Re: No mohammed discussion?
 

I think free speech trumps everything.

It may make you a dick but think you should be able to say and do as you please.

You might get murdered for it, but hey, you said what you had to say.

Just because I depicted Mohammad as a giant dildo, doesn't mean you should kill me.

You just do something way awesome like depict america as a giant asshole and show the dildo Mohammad fucking it.

Re: No mohammed discussion?
 

I concur. :unsure:

Out of curiosity, anyone here actually have any Muslim friends?

Re: No mohammed discussion?
 

I did in College, and they never threatened to kill me. I guess I got off lucky, because reading this thread that kind of behavior is apparently acceptable for Muslims.

Re: No mohammed discussion?
 

No...jeez.

Just asked concerning empathy. Forget it. I'll just draw the lot of you giving Matt and Trey blowjobs for May 20.

(And for the record I didn't see the South Park episode so not sure what they did. Don't believe I ever saw an entire episode before either. The voices are too annoying to sit through half an hour. I saw BASEketball...that was mildly enjoyable at age 13.)

Re: No mohammed discussion?
 

I don't think anyone is criticizing the showing of empathy, but that empathy should not be so selective. The entertainment media shits on other religions, especially Christianity at the drop of a hat and receive no threats of reprisal and outside of sympathetic religious circles there is virtually no outrage.

And for some reason the religion that threatens violence when it is parodied in mild fashion should receive special secular empathy? I don't understand the value system at play when it comes to the political correctness surrounding Islam.

Re: No mohammed discussion?
 

Maybe its because you get so many outspoken Christians saying such stupid things so often. Sadly this is also a Christian country. Making fun of a majority is easy. Most who do it are either Christians themselves or were at some time.

Then you have the Islamic extremists and the others quietly practicing their religion. Last time I was in LA the local mosques were all graffitied over with racist epithets. Maybe I just see parodying Islam as a way to spur more of that behavior among the racist and ignorant. During the election and even still on Fox News they equate being Muslim with something negative. If more folks in this country were educated then parody would be fine.

I'm also going to more extremes in this thread because it's too easy for someone to quote Team America and laugh. I love parody. I love making fun of stupid people. I just think one needs to consider both sides and put yourself in others shoes.

Re: No mohammed discussion?
 

The show makes fun of everybody equally. That's the best part of the show - it challenges everybody, regardless of who they are. Muhammad is hardly alone in this episode; he's part of the Super Best Friends. They’re a brawny team of crime-fighting deities that also includes Buddha, Jesus, Joseph Smith, Krishna, and Sea Man. Two opposing camps, Tom Cruise and Gingers, want to clone Muhammad's power to not be mocked so they take South Park hostage until they deliver him.

The bottom line, though, is that it wasn't making fun of Muhammad at all. It's the offended Muslims that are the butt of the joke. There is no ban on the image of Mohammed, and the only the power he has to not be mocked is power that we as people give him. You can go to museums with images depicting the Prophet Muhammad all over.

Should Christians kill Dan Brown for writing the Da Vinci Code? No, but if it was about Islam it's suddenly worthy of controversy and offense? Absolutely not. And South Park underscored that point - a double standard exists. They challenged the Islamic taboo and might have succeeded with something had they not been censored.

Apparently the writers behind The Simpsons agree with South Park.

Re: No mohammed discussion?
 

I do. I also have Muslim non-friends, as I roomed with someone who was Muslim and found the experience to be jarring. It was a socially jarring experience more than anything, although my roommate was a pretty devout Muslim...I'm not saying there is any correlation, but a lot of his social behavior would not fly in normal social settings. Fortunately, he put himself in very selective social settings among fellow Muslims and friends who shared his social quirks.

WHAT SOCIAL QUIRKS DARE I SPEAK OF???!?!?!

Well for one, he had an incredibly condescending attitude towards women. Just the way he treated me alone vs. me and my girlfriend or my girlfriend was astounding. I realize he is first generation American as his parents were fresh off the boat, and he is hardcore Muslim, but regardless.

