Shut up and play nice: How the Western world is limiting free speech
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The simple lesson here is that if you want to stop non-believers from doing blasphemy, violent reprisals work.
And really, self-censorship is a practical stance, if not a principled one. There is a terrible slippery slope here, not only in encouraging islamists to demand more from us (what's next? threatening farmers who sell pork?) but also to send a message to other put-upon groups that they can demand the same thing - if they want it badly enough.
Yes, I wish that people would grow a spine and stop worrying about getting killed for hurting someone's feelings. But when I wonder whether I'd be willing to take that risk, the answer is no.
And it's the wrong lesson learned. Violent reprisals didn't happen as a result of blasphemy, but of murder and occupation and dominance.
However, I think the parent's point is still valid in the more general sense, that our weakening of free speech due to threats of violence sends the signal that terrorism is an effective means of politics. Having said that, reading a history books also sends that signal, although it likely frames it in terms of guerilla warfare, and cutting losses, and such.
This is such a stupid strategy. The right thing to do is to look at the root cause of all this. After all, there are lots of angry people all across the world that hate the Western world and want to hurt it, but most can't. What sets the Arabs apart is their vast oil riches. Without that, they wouldn't have the money or power to do anything to the West.
If you want to fight militant Islam, the first thing to do is to limit immigration from those countries and spread the immigrants out to force assimilation. The second thing to do is to invest as much money as possible into developing domestic energy sources, as well as alternatives to crude oil. The minute that crude oil loses its relevance to the Western world, the Arabs will just go back to what they were before - a bunch of desert nomads with no real power.
Its okay, be strait with me. You won't hurt my feelings.
It's an intentionally defective 'root cause analysis' from the perspective of Superpower X, where all wars waged by X on Y have no part in discussion of cause and effect.
The rules seem to be:
1. Y is always irrational, savage, subhuman.
2. X is always civilised, noble, well-meaning.
3. Aggression by X is always unfortunately necessary for some greater geopolitical good.
4. Aggression by Y must always be explained in terms of 1., and never as a result of 3.
I have no illusions about the various immoral and unethical acts committed by the US government over the last 50-75 (and probably more) years in various 3rd world countries in the name of American interests, nor do I think they are defensible from a moral/ethical perspective. I'm merely stating the simplest and most effective method of ensuring that the US's global hegemony remains as it is now.
9/11 was estimated to have required ~$400-500k. And I'd say it'd be quite a bit more expensive to repeat that feat these days.
You appear to believe that a resurgent radical Islam is primarily due to the rise of wealthy Arab states, and yet these states are aligned to the West, armed by the West, and also suppress the same radical elements you wish to neutralize domestically.
A proper root cause analysis would reveal that violent military intervention coupled with Western political soundbites (which have a modern crusades theme to them) are the real factors responsible for radicalizing elements of Middle Eastern society.
Western and Middle Eastern political organizations with a religious base, radical pastors and imams, and military contractors seem to be the main beneficiaries in this culture war, and domestic citizens in the Middle East and the West seem to be the main losers.
Civil liberties are eroded domestically, a constant state of fear is generated domestically, and travel options internationally are limited. This applies to both Middle Eastern and Western domestic populations.
The simplest and most effective solution is, you say, to limit immigration and assimilate existing immigrants? Historically maybe it's been the 'simplest' approach, in terms of isolating and subjugating 'foreigners' (apart from slavery), but I wouldn't agree that it's been effective in neutralizing resistance to whatever was the hegemony of the age.
Instead I would look at the success of Western countries in cultivating an apathetic population as the counter-intuitive solution for a continued hegemony. Rising living standards, opportunity, and entertainment as distraction.
Look at how China invests in significant infrastructure in Africa to buy stability and access to natural resources. The idea of foreign aid is certainly not new, and the world is littered with US-funded roads and hospitals, but the ratio of destructive / constructive actions is completely the wrong way around.
Why not wage peace, allocate more of the loot to local populations so they see a significant rise in living standards, and cultivate a widening middle class that has less reasons to be sympathetic to radicals?
That seems to me a far more sophisticated approach to exerting and maintaining influence than the traditional "wage war" approach.
Your position seems to be a result of artful misdirection which paints militant Islam as the cause when in fact it is simply the effect of the militant West. It's the bitterest of ironies that the global Defence industry is in fact one of the greatest enemies of continued goodwill and peace for Western populations.
Oh please. A proper root cause analysis is different from blaming everything on the West. It would have to include the idea that the current cultural clash is with an extremely violent religion as can be shown by its teachings. It would further investigate the influence of the division of church and state on the moderation of Christian beliefs and (in most countries) lack thereof in the Muslim world.
>Why not wage peace, allocate more of the loot to local populations so they see a significant rise in living standards, and cultivate a widening middle class that has less reasons to be sympathetic to radicals?
9/11 as the showcase of the clash between the West and radical Muslims was planned by a descendant of a rich Saudi family. There were not many poor and underprivileged amongst those plane hijackers.
That's another rule I forgot to mention:
5. Anyone pointing out the clear history of repeated violent actions by X against Y shall be labelled a: Y sympathiser, "blame-the-X" bleeding-heart liberal, anti-X, etc
> It would have to include the idea that the current cultural clash is with an extremely violent religion as can be shown by its teachings.
You seem to hold a Western stereotype of Islam[1]. How can you accept this stereotype and at the same time bristle with indignation when someone points out that the West is a collection of extremely violent superpowers, as shown by the West's history of constant war and invasion?
What metrics do we use to calculate which 'side' is more violent? Number of people killed, and number of countries invaded? On that basis the West is clearly far more violent, isn't it?
> 9/11 as the showcase of the clash between the West and radical Muslims was planned by a descendant of a rich Saudi family. There were not many poor and underprivileged amongst those plane hijackers.
Injustice is oxygen for radicals at every strata of society, so my point is that if you serve your subjugated people more justice and less injustice, you are getting increased stability and security in return. It's a good trade for people like w1ntermute who are satisfied with their global status and not troubled by questions involving morality and ethics.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_violence#Western_ster...
>What metrics do we use to calculate which 'side' is more violent? Number of people killed, and number of countries invaded? On that basis the West is clearly far more violent, isn't it? I don't think so. How many wars between democratic Western countries vs. between Muslim countries? I do recall Iraqis and Iranians happily gassing each other as late as the 1980s.
>Injustice is oxygen for radicals at every strata of society, so my point is that if you serve your subjugated people more justice and less injustice, you are getting increased stability and security in return. Sure, that's why Western secular countries win this contest hands down. Saudi Arabia is not a US colony, they have a home-grown Muslim theocracy. They are subjugated by their own sheiks and their religion.
The West does deserve blame for destroying traditional societies during the 19th century. BUT, those societies were far from peaceful - and contrary to a lot of Asian states, a big part of Africa and the Muslim world never changed their violent ways post-colonialism. The West deserves blame for nurturing dictators like Hussein and Ghaddafi, but it's the Muslim population that - even in more or less free election - votes Islamic radicals into office.
I for one are getting irritated and tired of proponents of a peaceful Islam blissfully ignorant of the realities of violence in Muslim societies and Muslim migrant culture. I don't get it why it is so hard to take at least some responsibility and try to improve things instead of always blaming the West. This is a loser's attitude.
Christianity can be an extremely violent religion, as shown by its history, from the Crusades to the Thirty Years war. Not to mention the various non-religious genocides committed for the most part by "good christians". Most religions have enough internal contradiction that widely different interpretations arise. You have a world of difference between Salafists and Sufis, for instance.
Denying that at least a century of Western interference in the Middle East does not play a very significant role in this "culture war" is naive. Not to deny very different cultural standards between the West and the Middle East, but it's certainly not black and white.
To add a touch of concreteness, according to "The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11" by Lawrence Wright (which I cannot recommend enough if you're interested in that bit of modern history), an explicit motivation of Osama bin Laden was the US's continued presence in Saudi Arabia (at the regime's express invitation). The book also contains an account of Hosni Mubarak's rather heavy handed suppression of radicals in Egypt, and how that motivated resistance (although focused on Egypt, they were co-opted by bin Laden).
US backing of oppressive regimes in the region is certainly an injustice that fuels radicalization of citizens in those countries.
Thanks for the book recommendation, I'll have a look at it.
Folks in the West with stakes in maintaining the monopoly on oil as an energy source have a lot of power. They won't give up without a fight. The same Neocons that make a big show of decrying Islam to their base also chum around with Saudi Arabia, sucking up the royals.
>Arabs will just go back to what they were before - a bunch of desert nomads with no real power
Here's a nice summary of arab contributions to mathematics.
There are certainly people at home who have just as much of a vested interest in preserving the status quo, which is precisely why things haven't changed much at all despite the rise of militant Islam. It's upstarts like Elon Musk that are going to force the hand of Big Oil on this matter. But it will be a long & hard battle, one that may not be won for quite a while.
> Here's a nice summary of arab contributions to mathematics.
I don't see how mathematical contributions hundreds of years ago have any relevance to the modern world. We're talking about a time when the US as a country didn't even exist.
I'm guessing/hoping that Big Oil will be killed by grassroots innovation, open hardware designs that don't have companies behind them that can be bought out and their patented tech buried. If it's simply a matter of spending money or killing a few people to keep the gravy train going, they'll do it.
>I don't see how mathematical contributions hundreds of years ago have any relevance to the modern world. We're talking about a time when the US as a country didn't even exist.
True.
No math = No modern world. Got it?
But if you insist that it's irrelevant than Arabs being desert nomads is irrelevant to modern geopolitics too.
> It's not irrelevant. Without math we wouldn't have a modern society.
Correct, but who made those discoveries has no relevance to modern geopolitical strategy.
> But if you insist that it's irrelevant than Arabs being desert nomads is irrelevant to modern geopolitics too.
I already stated how that fact is relevant, but you chose to ignore it. If the Arabs weren't desert nomads, they might be a credible threat to the US even without oil.
It seems that everyone here is taking offense at the fact that I called Arabs "desert nomads". The point I was trying to make is that without oil, the Arabs don't pose a threat to America.
Please reflect more on this. Your "solution" to this problem is just to oversimplify everything and solve these simple problems. A clear flag, that you lack the education to actually contribute something meaningful to the discussion.
I don't understand why the age of a civilization should be a matter of pride. This is an entirely arbitrary point of distinction and has no real relevance to the conversation at hand.
> Your "solution" to this problem is just to oversimplify everything and solve these simple problems. A clear flag, that you lack the education to actually contribute something meaningful to the discussion.
And your inability to literal make any meaningful statements other than ad hominem attacks against me suggests that you need to go back to high school and study logic and debate.
> And your inability to literal make any meaningful statements other than ad hominem attacks against me suggests that you need to go back to high school and study logic and debate.
