Blood Libel: The Sarah Palin Defense...

Politics is a heated business at the best of times, and rhetoric is often emotive and extreme. There is undoubtedly consequences from this continual ratcheting-up of the rhetoric and the anger. Whether or not the recent mass-killings in Tuscon, Arizona, are proof of this remains a contentious issue of debate. However, Sarah Palin, the one-time Governor of Alaska and Republican Vice-Presidential candidate, is at the center and forefront of this debate.

Sarah Palin makes up for her deficiencies as a politician by using extremely emotive language that disguises the fact that she does not know much about what she must know about to ever become President of the United States. In the lead-up to the recent mid-term elections in the US she was responsible for producing a map that had cross-hairs marking marginal congressional seats that she believed the Tea Party could "target" and win. One of these seats was that of Gabrielle Giffords. Giffords was shot and critically wounded in the Tuscon shootings.

The point of this post is not to question whether that sort of action is an incitement to act that requires some individual who is a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic basket to go buy a gun and kill a few people. To each their own on that one. This post is about how Palin has responded to the accusation that her extreme rhetoric is a trigger to this violence.

Palin stayed quiet for several days. In hindsight, she should have stayed quiet. Palin posted the following video on her Facebook page:



The argument that "acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own" is only true to the extent that the person who commits those crimes, in this case pulls the trigger, is responsible for their actions. However, it would be naive to suggest that every action is independent of every other action. It would be remiss to just accept that people cannot be incited to act when they might otherwise have not acted. Although, in this instance, it would seem that Jared Lee Loughner, the shooter, had serious issues way before Palin started bandying around maps with cross-hairs.

Yet, Palin was not willing to leave it there she then went on to say this:

“Especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence that they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.”

Blood Libel is an emotive term. It is a loaded term. It has a very specific meaning that is linked to anti-Semitism. Blood libel in essence is a myth that Jews sacrificed Christian children in the lead up to Passover. The blood of these Christian children was then used in medicinal rituals and to bake unleavened bread (matzsos). The blood libel myth has been used throughout history to justify pogroms against Jews and is an underlying piece of the propaganda puzzle that has been employed to justify some of the most heinous atrocities committed by humans against their fellow human beings.

A blood libel is not simply just a false accusation, but rather there are very specific understandings that go with the use of the term.

What is even more bizarre about this line of defense is that Gabrielle Giffords is a Jew. Surely, Sarah Palin and her people are not that stupid that they did not do the hard research yards to firstly find out what the term meant and secondly to think about the context in which they were about to use it, or are they?

Let's assume that she or her minions are not that stupid, then this is a cold, calculating, and deliberate attempt to inflame and incite this situation even further. It is only fair to question Palin's motivations for using the term blood libel. Is Palin suggesting that like the Jews she is being falsely accused or is she suggesting that it is a Jewish conspiracy to undermine her?

I am all for freedom of speech. As much as it sometimes pains me, I do believe that there is a freedom of speech that we all enjoy. But, I believe that freedom of speech and expression is not absolute. The freedoms that we enjoy to speech and expression must be used responsibly. When one chooses to exercise their freedom of speech and expression irresponsibly then they must be brought to account.

In this instance, there were so many other ways and terms that Sarah Palin could have employed to have made the point that she thought she was being unfairly criticised with regards to the Tuscon killings. However, she chose to use a term that was designed to prolong the controversy and to keep the news cycle running and to keep her name at the front and center of that news cycle.

I wonder if the next news-bite from the Palin camp will be about exercising a few of her rights under the Bill of Rights, perhaps she might start exercising her Second Amendment rights not just to keep and bear arms but start using them to return America to exceptionalism?

I am shaking my head at the thought of a Palin run for the presidency of the US...

Is SBY Paranoid?

Wednesday, 9 December 2009, is International Anti-Corruption Day. The day is marked for protest. This is not all that surprising in light of the recent, and ongoing, Cicak vs. Buaya fiasco and the ever-present Bank Century scandal. There is still enough corruption in Indonesia to warrant a demonstration on most days, let alone only on international anti-corruption day.

Poor old Mr. President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono or SBY to his friends, has suggested in a fit of paranoia that the protest or demonstration is not really in support of anti-corruption efforts but rather has been hijacked by his political opponents as a means of scoring some cheap political points. Awwww schucks Mr. President, it is nothing personal, it is called democracy and freedom of speech and freedom of expression. People in democracies feel comfortable and free to express their views in the form of demonstrations.