I've also seen separation of church and state stretched the most on behalf of Muslims. We had Muslim clubs in high school, and that was fine as there were other religious clubs. But since Muslims need to pray several times a day, and the prayer process is quite extensive, they had their own section segmented off in the school library where they could pray. So basically, US tax dollars went to funding a Muslim prayer room in my high school. I'm not okay with that. Also, they could leave class to go pray. And again, I personally have no problem with that, but to what extent do people start abusing that privilege to skip class, or when do we start accommodating the needs of other religions? I found the whole issue incredibly mind-boggling. It's actually a funny story, anecdotal as it is, because it shows how bending over to accommodate the religious needs of a group stretches and challenges the very things our Founding Fathers fought against when they established the US Constitution and separation of church and state.

There were other things, but since I'm moving forward in a highly anecdotal direction I will stop now.

There's like 1.5 billion people that practice Islam, making it the second largest practiced religion behind Christianity. And your statement is full of assumptions and "so whats?"

Cool story bro, I have something better than empathy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_A...s_Constitution

Read it.

Re: No mohammed discussion?
 

Disclaimer:

I realize not all Muslims are like my roommate. In fact 99% of them are not! Most of them are like your typical Christians...they have a sense of humor, they are normal social people. Like I said, I have Muslim friends. I have Hindu friends. I have Jewish friends. I even have a few Buddhist friends. The fact is I choose my friends based on things like their personality and common interests, and if we butt heads on religion it is over a beer or in the context of *gasp* a joke. Because normal, socially acclimated people can take a joke.

I'm just saying, like whacky Christians, one or two bad apples can really stink up the barrel.

Re: No mohammed discussion?
 

Cool story bro. (Whee, I can do that too.)

We're talking about the U.S. That's 0.6% as of 2008. Compared to 76% practicing Christians.

Westboro Church is covered under the First Admendment. Doesn't make what they say right. You're allowed to bear arms as well. Does that make bringing assault rifles to a health care debate justifiable? There are rights and then there's using your brain.


And AGAIN, I didn't see the South Park ep and could have been fine. I just didn't like where the Draw Mohammed Day thing might end up. Seems like an excuse for racist ignorant people to let loose.

Re: No mohammed discussion?
 

I failed to contextualize the presentation thing I posted.

That pretty much just serves as a historical explanation for the aversion to images but most Muslims aren't that hard-line about it. A majority of Muslims are actually forward thinking progressive people.


Still, what Matt and Trey are doing is sort of silly. Of course they should have the right to say whatever they feel they should say. But they've done the Muhammed thing already. Now it just feels like they're trying to get under people's skin rather than put out a relevant message like they did with the Cartoon Wars Muhammed episodes.

Re: No mohammed discussion?
 

I have a few.
One of them in particular (Who I actually asked about this) is a really 'normal' Canadian guy. Plays music, loves the Beatles, Broken Bells, Indie music. Went to University, has a very good job. Completely socially normal, doesn't treat women differently etc. He's just a guy who happens to be Muslim.

He said the reason he doesn't like it [not that he is threatening violence] is because there is already enough ignorance towards Islam, and Muslims. It would be different if the masses were educated and poking fun for the sake of poking fun, rather than the fact they are Muslims. He doesn't think Mohammad should ever be depicted because that could not only open the door to more ignorance, but could lead the way to commercialization of a prophet, which he doesn't agree with. He said no prophet/divine-anything should ever be commercialized. He fears Mohammad could in the future become a commercial mule, much like what Jesus is now. He compared the level of ignorance to 'Hug a Nigger' day. He said "While the day doesn't exist at all, if it were to - I don't think it would be a 'whatever, man - we have free speech' attitude towards it."

Re: No mohammed discussion?
 

