South Park vs Religion

Originally Posted by PattyNBK

It is really sad that Trey Parker and Matt Stone have the biggest balls in this country and seem to be in the minority for fighting for the Constitution of this country.

A freedom is not an obligation, nor should it be.
Choosing not to show images of Muhammad for perfectly legitimate reasons is not a violation of free speech, nor is it abandoning it. It is deferring that right in light of extreme circumstances.

One of the worst things you can do in order to encourage reform is to start some kind of personal crusade.

"Why can't we show pictures of Muhammad?"
"Well, we consider it an imperfect representation of the prophet, and...actually, it's easier if I say 'just because.'"
"That's stupid! You're stupid! We're going to do it anyways!"
"Uh...why?"
"Just because!"

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by PattyNBK

So wait, you think that because we're threatened with violence, we should cave in to specific demands? There's a word for that . . . What was it again . . . ? Oh, yeah, that's right, terrorism.

I will make this very easy for you since you are obviously some kind of robot that does not know how to differentiate between emotions.

Terror.
Deference.
Respect.

And none of this yet has addressed the fact that people are printing Muhammad not for any legitimate reason, but because they want to. Even the first cartoons were done "just because." The only reason it's become an issue is because people don't like hearing that others would prefer they not do something. It's the mentality of a 4 year old. Tell them to stay out of the cookie jar and it immediately puts the thought into their head.

It also seems to me that a lot of people had their chance in the beginning to avoid violent conflict, but by appearing to encourage disrespectful behavior, (duh) things escalated.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by PattyNBK

Are people always this hostile and so quick to toss out attacks around here? Your attempt was decent, but there's no meat to it.

I don't think I stated anything that was particularly venomous, just pointing out that you are overlooking a large part of this argument.

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No legitimate reason?

You heard right. The cartoons were made to test the waters. To ask whether or not there would be a large response to Muhammad in a cartoon. once it was made clear that yes, people didn't like it when the prophet was put in the newspaper, and no, they especially didn't like having the whole thing flaunted in their face by the Danish prime minister refusing to meet with Arabic envoys, and other papers "championing the cause of free speech," just because they can, well I think we lost all claims to legitimacy.

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This is the Constitution of the United States we're talking about here. Freedom of speech is part of the 1st Amendment, meaning the founding fathers must have thought it was mighty important. By treating them differently, we're literally caving in to the demands of a specfic group of people.

You don't need to preach to me. I understand what the first amendment means. That doesn't change the fact that you cannot differentiate between what we have the right to do and what we have the obligation to do, or respect from cowtowing to demands.

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It's like Kyle said on the episode (and it did have an important message, more important than any dumb reality show ever has): if we let this group have their way, then we have to let the next group have their way, and so on and so forth. Soon everyone else is running the show instead of the creators, and freedom of speech thus perishes. Caving in to these demands, as such, is just not right.

See, that's the problem. Everybody wants change NOW. No one is willing to accept the fact that reform, especially one of a religious nature affecting millions of people worldwide, will be a slow and arduous process during which compromises may need to be made for the sake of a better good. The reality of this situation is that it probably won't happen within our lifetime, and I think knowingly inciting violence is certainly not going to affect these poor, ignorant folk for whom you have taken it upon yourself to show the light of legitimacy and reason, for the better.

And stop calling it "caving in."

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by PattyNBK

Wrong. The cartoons were made to send a message, a message that censorship in fear of retaliation is equal to caving to terrorism. That message is, well, right on the money.

The problem is that you think anything, anywhere, no matter the content or intent that is not aired like dirty laundry is censorship. And that's simply not true.

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Championing free speech just because is precisely why free speech exists. You know that, right?

I think free speech is intended to give us the choice of whether or not we have need to say something, and if we do have need to do so, then we may do so with the understanding that ideas are not foolproof, and the reality of a situation may demand a fair bit more caution than our ideological flamboyancy and tendency to become born-again patriots the second we think our rights are coming under fire would normally give.

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this is a cartoon full of toilet humor that tries to entertain while sending messages Rush Limbaugh style (demonstrating obsurdity by being obsurd). They have no obligations, and censoring them because a bunch of people might throw a fit is indeed cowering to demands.

Censoring them is not my goal, but what really do they want to accomplish except to inflame hatred among the people they would conceivably most want to convince? This comes back to the reality of the situation. You keep talking about Islam as if saying "They're going about things the wrong way." Well, okay, I'd definitely have to agree. But you're well aware of what the probable reaction will be. So how are you going to respond? Are you going to rhetorically scream in their face, or attempt some kind of dialogue that doesn't involve an imperialistic view of the world. Don't treat it as the white man's burden and you might find more open ears.

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Well, by definition, that is precisely what it is. Why not call a spade a spade?

See, this is why I called you a robot. Not because you can't think for yourself. You're still treating this as if it was a black and white discussion, with us or against us, roe vs wade, coward or freedom fighter. You keep refusing to note that in any human interaction there is a spectrum of results, and not an A or B choice.