Maybe the photo above is an indication of how paranoid the President feels at the moment on the finger scale.

The fact that they feel free and safe enough to do it in Indonesia must be exploited by you! You need to get your PR people on this thing straight away and get them spinning it for all it is worth. "Look, under my watch democracy in Indonesia has thrived, and people believe that they are safe, so safe in fact that the feel comfortable in protesting about the one thing that is going to be my legacy, anti-corruption".

But instead, and as he is prone to do, the President has missed the moment. This is another one of those post-Marriott / Ritz-Carlton hotel bombings where the president has decided that the emphasis needs to be on him rather than the issues at hand. Pretty sad really that the President is seeking to silence his critics in this way.

The cold hard reality for the President, his family, his party, and any other associates is this; if they are clean and corruption free then there is absolutely nothing to worry about when a group gets together and wants to demonstrate about the failures they perceive to be occurring on the eradication of corruption front.

It is interesting that the President is all for freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and freedom of association when it does not disturb national stability or law and order, yet, he was more than happy to stand by and let the "investigation" run its course in the attack on the KPK and two of its commissioners. Sounds like wanting to have one's cake and eat it too!

Perhaps it is time that the President worried more about governing than a few demonstrators getting together to celebrate International Anti-Corruption Day.

There is more to leadership than winning an election!

(Photo can be found here)

God is Love -- Jesus Supports the Use of Condoms

I fully expect to offend people with the picture that leads off this post. I do not apologize for the message of this piece. Thanks to the Freethinker for illuminating this controversy for me here and here.

Sexually transmitted diseases of all types are slowly but surely decimating our collective future. The idea that abstinence is the answer has proven to be clearly not the case. The need here is to ensure that people are fully educated and therefore able to make informed decisions on their own. If abstinence happens to be that choice, then all well and good. However, if the choice is a different one, then at least those individuals will have at their disposal the knowledge that may just save their lives.

The art work is by Ben Heine, a Belgian, and was in direct response to the statements of the Pope and his fellow clergy members who seem to believe that it says somewhere in the Bible that condom use is strictly prohibited and that the use of condoms actually makes the HIV / AIDS tragedy in places like Africa even worse. The art work was posted on a site called DeviantArt. Unfortunately, DeviantArt in their infinite wisdom deemed the work too offensive or controversial or something because they removed it, and then ultimately banned Heine from the site.

I fully support the right of websites to determine their own content. However, a quick look around the DeviantArt site turns up quite a lot of art that would best be described as pornographic and perhaps even offensive to some, not to me though. So, why single out this piece of art for censorship? Come to think of it, I am not offended by Jesus wearing a condom or the idea that the Christian God is a God of Love and would be cool with a pro-condom message. This is not because it encourages promiscuity but to the contrary because it saves souls from agonizing and pointless deaths.

The right to freely express one's ideas is a core tenet of my philosophy on life. I have not and do not advocate that there are no limits to free speech, in fact quite to the contrary. However, sometimes free speech sometimes offends, and causing offense does not necessarily mean that it has crossed that uncrossable line in the sand where it is no longer protected. My personal opinion is that I can accept some people will be offended by the image, but I do not believe the image crosses the line.

Is it in bad taste? To each their own.

Combating the Defamation of Religion

The UN General Assembly will soon vote on a non-binding resolution that restricts speech that offends religion and in particular offends Islam. Originally, the resolution was introduced by Pakistan and the Organization of the Islamic Conference via the Human Rights Council in 1999. The resolution only referred to Islam but was amended to include other religions in order that it pass and it has passed the Human Rights Council every year since 1999.

Having successfully negotiated the Human Rights Council, Yemen was sufficiently emboldened to introduce it to the General Assembly in 2005. The General Assembly will now have to vote on Resolution 62/145. Interestingly, the reason for the resolution is that there has been a campaign of defamation of religions and to address the issues of religious and ethnic profiling in the post September 11 world.

The resolution, if passed, will significantly impact upon free speech everywhere. This is in spite of the resolution being non-binding. The threat is significant enough that the US felt the need to make a submission to the Human Rights Council in Geneva. The US statement simply noted that defamation related laws have been regularly abused by governments in order to restrict the freedom of speech and other human rights.

