You can't blame offensive speech for murders....
From Boston.com -- Kandahar, Afghanistan — Afghan protests over the burning of a Koran in Florida continued yesterday for a third day, with three more people killed here.
Tweet Be the first to Tweet this!Submit to DiggdiggsdiggYahoo! Buzz ShareThis That brought to 24 the number of people killed in Afghanistan since Friday, when a mob overran United Nations offices in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, killing seven UN international staff members.
Terry Jones is a publicity-hunting nutcase, but he's not responsible for these murders. You can't hold responsible a speaker of offensive speech for murders by illiterate savages half way around the world.
The first amendment is there specifically to protect unpopular speech. Popular speech doesn't need protection. If we limit or otherwise censor unpopular speech, then we don't have free speech by any body's definition. Speakers don't commit murder, murderers commit murder.
11 comments:
I agree with you 100% on this, Ed. Jones is a nut-job with fewer followers than 99.9% of preachers. He is a press creation.
The savage barbarism of the slaughter of the UN workers, including a female Norwegian fighter pilot, leaves me questioning whether any good can come from our (Western) efforts in that hellhole.
I just don't think relatively primitive countries who've known nothing but barbarism and violent tribalism at the hands of a long line of dictators and religious fanatics is ready for representative democracy as a form of self-government. No amount of nation-building and US taxpayer money can change that. We should leave them to their own devices and when they directly threaten us, we kill them all. Iraq will revert to fundamentalist Islamic barbarism in about 3 minutes after our last advisor leaves that country, and it will all have been for nothing.
I draw a distinction between Iraq, which has been home to great civilizations in the past and was a relatively modern country with professionals and educated people and Afghanistan, which has never been civilized. Alexander the Great found it so in the 4th Century BC.
Iraq and Iran were more or less mirrors of each other in times past. Both progressive and modern culturally, educationally, journalistically, and socially. Not sure there's hope in our lifetimes for that to return. The second coming of Christ might happen first.
The both of you clearly know nothing about these cultures. To dismiss them as "relatively primitive" and assert that they know nothing but barbarism and violent tribalism, not only displays your blatant ethnocentrism but also your ignorance.
Freedom of speech is a given, but you should have sense enough to refrain from speaking when you don't know what you're talking about. In this sense, you're no better than Jones. To label an entire nation as illiterate savages is beyond my comprehension - absolutely laughable.
Tell me anon, who are the moderate, evolved Afghans who're speaking out against this sort of barbarism? If you can point to one or two, you might be able to convince me of your point....otherwise I reiterate that Afghanistan is a third-rate nation of barbaric, hash-addled nomads who embrace few if any values that are consistent with modern, evolved culture.
Thank you for acknowledging a right to freedom of speech.
By the way, I was defending the cultural history of Iraq compared with the millennia of tribal barbarism in Afghanistan.
There is an obvious logical fallacy in your way of thinking Ed. You do not know any Afghanis and all of the images that you come into contact with are of terrorists. Why would you assume that they all are exactly the same?
But, I'll humor you. You asked for one or two Afghanis who are moderate (I'll ignore the ridiculous misuse of the term 'evolved'). As I don't know any Afghanis myself, those that came to mind were four people that I read about in Greg Mortenson's Book, Stones into Schools, which I recommend. Their names are Sarfraz Khan, Jan Agha, Mullah Mohammed,and Waqil Shakir Karimi. These people work for the a NGO which builds schools in Afghanistan and seeks to fight extremism through balanced education for both sexes.
I think you'll agree that there are other factors at play here. We're talking about a nation which has been ravaged by war for decades, without any public infrastructure to speak of which has most recently been exploited as a tool for foreign extremists.
Again, all I ask is that you look into the topic a little more before you pass such narrow and disparaging judgments. If you grew up in an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty and then were forced to attend a madrassa which taught you nothing but hatred and religious zeal, you might have been one of the misguided individuals who committed these awful (and yes, barbarous) crimes.
Anon, obviously my point wansn't that literally every Afghani is a wild-eyed, blood-thirsty terrorist. But these are the Afghani's who're front and center in that country and I don't see any moderates stepping up to challenge them. Any moderate who did step foreward would find his head quickly detached from his body, specifically for being moderate.
You're telling me there are moderate, peaceful, educated, and yes evolved, I said it, Afghans, then where are they if not cowering in fear for their lives from the drug-addled savages who are now in control of that country?
Let's recall the original subject of this post, in all it's horrific details. Then recall that it's becoming a disturbingly regular occurrence for NATO soldiers and contractors to be murdered by the Afghans they're training. Is there a real debate on barbarism?
In today's WSJ, Dorothy Rabinowitz takes Gen Petraeus to task for condemning the Koran burner in the strongest terms while barely mentioning the murders of the UN aid workers. I admire Petraeus as much as anyone, but she's right on this. Burning a book comes no where close to justifying the butchery.
Right you are Bill.
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