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Want to get Muslims to complain less about people defaming Islam? There is a very easy solution.

Also reposted here: http://atheistnexus.org/forum/topics/want-to-get-muslims-to

I've always seen Muslims talk about how if you deny the Holocaust in the West you'll be thrown in jail and I always see that as an excuse for Muslims to have people who criticize Islam prosecuted. When they see the West they may see it as if they are protecting Jews, but not them.

Holocaust denial is already illegal in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Israel, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Romania, and Switzerland. There are also special laws for the book Mein Kampf: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mein_Kampf#Current_availability
It seems as though freedom of speech doesn't really exist in the majority of European countries.

Being an American living in The Netherlands for quite some time I do notice some differences between America and much of Europe. Having lived in Europe I get the impression that a large percent of Europeans do not have a full grasp of the concept of freedom of speech which is grasped fully by most Americans. I'm not at all advocating that Europeans are more backwards than Americans, but it seems that freedom of speech is not grasped as well over there.

I had a room mate originally from France who appeared to be a fascist. I one time mentioned to him about freedom of speech and he was criticizing it severely and said that he didn't at all agree with it and found it to be stupid. For me this was a shock, but I've talked to a non-Muslim from Norway who seriously thinks that those who defame Islam should be put in jail!! I've shown people in Europe videos of the Westboro Baptist Church and they were very shocked to see that Americans actually allow them to say the things they say and that these people even get police protection.

People who don't live in The Netherlands seem to have so much sympathy for Wilders having no clue that he's only an extremist and a piece of shit. You see Pat Condell and Sam Harris defending him and not criticizing him for the shit he really is. Bill Maher being very naive and dumb interviewed Wilders in his Religilous and rather than treating Wilders with ridicule as he does with others in the film he seems to be nice to him. Wilders demonizes poor working class Muslims in Europe and exaggerates heavily as though they are going to take over Europe (which is very unlikely). Maher might as well interview an American Wilders. An American Wilders would demonize Hispanics in America and how they practice a disgusting religion (which I'm originally from) and make a propaganda film called Catholitna that will talk about how Hispanics will turn the United States of America into the United States of the Vatican.

To get to know Geert Wilders better he had socialist activists arrested when they protested and called him an extremist. This same person also wants to ban the Quran since Mein Kampf is semi-banned. Yet, Wilders is always talking about "freedom of speech" when he himself either cannot grasp the concept or doesn't even believe in it at all since he wants freedom of speech to protect the things he says, but not for things he hates. It still surprises me that we have Atheists who support this disgusting film known as Fitna which demonizes a minority group in The Netherlands and focuses only on one religion rather show how bad ALL religions are. I only support Fitna on grounds of freedom of speech the same way that I would support a KKK member having the right to make a racist film that denigrates Black people.

The fact that Mein Kampf is banned in The Netherlands gives an extremist like Wilders a way to justify a ban on the Quran because the Quran is also a fascist book. The fact that Holocaust denial is illegal in twelve countries in Europe also gives Muslims the excuse to criminalize the defamation of Islam. I think the only solution is to have the Western countries have something like a "First Amendment" so then Muslims will have it a lot hard time asking for special protection. As Noam Chomsky says:
"If you believe in freedom of speech, you believe in freedom of speech for views you don't like. Goebbels was in favor of freedom of speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you're in favor of freedom of speech, that means you're in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise."
If we believe in freedom of speech we have to be honest and non-hypocritical about it.

Here are some good articles about the subject I'm talking about:
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/19801011.htm

http://www.chomsky.info/articles/19810228.htm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/apr/15/religion...

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by John Smith on April 25, 2010 at 3:53pm

People criticize Glenn Beck and Michael Savage sadist language all the time. If you don't like those certain type of speech you have the right to counter them.

How do you define the right to behave as a "irresponsible child"? Should we just censor the things that you don't like? Stalin was in favor of freedom of speech for the things he liked, but not for the things he found to be "irresponible". Should we just throw people in jail for making fun of the prophet Mohammad like they do in many other countries and that's being talked about currently in Europe? That type of speech to many Muslims and their sympathizers is acting like a "irresponsible child" and I've even debated with some Muslims and nonMuslims about cartoons making fun of Islam to be legal in society and they give me similar reasons that it's being like a irresponsible child to attack ones faith and should be illegal.

I agree that the U.S. government is in a mess, but it's not in a mess because we didn't throw Christian extremists, racists, xenophobes, and the WBC in jail because we didn't like the things they said. We are controlled by the corporations and corporate propaganda which are overwhelming rich and powerful. Many people on the left who are crying out for issues like free education and health care are not being heard except through the Internet simply because corporate media censors or marginalizes those voices.

Permalink Reply by Rosemary LYNDALL WEMM on April 25, 2010 at 10:00pm

The concept of "freedom of speech" has become corrupted in the U.S.A. It is not wrong in itself, only when it allows people to cause significant harm to others. That does not mean making someone feel uncomfortable because their emotionally held ideas and values are challenged.

This is the distinction which Americans, as a group, just don't "get".

Citizens of the U.S. are very poorly protected from insidiously evil marketing campaigns. Where I come from consumer protection agencies are government authorities which have considerable teeth. Here in the U.S. (where I now live) the government is owned by the very people who stand to lose by such a body. It is not real "freedom" to be exploited by this type of "free speech". It is imprisonment.