It is arrogant to assume a single countries path is correct vs a much older civilisation, given that single country has not stood the same test of time.
It was not intended as an ad hominem. Only that a meaningful debate could only be made with you, were you open to learning the full history and reasons behind the current problems. After reading your comments so far it is apparent you aren't open to learning these things. I'm sorry if you took offense.
Once again, the point flew over your head. This has nothing to do with correctness, it has to do with maintaining America's global hegemony.
And Arab "civilization" is a tenuous concept. Many modern Arab countries didn't exist until less than a century ago. Given the horrific exploitation the Arab peoples suffered at the hands of Europeans, I'd say that their countries haven't withstood the test of time very well.
> Only that a meaningful debate could only be made with you, were you open to learning the full history and reasons behind the current problems. After reading your comments so far it is apparent you aren't open to learning these things.
The only thing that's apparent is that you're completely misunderstanding the purpose of my initial comment. It wasn't intended as a normative dismissal of Arab or Muslim culture, it was intended to be a suggested improvement of America's geopolitical current strategy.
The point is that America's global hegemony shouldn't be maintained.
Quite apart from the jackass immorality of it, maintaining hegemony implies indebting America to the point of economic collapse while generating more and more enemies.
The objective instead should be to maintain the quality of life of American citizens.
And there are all kinds of countries, from Japan to Switzerland to Norway to Slovenia, none of which attempt world domination, where citizens can live fine.
(Oh yeah, and as a result of not attempting world domination they also tend not to get attacked by terrorists.)
Many across the spectrum, from Dennis Kucinich to Stephen Walt to Ron Paul, have explained this better than I can here; if you are interested in the geopolitics I suggest you look them up.
Your points about history are equally preposterous. Just because modern middle eastern states are young it does not mean that middle eastern civilisation is young. By that logic, China and Greece are both younger than the USA.
That's purely a matter of opinion, so there's no point in arguing about it. As a non-American, it's pretty obvious why/that you don't want America to be dominant. As an American, it's pretty obvious why I do.
> Quite apart from the jackass immorality of it, maintaining hegemony implies indebting America to the point of economic collapse while generating more and more enemies.
I don't think that's true at all. You don't need to spend billions of dollars on costly wars in order to keep yourself in control. You just have to render other people irrelevant, which is exactly what would happen to the Arabs if the world's dependence on crude oil were to vanish.
> The objective instead should be to maintain the quality of life of American citizens.
Which America's global power contributes to.
> And there are all kinds of countries, from Japan to Switzerland to Norway to Slovenia, none of which attempt world domination, where citizens can live fine.
And they pay the price for it - literally. Energy costs are much higher in Japan, for example. If I were living in Japan, I wouldn't be able to cool my entire house during the summer (or heat it during the winter). I've experienced it in Tokyo myself, and it's a significant degradation of quality of life.
> Many across the spectrum, from Dennis Kucinich to Stephen Walt to Ron Paul, have explained this better than I can here; if you are interested in the geopolitics I suggest you look them up.
I know exactly what they've expressed, and I agree with a lot of it. You're still missing my point, which is that you can achieve global hegemony and domination much more effectively through technological innovation that you can through military might.
> Your points about history are equally preposterous. Just because modern middle eastern states are young it does not mean that middle eastern civilisation is young. By that logic, China and Greece are both younger than the USA.
Once again, the age of the "civilization" is entirely irrelevant to modern geopolitical concerns. The age of the state, on the other hand, can at times demonstrate political stability/power.
I personally think you could in fact be doing the middle east the biggest favour if you could make the global oil price drop to zero. At least to the people, if not the current rulers.
That's not what maintaining Hegemony means. Hegemony means Kicking other people around.
Did you mean something else, like Energy Independence? Or perhaps Being a world leader in science and technology?
And that's not the thrust of what you were referring to in your original post. You were talking about the INS screening people who look like me and not letting us into America.
Why that's a bad idea is a whole different can of worms, but basically Nazism is not an efficient security policy.
You have to put in place a whole lot of Nazism to get small gains in security.
Math is timeless unless it's mistaken.
...there’s an alternative math metaphor we might use: calculus. The calculus metaphor asks whether and how we can figure out exactly what’s going to happen. Take NASA and the Apollo missions, for instance. You have to figure out where the moon is going to be, exactly. You have to plan whether a rocket has enough fuel to reach it. And so on. The point is that no one would want to ride in a statistically, probabilistically-informed spaceship.
http://blakemasters.tumblr.com/post/20400301508/cs183class1
The origins of calculus can be traced to ancient times. Moon rockets. Let that sink in.
Elon Musk and anyone else who pushes that envelope must stand on the shoulders of the giants who came before him, including Arabic mathematicians (indirectly).
What about mathematics that are thousands of years old, i.e. geometry from the ancient Greeks? Buildings with architecture based on the golden ratio[1] are aesthetically very pleasing, e.g. Georgian architecture[2]. Far nicer and better proportioned than most of the shit that's hastily thrown up all over the world today.
Every time you fire up your computer, you're taking advantage of boolean algebra[3], first laid down in the 1850s by George Boole, which is critical to modern computer science.
Mathematical contributions from hundreds of years ago has an incredible amount of relevance to the modern world, in countless different ways.
I wish I knew more about the history of mathematics to counter you more forcefully.
I would also urge you to read this book: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Civilization-Killer-Apps-Western-Pow...
It shows how that in the 15th century, Europe was a shithole backwater, plagued by diseases and wars, and other civilisations like the Chinese and Arabic ones were far more advanced. By various accidents of history, the western world dominated the rest over the next 500 years. Some would argue that the wests' power is currently on the wane, and China is rising again.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio
History may paint a different picture, but essentially its terrorism in its true form.
India as a nation is very young. Even, the concept of india is very young. The only connecting fabric underlying india is its spiritually, beliefs and traditions ( Hindu/Vedic traditions ). Their lifestyle is very different from industrialized west or terror based middle east. India itself has two major kinds of people, city folks who are westernized and rural folks who are relatively non-westernized. depending on who you talk, you may get a different answer.
Anyway, this is great question. You should visit india to find it by yourself. It will be a journey worth taken. :)
Terrorism is assymmetric psychological warfare. It's done by forces who are extremely and utterly outclassed in strength.
You essentially are stretching the definition of terrorism so that you can use the hotter buzzword to demonize them and that period of Indian history.
Here he is stating that he is taking an extremely America centric stance, and focused on the shortest path solution.
Its the obvious answer most people come up with, and its dissection and discovery of weak spots is valuable for those who would usually come up with a similar shortest path answer.
At the same time, he has accepted that he doesn't hold the moral high ground.
That should be repeated very clearly - this is a solution which doesn't hold to any high moral values.
So its NOT a good answer - anyone who wants to eschew morality and discuss pragmatism as the greater morality will do well to see its edge and failure cases.
His words should be heard because we can learn from others discussing it. The essence of free speech.
Asking for a limit on immigration from islamic countries to or developing alternative energy sources still is pretty objective to me. But adding the " the Arabs will just go back to what they were before - a bunch of desert nomads with no real power" makes it obvious where he is coming from.
Look at the thread, the responses and the clarifications. The least useful answers in terms of education value are the ones which focus on whether he was or isn't a bad person for saying it.
As I also point out, your concerns are handled when he gives up the moral ground. you don't have to follow something you know is wrong.
It would work, but is not very different from banning all white people in order to shut down the KKK.
The proportion of Arabs to radical Islamic fundamentalists is so small that it really, really wouldn't make sense. That's a lot of baby for very little bath water.
I'm not sure if your comment is meant to be hand-waving theorizing-out-loud or if you're actually serious - if you're serious, I'd hold your post up as one of the reasons why people despise America so much. You paint with a broad brush, advocate irrational fear-based decision making not supported by your own numbers, and demonstrate a tremendous amount of racial and cultural ignorance (desert nomads? seriously?)
[edit] I've noticed that all of the posts here pointing out the racism in w1ntermute's post are getting downvoted. Normally I don't point out downvotes, but this in particular seems especially cowardly. Would the responsible party please get out from under that rock and explain why you feel the need to, without justification, silence everyone who has expressed this?
There's a big difference in that those white people are already in America, and getting rid of them would be impossible. Note that I'm talking about implementing stricter immigration policies going forward, not getting rid of people who are already here.
> The proportion of Arabs to radical Islamic fundamentalists is so small that it really, really wouldn't make sense. That's a lot of baby for very little bath water.
To be honest, this whole Muslim immigration issue is more applicable to Europe than it is to America. America has (fortunately) maintained much stricter immigration policies than much of Europe, and the latter has consequently suffered from large swathes of Arab/Muslim immigrants failing to properly integrate into mainstream society. I'd say America has done quite well in comparison when it comes to assimilating Arab immigrants (although it has failed quite miserably so far when it comes to Hispanic and African Americans).
I wouldn't exactly describe African Americans as immigrants per se... It seems to imply a level of volunteerism that simply wasn't there.
Anyways, that's a nitpick.
> "Note that I'm talking about implementing stricter immigration policies going forward, not getting rid of people who are already here."
Right, but how do you know there aren't any bad apples in the people who are already here?
Also bear in mind that of all Muslim terrorists who have committed an act of terrorism on American soil, many were visitors to the US, not immigrants. Do you believe we should also restrict Muslim visitation of the USA?
How many more extremists do you think we will create within the existing Muslim population if we essentially had a big "Muslims go home" sign at every border checkpoint? What would it to do in terms of our desire to assimilate these immigrants?
Your idea is fun to think about, but IMO it's not realistic. There are too many moving pieces for "no more Muslims in the US" to be a realistic policy choice.
Not to mention the costs would be rather high. Go to any of the top US schools and look at both the grad student and professor rosters, count the people of Middle Eastern decent or of Muslim faith. These are all huge wins for American society - both in talent addition and talent denial to rival regimes. Do you really want all of these people to, say, go work for the Chinese? Or Iran?
US hegemony is ensured in large (and put large in big screaming rainbow marquee letters) part by talent acquisition. We took much of Europe's best scientific talent after WW2, and we continued mopping up all the smartest and most talented people from all over the globe - Japan, China, India, the whole Eastern Bloc, and beyond. The US's lead over everyone else is economic and technological - leaving a whole swathe of educated immigrants on the table seems to go very firmly against this model. Slamming the door shut on immigration would be like starving yourself so you don't have to poop - it would work, but why?
I don't disagree that foreign students bring a lot to this country, and that the handling of this thing by the government was extremely poor (2), but you're conflating two different issues in order to make a point about the Daily Mail.
It seems like you're guilty of the same simplistic arguments.
(1) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19419395
(2) http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/aug/30/london-metro...
We've been tolerating and understanding the fuck out of them too, but that doesn't seem to have helped at all. They're massively over-represented in crime statistics.
