn't have a right to broadcast or say anything. I'm am not questioning the law here or who is on the right side of the law.

 

That makes too much sense. Unfortunately religion seldom does.

 

from The Simpsons yesterday:

 

I think a Neo-Nazi rally say in a black neighborhood crosses the line of free speech because it becomes an act of intimidation - and certainly not in the spirit of peaceful protest.

But everything else should be allowed.

This whole South Park thing exposes why I don't think people should go after Bill Maher for what he said about 9/11, or a senator from Virginia for the macaca remark, or Dan Imus for the nappy headed hoe remark. Now it comes full circle. As soon as you start policing media in this way, all media becomes sanitized and it becomes harder and harder not only to satire, mock, or offend, but to even criticize. Free speech was never required to be pretty or kind. If it were never to be offensive or hurtful to anyone, why would it need to be protected.

Free speech can't exist without a free press, and when media companies start filtering content or pressuring content producers to edit or censor stuff, then free speech dies a bit.