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Slander is not a mechanism for curtailing free speech Rhino. It is a mechanism for those whose reputation has been besmirched by lies. I find it hard to imagine someone bringing a case for slander or indeed libel on behalf of Mohammed or Islam as a religion seeing as religion is itslf an article of faith rather than fact.
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Simply saying at a time of fear and outrage, hatred and alienation aren't going to get you very far and it would be common sense to chill on the muslim hating.
To an extent I take your point on board Rhino. The problem being is when is the right time to have the debate? We live in gold fish bowl times where next week the news agenda will have moved onto the next big news story and unless that is another of these events this issue will recede and the national debate is never actually engaged in. |
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Lies or unconfirmed information that turns out to be false, which is different to a lie. The point is, it is a legal constraint on speech.
If moderate Islam is in the ascendancy then as a group it should also be capable of withstanding something similar as we increasingly move into a secular future. If they cannot then that sends a clear and unambiguous signal that Islam is very different from most other religions at this point in time and perhaps for the foreseeable future. The moderates can I think. The problem we have is how do you limit such content to only being viewed by moderates? You can't. We know islamic extremism exists in a way christian, catholic or buddhist extremism doesn't. |
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National identity card for all. I was in a country that used them.
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Of course there are and have been restraints on speech. I was making a legal point. A better example is the case of someone going into a cinema and legally being prevented from shouting fire.
I agree on what we know Rhino. What we don't know is how moderate the moderate muslims are? We are constantly told that these alleged extremists don't speak for moderate muslims but what if all or most practising could be defined as non moderate on our terms? What then? Rhino I remember reading an article some time ago where a journalist was discussing the issue with his neighbour who was a good friend and deemed moderate by the journalist. They shared similar interests and life views on many things. So the journalist asked him a hypothetical question which was what would happen if he "insulted" the Prophet in the way that for example non Christians may "insult" Jesus or indeed God. The reply was that he would be honour bound to kill him and the journalist was quite clear that this was a clear and genuinely held view. It may very well be true that Islam as currently constituted is incompatible with a largely secular society which pays lip service to notionally being a Christian country. We simply don't know but the portents don't appear to me to be very good. Which is in no way a condemnation. As has been pointed out ours was a society which in the not too distant past would have held similar views. The critical point is we are where we are and Islam is where it is. We need to know exactly where that is with the majority of muslims and assess whether that is compatible with what many would say is a debauched and degenerate society. What has done us immense damage is creating specific laws and especially their implementation designed to protect Islam from the kind of offence we have to take for granted. That is not a free, fair and equal society under the law with the law applying and more importantly being implemented equally to all. |
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rob_dylan Yes. Publish and be damned. Very easy to take that stance when you won't be the one in the firing line. Newspaper editors have a duty of care for their employees and to publish anything that inflames the situation would be reckless. |
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Good job we didn't take that attitude to inflaming Hitler.
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So you think inflaming this situation would be the right way to go?
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Ghadaffi told us Islam would take Europe by stealth without need
for swords or armies. It might take many years but I suspect he was right. |
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That is part of the problem though ain't it? The western ideal, that freedom of speech and freedom to insult is the same thing. It isn't, and freedom of speech was not born from that basis. What do we actually gain from insulting the prophet? It accomplishes what? And why is our right to insult so important?
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Not at all. I think we need to take a considered and informed approach and have a national and honest debate about whether Islam as practiced is compatible with western democratic ideals. Our country has changed immensely with new laws replacing perfectly good ones. I didn't think that was the way to go at the time. I don't now. We need to have that debate over a period of time in a non inflammatory way but we do need the input of the muslim community as to what they are willing to tolerate because as I indicate I think we need to find out if that is compatible with our way of life. My point is that we shouldn't allow this issue to be a cause celebre for a few days and then disappear again until the next time there is an incident of this kind.
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but we do need the input of the muslim community as to what they are willing to tolerate because as I indicate I think we need to find out if that is compatible with our way of life
nothing is compatible with their way of life that's why they make their inner city ghettos and want nothing to do with anyone who is not one of them |
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And if it isn't compatible, what then?
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Rhino
I don't insult. I don't offend. You take insult and offence. It is a right to give an opinion, ridicule politicians and the privileged, lambast the lunacy, as some see it, of organised religion and many other things because that is what it means to be free. You choose to be offended and the more speech is curtailed the more emboldened those who take offence become and a vicious circle develops. Surely god and indeed his prophets are strong and majestic enough to cope with non believers and ridiculers? It is again man who chooses to be offended. At it's simplest there is an ideological battle now going on, predicted by people like Orwell, for the very soul, excuse the pun, of language. The more language can be whittled away the better for the authoritarians and totalitarians because it is free thought and free expression with some limited exceptions which both liberate and develop us. |
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eventually they will be the majority and everyone will have to be compatible with them
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And if it isn't compatible, what then?
First the diagnosis Rhino. Having done that then we can negotiate the treatment. What would you do? |
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My point is that in assessing who within the muslim community holds what views, how strongly and what their response would be to certain things we can then gauge what an appropriate course of action would be going forward. Being very broad brush about it our policy would be very different if 1% would be moved to a specific catastrophic course of action than if it were 60%. Until we explore this in a clear and hopefully scientific way we cannot hope to know whether this is scaremongering or not or indeed the scale of the problem if it isn't scaremongering.
At it's height some would argue, possibly with some justification, that we have been engaged on a disastrous policy of appeasement followed by knee jerk responses to previous inadequacies and idiocy in policy which have transformed the legal landscape to our detriment as a nation for little discernible benefit. Surely nobody in their right mind would agree with the kind of policy employed by the BBC of not mentioning Mohammed, "just in case"? This is madness. |