There are talented people everywhere, but you won't find all that many Western people who killed their own daughters for showing too much skin.
> They're massively over-represented in crime statistics.
First, note that there are roughly three times as many Russians in Finland as there are Somalis:
http://www.stat.fi/til/vaerak/2011/vaerak_2011_2012-03-16_ku...
Then, look at this: http://www.stat.fi/til/polrik/2011/polrik_2011_2012-04-02_ta...
Unfortunately that's only in Finnish, but here are some key words:
- "Suomen kansalaiset" = "Finnish citizens".
- "Venäjä, entinen Neuvostoliitto" = "Russia, former Soviet Union"
- "Raiskausrikokset" = "Rape (-crimes)"
2011
- Total number of rapes: 644
- Total number of rapes committed by Finns: 474
- Total number of rapes committed by all foreigners: 170
- Total number of rapes committed by Estonians: 15
- Total number of rapes committed by *Russians*: 3
- Total number of rapes committed by Swedes: 3
- Total number of rapes committed by *Other Foreigners: 149*
Let's be "generous" and assume they account for 3 rapes each, much like Russians and Swedes, even though they're much smaller minorities so the numbers are probably much lower.
That leaves us with 110 rapes committed by Somalis. Now I'm no statistician, and not very good at math either. But when Somalis outnumber a much larger minority in rape statistics 110 to 3, it seems that they're pretty fucking Rapey.
The logic here is so bad I'm not sure where to start.
There's a very bad assumption here, which is that the "other foreigners" category contains only the 13 groups listed, and that membership in none of the others implies membership in the Somalis group.
In other words, what you're saying is, in government statistics re: rape, everyone in the "other nationality" category is Somali unless they can be attributed to 12 other ethnic groups. This seems specious at best, horrifying twisting of fact at worst.
Do you have any evidence that this is what the data says? Or are you reading this out of the data due to your own preexisting prejudices? I'm starting to see what _delirium is describing re: European racism.
In other news, there are 100 cars in the parking lot outside. There are 2 Toyotas, 3 Hondas, and 95 "other" cars. Clearly these 95 cars are Fords.
[edit] Also need to address this:
> "Let's be "generous" and assume they account for 3 rapes each, much like Russians and Swedes, even though they're much smaller minorities so the numbers are probably much lower."
You can't do this with stats and still claim to remain impartial, or correct. You're trying to use numbers to give legitimacy to your claims, yet right in the middle of the argument you inject huge assumptions with no attempt at even making an educated guess.
The moment the words "probably" and "let's be generous" come out of your mouth re: statistics, your numbers have lost almost all meaning. When you're trying to justify incredibly racist views, back of the napkin calculations do not cut it.
Let me be frank: GP was skeptical of your claims and asked for substantiation, you have provided numbers that in no way substantiates your claims, and are incredibly vague and full of bad assumptions made in bad faith.
I rarely accuse people directly on these forums. You sir, are racist. For the sake of all of us, please re-evaluate your views.
Understanding and tolerating them my ass.
As I said, I'm no statistician. I can't do science, and I can't do statistics. But that doesn't matter with regard to what I was pointing out.
There's a very bad assumption here, which is that the "other foreigners" category contains only the 13 groups listed, and that membership in none of the others implies membership in the Somalis group.
Assuming I'm not even pretending to "do statistics" (as a science), and that I'm not even trying to be "rigorous" about it, why is that a bad assumption?
Why would it not be reasonable to assume that if a minority is not on that list, it's an insignificant one?
Why would membership in none of the others not imply membership in the Somalis group?
Again, there's no need to be rigorous here. It's actually common knowledge here in Finland that Somalis rape a lot of women, but I felt like I should point to some statistics instead of just making that claim right away. Otherwise a cold reception like this would have been guaranteed.
It's common knowledge in Sweden too, by the way. In Germany, it's the Turks, and in the Netherlands, it's Moroccans.
There are people who are aware of reality, and then there are Sheeple, and for whatever reason, the media here (and afaik, all over the countries affected by Muslim immigration) has been systematically covering up the fact that the perpetrators of lots of crimes are, in fact Somalis, and not Finns.
Whenever there's news of a gang-rape, they always say it's was a bunch of "younglings" (="nuorukaiset" in Finnish, "ungdomar" in Swedish, "youth" in English news). Without any mention of the ethnicity, the reader will just assume it was locals who did it. Actually, I'm surprised they even publish statistics like those I pointed to.
Seriously. How rare is gang-rape among Western men? It's pretty fucking rare. But there have been lots of incidents in Finland in the past years. Does it make sense to assume that Finns have suddenly gotten all gang-rapey?
In other news, there are 100 cars in the parking lot outside. There are 2 Toyotas, 3 Hondas, and 95 "other" cars. Clearly these 95 cars are Fords.
Well, if we know that those 100 cars consist of Toyotas, Hondas, and Fords, and that 2 are Toyotas and 3 are Hondas, what does that leave us with for the 95 "Others"?
You can't do this with stats and still claim to remain impartial, or correct.
Again, I never claimed to be rigorous with my stats. That's just an assumption by you.
The moment the words "probably" and "let's be generous" come out of your mouth re: statistics, your numbers have lost almost all meaning. When you're trying to justify incredibly racist views, back of the napkin calculations do not cut it.
Again, not rigorous. Besides, there was no need to be rigorous. The conclusion is very clear even with a large error margin. Even 110 to 3 is a massive difference, but as I pointed out, it's reasonable to assume that the smallest minorities don't actually count for 3 rapes each, but less.
I rarely accuse people directly on these forums. You sir, are racist. For the sake of all of us, please re-evaluate your views.
I can see how you'd reach that conclusion, especially since it was what you wanted to conclude all along. But really, Europe does have a Muslim immigration problem. There's no problem with Chinese immigrants, or Western ones, or anyone who comes in and adapts and doesn't cause trouble.
But there sure as hell is a problem with Somalis, in both Finland and Sweden. We're all brainwashed by our Western cultures in to viewing the world through rose-colored glasses, but that's not what reality is like.
There are differences between races and cultures.
It absolutely does. If you do not have the (sound, defensible) numbers to point it out, what you have are personal anecdotes, not evidence.
So in other words, you believe Somalis rape 34x more than the general population, but you don't actually have proof of it. The fact that you would readily believe that one group rapes a whole 34x more than another group, without skepticism or wanting to verify the facts, reveals a great deal about what you wish to believe.
I highly recommend reading up on statistics, and looking at more stats in general (and not just in relation to crime). When you see a stat like "group A commits crime THIRTY FOUR TIMES more than group B", your skepticism alarm needs to go off. It isn't impossible, but it's also so unlikely demographics-wise that it bears extreme skepticism and checking.
For example, if you look at the very worst neighborhoods in the very worst cities of the US and compare their crime rates to the very best urban areas, the crime rate difference is usually not more than 4-5x. THIRTY FOUR times is such an extreme outlier that frankly I'm shocked you were not skeptical about it.
> "Why would it not be reasonable to assume that if a minority is not on that list, it's an insignificant one?"
Because insignificant numbers accumulate. How many "other" nationalities do you think there exists in your country? There are 130+ countries in existence right now - even if they each contribute very little to your rape statistics, that's a lot of accumulated crime.
You cannot ignore variables unless you have very good reason to. No group can be claimed "insignificant" without reason, not if you want to be anywhere close to impartial and correct.
What you need is the real breakdown of the "others" category, not an inferred one subject to your own biases.
And here's a little riddle for you: if the stats here are organized by significance (see how significant contributing nationalities are separated out?), why aren't the Somalis separated out? You would think that a rate over 34x more than the general population, contributing to a huge portion of rapes in the country, would bear its own column, no?
Your reasoning is specious.
> "Why would membership in none of the others not imply membership in the Somalis group?"
Okay. I've tried to remain civil, but your ignorance and lack of knowledge is so poisonous, and supports a view so vicious, that I cannot.
NO. FOR THE LOVE OF FUCKING GOD READ A BOOK. Educate yourself before making stupid statements up like this.
Do you really believe that in the entire country of Finland there are only thirteen non-Finnish nationalities represented?
Here's a simpler example. There's a parking lot outside with 100 cars. 3 of them are Toyota, 2 of them are Honda, and 95 are "other". In the "other" category there are 5 Chryslers and 5 Fiats.
What you are saying is that this means we have 85 Fords - even though nothing in the data suggests that my breakdown of the "others" is even remotely close to comprehensive - you've assumed that, and conveniently forget that there are more car brands in the world than Toyota, Honda, Chrysler, Fiat, and Ford.
Do you start to understand?
> "It's actually common knowledge here in Finland that Somalis rape a lot of women"
Yet where is your proof? You have offered ZERO evidence. You would think that if Somalis really raped women at a rate OVER THIRTY TIMES the national average, that you can find some iota of evidence? You would think that this would appear as a distinct column in your stats - after all, it points out much smaller national groups!
This is nothing more than your own prejudice and the prejudice of people who share your "common knowledge".
> "It's common knowledge in Sweden too, by the way. In Germany, it's the Turks, and in the Netherlands, it's Moroccans."
This is depressing. You are so blatantly racist but somehow you don't see it for yourself.
What's next. It's common knowledge in Germany too, it's actually the Jews?
This sort of "common knowledge" that can't seem to be backed up by fact (and what you offered is so far from fact I'm not sure what to say) is the most blatant, vicious form of racism. This casual belief that "well of COURSE group A rapes 34x more than everyone else, everyone knows that", yet with no evidence of it. The willingness to believe shocking, mind-boggling things without seeking the slightest shred of proof!
This whole conversation is sickening.
> "There are people who are aware of reality, and then there are Sheeple"
Ahh, I see how this works now. You've chosen to believe something so outrageous that it staggers belief, with no proof whatsoever. The only way you can defend this position is if you convince yourself anyone who disagrees is controlled by the government/media and are "sheeple".
You sir, are the worst kind of racist.
> "Without any mention of the ethnicity, the reader will just assume it was locals who did it."
And you will assume it's Somalis, right? Do you see what you just did yourself?
> "Again, I never claimed to be rigorous with my stats. That's just an assumption by you."
THEN YOU HAVE NO PROOF OR EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER.
What you are saying: "I'm completely making up these numbers to support my world view, I've never claimed these numbers are correct. BUT LOOK AT THEM, THEY REVEAL THE TRUTH ABOUT THE SOMALIS"
So here's what you really must own up to: your beliefs are your own but they are not supported by evidence or reason. You are entitled to your beliefs, however wrong and racist they may be, but do not claim to have evidence for it unless you actually do.
I came into this reply thinking maybe I had you wrong, maybe this is just a gross miscommunication and exercise in statistical awfulness. But no, you are far more racist than I even suspected. For the love of God I hope we never meet.
