Exactly. I couldn't agree more.

me too, especially these days when people are using iPads

iPads and notebooks are a nightmare for posting on here.

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@iapetus_rocks wrote:

Ah, but I think your examples are not comparable. CH criticises and lampoons Islam and its teachings, having regard for the violence, the anti-semitism, the misogyny, the homophobia which it inspires.

In short, they have a very real and genuine basis for their criticism . . . that and the fact that brutal violence has been threatened and acted out against them for such criticism.

 

The reason CH is critical is in response to   ideas which offer and act out violence and which stifle freedoms and equalities and tolerances.

 

Now, compare that with your other example where cartoons and criticisms were not aimed at the doers of bad things in society at all but were  aimed in order to create a scapegoat; someone to hate and to offload blame onto a people and a religion which hadn't actually done any threatening of its own.

 

 

I am aware that there is such a danger of demonising all Muslims, and we should be careful not to do that, and I don't do that.

 

I criticise the teachings or those parts of the teachings of Islam which provide inspiration and justification for intolerance, hatred and the commission of horrible violent crimes.

 

 

I'm sure you can see the difference.

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I do see the difference, Iapetus - but sadly many people don't. Too often they espouse the abstract concept of 'free speech' without considering the practical ramifications .Clearly you can't have open slather -  inciting people to go out and kill is an obvious no-no on the other hand, as you say, we should be free to speak out against the doers of 'bad things.' The problem arises that once we get beyond the obvious, who decides what defines a bad doer and decrees which citizens should have the right to speak their minds freely.  you? me? the rabid right? the loony left?  fundamentalist Christians?  I'm not trying to  argue with you or anyone here, ,just point out how complicated the whole free speech idea really is. 

... Nice People ...

You gotta love it when they bunch together like that

I wonder who is the more offended; those who are offended by a mocking depiction of their prophet, or  those who are offended by people who call for murder  for the act of that mockery?

I wonder who is the more justifiably offended? (Actually I don't wonder about that at all.)

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@aps1080 wrote:

 

You gotta love it when they bunch together like that

 

 

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Well yes. because they're easier to round up and arrest for incitement to murder.

Niger death toll rises after cartoon protests

At least five more killed in capital Niamey on second day of protests against Charlie Hebdo cartoon.

 ". . . The violence erupted after the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo published a new cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad. The issue, published on Wednesday, was the first following a January 7 attack on its headquarters that left 12 dead.

Police fired tear gas at crowds of stone-throwing youths who set fire to at least six churches and looted shops in Niamey on Saturday after authorities banned a meeting called by local Islamic leaders. A police station was attacked and at least two police cars burned.

Police sources told Reuters that two charred bodies were found inside a burned church on the outskirts of Niamey, while the body of a woman was found in a bar. She was believed to have been suffocated by tear gas and smoke, they said.

"They offended our Prophet Muhammad. That's what we didn't like," protester Amadou Abdoul Ouahab said."

So, because they were "offended" they set fire to churches and killed many people.

This is not an acceptable response. If they say it is, then what would we say if we followed their example because we were offended by their vandalism and their murders?

This has to stop. This feeling of righteous offence (being the justification for inhumane atrocity) has to stop.

Such violence can never be justified for a perceived insult to a person who has been dead so long, he can never feel offended.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2015/01/niger-death-toll-rises-after-cartoon-protests-201511723...