Texas: two gunmen shot dead after opening fire at Mohammed cartoon contest

[Slander and/or Libel]

I'm sure these people missed the mark in terms of respectfully criticizing Islam.

If the intent was purely to make them feel unwelcome or persecuted, that's horrible.

If the intent was to show solidarity with the people who have been killed, attacked and threatened by Muslims for no reason besides using their right to free speech, that's something else.  This idea that Muslims are the ultimate victims here is just preposterous.  We can't create special blasphemy rules for one religion, I'm sorry.  This is a cosmopolitan diverse society, everyone needs to deal with that.

Your posts about her have left open the idea that maybe she was trying to respectfully criticize Islam and simply missed the mark. Or that maybe she was just trying to show solidarity with free speech advocates. But she has given ample evidence that her motivation is nothing of the sort.

That does not mean that you have to change your position. It just makes it seem like you're deflecting unnecessarily.

[Marokai Backbeat]

I'm perfectly comfortable admitting there are certain situations where dumbass right-wingers (or whoever else) push buttons knowing full well they are provoking a reaction and wanting to make hay out of that reaction. This is probably one of those situations.

I think it's fine to admit there are certain ways you can modulate your chances of becoming the victim of a crime while also agreeing that crime shouldn't be happening in the first place. I wouldn't accept drinks from strangers if I wanted to lower my chances of being raped. I wouldn't walk through a really sketch part of town at night if I wanted to lower my chances of getting mugged. Etc. None of these things should be happening and we should have no tolerance for their occurrence, but obviously we should be able to agree you should try to be more careful if you don't want to experience consequences.

Where I have a bone to pick on this issue is that many people in this debate are not consistent about this, though. Many conservatives would be quick to equivocate if it was their religion being made fun of, and many "progressives" are quick to denounce alleged victim blaming in virtually every other situation, except when it comes to Islam, and then suddenly you should know better, be responsible, and so on.

I actually think Bedstuy's "What if Muslims in a neighborhood are offended by gay people?  Should gay people never hold hands in that neighborhood or should they try to seem less gay?  After all, who are you to judge what muslims might find offensive?" is a great question and was dodged in Deadflag's reply. Where is the line when it comes to respecting the subjective tastes of a group? What should be allowed to offend them and not? This is nearly impossible to judge. What if I deliberately took the hand of my boyfriend when I knew I was walking through a Muslim community, specifically to send a message and ruffle their feathers? Is that unempathetic and tasteless? Why not? I doubt many social justice activists would have the same answer if I was walking through a deeply Christian community. The rules here are awfully arbitrary.

I'm not trying to take anyone's right to be offended away from them, but you don't get some sort of special exemption from art or comedy, no matter how low-brow, based on your status. It's absurd.

As much as I've disagreed with Cinyc in the past, it's hard not to agree with this.

Sorry.  You and the other "punching downward" Charlie Hedbo apologists are simply wrong.  Everything is fair game for satire.  There are no protected classes when it comes to comedy.  You shouldn't get special privileges against criticism by being a member of a special "minority" group, with there being some unpublished, ever-changing hierarchy of which groups are more special than others.  Everyone is in a minority group in their own way, including religious Christians who you have no problem lampooning.  The sacred cows of "progressives" like yourself aren't everyone's sacred cow.

Just because you don't find satire funny when it is directed at Islam doesn't make it impermissible or imprudent.  Nobody is "spitting on the sort of people who drive you to the airport".  They are spitting on religious extremists' call to murder those who don't agree with them and their religion and convert to Islam.  Those people are "The Man" in parts of the Arab world and are more than fair game for criticism and satire.  Not that you have to be "The Man" to be subject to criticism, anyway.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

This is what the organizers wanted in order to prove their point.

"Your honour, she was asking for it."

Yeah, who doesn't want their art exhibition shot up?

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/05/us/pamela-geller-organizer-of-muhammad-cartoon-contest-hails-results.html

Turns out, she is now taunting the shooting as "proof" that she's right.