Sweet merciful [insert all deities here]... You've just completely ruined my morning. You are by far the most racist person I've ever conversed with, and I've seen some racist shit on this side of the ocean. The fact that people like you exist makes me depressed.
> If you do not have the (sound, defensible) numbers to point it out, what you have are personal anecdotes, not evidence.
You're still stuck on the numbers, and the lack of "statistical rigor" in the way I used them. Fine, let's just forget about the numbers.
As I already mentioned, the fact of the matter is that every non-sheep Finn KNOWS that Somalis rape women. It's just the way it is. We KNOW that the media tries to cover up the fact that Somalis are most often the perpetrators in cases of rape. We KNOW that whenever a bunch of "Younglings" gang-raped a woman, it was Somalis.
What would you expect from a culture that considers women men's property? They believe that if a woman is showing too much skin, she's asking to get raped. I heard this first-hand from a Pakistani colleague I befriended back when I was still a sheep too. Not only that, but if she wants anyone to get convicted, she needs four pious Muslim MEN as witnesses for the rape, and if she goes to the police station to complain about getting raped, the police may just decide to rape her too, just for funzies (or because she's "filthy" or whatever the official, Islam-sanctioned excuse was). Yeah. Not every single goddamn time, but it does happen.
It's just obvious that Muslims are more rapey than your average white Westerner (or any other non-Muslim).
Now, at this point, feel free to howl about "painting with a broad brush" or how Not All Of Them (tm) rape women, and so on. Not ALL of them bury their daughters alive for showing too much skin. No, but it constitutes a noteworthy phenomenon, and the observation can be made that Muslims are a group of people who do that (to whatever relatively-small-but-nevertheless-fucking-insane extent it happens).
So in other words, you believe Somalis rape 34x more than the general population, but you don't actually have proof of it. The fact that you would readily believe that one group rapes a whole 34x more than another group, without skepticism or wanting to verify the facts, reveals a great deal about what you wish to believe.
Yes, I'm willing to believe a factor of 34. But even if my "estimate" is wrong by half, it's still a massive factor of 17. Would you believe I was off by half? Even if we discounted a huge mistake like being off by 50%, it would still leave a massive factor of over-representation.
Again, it's just a fact that they are more rapey than non-Muslims. I can't just whip out proof for that claim, because rapes by Somalis specifically are not listed (even though they are for those handful of other groups) in those statistics. Not only that, but the media censorship of Somali rapes kind of gets in the way of proving anything.
And here's a little riddle for you: if the stats here are organized by significance (see how significant contributing nationalities are separated out?), why aren't the Somalis separated out? You would think that a rate over 34x more than the general population, contributing to a huge portion of rapes in the country, would bear its own column, no?
Here's another right back at you: If our government instructs our media to cover up Somalis' crimes, do you think they'd just give us the statistics that would make them blindingly obvious?
Can I personally prove the censorship to you right now? No, not really. But I KNOW it happens. You can't hinge everything on proof that is - or would be - provided by a government. All governments lie to their little tax cows. You want proof of that? Well, you can't have it.
You know, I used to be an innocent, well-meaning sheep like you. I used to be quite enthusiastic about the idea that we're all equal and we're all "the same" and that we should all just live together in peace and harmony, but then, gradually, I was faced with Reality, and had to adjust my views on things. That's the thing. You need to be capable of adjusting your views on things whenever the need arises.
But it's in our nature as human beings to reject any changes, cling to our preconceived notions and dislike/resent anything that represents Otherness. Because of that, different races just aren't destined to get along. Saying that doesn't mean I hate black people just for being black, it means I'm aware of this particular aspect of reality.
> Do you really believe that in the entire country of Finland there are only thirteen non-Finnish nationalities represented?
How well do you know Finland? -Not particularly, obviously. Do you have any idea how homogenous our population still is? Before 1990, there weren't any Somalis here.
Even in 2011, the people who speak something other than Finnish or Swedish (or Lappish) comprised only 4.5% of the population: http://www.stat.fi/til/vaerak/2011/vaerak_2011_2012-03-16_ta...
So when the chart I originally posted says: "The largest groups by native language 2001 and 2011", there's no reason to interpret it as: "The largest groups by native language 2001 and 2011 (EXCEPT FOR LOTS OF OTHER PEOPLE WE LEFT OUT)"
Yet where is your proof? You have offered ZERO evidence. You would think that if Somalis really raped women at a rate OVER THIRTY TIMES the national average, that you can find some iota of evidence? You would think that this would appear as a distinct column in your stats - after all, it points out much smaller national groups!
You just keep yammering on and on about evidence.
Here's an idea: You should vote for Obama because he's The Good Guy, and Romney is The Bad Guy. You want The Good Guy to win, right?
Here's another: Your country's real, actual unemployment rate is 7.9%. (Do you think you can prove this by pointing to BLS statistics? --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbfttPAj66k )
The massive bank bailouts and "stimulus" ever since 2008 have helped, and your economy is now on the path to prosperity!
Spain doesn't need a bailout! After all, Mr. Rajoy told us so!
You're free to believe all of that, but if you do, you are a clueless sheep. Most people in the world are, of course, and it's not your fault - you've been brainwashed into it, after all. But it is your mission, should you choose to accept it, to start seeing and accepting Reality for what it is.
Or, you could just keep on raging and bleating angrily at anyone who says anything that goes against your Rainbows & Unicorns view of the world.
By the way, here's another racial group in Finland that's a bit too active in the crime department: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Kale#Perceived_violence... ..
> in 2005, persons of Romani background (who make up less than 0.2% of the total population of Finland[1]) perpetrated 18% of solved street robbery crimes in Finland
So a group of people that represents 0.2% of the population perpetrated 18% of the street robberies in Finland. Want proof of that? I haven't got any, but having lived all my life in Finland, it's very easy for me to believe it. This is a group of people that performs the vast majority of shoplifting too. I can't cite any statistics for that either, but I've personally seen them wander around a department store, just picking stuff up and putting it into their pockets. Want proof of that? Sorry, I don't have the security camera footage. But this is yet another thing that's common knowledge in Finland, and this time even Sheeple would agree, with a sheepish grin on their faces.
Now, here's something you should think about really fucking hard: Is it RACIST to point this stuff out? Or is it, you know, just.. describing Reality? But whenever someone describes a part of reality you're not comfortable with, you label them racist or whatever-ist and then proceed to rage at them.
> - by way of comparison, Somalis were responsible for 12%, while ethnic Finns were close to 51%.
Well well well, who do we have here? So Somalis commit 12% of all street robberies in Finland? But.. but.. they're such a lovely and upstanding group of model citizens! That simply CAN'T be true!
But no, you are far more racist than I even suspected. For the love of God I hope we never meet.
Ah, because then you'd just HAVE to beat me into a bloody pulp in the name of Justice! Right?
That's sweet. I hope we never meet too. Who knows, maybe I'm a filthy misogynist too, so beating me into a pulp just wouldn't suffice - you'd have to straight up kill me.
All in the name of Righteousness and Justice, of course. Killing me would be your civic duty as a Good Person.
You are by far the most racist person I've ever conversed with, and I've seen some racist shit on this side of the ocean. The fact that people like you exist makes me depressed.
Well, Mr. White Knight, you just might be the most enraged sheep I've ever conversed with. I guess that makes us even. You know, there are actually people on Hacker News that live in reality. Sometimes you even see them speak about it, and somehow miraculously not get downvoted into oblivion by a herd of enraged sheeple, so I thought some of that might have rubbed off on you. Apparently I was wrong.
You can't assume that other foreigners are somalis. It wouldn't make sense if they were either, because why would they single out estonians and russians, but not somalis?
This is a gross error that might fly on another board, but you are totally wrong, and a racist to boot! Downvoted.
In Denmark, at least, there's also this inaccurate perception, like what you mention, that immigrants are causing all the violence. But here we have basically two main sources of violence: biker gangs, who are mostly white, and immigrant gangs, who are mostly not. The kinds of people who vote Danske Folkeparti and are really worried about crime never seem to mention the biker gangs. Same in the UK: a huge amount of crime in the UK is caused by lower-class whites, the group sometimes derogatorily termed "chavs", and overlapping with "hooligan" culture. But you don't see the BNP complaining about them. Why? Because that's where their own members come from.
Some of my family is Greek, and there is no real tolerance there either, except from a smallish segment of left-wing internationalists. There are 2nd-generation Chinese-origin Greeks who speak perfect Greek and are generally integrated, but are still called racist names and considered "foreigners" by the Greeks who have a very ethnic view of Greekness (the majority).
Oh? At least in Finland, the situation is actually the exact opposite of that. As far as I know, the same applies all over Scandinavia and Central Europe.
In Copenhagen I would say things aren't too bad, but I wouldn't call it a great degree of tolerance or understanding, more "tolerance" in the sense of "will grit my teeth and tolerate you". Outside Copenhagen, things get progressively worse. And the government doesn't treat the religions equally: the Church of Scientology, of all things, got permission to build a church in Copenhagen, but the government is still holding up construction of a mosque.
And Central Europe? It's no fun at all, and possibly physically unsafe, to be Pakistani or black in Poland...
In addition, the statistics indicate that Somalis are crime victims much more often than they're perpetrators, mostly due to the high prevalence of hate crimes perpetrated by young white men. See: http://www.poliisiammattikorkeakoulu.fi/poliisi/poliisioppil...
This looks like government propaganda, basically. Sure, some Finns are genuinely racist, but the overwhelming majority of people here are very tolerant and sensitive about "offending" any immigrant group (as long as they're black, of course).
Before you shout at me for being racist, take a look at my conversation with potatolicious: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4654794
Quite frankly, the article you linked to looks disgusting to me. Like some "perception shaping campaign" with the aim of sensitivizing the police force to "hate crime".
All this hysteria about "racism", defined roughly as: "pointing out any facets of reality that reflect negatively on any non-white (preferably black) people", could well be meant to stifle freedom of speech. It's working too, because most sheeple in Finland are very strict about not saying anything negative about Somalis, for example, even though there's good reason to.
Part of ICE's job is to deport any foreign nationals who are a danger to the country, and I think this would be acceptable action. For example, ICE failed to detect and deport/imprison the 9/11 attackers before 9/11, even though they were in the US legally.
> Also bear in mind that of all Muslim terrorists who have committed an act of terrorism on American soil, many were visitors to the US, not immigrants. Do you believe we should also restrict Muslim visitation of the USA?
Restrictions should have nothing to do with religion. It's a matter of doing the proper legwork to ensure that those who are a danger to the country, Muslim or otherwise, are not allowed in.
> Your idea is fun to think about, but IMO it's not realistic. There are too many moving pieces for "no more Muslims in the US" to be a realistic policy choice.
