The Left's Double Standard On Free Speech

I'd agree. Those who were responsible for the actions of North Korea didn't think their actions were going to send them to heaven if they got killed doing it. Unlike these Islamist fanatics.

On the other hand I agree with Karen that free speech should be for all without exception. But since corporate interests control the mass media they already have a massive platform to get their messages across.

 

If that was what she ment I misinterpreted her I agree, it should be for all, including intolerant people and to express their opinions. But we can have and keep our free speech of course, while others still don't or might ever get it.

 

I agree. But the goal was similar; make people think twice before expressing themselves in a way that might offend a particular group.

Legally, there just isn't a good way to separate the two.

 

I guess that what underpins free speech is free thought. And that's what these fanatics who carry out these attacks don't have. Their thinking is bounded by the ideology with which they have been brainwashed.
They would deny others the right to free thinking, so what hope for free speech under those conditions?

Extreme ideologies always want to drown out or ban any voices of dissent. We shouldn't give them one millimetre.

 

It is interesting to realize there were rarely any muslim terrorist attacks before western countries intervened in the middle-east. Makes you wonder where all this hate actually stems from. And of course how this islamic brainwashing and indoctrination didn't caused muslim extremists to blow western infidels up before. One would almost conclude their ideology has suddenly become more extreme in the last 30/40 years...

 

In fact Asmo, I think that's what has happened, and I do think that western interventions and unstinting support of Israel has all helped to stoke it up.
Going back to the late 70's there was the Iranian revolution which swept radical Shia into political power. That was a reaction to the abominable regime of the Shah, with his American backers.
Since then we've seen increasingly militant groups of all Islamic persuasions rise to prominence.

There were historical trends though towards a more militant type of Islam which began in the 18th c with Wahhabi. I think it's from there that at least some of these groups get inspiration.

 

Oh. I thought Obama did it. He's responsible for everything else bad , isn't he?

I hope no one leaves----what the hell would be left? I might not be the brightest bulb on the tree----but I can see what the fuckin' right

wing stands for.

 

I'm sure some Faux News nutjob has already crossed that line.

 

I've given that a lot of thought. That would be so easy. I decided against it, because it would go against one of the core values I was raised with, that people of average or better intelligence and education should maintain some basic level of standards in our own little part of the world, and we should leave it in better condition than we found it.

Until a better place comes along to take HF's place, I'm here.

 

I think there's a war going on , so I wouldn't drivel on about being outraged . same war , another
day . the war comes home to France ? personally , I have to believe poetry deserves whatever it gets .
perhaps the desperado killers will make an escape .

 

I'm not ready to leave. Friends like scratcho and Karen are making good points. But I'm not getting much satisfaction from my contributions. Seems like I mostly get totally ignored or I just get right-wing shit flying at me.

 

That's one sure sign that you're on the right track.

Also, leaving is easy. The easy choice is rarely the best one.

 

When didn't anyone have anything bad to say about North Korea? Hell, I've heard people talking about wanting to invade where I am. It'd probably be the only war I would ever support. Still, in the case of the hacking... it wasn't North Korea. It was made to look like North Korea by a former SONY employee after he was fired, and NK stepped up to the plate to make themselves look more intimidating. Their internet didn't even crash because of a DDOS so much as lack of maintenance, according to what I could gather. It's down a lot in general.

Legally has nothing to do with it - the principles of free vs. corporate speech is a matter that the Supreme Court should have been less legally motivated and more diplomatically and openly debated, keeping the people in mind, during the Citizen's United. They weren't thinking of the damage that could happen - giving power to corporations like that puts individual speech at risk. That is, if we all don't chicken out of it anyway, because of acts of terror like this one. Still... RIP to the fallen.

 

dang it ,, Im missing MASH...

 

Asmo

Oh it’s a complicated tale that goes back centuries which takes in the Sunni/Shia split, the crusades, the First World War, the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, the Balfour Declaration and the cold war- to mention just a few.

History can makes us and mould us – just look at this American centric forum and how for even such a young country how often history and historical imagery is invoked to back up present day attitudes, actions and politics. In places with longer histories it goes back even further (recently in the Scottish independence debate medieval battles some were often imaged and an Australian in a kilt).

Even ‘muslim terrorist attacks’ are nothing new the assassinations of the Ḥashshāshīn in the middle ages often done in public and with public announcement could be seen as an early example of ‘terrorism’. (But remember Christians and secularists have had their own forms of ‘terrorism’.)

But if you had to look for resent events I’d cite the overthrow of the democratic government in Iran and the US’s subsequent support for the bloody handed Shah which led to the Iranian Revolution and the US support for conservative and mainly religious groups in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation which resulted in Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Basically during the cold war US policy was to try and stop ‘communism’ taking hold around the world (and basically they seem to have seen any left wing ideas as Communist). The thing was that left wingers were usually the radical, reforming, progressive and secular groups in societies fighting against conservative and religious establishments. The problem was that the removal of left wing groups in the middle east left a political vacuum into which stepped radical religious groups (who were reformist but in a very different and not progressive way).

Of course also the elephant in the room here is the financing by Saudis of extremist Shia ideas through the promotion of wahhabism and wahhabi madrassas.

 

What was the all time high?

 

And you think the network news tells you anything remotely truthful?

 

The doctrine of Islam is self explanatory if you understand abrogation. The fact is they are obligated to be aggressors.

 

What could possibly be the problem with anything I have posted so far?

 

One problem could be that the statement made in post #38 seems incorrect.