RE: Why was nobody murdered because of this cartoon?

['Chris de Morsella' via Everything List]

 

 

From: everything-list@googlegroups.com 
[mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Platonist Guitar Cowboy
Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2015 6:35 PM
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Why was nobody murdered because of this cartoon?

 

 

 

On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 3:08 AM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List 
<everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:

 

 

From: everything-list@googlegroups.com 
[mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Platonist Guitar Cowboy
Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2015 5:30 PM
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Why was nobody murdered because of this cartoon?

 

 

 

On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 1:51 AM, spudboy100 via Everything List 
<everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:



Sent from AOL Mobile Mail

Just stop defending the indefensible islamists and refrain from making excuses 
for them. They are all adults and can speak for themselves. They believe what 
the believe, and it is neither my fault, nor even yours. The world is now 
slowly waking up to what is occuring, even to this day, the Japanese. I am 
sorry that disagreeing with your holy self is considered trolling. But thats 
what makes ball games. Deal with it.

 

What "makes the ball game" is people sowing fear and reaping aggression on all 
sides by committing violent acts for political and economic gain, which is a 
threat.

It's perhaps a fine line between recognizing this fact and falling prey to the 
PR ploy as recognizing the fact brings our own political lines, which furthers 
the ploy's objective, into play.

 

Brent made a good point: compare violence to potency of other threats. I'd add 
cui bono, obligatory grain of salt, and maybe we don't need cartoons to replace 
our thinking or humor. PGC

  

It would behoove us to at least recognize that the roots of the problems in the 
middle east run deeper than offense at a cartoon. 

 

I used "cartoon" in less than literal sense.

 

And I did as well, the cartoon is emblematic of a larger tendency to prejudice 
and also of a kind of mode of discourse that reduces complex reality to facile 
caricature – IMO.

 

It is a complex mess with deep historical roots going back to the Ottoman 
period and on through the period of French and British colonial rule. There are 
no easy solutions and the problem is not going away. 

 

What? You don't think if I post my position a few more dozen times, that the 
problem will not disappear from the global stage?

Dear Internet of grand opinionage,

I am disappointed in you!

I wish you luck on your world changing quest…. There is some possibility that a 
few dozen or more posts on your part could trigger some world history altering 
re-framing within billions of minds; good luck on that. 

Sincerely,

PGC

 

In order to manage the situation, as it has become, we need to at the very 
least have a clear and comprehensive understanding of the issues and forces 
that are driving resurgent medievalism in the middle east (but not only there… 
there is a surge of the medievalist mind in the USA, and I imagine to some 
degree in Western Europe as well)

 

Freedom includes by definition the right for everybody else to see/express 
things their way. 

 

yes

 

Therefore it is not a simple, clear matter to "fight for freedom of speech", as 
any form of battle/competition/conflict includes assumption of 
restricting/denying/limiting the freedom of the opponent, which leads to 
contradiction.

 

Usually people holding different views will let each other voice those views 
without threat or sanction.  However when one point of view begins to frame 
those who hold other dissenting points of view as being enemies of the state 
(or the faith, and often both) that is the watershed where democracy slides 
down into totalitarianism.



Hence the laws against defamation. True to form of factual concreteness 
fetishes, we believe that power will take care of a power problem. Power marks 
difference/imbalance relative to some value(s), and using some form of it to 
eliminate lesser form is dubious but plausible; if done minimizing harm at 
maximum of levels.

 

In the US, unlike in Europe (and Canada, Australia and New Zealand) and much of 
the rest of the world, it is very hard to win a defamation civil suit let alone 
win an actual legal case. Perhaps we have gone overboard in this way, hard to 
say. 



The "truth" that western liberal believes 'will establish itself over time' is 
problematic in one key sense: when exactly does the truth of freedom arrive 
(kinda sounds like waiting for messiah figure) and should we do something about 
the roads collapsing here, economic/political/theological differences, the 
people being hurt over there, or the laws and prohibition trampling freedom for 
security indefinitely; if so what? And why do we need all these lawyers if 
everything is clear? ;-) PGC

 

There is no single “truth”, each person must discover their own way and each 
person’s way is their own to find. Oh… and having lawyers write and interpret 
laws has proven to be a very bad idea in the USA, best avoided if at all 
possible by anybody and everybody.  It has been quite a good system for lawyers 
though, so there is that. 

-Chris

 

 

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