You're attempting to use reductio ad absurdum. I never suggested that there shouldn't be any more Muslims in the US.
> Go to any of the top US schools and look at both the grad student and professor rosters, count the people of Middle Eastern decent or of Muslim faith. These are all huge wins for American society - both in talent addition and talent denial to rival regimes. Do you really want all of these people to, say, go work for the Chinese? Or Iran?
Strawman. I never suggested that educated people with a significant contribution to make to the country shouldn't be allowed in. My statement was mostly applicable to Europe actually, where they allowed in a lot of poor and uneducated Muslims who ended up living in Muslim ghettos and failing to assimilate into mainstream European society. They're now well known for killing their daughters for talking with a guy not related to them and keeping them from getting a higher education.
Take a parallel with communism and the Rosenberg execution. Many declared that as just plain barbary, antisemitism, etc. "Between the trial and the executions there were widespread protests and claims of antisemitism; the charges of antisemitism were widely believed abroad" (wikipedia)
But they were spies, and they gave secrets to help an enemy build atomic weapons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_and_Ethel_Rosenberg
Was this racism?
Sometimes big problems require hash actions. It might look like a bad move morally, but tactically it might be justifiable.
Example in hand - Quebec in Canada is selecting its own french speaking immigrants. After noticing on studies that immigrants from a specific part of the world were much more likely to be jobless or receiving public help, they discussed reducing the ratio of immigrants from this part of the world. The part of the world was north-Africa.
Is this racist? (while they keep welcoming immigrants from the rest of the world and north-Africa - but just adding a ratio)
Just as a general rule of thumb: not all Arabs are Muslims and not all Muslims are Arabs.
You forgot the thousand years when they were inventing mathematics while your ancestors were living in mud huts covered in their own shit. Europe wasn't even capable of syllogism until they stole the knowledge back from the arabs.
You're conflating some poverty-stricken residents of impoverished parts of the world riled up by political rhetoric with a credible enemy (like a cold war style superpower).
You're arguments make as much sense as labeling all white people everywhere as Nazis because Hitler was a white guy.
Go to Liberia or the Congo or India. You'll see that people aren't civilized, they will eat each other if out of ritual. That was the case everywhere over a 100 years ago. You miss that it's not some kind of inherent badness, they are simply living in a different time, like 1800s europe for example. If children commit crimes they are not convicted in the same manner as adults, that's the correct analogy to take.
As civilized people and members of the global species that is humanity, it's a responsibility to take care of the weak. The problems you've outlined are (global) law enforcement problems. And they are disappearing, as time passes everyone on earth will become modern. Watch some Steven Pinker and see how today is the most peaceful time in human history.
Watch Carl Sagan's blue dot and realize it's not Us vs Them. That's the thinking of pre-space age man.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WibmcsEGLKo (Charlie Chaplin)
I'm not talking about educated people, and like I said above, this issue is not particularly applicable to America, it's more relevant to Europe. In Europe, there is a serious issue with Muslim immigrants not integrating into mainstream society, and this is because many European nations accepted large numbers of Muslim immigrants in an indiscriminate fashion.
Put this way, it's even more stupid. It's as if people go about "hating the west" for no reason (or because their "religion tells them so", which is a Glenn Beck level argument).
A thing called colonialism did exist. Some hundred million people were killed in invasions and wars and while fighting for their freedom, and some 2 billion people were living under foreign occupation.
And then you had a thing called post-colonialism, that does exist. With hundreds of interventions and resource-grubbing all over the world. With so called "banana republics" set up. And with countries thousands of miles away of some areas, have the audacity to believe they have "strategic interests" in those areas, and that it gives them the right to intervene, get their resources for cheap, place puppet governments, etc. You know, like some country in the American continent controlling Philippines or killing people in Vietnam.
What sets the Arabs apart is their vast oil riches. Without that, they wouldn't have the money or power to do anything to the West.
Arabs, as in "arab states" could not care less about "doing anything to the west". What sets those people apart is indeed their vast oil riches, that had provoked unprecedented resource-grubbing, puppet government establishment and invasions western powers.
Does anyone imagine what a foreign power invading the US would mean to the US people, and under some BS pretext at that? But invading Iraq under the BS pretext of WMDs, wrecking the country in the process, killing hundreds of thousands, taking control of the oil and leaving them in a state of civil war by playing into the competing tribal and religious interests, is somehow "normal", because they are "arabs".
So, the people there have a lot of reasons to "blame the west". It's not like they have any spectacular resources, either. WWII era guns and ammo, and cheaply made stuff, while the "west" kills them with drones and 21st century military technology.
>The minute that crude oil loses its relevance to the Western world, the Arabs will just go back to what they were before - a bunch of desert nomads with no real power.
Actually they had a huge empire, including parts of Europe, even before the crude oil gained relevance.
The west managed to turn them to "a bunch of desert nomads with no real power" precisely when it wanted to get ahold of cheap labour and later the crude oil.
All that is true, but it doesn't change what America needs to do now to ensure it remains in control in the most efficient manner. Moreover, with domestic and renewable sources of energy, we wouldn't need to get involved in the Middle East, so they would benefit too.
> The west managed to turn them to "a bunch of desert nomads with no real power" precisely when it wanted to get ahold of cheap labour and later the crude oil.
Great civilizations rise and fill. Regardless of how they got there, that's where they'll be when the US leaves. My point is that their ability to attack the US will be neutralized the minute their cash flow stops.
The root cause would be the West arming and training militant Islam.
Back in the day, there was the Caliphate, which was the government of Turkey and Egypt, and the Salafis, Wahhabis and Saudis, who were the militants.
The Caliphate sent a huge army to wipe out the extremists and chase the survivors into the desert.
Later, the West thought it would be clever to bring the extremists back to take over Pakistan (google for "Deobandi") and Arabia (which is why it is called Saudi Arabia now).
Then, they thought it would be really clever to give them Stinger missiles to piss off the Russians (see "Rambo 3"). Saudis + help from Ronald Reagan = AlQaeda.
The West are still arming the extremists (google for "Jundullah"). They think it's a really clever way to piss off the governments in Syria and Iran.
Apparently nothing has been learned from 911.
Benjamin Franklin addressed that issue "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Sometimes, I wonder what's the next target after free speech.
I don't think farmers are a strategic objective. If I had to make that call, I'd go after woman rights, and trade that against something strategically insignificant concession (say like "allowing" farmers to keep raising pork).
(EDIT: Fixed Franklin quote. human memory failure :-)
Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
It is important to do so; "essential liberty" and "temporary safety" are not the same as "liberty" and "safety".
Freedom of speech is an essential liberty. The #1 most essential liberty, to allow science, progress and democracy
As another note, don't forget to consider the second element- "temporary safety". If the safety purchased by showing greater deference to militant Islamism is not temporary, the quote is not applicable.
I am not arguing that this is the case, merely reminding to think critically- his quote was very specific, and it aggravates me when people abuse it without a moment's thought.
Anyway, I know what I believe, but I don't have the material to make a case right now, so that is all.
Writing style has changed over the centuries, to me this reads like he's also reminding us that liberty is essential, and safety is temporary - and that it always must be so.
Ok, you can be nit-picky and argue that no safety is truly timeless, but in that context the word "temporary" loses all meaning, as everything is temporary. Safety that lasts generations or for the duration of nations is clearly distinct from safety that lasts a season.
What liberty isn't essential?
Perhaps liberties that necessarily infringe on other people's liberties?
I'm simply stating a fact, not making a judgement call. The main thrust of my comment was the lack of plain speaking in that article. It's not a very comfortable fact, but there it is: society often makes practical, rather than principled, choices about stuff like this.
So, more about how I personally feel about it:
I think it sucks that people get so infuriated when their religious figure or texts are abused or insulted. But it seems more practical to accept that the group has a mental problem, and to treat them with special care, than to provoke and punish when they act out. And what, after all, is so hard about not insulting Mohammad? Frankly, I think it's a genrally bad idea to insult anyone anyway, and while it's annoying in some abstract way that there is ONE GUY I really shouldn't insult...well, honestly, I don't feel all that oppressed by the prospect.
>Sometimes, I wonder what's the next target after free speech.
Well, first you're kind of tacitly assuming that all free speech has been destroyed by the islamists. It hasn't. A very narrow sliver of it has, and that's a shame, but let's not overstate the impact. The impurity of free speech is abhorrent - but what does this impurity get us? Attacked less? Saves some mentally unstable people some stress? Saves some lives maybe?
I think these protections around religion will mean that they will be the dominant thoughts on a lot of topics long after they otherwise would be relevant to those topics.
And once you figure out the (right) answer to that question, please rewrite your post to replace 'islamists' with 'militants'.
The real lesson here is what better way to mobilise a generation of a nation into militancy than occupy their country, sell off their assets, kill 5% of the population and then insult their religion.
No need to rewrite anything, it's both their hostility and philosophical differences that scare us. Overcoming that fear and reaffirming our values is the basis for one of the most important texts in the European culture — The Song of Roland.
EDIT: I do know what you mean and I'm sorry but those are just feel-good platitudes. West quite obviously is not afraid of militant Christians or atheists. Mostly because there aren't really any left, and those who still hang around don't regularly erupt in violence, but also because they're much more like us and it's easier for us to understand their particular extremism.
I think you also misunderstand. Militants are a small subset of society which also includes some muslims, some christians, hindus, atheists etc. Point is, vast majority of muslims are peaceful, just the same as christians or atheists.
The west is RUN by militant christians (and militant jews and militant atheists etc). They use armies to inflict their particular brand of extremism. They killed about a million iraquis. They murder people in cold blood by dropping missiles from drones from 50,000 ft up. Pretty fucking extreme if you ask me.
Point I was trying to make is the militancy is an end in itself and the belief structures are simply bent to serve it.. in refutation of the idea that militancy in the muslim world is peculiarly religious.
They find religious justifications for operational killings in order not to abandon their religion, not because their religion demands it. US forces just abandon religion when it suits them and call themselves a secular nation. The British made themselves a whole new religion answerable to the head of state. These are all just ways of twisting religion to serve power.
The "Muslim militants" under discussion launch attacks for specifically Muslim motives, with carefully constructed justifications cross-referenced to precise verses from the Koran and Hadiths.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_of_God_(USA)
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost/access/342577631....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutaree
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/todd-green-phd/anders-behring-...
http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/guest_bloggers/...
The Wikipedia entry for "Song of Roland" ends with the actions of Roland's avengers:
"The traitor is torn limb from limb by galloping horses and thirty of his relatives are hung for good measure."
What differences in philosophy and hostility were you referring to again?
The real lesson is that christianity endured 300 years of this aggression, before Pope Urban made christianity do an about turn, and began the (very minimal) Crusades against islam. They were a failure, and islamic violence against European christendom continued until the Siege of Vienna (when Jan Sobieski defeated the muslim army on September 11, 1683).