This is exactly the response they were hoping for. Maybe not them being shot at themselves, but some kind of violent response somewhere to continue their narrative about how Islam is a danger and inherently violent. It's still on the shooters for actually doing it, as is with pretty much all acts of violence, but if you don't think there is some kind of sick motive behind things like "Burn a Koran Day" and "Draw Muhammed" contests, well you put too much faith in these people.


And now, news coverage of this event and her organization allows Pamela Geller to get a stage to continue pushing her sick and twisted views.

[RI]

I have no respect for people who use religion to intentionally offend and incite others.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

oh, and a good guy with a gun prevented a massacre.  Again.

But not some random good guy, but one of multiple off-duty cops hired to provide security for an event the organizer knew had a high likelihood of trouble of some sort happening.  If anything this incident is a blow to the idea that everybody and his uncle should be carrying just in case.

The South Carolina House passed a bill this year that thankfully looks to die in the Senate that would have allowed unlimited concealed carry without a permit.  Why is it that gun nuts never seem to remember the well-regulated part of the Second Amendment?

Granted, trying to turn regulation into a de facto ban is wrong, and thankfully SCOTUS has overturned such bans, but the other extreme is just as wrong.

[bedstuy]

I'm sure these people missed the mark in terms of respectfully criticizing Islam.

If the intent was purely to make them feel unwelcome or persecuted, that's horrible.

If the intent was to show solidarity with the people who have been killed, attacked and threatened by Muslims for no reason besides using their right to free speech, that's something else.  This idea that Muslims are the ultimate victims here is just preposterous.  We can't create special blasphemy rules for one religion, I'm sorry.  This is a cosmopolitan diverse society, everyone needs to deal with that.

Your posts about her have left open the idea that maybe she was trying to respectfully criticize Islam and simply missed the mark. Or that maybe she was just trying to show solidarity with free speech advocates. But she has given ample evidence that her motivation is nothing of the sort.

That does not mean that you have to change your position. It just makes it seem like you're deflecting unnecessarily.

I was never talking about her.  I was talking about the deeper issue embedded in this controversy.  

Just pointing at one crazy person who happens to be on my side with respect to a single point is not an argument against anything I said.  ISIS and Al Qaeda are on your side on this issue,  if we want to get into guilt by association.

It's such the sign of a losing argument to get into ad hominem, guilty by association and pearl clutching about how racist or impolite I must be.  

[Slander and/or Libel]

Nobody is talking about guilt by association. I'm talking about your seeming to be intentionally coy and obfuscatory about the fact that this event was designed explicitly and solely to offend Muslims. That is not an argument that such speech shouldn't be protected. It's an argument that the organizers were being dicks to people, not being brave defenders of the First Amendment (especially since they would likely ban practice of Islam if they could), or showing solidarity with people. They were provocateurs.

Acknowledging that is not to tar you with association with them. You're not associated with them. But getting the facts out on the table helps facilitate conversation. Denying them doesn't.

[bedstuy]

Nobody is talking about guilt by association. I'm talking about your seeming to be intentionally coy and obfuscatory about the fact that this event was designed explicitly and solely to offend Muslims. That is not an argument that such speech shouldn't be protected. It's an argument that the organizers were being dicks to people, not being brave defenders of the First Amendment (especially since they would likely ban practice of Islam if they could), or showing solidarity with people. They were provocateurs.

Acknowledging that is not to tar you with association with them. You're not associated with them. But getting the facts out on the table helps facilitate conversation. Denying them doesn't.

In my opinion, you could have a respectful cartoon of Mohammed with a good intent. 

You could have a racist, xenophobic, dumb cartoon of Mohammed with a bad intent. 

I'm not really concerned with this cartoon contest itself, maybe it the latter, I don't really care.  I was talking about the underlying free speech issue. 

[Mopsus]

This is part of a bas-relief sculpture at the US Supreme Court.  The person who created it probably had no idea about the taboo among muslims and it's in the context of other historical figures. 

Is this offensive because it depicts Mohammed?  No.