Permalink Reply by John Smith on April 26, 2010 at 10:08am

I'm sorry that I misinterpretted you. I agree with you about the evil marketing campaigns. I'm constantly bombarded with advertisements which is why I never owned a TV in my life. What marketing does Australia have the the U.S. doesn't have? I know children are constantly used as a marketing tool so they will be customers of places like McDonalds and Burger King for life. I went to public funded college that had a Coke machine in litterally every building and another college that had a Taco Bell and Pizza Hut. It's really insane and I think that type of crap should be banned on public funded college campuses. Coke also used the campuses to recruit more customers by giving away free cokes. Have you read Naomi Klein's No Logo?

Permalink Reply by Rosemary LYNDALL WEMM on April 27, 2010 at 4:08am

I was horrified when my son was subjected to "consumer education", American style, in elementary school. His class had to do projects on American companies, using marketing blurbs written by the companies. Worse, teachers were encouraged to promote local businesses as a way of getting funding for the school. Any teacher how promoted a product in this manner in an Australian school would have been fired.

When I taught in Australian Secondary Schools, "consumer education" was a compulsary subject in the last years of general education (completed by the end of Year 10). It involved learning how advertisers trick people into becoming customers, covered the history of some or the harmful products which had been marketed (including tobacco and pesticides) and discussed relevant controversies (flouride in the water supply, etc.) and who might benefit from them. It led into a subject called "clear thinking" in Senior Secondary School/College which was part of the compulsary Year 12 English Expression subject which I taught. It was a course in logical fallacies and how to spot them. There is nothing like this offered in the U.S.

Permalink Reply by John Smith on April 27, 2010 at 8:19am

I understand what you mean. I remember I had a class in elementary school where I had to make my own advertisements and have a catchy slogan to get people to buy my stuff.

Coming from an upper middle class neighborhood that are one of the top ten richest counties in the country, I must say that my education was very shitty and I barely learned anything. I did take an economics course in high school and my teacher did cover about how advertisers trick people, but being the strong capitalist he was he said that people falling for them are stupid and suckers. He was trying to make it though that it's natural to compete and that we live on a Monopoly board. This teacher was a capitalist pig and an Ayn Rand freak (although fortunately he never mentioned her philosophy). He was talking about how the really "smart" and "educated" people read the Wall Street Journal and how Fox news is "fair and balanced" because they have people on the other side debate them. He even said that the rich people are the ones who deserve their money and work really hard and that if you tax them they won't be able to give jobs for the poor people. My teacher was even playing videos about why global warming is a myth and that environmentalists just want to take away our freedom. Sadly enough I have to admit that at the time I "learned" the most from him than almost any of the other teachers I had at the time since many of my other teachers were really stupid.

A clear thinking course is right now unimaginable in the U.S. I'd like to see a mandatory philosophy course that teaches people about how to be rational and to have critical thinking skills but right now with so many right wing lunatics, a cowardly spineless left, and Christian fundamentalists I can't see that possible right now. The "left" is right now partying that Obama is going to bring "hope" and "change" and there aren't too many serious organized efforts for improved education that I know of except in California where there have been protests across the state.

Also another thing that's going on is that now your having a rise of for profit charter schools. Rather than trying to radically improve failing public schools they are trying to get public schools funded less so than parents that with charter schools parents have the "freedom" to choose what schools they go to even if they have to pay for their children to go to charter schools. Many of the people who are the CEOs of these schools are billionaires and these schools make big profits. If I thought my education was bad, I wonder what people will be "learning" in these schools. These schools were already built all over New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina (Naomi Klein talks about this in the Shock Doctrine) and is happening in Harlem now too. It's really frightening.

Permalink Reply by Rosemary LYNDALL WEMM on April 27, 2010 at 10:11am

The "no child left behind" policy appeared to be cynically designed to bring about just this scenario: expensive private schools instead of the starved out public ones which are desperately trying to teach the intellectually and economically disadvantaged section of the community.

Permalink Reply by Rosemary LYNDALL WEMM on April 27, 2010 at 11:52pm

http://www.dilbert.com/dyn/str_strip/000000000/00000000/0000000/000...

Permalink Reply by Фелч Гроган on April 28, 2010 at 1:02am

Rosemary: The concept of "freedom of speech" has become corrupted in the U.S.A.

You address a symptom, not the disease. The very idea of "liberty" and "freedom", things desirable to any sentient being, have themselves been corrupted. What is demanded is freedom but without any baggage such as responsibility or integrity - it is thoroughly divorced from the concepts as espoused by the founders. It is a bastard offspring now, equal parts selfishness and narcissistic paranoia ("if you're not for us you're against us"). In modern American vernacular it can be expressed as this -

We are free to do whatever we want. You are also free to do whatever we want. You are not, however, free to do whatever you want.

This idiocy crystallises perfectly in threads like this. And this is the face that America presents to the world. The perversity is that under this joker mask of "freedom", abortion, which has elsewhere simply been accepted as a private unpleasantry to be dealt with privately, has become an issue that can unseat presidents, and trivia like gay marriage which should have been signed into law in a "free" society without so much as a raised eyebrow can do the same. Yet wanting to provide equitable healthcare services to the neediest is jackbooted fascism/communism, depending on what day of the week it is. A deliberate parody could scarcely be more perverse.

Permalink Reply by Rosemary LYNDALL WEMM on April 28, 2010 at 5:11am

A good summary. Thanks.