Watch just 1 minute of this video to see what happened: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...
The muslim attack against Europe continued beyond this. The white slave trade continued for hundreds of years (it was stopped by a joint British/US naval bombardment of Algeria in 1815). In 1951 the UN report on slavery calculated that 5% of the population of Saudi Arabia and Yemen were still slaves.
Buddhism did not respond in the same way as christianity to islamic aggression. Many experts on the history of buddhism say that buddhism died about 1000 years ago (e.g. Conze). And they explicitly attribute this death of buddhism to the onslaught of the islamic invasion & destruction in India.
The real lesson is that some religions are actually militant political movements wrapped up in religion. Islam is one such religion. Islamic militancy was going on for hundreds of years before christianity responded in kind.
This is just plain bullshit! The introduction of islam to much of the world was through trade, just the same as the christians. And if you take slavery, trade and military occupations to be evidence that "The real lesson is that some religions are actually militant political movements wrapped up in religion." then I am afraid you will have to say the same of christianity.
Once again, the point is that extremists / militants use religion (or any other reason) to justify occupation, oppression and murder. To fight militant-ism you have to do just two things. 1.resist. 2.not become one.
ps: were you serious about that video you linked? seems like dumb paranoid aryan propaganda to me..
However that should not be interpreted as praise of Islam. In fact, I think that comparison is extraordinary damming.
Large group takes over world, then spreads religion. vs Large group spreads religion, and takes over world.
Yeah, REAL moral high ground there.
As for the pagan citizens of the Empire who didn't convert after that, the Parabalani made short work of them...
Would you care to provide evidence for that assertion about trade rather than jihad? There is evidence that for areas like Indonesia & Malaysia, trade was the route. For almost everywhere else, it was by war. Next you'll be telling me that the hundreds of years in which islam used violence to dominate Spain was a Golden Age of tolerance and multi-culturalism.
Ibn Ishaq's book "The Life of Mohammed" was known by muslims for hundreds of years as "The Book of Battles". Muslims must emulate Mohammed. In the 13 years he was in Mecca, he attained 150 followers. In Medina he embraced war, assassination, slave-taking and robbery. By the time he died, all of Arabia was muslim.
Essentially, Islam was spread by the sword.
Attacking that video as "dumb paranoid aryan propaganda" is an ad hominem fallacy. Deal with the facts.
So would you please care to provide evidence to this assertion? How someone with a mere 150 followers could control a whole nation ?
s/is islamic became muslim/was colonial became christian/
"Islamic militancy was going on for hundreds of years before christianity responded in kind."
Try a search for the word "crusade" on wikipedia. You might find it enlightening.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades
== Middle Eastern situation ==
In 636 CE, Muslim forces led by the Arab Rashidun Caliphs defeated the Eastern Roman/Byzantines at the Battle of Yarmouk, conquering Palestine...
== Western European situation ==
The western European idea of the Crusades came in response to the deterioration of the Byzantine Empire caused by a new wave of Turkish Muslim attacks...
I'll take moslem Spain over Torquemada any day.
It is complete stupidity to assert Islamic violence over European Christendom, when Europe became Christian because of the violence of the Roman Empire.
So what if Europe had been conquered by Genghis Khan and subsequently turned moslem? The Albigensians were exterminated by Catholics. Do you find that somehow better than if they had been exterminated by Sunnis? Do you think the Albigensians enjoyed being slaughtered by Catholics more?
At their basis, Islam, Christianity and Judaism are exactly the same horrid Old Testament garbage. If anything, Islam is less offensive because some of the worst bits of the Old Testament have been cut out, the same way Java is less offensive than C++.
And it's probably not a coincidence that this debate flares up in the media just as sable rattling for military action against Iran reaches its peak.
No, threatening shop owners who sell alcohol. It's already happening in some regions of Russia that have large Muslim populations, like Dagestan.
Typically they'd send you a "flash card" with photos of your wife and kids. Then you're on the hook to pay money to Muslim militants, or your family suffers. Going to the authorities won't work, since many government officials are on the same hook.
Here's an article about these "flash cards" on a militant website: http://guraba.info/2011-02-27-17-49-46/28-facty/1344-2012-06... It's in Russian, you'll need a translator.
Please, compute the odds. You have a higher chance of being struck by lightning, or being killed by one of your relatives, or suffering an airplane crash, or simply dying from lung cancer even if you don't smoke.
Violent reprisals work only if you get scared. This is the fundamental mechanism of terrorism, and terrorism has found a perfect echo chamber with modern media, be it broadcast TV or the web and their unquenchable thirst for drama, blowing the actual risk completely out of proportion[0]. Resisting the cognitive bias and refusing to be terrorized is the only winning move.
[0] http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/01/the_comparativ...
No, it's not just that.
Western politically correct liberals, the kind of people that likes to hell-ban dissenting opinions on social issues on HN too, is all for self-censorship on lots of issues, even without involving the "scare of militant Islam".
People also get the equivalent of "hell-banned" from the media, or get fines and prison terms and such for non-PC talk that has nothing to do with muslims. If you count "hate speech" in that, a loosely defined term that can mean anything, it gets even worse.
No, it's neither a practical nor principled stance. It's an act of cowardice, and it's self-destructive.
If we want to win the so-called "war on terror" (god I hate that term), then we need to stop being so terrified. The real enemy in the "war" is ourselves: our emotions, our fears, our gut reactions, and our knee-jerk impulses. Terrorists win when they induce terror, and when that terror compels us to bend and flex our basic beliefs. Plain and simple.
The best response to militant Islam is to reaffirm free speech, to stand up in the face of our fears, and to allow terrorism not to affect us. A defiant lack of terror robs terrorism of its power.
Now, I'm not so naive as to suggest that terrorists won't keep attempting terrorism. They probably always will. But they'll do it regardless of what degree we try to kowtow to their religious sensitivities. They'll do it not because they are Muslims, or because they're offended by us, but because they are militants attempting to advance a specific, political agenda. The Muslims who aren't violently advancing a political agenda, i.e., the majority of them, aren't going to be driven to do so by our free expression.
But I'm not terrified. I just don't want to get killed for saying something that I probably wasn't inclined to say anyway, so I choose not to say it. I consider it an appeasement, but a reasonable one.
We say we don't bargain with hostage takers - but what if the hostage taker demanded a stick of gum. Would you insist on not giving them the gum on the principal that if you give them gum, the next time they'll want a sandwich, and the time after that, the world?!
No, I say give them their stick of gum. It's the polite thing anyway. But if they push it too far, then not only will we not agree to it, but we'll go ahead and take away the gum too.
Somalis are quite militant about Islam, you know.
This is very incorrect to say it is misconstrued. In Schenck vs US, the Court was prosecuting a pacifist who distributed pamphlets protesting the involuntary draft in World War I, arguing that forced drafts constituted involuntary servitude and were therefore prohibited by the constitution.
The decision was an extremely bad one and the passage by Holmes was inflammatory rhetoric since the case was clearly never about shouting fire in a theatre, it was about peacefully and reasonably protesting unconstitutional action by the government.
The clear and present danger test was eliminated in 1969 when the Court established instead a "imminent lawless action" test as the line that speech must cross. Again though, interpretation of what speech will lead to "imminent lawless action" is not defined so this is a poor test as well. Clearly in some cases peaceful criticism of violent religious practices, as well as harmless cartoons that are not even disparaging have lead to imminent lawless action. A more reasonable view would be to note that those who engage in lawless action should be responsible for their own actions, regardless of whatever speech or opinions they claim made them engage in criminal behavior. No one makes you engage in criminality. It is something you choose to do.
It's an interesting theory that the thirteenth amendment prohibits conscription, but it's never been upheld in court.
It's questionable whether many would support it given the way it worked is you paid a $300 fee in order not to go. Usually a poor recent immigrant to the US would be sent in your place. Do you think this scheme would fly these days and be considered legitimate?
US law actually designates most adult male citizens under the age of 45 as members of the "unorganized militia", and the Constitution explicitly gives Congress the power to call up the militia for active military service. Defending your country when called upon is also generally seen as one of the duties of citizenship. It occurs to me, offhandedly, that universal conscription would both satisfy the equal protection clause and reinforce the notion that military service was one of the duties of citizenship.
This seems like a false dilemma: either blame the speaker or the doer -- not both?
Moreover, the question is open as to whether or not some speech in some circumstances can provoke violence where otherwise none would have occurred. All you are saying in response to the question is an unqualified "no."
In Britain 2 police officers were killed. The same day a guy wrote on his t-shirt something to the effect of "kill pigs for fun hahahaah." This is a stupid thing to do. I would have thought the police might confiscate his t-shirt. Nope, that wouldn't have been sufficient. He got 4 months in prison.
After any major crime you hear that someone has been arrested because they have set up a fan page or wrote some stupid comments online praising the person who did it. I would have thought Facebook moderation would be sufficient.
Most recently.. a girl went missing. Some muppet on Facebook wrote how he "woke up" next to her. Not all of his comments were posted but these appear to be on his Facebook wall. He wasn't trolling the family or abusing memorial pages. He is now spending 3 months in prison...
You then have the frustrated traveler who said he would blow an air port "sky high". He was arrested, found guilty and fined. It took a year or two to finally win an appeal.
I am not defending these people. They have done stupid things. Some should be warned by police. However, there appears to be a crackdown going on quietly if you cause even the slightest offense. As a citizen of a western country this worries my greatly.
These all come under the Communications Act 2003, which prohibits any "message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character"
It's stupid puritanistic legislation and it needs to be repealed.
http://www.neiladdison.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/law/malcomm.htm
Most of this legislation came in under "think of the children" type laws to prevent critical discussion of the warmongering taking place in the last couple of decades (since just before the Gulf War).
It's not puritanism, as at least that had some moral basis. This is plain totalitarianism under a fascist banner. The associated forms of indoctrination and the inevitable propaganda makes people think they should be offended when they see this as "it must be bad", resulting in the cycle continuing.
Most people aren't offended by this sort of thing - they are afraid to have a potentially different opinion and therefore conform.
Editing to add: in my youth I called a policeman a "fascist cunt" and was told off. I was a) a couple of decades early and b) punished appropriately.
I'm fairly certain it is puritanism. Generally speaking it's the result of people thinking it is an appropriate role of law to enforce morality in society, rather than simply to prevent harm.
The older generations, who by and large decide on the legislation, are out of touch with the younger generations who have been brought up in a broadly secular, liberal social landscape, wherein people are less prudish, popular culture is far more sexualised and provocative, etc.
Young people can't quite get their heads around the arbitrary restrictions on their actions — why they are not allowed to say certain words, why they cannot use certain drugs, etc. — and you can't blame them. Dogmatism is everywhere.