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Physical assault is harmful, satire is not. Do you not see the difference?

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Well I have a definite problem when a culture is so open about human rights violations and mistreatment of women. That is a bit personal for me. That, however, is real. South Park is not. See the difference? If South Park made fun of women (which it has), then fine, I have no problem with it. It is a work of fiction. I am far more interested in stopping cultures that commit real atrocious acts against women in reality than I am in stopping a cartoon from hurling insults.

You can't say South Park has no meaning and can't harm anyone, but carries a solemn and informative message at the same time. Either you acknowledge that the show has intentions, which may be misconstrued, taken out of context, or aggrandized, or it is "just fiction."

Originally Posted by Atomic Duck

Seriously... with the way things are going a few years down the road people will be able to claim racism unless you say nothing more than "hello" and in at least five different languages, but then they can still claim racism because you didn't include theirs. If you're going to worry about who's offended, why the hell even bother at all? Why even have anything on tv past the weather channel?
Everyboy Loves Raymond could be deemed offensive by people who think life should be taken too seriously for jokes. Star Wars could be deemed racist because entire movies in the series had no black people and the one black character it did have got killed. Monkey Ball could be deemed offensive as it has monkeys trapped in balls. Football could be deemed sexist as very few women play.
Might as well not teach World War 2 in history anymore either. I'm sure Italians or people with Italian heritage might get offended over hearing about what their great country took part in. Same goes for Germans and Japanese.
Also, I don't like hearing bad news. Maybe that means all news stations in the Cleveland area should shut down? I know I'm only one in millions of people who live around here, but hey, who cares? One person doesn't like what's being said.
You have to draw the line somewhere, and the only way to truly be fair is to either allow everything or allow nothing at all, and free speech is too vital to deny.

See, you're not anywhere near reality. The only important thing you said is that you have to draw the line somewhere. But that doesn't have to mean some kind of polarized America, where everyone is a fucking jerk to one another because hey, if I said your face looked like it had been run over by a truck, I had the right to say it.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Bradylama

Freedom of Speech only exists because the rule of law allows us to voice our thoughts without the fear of reprisal, and that's what the "Family Guy" episode was trying to get across. If people are kept from voicing their opinions out of fear, then we have no freedom of speech.

And that's where it becomes a subjective matter. Because while two people may agree that the spirit of the law needs to be upheld, how they go about it is going to differ greatly. Whereas one person will think that any infraction, any perceived harm to the great and almighty RIGHTS should be met with immediate and conclusive antagonism, another person might take the opportunity to see things from another person's point of view, and to try to convince them without having to make it a contest of whose ideas are better.

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Nobody has been denied the First Ammendment, the problem however, is that we've allowed it to become undermined due to intimidation.

And then we get into more subjective discussion about who is doing what and for what reasons. Just like not every person wanting free speech wants to make public nudity charges a thing of the past, not every person that self-censors is doing so out of fear.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by PattyNBK

I don't think you fully understand tyhe 1st Amendment in that case. It's a right and has nothing to do with necessity.

*shrug*
I'm sure I am pulling some of my personal philosophy into my interpretation of what a right is, but that's a personality difference and has little bearing on the discussion.

Part of the difficulty I think we're having is that we're referring to different things. I'm talking about not only Comedy Central's part in this, but also that of news organizations that preferred not to print the cartoons in question, as well as some of the cartoonists that refused to draw them in the first place. This is a multitiered issue, and obviously there's not an easy solution.

Because, see, I don't think "deal with it" is a beneficial solution for anyone concerned.

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Wait, you don't think a work of fiction can have a message? Haven't you ever heard of a "moral of the story"? Works of fiction have messages all the time. That's the case here with South Park.

To wit, the content itself is fiction and should not be taken seriously, but the underlying message is still there, under the fiction. That's how such messages work.

Quite the opposite. I think that any text can have a multitude of different meanings, not all of which the author intended, and plenty of which can "hurt."

Messages, like the political cartoons, like the complicity of some of the news organizations that printed the cartoons, do not always have their intended effect, nor does the person on the receiving end always understand implicitly what was meant in the first place. We are all witnesses to that fact. I am advocating patience, not submission.

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Let them complain, but do not bow down to them. If they then attack us, then we attack them back and show them where the power lies. I guarantee if some guy attacked me for insulting him, I would put him in the morgue in the blink of an eye. That, my friends, is self-defense. The bottom line, though, is that you do not answer insult with violence; violence is only acceptable when the target does something, well, violent. South Park is not harming anyone, period, that is fact. As such, threatening violence would be crossing the line. I say let this stuff air to send a message to all Americans: do not be intimidated. Let them try their worst, and when they do, they will regret it.