To me, South Park and other cartoons and the controversies they have created have done more to spread knowledge about Muslims and their feelings on depicting Mohammad than anything else before. If the point is to remove ignorance, creating something that makes people talk about what they're ignorant of generally educates them about it.

It's like when a Christian group protests some fairly obscure movie, and instead of leaving it in obscurity, it just causes more people to see it and talk about it and form their own opinions on it.

Re: No mohammed discussion?
 

I think that's the issue...education is the first step to, well...educating people. I know education has not kept me in the Catholic Church as a devout Christian. :lol:

Re: No mohammed discussion?
 

Sorry to come back to this but I should have looked into this group more. It's laughable. It's a group of 5-10 people and it's public knowledge who they are and where they protest.

The leader is a white guy (who used to be Jewish) from Queens.



Can't believe anyone would give into these guys.

Re: No mohammed discussion?
 

Now that's what I call a sticky situation.

Re: No mohammed discussion?
 

Back up:



Context? Is it really needed. o_O

Re: No mohammed discussion?
 

Universities need to be watched very closely by security intelligence. Here is an clip from an interaction between David Horowitz (not a fan, BTW) and a Muslim student from UCSD. The exchange all seems very reasonable until the very end, and the answer she gives is chilling.



This is not some poor Arab pulled off the streets and brainwashed by a terrorist organization. This is an educated and intelligent American citizen. We need to be very careful about danger in our own back yard.

Re: No mohammed discussion?
 

To be somewhat fair, that is a loaded question. Can't you be for some of what Hamas does, and against other parts of it? (See: the U.K.'s and Australia's stance on Hamas.)

To be fair again, all she had to say was that she was against that statement about rounding up Jews, but for their humanitarian efforts. From her answer, she sure makes it sound like she's ok with rounding up Jews (or whatever that quote from the Hamas leader was about).

Re: No mohammed discussion?
 

The last question that was asked was specifically about rounding up Jews to be sent to Israel for genocide. It had nothing to do with humanitarian efforts or political topics. In fact, it was the political question she refused to answer. The question she answered only had to do with supporting genocide. Up until that point I thought she had some reasonable points.

I can't see any way to defend her final comment.

Re: No mohammed discussion?
 

I don't defend her final answer. I can however see how she is young, probably not practiced on debating, nervous, a little agitated that her question got veered off, and answered a Yes to that final question without thinking what that really meant to answer the question in the way Horowitz put it.

She ought to apologize for such an answer, if she really didn't mean it that way. Otherwise, I'd have to take her at face-value and assume she would support such a statement.

Re: No mohammed discussion?
 

If she is unaware of the consequences of her answer or the context of the question then why give an answer at all, especially an answer that tests the waters. :ohreilly:

This just reinforces my observation that 99% of all college activists should never become lawyers. :p

Re: No mohammed discussion?
 

My reaction to that young woman's answer is surprising, even to me. I'm not angry or scared or what you might expect... I'm sad. It saddens me, almost the tears, to see someone who is educated, intelligent and privileged have such a destructive and hateful world view, and not only that, but that she would feel so little shame or concern in expressing those views in front of such a diverse audience.

This is chased by the revelation that such ideas and attitudes are not just relegated t the poor and ignorant. I suppose murderous hate is not just a luxury of the poor and stupid.

Re: No mohammed discussion?
 

Yeah, her answer was pretty sad. How can someone honestly believe things like that? I don't consider myself a humanitarian by any means, but in an ideal world I would not wish death upon anyone.

Re: No mohammed discussion?
 

Pff, those Danish speak terrible Norwegian... And I thought the cop with the long blond hair was a woman.

Anyway, I also thought the naked Mohammed was very offensive. I can understand how emotions become too much to handle in cases like these.

Not that I agree with how they react of course...

Re: No mohammed discussion?
 

In other news, Pakistan apparently blocked access to Facebook this Wednesday because of "an online competition to draw the Prophet Mohammad." I've pasted the first page of the article below for your reading pleasure. Please note the particularly scary highlighted quote: