ATW formally Jackie Chiles - How can you claim to support free speech, but be against allowing women the freedom to wear burkhas if they choose? Again, you are shown only to be anti-Muslim and not truly interested in the free speech like you claim. Those who truly want freedom would be for the women who feel oppressed by the burkha having the freedom to remove it, and those who wish to adhere to beliefs that they need to wear it, to wear it. You will publicly come out for free speech if you can bash Islam, and now against free speech if you can bash some people's belief in free speech. You have been shown to be a huge hypocrite, and bigot as well. You may want to drop the disguise that you aren't. Nobody's buying it.
Just as prep: Expect to see my name a few times in the next post. Perhaps a photo designed to incite hatred onto Muslims despite depicting an extremist Muslim. The bulk of the post will be about how he supports free speech + women's rights and almost certainly will not address how he justifies the taking away of freedom (bad) for rooting out part of the extremist community while being unjust to another part. It's all about integration apparently. The correct method of integration is allegedly to offend till numbness is achieved, and then forcing the "guests" (his description of Muslims in Denmark) to give up freedoms which, if exercised, do not hurt anyone else. But it's good, it sends a strong message. Finally, expect for the post to be handsomely summed up with "each situation is different". (I'm not just bugging him here, I'm hoping it encourages him to put more substance and less weak-sauce in his post ).
The veil and the burkha are part of the culture in Pakistan. Are you insinuating that there is more free speech in Pakistan than in France?
Dude, stop making up stories about what my next post will be. Your posts are ridiculous enough without these little fantasies of yours.
I'm insinuating that you are in favor of free speech when it can be used against Islam, and you are against free speech when being against it can be used against Islam. Having a veil and burkha be part of the culture has nothing to do with people in France having the freedom to choose whether or not they want to follow their religion in a way that allows them to wear a veil. If you want to throw up arguments that aren't related to that go ahead.
That brings us to the question: Is there truly free speech in any islamic country? You apparently want the influence of Islam in the western countries to grow - which means for them to become more like the islamic countries that already exist. Do these have a good track record with regard to free speech?
I could care less if the influence of Islam in western countries grows. People should be free to choose. If every single person wants to choose to be influenced by traditions such as the veil, that should be up to them. They should be FREE to do so. What I do want to grow in Islamic nations and non-Islamic nations is freedom. Unlike you, I try to be consistent with this.
Again, this is further proof that your original intention was to hate on a religion rather than to defend free speech.
But the women are not FREE to do so in many cases. Tessa Jowell today joined the Muslim veil debate by claiming that women who covered their faces were failing to take a "full place in society". The Culture Secretary said veils were a symbol of women's subjugation. "We fought for generations for the equality of women, for women to take their equal place in society "Women who are heavily veiled, whose identity is obscured to the world apart from their husband, cannot take their full place in society," she told Radio Five Live. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ens-oppression-says-Jowell.html#ixzz0oUjE5Nzk
I'm definitely not in favor of legally requiring women to wear veils or burkhas. I'm in favor of giving them the freedom to choose.
But they are oppressed within the environment they live in. They are expected to and forced to wear the veil, even if they don't want to. That means they do not have the freedom to choose. I know of many cases in Germany where women who wanted to live a Western lifestyle without veil or burkha got killed by their fathers or brothers (so-called "honor killings" ). So your theoretical freedom to choose does actually not exist in reality in many cases.
Actually it does exist in places. The fact that someone broke the law and killed a family member for exercising that freedom, doesn't make the freedom any less real.
Yes, I guess some women are actually so brainwashed or actually freely believe that it is good for them to wear symbols of oppression. But as I posted on the other thread, it is a borderline case. I am not sure of the details (don't have time to read up on it right now), but even in a predominantly islamic country like Turkey, veil and burkha are or were prohibited in certain areas of public life. Basically in theory MadMax's statement that this is a governmental intervention into freedom of speech and religion would be correct, but that does not take into account that within the family structures of many islamic immigrant families, the thing is that women exactly do not have the free choice. So either the men in the family make the decision for her (you have to wear the veil/burkha) or the state makes the decision to prevent the men from forcing it on her (you can't wear it). Bit of a dilemma.
France. What's the point of you asking this? Is it that you are admitting that draw mohammad day was just a sham and excuse to insult Muslims?