> Editing to add: in my youth I called a policeman a "fascist cunt" and was told off. I was a) a couple of decades early and b) punished appropriately.
It depends on the officer and the context, but today that would probably secure you a Section 5 arrest.
The worst part about this is the media coverage almost universally treating this as normal and expected -- which, in a sense, is even worse than explicitly arguing for it -- and neglecting to go into specifics about whether someone posted something on their own wall or not, which is really relevant.
I accept the "fire in a theater" exception. Otherwise I don't care what people said, I defend their right to say it.
He's now a designated "Extremist" http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/11/john-cat...
I can imagine the day when anyone who says "Palestinians are people too" gets locked up under Nazism charges.
MISTYPED ("was locked up"->"was arrested")
Most of the set of current prosecutions in the UK are happening under section 127 of the Communication Act of 2003 - http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/a_to_c/communications_offences/#....
There's a nice dissection of the reasons behind the problems with this bit of legalisation over here http://blogscript.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/section-127-communi...
The legislation almost certainly won't last in it's current state. The CPS are already running round tables to discuss the problems http://blog.cps.gov.uk/2012/10/points-for-discussion-for-soc... and the case-law with won appeals by folk like the airport guy will help too.
Turns out he has a history.
a) He's a psychiatric patient, on anti-psychotic meds with a history of compulsory in-patient detention,
b) His son died in police custody 3 years ago.
He also has a series of criminal convictions, most recently for cultivating cannabis, but I'd like to note that there's a really strong association between schizophrenia and self-medication with cannabis. (I'm told -- this is purely anecdotal, but comes first hand from a dignosed schizophrenic -- that it makes the voices shut up for a while.)
The judge tossed out the mental health argument advanced by the defense. Moreover this case was a public order case, a minor one, but came up before a judge in a crown court (usually the province of serious offenses such as robbery and murder), who imposed a much heavier sentence than would normally be the case for a public order conviction. (Public order offenses are frequently dealt with by a spot fine or, at worst, brought up before a magistrate who has much more limited sentencing powers. It may be that Threw's status -- he was also found to be in breach of a probation order because he was found to be in possession of cannabis -- accounts for that, but: WTF? Four months for possession of cannabis, and another four months for wearing a loud t-shirt in a built-up area? What are we coming to?)
Thew is pretty obviously a petty criminal and what, on the internet, we'd term a troll. But his treatment by the state in this case is odious and heavy-handed, and raises disturbing implications.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/oct/11/manchester-man-jail...
There's a strong correlation between self medication of ~all~ variety and schizophrenia. The reason being (or so I hear) is that the most effective psychiatric drugs to treat schizophrenia tend to have very unpleasant side effects. Cannabis is an interesting case because it's been observed in some cases to exacerbate schizophrenic conditions.
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/the-woman-in-606/Content?...
I keep reading this, but I haven't yet seen a better citation than "my mates in Manchester say it's true".
"Stuart Duke, defending, said Thew had been an inpatient at a mental health unit and was still on anti-psychotic medicine, but the judge replied mental health was "not a factor".
He said Thew had a longstanding dispute with Greater Manchester police over the death of his son three years ago"
http://nothingiseverlost.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/one-less-p...
If you make a good joke of a recent killing - I'll admit that I'll probably get a laugh out of it. I'm not ashamed at all of this. I'm betting a lot of the HN community feels the same way. Will they admit that? That - I'm not sure of.
In my opinion this form of dark humor/ridiculing is even necessary. It keeps society "sane", as it counter balances those sacred cows, and brings more relativism into the perspective.
The other .01% is the only hope we have as a species of honestly addressing our situation and problems and adapting and moving forward. The mob cannot tell the difference between these two groups. In fact, unless you are from the future looking back, nobody can. People who change society for the better through their speech are almost universally hated. At first.
This isn't a nice-to-have feature of modern life. This is critical stuff. To see Ban Ki-moon say “when some people use this freedom of expression to provoke or humiliate some others’ values and beliefs, then this cannot be protected.”? A little bit of us all die.
We as a secular free society must protect people humiliating others, their beliefs and values, through speech. It's the price we paid to get to where we are -- thousands of unpopular folks yelling in the wilderness about how we are stupid, wrong, immoral and how we should improve ourselves. It's much to steep of a price, too much depends on it, for us to abandon it now.
Though I do support their right to express such anti-free speech material, it's some weird kinda strange loop they've got going there...
There are a lot of Christians in America, and for the most part they don't complain against negative speech against their religious ideas. Imagine if they could prosecute every time the name of Jesus or Christ was used as a curse word.
We need free speech.
I'm not sure that barring disgusting speech is "necessary," if only because "necessary" can be such a loaded word.
reddit, for example, seems to have a principle of free speech, where there only a very specific things you are not allowed to say board-wide. So there is a fair amount of disgusting speech there. It seems to work for them -- although I have been slowly disengaging from it over the past year or two, and maybe that's part of the reason.
The sitewide bans, to my recollection, are of only two things (besides that which is illegal): sexualized pictures of children, and doxxing.
Private forums like Hacker News in no way infringe on the rights of others, by using their own property (web site) in a way they deem fit.
Were you by any chance referring to the story of John the Baptist?
If people would be sufficiently secure about their religious views any criticism would just be ignored and people would go on about their business.
(Well, the truth is that people are angry to begin with, and religion is just a nice excuse to vent this anger).
The other part that baffles me are "hate crimes". That word makes no sense. What the heck is a "hate crime"? Are there violent non-hate crimes?
I just find the term "hate crime" a bit pointless. As if violence against a person is worse if the motive was hatred or that person is ... {pick any of: gay, black, white, atheist, catholic, protestant, American, muslim, ...}
A crime directed at someone just because they are members of a certain minority causes every other member to feel like a potential target. I think it makes perfect sense for it to be punished more harshly; the damage is much greater.
This doesn't mean I support criminalizing hate speech, by the way. Just harder punishment for existing crimes.
You don't get it because you're not a devout Muslim of one of the more violent sects, and this is a pretty common problem with people in the West. There's no point in trying to divine motivations in this particular area without understanding the Weltanschauung.
It's not about insecurity. They believe God wants them to punish (with death) people who insult Him.
If you really believe your religious text is the word of God, why would you question His motives? It's not your place. The word "Islam" literally means "submission" in Arabic. The context for your thinking is the European Enlightenment. There was no such thing in Islam.
Anyway, I don't think the GP is entirely correct. Sure, perhaps to a certain extent religious people react negatively to the blasphemy of outsiders because it is the dogma of their religion to do so. I think the greater cause however is that all people, even religious people, tend to be rather rational. When people hear others poking fun of their religion they become upset, not because they "know" they are right (and most would say without hesitation that they do), but because somewhere deep down inside a part of them considers the possibility that the blasphemer just might be right. Blasphemy tickles those deep-seated insecurities. As rational as people are, they really don't like being wrong and made to look a fool.
Neither is just saying they are violent, and that is the end of the story. That is a bit simple, don't you think?
Should I assume that you're "a devout Muslim of one of the more violent sects"?
That's what I'm talking about. Why do you assume this? Why do you assume people who have been beheading each other for blasphemy going on 1500 years have suddenly decided God can take care of himself and it's all really an excuse?
>Should I assume that you're "a devout Muslim of one of the more violent sects"?
Why would you assume that too? What difference does it make?
How could you possibly trust "research" into the minds of millions of people? Doesn't your bullshit detector even twitch a little when you read something like that?
Blasphemy is much closer to the second than the first.
The exact formula for a successful religion is different for different religions, places and times. But it doesn't stretch the imagination to think that violent suppression of expressions of disbelief, doubt, or disrespect might be part of a formula that allows a religion to spread and maintain power.
In other words, maybe religions that don't have prohibitions against blasphemy are quickly torn apart by heretics and skeptics -- or at least limited in size and power.
This isn't a justification of blasphemy prohibitions; it's merely an explanation of why a successful religion (in terms of number of believers) might have such a rule: because the rule is what causes the success.
That would be a sad statement for a religion. But it also points directly to the problem. If a religion is successful only as far as it is able to control people, it is not actually very useful.
Most religions do have extremely useful core concepts. That is true for Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc. If we could just step back to recognize these core concepts all of "this" would just go away...
Blashphemy is just another word for criticism and ridicule. You cannot uphold a dictatorship of unsubstantiated claims if everybody is allowed to openly ask questions. This pattern is always the same in every authoritarian structure and is in no way specific to religion, religion only has a special word for it. Blasphemy is what the kid in "The Emperor's New Clothes" did at the end of the tale: publicly questioning authority, which led to authority breaking down.
> What the heck is a "hate crime"?
For example public calls for Jews to be gassed.
War protests obvious aren't of any real value, after all. They just endanger the public . . .
...but let us be honest. It did.
The precise details shift around a bit, but free speech has always been something that has to be actively maintained: formal guarantees aren't—and I think have never been—sufficient. I don't think there's ever been a time when you could just sit back and enjoy it...
[The reason I ask is because the article seems to written to give the impression that is some sort of worrying new development...]
Protecting people's feelings should not be the role of the state.
I do think it's true that, at least since the 1960s or so, the U.S. has supported a basically unlimited range of political opinion (excluding the flag-burning issue). Perhaps something of a historical anomaly, though, since even in the U.S. that was generally not true earlier: between various sedition acts, laws suppressing communist and anarchist publications, laws suppressing anti-segregationist speech, etc., there have been significant restrictions on "fringe" speech through much of US history.
As Chamberlain and Dalladier brilliantly showed with the Munich Agreement, it can be a good thing to appease a potential adversary which feels wronged for some reason by giving in to their demands and forgetting for a while about one's law or best interests - for a "greater cause". They did in fact avoid a war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement
But since the agreement was made possible by the fear of the potential alternative outcome (failed negotiations -> risk war), which was of different significance to the opponents (one could say, with hindsight, that one of the negotiating parties wanted an opportunity to go to war), an advantage could be gained by the party with attached less significance to the bad outcome.
The result was in fact positive for all the negotiators : they all got what they wanted. But the ones with an interest in a war were given the zone where the border defenses and the banks were - even if the result was positive for all, some gained more - and not just "more", but strategically more.
In other words, reaching an agreement failed to consider the strategic significance of the advantage that was given away.
Slippery slope? Maybe. The real problem is not just incentivizing a very destructive conduct, but it seems very similar - giving away one's best defenses in exchange of a short-lived peace.
Why ? Just like a pen is mightier than a sword, free speech is the best defense of democracy.
Why is no one interested in free speech? (in one of the posts: "I'd be willing to take that risk, the answer is no")
It looks like a public good - one which utility is the sum of marginal utility, with individual marginal utilities not enough to offset the cost of this good.
