Comments on: Muslims And Trolling

By: Kevin

Kevin — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 05:52:05 +0000

Nice. I didn’t know this.

By: Mike Hammer

Mike Hammer — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 08:15:19 +0000

Holocaust is a crime aainst humanity , Hence even if there are laws against that ,it’s fine. But Islam is a religion similiar to Christianity or Buddhism. USA is a country ,which despite having the largest congregation of Christians in the devoloped world, still make no fuss about sacriligious South Park episodes, Jesus Christ Superstar or Last Temptation of Christ.
That muslims have gone mad over an obscure substandard film made by a shadowy figure not in anyway connected to US Govt ( and despite Obama and Hillary expressly condemning contents of movie) goes on to how infantile some of those guys are. Probably due to not having enough grey matter .
Out there in the streets across the world a new movie is playing. It’s called “Immaturity of Muslims”

By: sharanga

sharanga — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 06:03:49 +0000

Holocaust denial is not a crime in USA.

USA is a common law country (like Ireland), and doesn’t ban hate speech. Continental European countries, which are civil law countries, do have hate speech bans and ban Holocaust denial.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 05:34:42 +0000

I agree with everything Sharanga says. The only exception being Holocaust Denial.

By: sharanga

sharanga — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 10:01:30 +0000

In the US, laws prohibiting hate speech are unconstitutional. Limitation to free speech are based only on defamation, incitement to riot, and fighting words. These laws do not prevent Salman Rushie from writing Satanic Verses, or Bill Maher making fun of all religion ever invented.

This link would be really helpful in understanding how the First Amendment works in this US:
http://civilliberty.about.com/od/freespeech/tp/Hate-Speech-Cases.htm

Whatever the cultural blow-backs are, Ku Klux Klan is still active in the US and is legal. There are number of neo-Nazi groups as well that are legal. You cannot be punished for believing what you believe and expressing it, as long as you do something violent, or incite to riot, or defame somebody (and no, dead people are not protected by defamation laws. You can say whatever you want to say about Thomas Jefferson).

Now, I haven’t watched this “Innocence of Muslims” video, just like most of those protesters who go about killing people, and am unlikely to ever watch it. But as you claim, if it is only about insulting Prophet Muhammad, and not “hey, Muslims are pigs, let’s go get ‘em” kind of thing, then the film-maker has all the rights in the world to make it, just like Dan Brown and Ron Howard have the right to make Da Vinci Code, and Bill Maher has the right to mock Joseph Smith.

The problem is Islam. It’s not as if Islam is the only religion that is mocked on the internet. But it’s only Islam that resorts to violence with such consistency when that happens.

By: indi

indi — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 08:45:11 +0000

I didn’t go into it, but read the Saletan piece which is linked. Even in the US there are hate speech laws, and there is significant cultural (not legal) blowback for saying hateful things towards, Jews, blacks, etc.

By: sharanga

sharanga — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 07:15:34 +0000

Of course Muslims should be randomly exempted from protection.

should be

Of course Muslims should not be randomly exempted from protection.

sorry

By: sharanga

sharanga — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 07:14:08 +0000

they should probably loosen up all of these hate speech laws rather than randomly exempting Muslims from protection.

This is probably the stupidest thing I have seen you write on this site. Of course Muslims should be randomly exempted from protection. But what proof do you have have that they are randomly exempted from protection?

First of all, the attacks are against the US, not Germany or France. USA has the First Amendment. Sometimes public interests such as national security and personal safety trumps the First Amendment. But that is done with care. A living Muslim can go to court if some one defamed him, but he won’t be able to go to court for someone insulting his religion, just like a Roman Catholic or a Mormon won’t be able to go to court against someone for insulting their religions.

Watch Bill Maher’s show. Do you see religions (especially Mormonism, Scientology, Christianity in general) being protected against the First Amendment. Does Bill Maher go to jail for calling Joseph Smith a petty criminal?

So Islam is getting fair treatment. It is treated the same way all the other religions are treated. It’s only the Muslims who want to play victim and kill people. You won’t see Mitt Romney killing Bill Maher.