No offense, but I think you let yourself be too easily provoked and are generally too sensitive about stuff said to you or in regards to what you post. I would encourage you to take a deep breath and realize that message board discussions, combined with Internet anonymity, encourages a lot of people to be a-holish at times and say things they wouldn't in real life. Don't allow yourself to be drawn in by insults or provocative statements about you, Islam, or whatever else, and just stick to refuting things and making arguments supported by facts or evidence of some sort, you are clearly very knowledgeable and I myself have learned a thing or two reading your posts, so stick to that without engaging in the more pitiful side of message board discussions. No reason for tit for tat or anything like that, just be the bigger man. I realize it is not my place to dictate to you how to behave in message board discussions, I hope you can this in the way it was intended: as a mere suggestion, wassalam alaikum
Great opinion piece.......long but well worth the read. http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/20/my-take-everyone-chalk-mohammed/?hpt=C1 By Greg Epstein, Special to CNN If I told you groups of atheist and Muslim students around the country have been breaking out boxing gloves, and the outlines of bodies have been marked in chalk on the ground, you’d worry, right? And you should, though fortunately it doesn’t mean anyone has been physically hurt yet. Rather, it means the latest in a series of controversies over drawing the Prophet Mohammed has arrived: “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day,” scheduled for Thursday, May 20, has gained tens of thousands of online followers, riling fears and anger on many campuses. iReport: Why I choose to draw Muhammad This spring’s 200th episode of the always irreverent “South Park” included the Prophet Mohammed disguised in a bear mascot suit. A fringe website called Revolutionmuslim.com issued a warning against the “South Park” creators. But the forces behind that site consist of just two “extremist buffoons,” according to Arsalan Iftikhar, an international human rights lawyer and founder of TheMuslimGuy.com. Read Iftikhar's commentary here Still, Comedy Central network pulled the episode after it first aired. And the network censored Part II of the episode, with audio bleeps and image blocks. In response, Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris penned a satirical cartoon calling for a national day of drawing the prophet. And groups of secular and atheist students, among others, are mobilizing to follow her lead en masse. Except Norris long since disavowed her cartoon, apologizing publicly and profusely for the misbegotten day it seems to have produced. Got all that? Facebookers respond to 'Draw Mohammed Day' The "South Park" episodes, of course, should have been left alone. The show makes fun of everyone, often brilliantly. There’s no reason for Islam to get off easier. Comedy Central seriously erred, kowtowing to extremists or to the small minority of American Muslims who oppose freedom of expression. But two wrongs don’t make a right. Several campus groups of nonreligious students affiliated with the national Secular Student Alliance, of which I am a big supporter, have started a campaign to chalk smiling stick figures on their campus quads, labeling the figures “Mohammed.” Muslim students’ reaction? Add boxing gloves and re-label the drawings “Muhammad Ali." As an atheist (or better yet, call me a Humanist: one who emphasizes doing good without God) who longs for fellow Humanists to gain respectability in this religious nation, I begrudgingly admit the Muslims’ approach in this incident is superior in humor and civility. Pakistan blocks access to YouTube, Facebook This is not to say the secular students are bigots seeking to cause offense, as some have suggested. In fact they see themselves as standing up for free speech and free intellectual inquiry. They hope increasing the number of potential targets will make extremists think twice before attacking. And they earnestly believe no person should be so revered that they can not be drawn or spoken - that such reverence is simply a bad idea. Proudly, they note that like the creators of "South Park," they are “equal opportunity critics” who would be just as harsh with bad ideas put forth by any other religion. They’ve written to their Muslim Students Association colleagues saying just that. In short they’re good, smart people, trying to do the right thing. Unfortunately, they’re failing; maybe dangerously. There is a difference between making fun of religious or other ideas on a TV show that you can turn off, and doing it out in a public square where those likely to take offense simply can’t avoid it. These chalk drawings are not a seminar on free speech; they are the atheist equivalent of the campus sidewalk preachers who used to irk me back in college. This is not even "Piss Christ," Andres Serrano's controversial 1987 photograph of a crucifix in urine. It is more like filling Dixie cups with yellow water and mini crucifixes and putting them on the ground all over town. Could you do it legally? Of course. Should you? In Muslim culture, there is a longstanding tradition that to put something on the ground, where people step on it, is “the ultimate diss," indicating “I hate you, you disgust me,” as I was told by Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America To this add the fact that after 9/11 hate crimes against Arabs, Muslims and “those perceived to be Muslim” increased 1,700 percent in the United States, according to a report by Human Rights Watch. Large numbers of innocent Muslims in the U.S. have been harmed or intimidated simply because they share a religious tradition with extremists. Can we reasonably suggest they not be reminded of this upon seeing their prophet, the most revered and admired person in their cultural tradition, underfoot? Our country’s top military leaders are struggling to win the hearts and minds of Muslims worldwide. And many of the 1.57 billion Muslims are watching CNN and many other American networks to see what we think of them. If we think they are going to perceive this as a thoughtful exercise in critical thinking, we are in serious denial. To paraphrase one student I heard from, we should fight to the death for our right to chalk these images. But we should also have the dignity and respect not to do so. Of course, Muslim extremists have again and again in recent memory committed atrocities that the angriest, most aggressive atheist I know could scarcely dream up on LSD. And it is moderate Muslims’ responsibility to speak out against these acts. And they are. My friend Eboo Patel is a Muslim who has built a movement training thousands of young Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Humanist, Buddhist and Hindu leaders in pluralism as an alternative religious extremism. What Eboo and other Muslims are saying when they criticize the chalking campaign is, ‘please find a less hurtful way to protect free speech; you’re within your rights to do it this way, but we can’t help but see it as, at best, unfriendly in the extreme.’ Check out the resources his organization has created for those looking for Muslim-atheist/Humanist partnerships rather than cartoonish conflict. And partnerships are, more than ever, a real possibility. Patel and Mattson, along with Akbar Ahmed, the chair of Islamic Studies at American University in Washington and a leading authority on contemporary Islam, all responded enthusiastically to my suggestion that we organize a meeting between Muslim and secularist leaders and students. Ahmed’s comment summarized their sentiment: “I’d much rather know a person who says there is no God, but is dedicated to being a good person [than a person who gives lip-service to God but behaves unethically.]” As a Humanist, I hope I do not exist solely to advance the Humanist cause. I want to advance the human cause. In this case, the way to do it is to keep the chalk on the blackboard, where perhaps one day soon Humanist and Muslim college students will use it together in inner-city elementary schools, teaching understanding and cooperation between members of different religious and moral traditions.
I don't like your peaceful tone. Just kidding lol Thanks for the advice. You're right, I've probably wasted too much time engaging in tit-for-tat.
Dude, honor killings are anti-Islam btw. Forcing someone to do something is the same as forcing someone to not do something. Freedom = no force.