So, let's say you laugh in my face when I call you a dirty name, or tug on your pigtail, or steal your pencil, or whatever you want to equate this to. I really don't care, as long as you acknowledge that the religious undertones of this dispute do, in fact, matter, so it's not as simple as "ignoring it." So anyway, I keep doing it. And doing it. And making sure that you know that I am doing it. In fact, I make sure everyone else knows I'm doing it, and that you can't stop me even if you tried.

Let's be honest here. Your solution is to continue bullying Islam as a whole until they see the light or you send them to it.
Does this strike you as somewhat odd and egomaniacal, or are you so committed to the prospect that actions do not have moral significance that you think anyone should be able to do anything as long as it doesn't break section 38-C of statute 411 of California penal code?

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by PattyNBK

In that case, I report you to the teacher, and you get a recess taken away. To use a proper Fullmetal Alchemist term here, I'd consider it "equivalent exchange". You keep it up, you keep getting punished.

Who's around to see that the lines are drawn accordingly except ourselves? The citizens of a country that we love and would not want to see its values used to extort silence from others? It's manipulation in the worst way possible to say that because we believe this, they should be silent. Which is exactly what happened in the case of Denmark.

The resulting riots were deplorable, and I imagine, unfortunately, that they were praised by as many Imams as the ones who called them deplorable. But I see no reason to believe that there is any kind of organized threat against the American government over what has transpired, and therefore no terrorist threat. A riot is fleeting, and shapes over incindiary issues. To say that this will encourage some kind of active war against Denmark or the states is to place the whole of the population once again into the role of terrorist. Something all of us, but in particular the people who refer to Islam as a problem in and of itself, need to stop doing.

Originally Posted by PattyNBK

To quote Inigo Montoya, "I do not think that word means what you think it means." In reference to patience, that is. What you're describing as patience fits the dictionary definition of submission.

While we're using pop culture analogies, I might as well use one of my own. I remember an episode of Law & Order wherein information about a murderer is unwittingly made available to the press. The police advise caution in releasing it, as it might cause the murderer to bolt, and spring up later with another corpse. Is the newspaper right because they consider it their duty to inform the public? Are the cops right because they didn't want to see more violence incurred?

I don't think there is an easy answer. And I'm tired of everyone saying that the solution is clear as day.

Originally Posted by Timmy

The problem here is that they did something that a select few violent people find unacceptable. Do you really think most americans give a shit if Mohammad is portrayed in a cartoon? Are you saying most Americans think Jimmy and Timmy beating the crap out of each other in a cripple fight, or jesus being beaten up by the devil or a talking piece of poo are just fine but a cartoon Mohammad, well damn, thats over the line?

Whether Americans take issue with it is not the issue at hand, and should not be the basis of your judgment.
Do I think it's right to censor a show on the ground that "Well, we just should"? Of course not.
Do I think it's right to encourage inflammatory media when the point is made already? Doing it twice, three times, or more, "Just because it's right" is equally irresponsible, and shows a considerable amount of naivety in my eyes.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Wesker

It was the Muslims who encouraged the inflammatroy media. Had they lodged their protests and perhaps had some peaceful boycotts or something the entire issue would have long ago faded away.

And had no one continued to post the cartoons in some kind of parody of support, I'm sure they would have. (You do recall the boycotts, don't you?) Which in turn would have opened the opportunity for a dialogue on why publishing the cartoons was not necessarily a condemnation of their religion.

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But their hysterical over reaction to a cartoon prompts the media to highlight the reason for their irrationality. They bring mocking and dersion on themselves by acting like such nut cases.

Who? The rioters? Or Muslims in general? The distinction is important.

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It is right, not irresponsible, to stand up for freedom while exposing total intolerance and hypocrisy. These same Muslims have no problem publishing horribly anti-semetic cartoons in their papers.

Intolerance. It's funny you should use that word, since the origin of this event is grounded in a refusal to hear the Muslims' side of the issue. In a perfect world, one in which people could read each others' minds, and understand their point of view immediately, everyone would understand that it was not so much the message of the cartoons as the act of posting them that was important. But it's not a perfect world. We have to have patience in dealing with people of other cultures, especially since we are a country that espouses tolerance for all.

Why does choosing not to publish images of Muhammad amount to high treason? A photographer can choose not to post pictures of gory death in Yugoslavia, because his values and his respect for the victims dictates as much. A Newspaper that chooses not to post pictures of the prophet Muhammad because they understand the religious basis and respect it should not be any of your fucking business to dictate to them.

There is the possibility that someone, somewhere out there is doing it because they fear a reprisal. To them, I'd suggest that they never should have gotten involved in the first place, because it illustrates their capacity (or lack thereof) to stand up for what they believe in. However, THIS IS NOT THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE JUST BECAUSE YOU THINK IT IS.

Moreover, what they do with their papers is their business. You want a free press, you got one. So, you have to acknowledge that there is a line that needs to be drawn if you don't want to see inflammatory media. All or nothing, as Patty said, and which I happen to think is bullshit. (By the way, your stance here could easily be seen as hypocritical. But please continue.)

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?