That's bad.
But there's something to learn - any group that can manage to make its adversary give them their best defense is applying a good strategy - so threatening violence works, while giving in to the demand of bullies with diverging interest doesn't.
(Please do not interpret this post as an endorsement of any party, faith, or country - the strategy here is just very interesting)
Somewhat disappointed in this piece from Turley, who's otherwise quite nuanced.
"Allow me to reemphasize this point. The many participants on HN who criticize Transportation Security Agency 'security theater' as a meaningless reduction in the freedom of people who travel to the United States are right on the basic point. If free citizens of free countries can't live in freedom because of fear of terrorists, the terrorists have already won. You and I should be able to speak our minds and express our opinions in the manner of all people in free countries--sometimes agreeing with one another, sometimes disagreeing, but always letting the other guy have his say. To engage in self-censorship because of fear of violent thugs is to be defeated by the thugs."
As before, I think jerf correctly responded to this issue when he made his comment on it last month:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4510637
If I organize a riot involving thousands of people that I manage to incite into killing people, and I claim my reason is that I heard that some guy is Glasgow made fun of the American soccer team over beer... that guy is Glasgow is not the real reason. It doesn't even qualify as a metaphorical fig leaf, it's just a lie. When the excuse is this tiny, you shouldn't even give it the time of day.
I have to agree with the submitted article that the correct policy is making sure to protect the right of free people in free countries to speak freely about all the issues of the day, including the harm caused to the whole world by fanatics who burn and destroy and kill because their delusional beliefs are offended.
By contrast, the government is supposed to have free speech as one of their fundamental legal principles.
It's a poor argument to suggest that people advocating censorship on Reddit are very similar to those advocating censorship in society at large.
Sure Reddit is a private organization but being so makes it a softer target for censorship advocates. They can try different techniques and arguments in that sandbox and get an amplified, but not dissimilar, return on their actions. It can also serve as a morale booster for those groups.
As they hone their message and techniques against a large, democratic, and heterogeneous population, they can use those same tactics in society at large to provoke the same change in more inertial government.
As for insulting religions it's funny that most times it's religion against religion more than non-religious again religious.
I know people who have tried to make a general comment and are denied but others who make far harsher statements seem to always get them posted. It seems not so much censoring as some weird agenda, it's bizarre. A lot of times commenting is restricted which is too bad since I like to see what people think of stories; pro or con.
Moderators are paid to remove comments, or whole threads. Some words are banned. The purge is even worse that at CBC.
As you said, the real problem is you can't really guess what people think, or how many share a viewpoint, unless you have a bot fetching the page and watching the disappearing posts.
And that worries me too.
At least on HN you can see hellbanned with showdead (hello josephcooney! you may find this discussion amusing, I find it at least better than european style censorship)
The article seems to imply that a monolithic "Western World" has been a fountain head of free expression until the problematic Muslims and a few left-liberals came along. So Jews in the last few centuries, or blacks during Jim Crow had wonderful free expression rights that an un-sullied European civilization had always cherished?
Fast forwarding to this time, quite a few people are in jail within the Western world for espousing extremely un-popular political views.
> such as Ireland, which in <year> criminalized the “publication or utterance of blasphemous matter” deemed “grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion.” The Russian Duma ... proposed a law against “insulting religious beliefs.” Other countries allow the arrest of people who threaten strife by criticizing religions or religious leaders. In Britain, for instance, a 15-year-old girl was arrested two years <before> for burning a Koran.
The blatant simple versions are religious laws often absorbed into law about denying the truth of a religion, worshiping other gods, etc. There are often also similar restrictions on criticism/denial of monarchs. When these get stronger and more elaborate, we tend to call these "State Religions" (eg north korea) hinting at how closely we associate religions with blasphemy/heresy laws.
A more modern "light" varient has cultural pressures at the core. It is considered bad form almost everywhere to openly criticize someone's "beliefs." Beliefs must be mutually respected. They cannot be held against someone. They are treated as a part of one's ethnicity. As far as I can tell this has two sources. The original religious law one (Dawkins has fascinating memetic explanation for this) and a sort of cultural compromise reached enough times following religious wars that it has become deeply ingrained in cultures.
We are predisposed to respecting blasphemy and heresy laws.
I never though I would see the day when the West gave its freedom away just to please a religious group.
It is one thing to go listen to someone from the KKK speak about their thoughts or to read their opinions in a pamphlet or book (this type of free speech I support), it is another to force the public to be exposed to their hateful messaging by forcing billboard/television companies to allow their messaging be shown in a public place.
We should support the rights of companies or individuals to censor content they don't agree with or want to be affiliated with. Government should (at least in some cases) be able to limit certain types of speech where the public would be forced to see something they don't want themselves (or their children) to be subjected to. Government should be less involved with censoring types of speech that someone chooses to be exposed to.
What are your thoughts? How do we find the right balance with free speech and other rights?
By obviously you should have the right to not listen to a particular radio or tv show or not to look at a particular billboard. And yes, Fox News shouldn't have to argue points they don't want to.
But protecting you from seeing something you don't want to see? I don't want to see niggers, should the government lock them up?
Am I expected to believe that the UK and the USA have the same free speech laws? UK libel law, which he doesn't even bring up, is regularly used to restrict free speech. German laws against denying the holocaust, which he never brings up, restrict free speech.
I fail to see this imminent common threat facing western free speech through his omissions and forced equating of examples from multiple jurisdictions.
Christians can't use the state in the U.S. to harass agnostics, athiests, pagans, jews, muslims, buddists, whatever. If our government could stop people from spreading hateful lies about islam, we'd have Christians saying that you can't have a Koran or atheists saying that it's blasphemy to even say there is a God.
You can't say our American Way is the best of all possible worlds, but you can say that it's the least worst.
And I would expect everybody else to do the same.
Btw, an easy way to overcome these sorts of laws would be if everyone just started posting the supposedly forbidden statement on twitter (and elsewhere). They only have the resources to suppress a few disparate voices.
http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/09/18/globalizat...
Stop being insulted. Stop being offended. Let things go. Life is too short for it.
If you're not offended, it doesn't matter what people say. Then we can all say what we like and no-one has to worry.
(though, to be fair, resurrection was Jesus' thing, so he would go better with the zombie thing, and maybe the costumed guy got what he deserved for mixing things up...)
Government is broken.
Though we do also have "family friendly" beaches where you can only have alcohol in areas around the beach, not on the beach itself.
Part of the reason atheists give a shit about what religious idiots say is that not too long ago they were burning us at the stake.
First, it sets up a false dichotomy between an idealized "free speech" past and a present where free speech is in danger. Where's the evidence for this? The US has always had an uneasy relationship with "free speech." I don't believe that the First Amendment was ever interpreted as liberally as this author seems to think.
Any article talking about free speech's decline in the US should refer to the two key Supreme Court cases: Schenck v. United States and Brandenburg v. Ohio. Seriously, it takes like less than 5 minutes to look these up on wikipedia and you can already see that the First Amendment has always been interpreted pretty conservatively. Facts are our friends, I wish this author would have provided some citations and historical context.
As for countries other than the US? Are you kidding me? Europe has always had restrictions even on political speech. There's no limiting of free speech that is new here. Sure the author cites some "new" laws but these laws reflect the spirit of the old laws. No news here people.
Now I'll address the author's subcategories where he believe free speech is being eroded:
Blasphemy: This is the only area in the article where the author has a bit of a point. The presence of relatively large populations willing to riot over perceived insults to their religion (i.e. Muslims) is sort of new in Western Europe and leaders are figuring out how to deal with it. However, I don't see anybody rushing out to ban the Satanic Verses. Most leaders are concerned about people doing silly things like dressing up as zombie Muhammed in public. A key criterion here is the possibility of inciting public violence. Rarely do works of literary or artistic merit have this effect, so restrictions are mostly directed towards people doing insulting things in public. Think of going into a bar and insulting the biggest, dumbest looking guy there. Yes, you should have the right to do that, but ask any prosecutor how much sympathy a judge is going to have for your case. There's nothing new here. Personally, I wish our laws allowed more expressions of insulting speech. I actually agree with the author on that point - but the author undermines his case by pretending that we're somehow backsliding. We're not, this has always been the standard.
BTW, I write this as an atheist who plenty of Muslims would love to see butchered. However, we need to remember that much of the censorship going on around this issue is self-censorship. The state censorship he cites is really nothing new - in France it's just an extension of how they deal with Nazis and others. I disagree with French laws on this, but again, there's nothing new here. The author is being alarmist.
Hate crimes The reason for hate crime laws is that a hate crime is more than just a crime between two people. It's something that has the potential to incite group versus group violence. There's a qualitative difference in an act that's meant to intimidate a a single individual and one meant to intimidate a specific group. When acts directed specifically at a group are committed everyone in that group feels a bit of the effect of the act, hence the punishment should be greater. Additionally, there are some hate criminals who don't mind getting punished just for committing an act against an individual because their real goal is intimidating an entire group.
Speech is discriminatory Ummm, discrimination on the basis of suspect and quasi-suspect categories has been illegal in many circumstances for some time now. Putting up a sign that says "Coloreds not welcome" at your establishment is pretty much illegal and has been even though it's a restriction on "speech." This is based on the fact that you're operating a public establishment and therefore derive gains from being part of the broader society. With those gains come responsibilities. If you and your buddies don't want to hang around blacks when you BBQ in your backyard you're still free to discriminate because you're not running a public establishment in that context. The example cited in the article comes from a comedy club, a public establishment. Again, nothing new here.
Speech is Deceitful If you lie and get a benefit from it, then yes, you should be prosecuted. I don't know why the author views this as a problem. The example he cites from France is not an outlier in French history - it's an extension of France's rather stringent anti-hate laws. Laws I disagree with just like the author does, but again, there's nothing new here.
One of the reasons I really don't like this article is because I kind of agree with the author around loosening free speech standards, but he just does an awful and alarmist job of conveying his point. He is bound to turn off anyone who has any grasp of the history and nuance around the subject. I feel like a cause I support has been set back by this author's very poor argumentation skills.
This article reminds us that opinion column writers were the original trolls long before the Internet ever existed.
tl:dr: The author does not provide any convincing evidence that the "West is limiting Free Speech" in any new way.
I don't agree especially with the latter. It's ridiculous to assert the Holocaust didn't happen - I've visited the remains of the Dachau Concentration Camp, and I won't ever forget that place in my life - but it's equally ridiculous to disallow questioning it. I just pity the people who do it.
But again, it's not exactly right to say that Free Speech doesn't exist here in Europe. I'd say it's mostly the same situation as in the US - it's under attack and we, as the united inhabitants of this planet, need to stand up and fight back where-ever possible. Stop thinking in countries. Start thinking as a part of humanity as a whole.