6 ms·

Why I think “Draw Mohammed Day” is a bad idea

2 points by ErrantX 16y ago

lhorie 16y ago
As I hinted at in another post, I think the campaign is trolling using a lame excuse. The free speech / censorship argument really doesn't hold water for the South Park episode. Comedy Central/Viacom is a corporation. They can choose to show on their air time whatever they want. If you get killed because you drew Mohammed, then, 1) you totally had it coming 2) you were a victim of a criminal offense (poor you, you're dead now) 3) but, SURPRISE, your free speech was not violated! (remember, the goverment is the only one who can violate your free speech rights)
- foldr 16y ago
  >3) (remember, the goverment is the only one who can violate your free speech rights) I think this idea is a far greater danger to freedom of speech than a few radical Muslims.
  - lhorie 16y ago
    Sorry, your statement is a bit confusing. Are you saying the idea of the government actually censoring is dangerous or that there are other entities beside the government that can violate your free speech right?
    - foldr 16y ago
      The second one. I was suggesting that it's rather complacent to fear only the government in this area.
      - lhorie 16y ago
        It seems this is more of a semantic argument. I don't consider getting killed by a civilian a violation of free speech rights. That's murder and it's a completely different ball game. Otherwise, we might as well fear things like alcohol as well, since it can also kill you (and it's statistically more dangerous than extremists, at that).
        foldr 16y ago
        If a civilian threatened to kill me if I didn't stop saying something he didn't like, I would regard it as a violation of my free speech rights. I don't see any reason to make an artificial cut between this sort of action, and a similar action by a government. Even if you don't call it a violation of your right to free speech, it's still a bad thing, and just as much a cause for concern. Libertarians like to make semantic distinctions here because they have a particular ideology that they want to push. In particular, they like to pretend that mere freedom from government oppression is all the freedom that anyone should want.
        lhorie 16y ago
        >> If a civilian threatened to kill me if I didn't stop saying something he didn't like, I would regard it as a violation of my free speech rights. From wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak without censorship and/or limitation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship Censorship is the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the government or media organizations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_limitations A statute of limitations is an enactment in a common law legal system In short, some random dude on the street telling me to stfu doesn't qualify as free speech violation. It might be rude behavior and disruption of public peace or whatever, but definitely not free speech violation. >> I don't see any reason to make an artificial cut between this sort of action, and a similar action by a government. You can't arbitrarily decide that civilian threats and something like the great firewall of China are on the same level because they simply aren't. It's completely unfathomable to think that you could copy and paste the legislation for one and apply it to the other. That'd be like putting a single try/catch around the body of main and call it your exception handling framework :) >> Even if you don't call it a violation of your right to free speech, it's still a bad thing We agree there, but by your logic, any time someone says "man , IE developers should die" or whatever, they're basically the same as extremists. My beef is with people confusing threatening, actually killing and real oppression, and attempting to justify stupid actions by evoking a noble human right. You can't just put the three in the same bucket and tell me that it's cool to troll millions of people that did nothing to you, when really, you just have a petty disagreement with some random guy that you don't even know. The keyword you used that is central to all of this was "fear". Emotions tend to cloud logical judgement very fast. Look at the TSA. And ask yourself: do you really think you're safer or more free after EDMD? (Oh, and for the record, I don't believe in Libertarianism)
- ErrantX 16y ago
  Oh man, really? If you get killed because you drew Mohammed, then, 1) you totally had it coming I think we have a reasonable right to expect not to be killed for being rude/offensive. There are lots of rude and offensive people in the world - they don't deserve to die!
  - lhorie 16y ago
    Legally, you do have the right not get killed. That's not what I'm talking about. If I punch you in the face, and you attack me back, then I had it coming, regardless of what the law has to say.

2 points by ErrantX 16y ago

As I hinted at in another post, I think the campaign is trolling using a lame excuse. The free speech / censorship argument really doesn't hold water for the South Park episode. Comedy Central/Viacom is a corporation. They can choose to show on their air time whatever they want. If you get killed because you drew Mohammed, then, 1) you totally had it coming 2) you were a victim of a criminal offense (poor you, you're dead now) 3) but, SURPRISE, your free speech was not violated! (remember, the goverment is the only one who can violate your free speech rights)

foldr 16y ago
>3) (remember, the goverment is the only one who can violate your free speech rights) I think this idea is a far greater danger to freedom of speech than a few radical Muslims.
- lhorie 16y ago
  Sorry, your statement is a bit confusing. Are you saying the idea of the government actually censoring is dangerous or that there are other entities beside the government that can violate your free speech right?
  - foldr 16y ago
    The second one. I was suggesting that it's rather complacent to fear only the government in this area.
    - lhorie 16y ago
      It seems this is more of a semantic argument. I don't consider getting killed by a civilian a violation of free speech rights. That's murder and it's a completely different ball game. Otherwise, we might as well fear things like alcohol as well, since it can also kill you (and it's statistically more dangerous than extremists, at that).
      - foldr 16y ago
        If a civilian threatened to kill me if I didn't stop saying something he didn't like, I would regard it as a violation of my free speech rights. I don't see any reason to make an artificial cut between this sort of action, and a similar action by a government. Even if you don't call it a violation of your right to free speech, it's still a bad thing, and just as much a cause for concern. Libertarians like to make semantic distinctions here because they have a particular ideology that they want to push. In particular, they like to pretend that mere freedom from government oppression is all the freedom that anyone should want.
        lhorie 16y ago
        >> If a civilian threatened to kill me if I didn't stop saying something he didn't like, I would regard it as a violation of my free speech rights. From wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak without censorship and/or limitation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship Censorship is the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the government or media organizations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_limitations A statute of limitations is an enactment in a common law legal system In short, some random dude on the street telling me to stfu doesn't qualify as free speech violation. It might be rude behavior and disruption of public peace or whatever, but definitely not free speech violation. >> I don't see any reason to make an artificial cut between this sort of action, and a similar action by a government. You can't arbitrarily decide that civilian threats and something like the great firewall of China are on the same level because they simply aren't. It's completely unfathomable to think that you could copy and paste the legislation for one and apply it to the other. That'd be like putting a single try/catch around the body of main and call it your exception handling framework :) >> Even if you don't call it a violation of your right to free speech, it's still a bad thing We agree there, but by your logic, any time someone says "man , IE developers should die" or whatever, they're basically the same as extremists. My beef is with people confusing threatening, actually killing and real oppression, and attempting to justify stupid actions by evoking a noble human right. You can't just put the three in the same bucket and tell me that it's cool to troll millions of people that did nothing to you, when really, you just have a petty disagreement with some random guy that you don't even know. The keyword you used that is central to all of this was "fear". Emotions tend to cloud logical judgement very fast. Look at the TSA. And ask yourself: do you really think you're safer or more free after EDMD? (Oh, and for the record, I don't believe in Libertarianism)
ErrantX 16y ago
Oh man, really? If you get killed because you drew Mohammed, then, 1) you totally had it coming I think we have a reasonable right to expect not to be killed for being rude/offensive. There are lots of rude and offensive people in the world - they don't deserve to die!
- lhorie 16y ago
  Legally, you do have the right not get killed. That's not what I'm talking about. If I punch you in the face, and you attack me back, then I had it coming, regardless of what the law has to say.