If all contemporary depictions of Muhammad were as respectful as the one on the Supreme Court, I wouldn't feel inclined to criticize those who were responsible for them.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I've already stated that it's not the failure to adhere to Islamic standards that offends people, but failing to adhere to Islamic standards in such a way as to deliberately offend Muslims.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

This is exactly the attitude I can't get on board with.  What does it say that using violence gets people to be sensitive to your concerns and gets people to censor themselves?

It's rewarding violence, rewarding censorship and chilling free speech. 

What if Muslims just nicely said, "we want everyone to obey our customs about depicting certain religious figures.  Please remove the sculpture of Mohammed from the Supreme Court and don't show pictures of the Sistine Chapel ceiling on TV."  People would ignore them.  But, start setting fire to embassies and assassinating people and people start paying attention. 

That's why people should keep doing these cartoons.  You don't reward violence or attacks on our basic freedoms with obedience.  When someone attacks your freedom of speech or uses violence, that's the last person you should meekly acquiesce to.  Is depicting Mohammed important by itself?  Of course not.  But, freedom to say whatever you want about religion is incredibly important.  Religious bullying of free speech is never acceptable.   

This establishes a precedent, we complain and use violence, you comply.  Today it's depictions of Mohammed, tomorrow it's criticizing the religion of Islam or their religious figures.  And, some people might say, "oh, who cares?  Just don't say anything negative about Islam, is it that hard to be nice to them and observe their customs?"  That's the free speech case for these cartoons.
[/quote]

My claim isn't that we should cave in to terrorists so that they'll stop terrorizing us. My claim is that if certain people showed basic respect for other people's beliefs, there would be less terrorism. Is that trade off really so objectionable?

[Slander and/or Libel]

There's two questions going on here.

1) Should such speech be banned?

2) Is such speech a wise, or decent, or respectful thing to do, and should we want to do unwise or indecent or disrespectful things for the sake of doing them?

I haven't really seen anybody advocating that the answer to question 1 should be yes. The action is all on question 2.

To be clear, my position is generally that we should try not to go out of our way to be dicks to each other. Not that we should be legally disallowed from being dicks to each other, but that it's not really conducive to a peaceful, pluralistic society for us to go around being assholes and needling people on things we know bother them just because we can.

My own position on that has been consistent, and has not been strengthened or weakened by this most recent incident. The norms we ought to practice are different from the norms that laws should obligate us to practice.

Sometimes, in a pluralistic society, we are going to come up against uncomfortable areas where the basic practice of life makes another group uncomfortable, or an argument against a legitimate area of disagreement strikes the other side as disrespectful. These are perfectly defensible. This recent incident was not that.

[bedstuy]

There's two questions going on here.

1) Should such speech be banned?

2) Is such speech a wise, or decent, or respectful thing to do, and should we want to do unwise or indecent or disrespectful things for the sake of doing them?

I haven't really seen anybody advocating that the answer to question 1 should be yes. The action is all on question 2.

To be clear, my position is generally that we should try not to go out of our way to be dicks to each other. Not that we should be legally disallowed from being dicks to each other, but that it's not really conducive to a peaceful, pluralistic society for us to go around being assholes and needling people on things we know bother them just because we can.

My own position on that has been consistent, and has not been strengthened or weakened by this most recent incident. The norms we ought to practice are different from the norms that laws should obligate us to practice.

Sometimes, in a pluralistic society, we are going to come up against uncomfortable areas where the basic practice of life makes another group uncomfortable, or an argument against a legitimate area of disagreement strikes the other side as disrespectful. These are perfectly defensible. This recent incident was not that.

You're conveniently ignoring the violence and threats against people who publish depictions of Mohammed.  The point of publishing the cartoons is to defy those people who want to impose their religious beliefs on other people and silence other people by using violence.  The point is not to be mean to Muslim people.  Big difference. 

The underlying question is, where is the line between offensive and not offensive.

Suppose you own a bookstore and Muslims complain about the following books and ask you to remove them from your shelves.

1.  A book with reprints of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons
2.  A book with a picture of the Supreme Court bas-relief
3.  The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
4.  All the books in your Gay & Lesbian section
5.  A theology book criticizing Islam
6.  A novel by a neo-Nazi that uses extreme violence and racial stereotypes about Muslims, like the Turner Diaries but about Muslims.

Which would you remove?   

[Slander and/or Libel]

I'm not ignoring anything just because it didn't bear on the point I was making in my post. You seem to be claiming that every act of depicting Mohammed is by definition an act of brave defiance. I don't believe that to be the case. I simultaneously don't believe that depicting Mohammed should be banned.

[bedstuy]

I'm not ignoring anything just because it didn't bear on the point I was making in my post. You seem to be claiming that every act of depicting Mohammed is by definition an act of brave defiance. I don't believe that to be the case. I simultaneously don't believe that depicting Mohammed should be banned.

I literally just said that I didn't think this was true.

And, OK, so you're going to ignore my actual points and call me racist or whatever.

[Slander and/or Libel]

I don't really know what you think you're reading. When did I call you a racist?

In reading your post again, I see that you're talking about other instances of Mohammed cartoons, not the exhibition that was at issue in the thread. My mistake. But I was neither ignoring nor making excuses for threats and action against people who published those cartoons. That's wrong and inexcusable, and it doesn't mean that such speech should be banned.

But again, has anybody in the thread been advocating for certain types of speech to be banned? I haven't seen it, and I've read through the whole thing.

[bedstuy]

I don't really know what you think you're reading. When did I call you a racist?

In reading your post again, I see that you're talking about other instances of Mohammed cartoons, not the exhibition that was at issue in the thread. My mistake. But I was neither ignoring nor making excuses for threats and action against people who published those cartoons. That's wrong and inexcusable, and it doesn't mean that such speech should be banned.

But again, has anybody in the thread been advocating for certain types of speech to be banned? I haven't seen it, and I've read through the whole thing.

Not banned.  But, the argument I was having was with people saying that depicting Mohammed is always offensive.

[Slander and/or Libel]

And that's why the discussion of the particulars of this exhibition, and the people organizing it, are important to clarify.

[DrScholl]

I think the point that is being missed is that these drawings are not like marching at Selma or protesting at Tiananmen Square, they are more about petty instigating. These drawings are just not the best way to fight for free speech and don't even come close to doing it.

[t_host1]

 
 This shooting must be rating near the top of the most efficient and effective, private and public, proactive-collaboration too date, for, an achievement that had the best possible outcome.

 Has anyone asked, if not, I will; has any one seen and/or priced the art work?
 Is it really that good, that people are willing to die for it?

[ingemann]

This is part of a bas-relief sculpture at the US Supreme Court.  The person who created it probably had no idea about the taboo among muslims and it's in the context of other historical figures. 

Is this offensive because it depicts Mohammed?  No.

If all contemporary depictions of Muhammad were as respectful as the one on the Supreme Court, I wouldn't feel inclined to criticize those who were responsible for them.

You're aware that that depictions are much more insulting towards Muslims than any Muhammed cartoon? He depictured touching the Quran with his LEFT hand. It's hard to imagine a more insulting depiction.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Reminder: Geert Wilders (who was a featured guest at the Texas event and a longtime ally of Geller) wants to ban the Koran in the Netherlands.

muh freedom of speech.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Reminder: Geert Wilders (who was a featured guest at the Texas event and a longtime ally of Geller) wants to ban the Koran in the Netherlands.

muh freedom of speech.

My local GOP is hosting him this summer. Needless to say, I will be out of this county forever come August and I no longer am interested in maintaining ties with the PBC-GOP as my statewide ties are more valuable to my prospective career as a field organizer.

[Slander and/or Libel]

Reminder: Geert Wilders (who was a featured guest at the Texas event and a longtime ally of Geller) wants to ban the Koran in the Netherlands.

muh freedom of speech.

We must support these people in their support of the First Amendment.

[Mr. Illini]

It's offensive and moronic, but it shouldn't be prohibited.

[ElectionsGuy]

There are people in this thread literally blaming the (almost) victims of the attack. Nothing justifies trying to shoot people, and to insist that people should just stop doing something because a radical fringe group of people might attack is against the idea of free speech itself.

[Slander and/or Libel]

So is the suggestion that we should legislatively ban the practice of a religion we don't like.