The resolution is being colloquially referred to as the blasphemy resolution. A quick survey of the recent news on this paints a picture of the likely effect that the passage of this resolution might have of it were to be applied uniformly throughout member states.

Although it is more likely a boon for those governments that head up non-democratic states as a blasphemy resolution could certainly be used to stifle debate. In nations with a much longer, albeit not perfect democratic tradition, there are generally protections for the freedom of speech in place. In some countries like the US this protection is enshrined in the Constitution.

For example:

* Random House's decision not to publish a book, The Jewel of Medina, that used as a plot base the marriage of Aisha and Muhammad because it was deemed to be offensive to Muslims;
* A British teacher working in Sudan was sentenced to 15 days in jail because she allowed her students to name a teddy bear Muhammad;
* An Egyptian blogger that was sentenced to four years jail for a critique of Islam; and
* The murder of Theo van Gogh who released a film on the abuse of Muslim women.

It needs to be pointed out that this is an issue that has its roots in a much more distant past. In times prior to the thought that the UN might pass a resolution on this, Islamic countries took care of business themselves and issued fatwas such as the fatwa issued against Salman Rushdie for the Satanic Verses.

In many ways this is a resolution about creating a world full of fear and intimidation where people cannot speak their minds without fear of running afoul of a resolution such as this one. If anything it is going to increase the tension and stress on the pursuit of religious harmony, perhaps so much so that minority religions in majority Muslim countries will be victimized based on perceived slights.

What I wonder about is how you defame a religion. A religion is an idea or a set of ideas. Is it possible for an idea to have rights?

I am an advocate of free speech and the open and frank discussion and exchange of ideas. This resolution bothers me because it seems designed to provide the framework for the establishment for religious intolerance. Peace and tolerance go hand-in-hand but peace and intolerance do not.

Here's hoping that the resolution does not get the numbers to pass.

Freedom of Speech Under Attack?

I am an advocate of free speech. I have never considered free speech to be an absolute right but rather one that is modified by defamation laws and protected by an ability to prove what one says.

However, it seems that this freedom of speech is slowly but surely being whittled away as vilification and hatred laws are introduced to the regulatory framework and discourse is restricted to agreed truths that cannot be questioned.

This is a direct attack on the freedom of speech! The cartoon is a statement about the Canadian Human Rights Commission system and it can be found here at the FreedomSite Blog.

I have always wondered for example why it was wrong to publish a cartoon of Muhammad, or more specifically how that was any more wrong than say publishing a cartoon of Jesus or Buddha or some other religious icon?

I have always wondered why there cannot be academic debate say on the holocaust or why saying that the numbers of Jews killed under the "Final Solution" might not have been six million. To my mind there is no doubting that Nazi Germany as led by Adolf Hitler adopted a policy known as the "final solution" and that the purpose was to rid Europe of the Jews.

Yet, I do not understand the fear of having to defend this position. If someone questions whether the gas chambers were capable of poisoning the number of people claimed, then they are labeled anti-Semitic and threatened with jail. Where is the free speech in that and who is protecting the rights of these people to exercise their right to free speech?

Or is it the case that when you want to talk about Muhammad or Israel or other things you can only do so within the "agreed" discourse and to stray from this very limited path makes you a criminal?

Whatever happened to the idea that I might disagree with what you say but I will fight for your right to say it.

How can we ever live in a truly functioning democracy if the narrative and the discourse is dictated by the few? Many vilification and hatred and denial laws are used purely for the purpose of stifling legitimate debate. And, this is a sad development and sets back our ability to live in peace and harmony with each other as these laws foster the ill-will and hatred that they seek to overcome.

It is time that we started behaving like adults rather than allowing our politicians to regulate us like we are children.

The freedom of speech must be a freedom to disagree, a freedom to challenge, and a freedom to question. Anything less makes a mockery of the freedom of speech as a legitimate human right.

Thus endeth the sermon!

Freedom of Speech

I am following some interesting threads at the moment on this very topic. The discussion is at times heated and personal. It is rarely focused on the legal issues except in abstract ways and generalizations. The discussion is multi-jurisdictional and therefore comparative in nature.

Although the topic in a more general sense is the freedom of speech, the heart of the issue seems to be more focused on defamation, slander, and libel.

I tend to believe that the Internet has developed very much as an anything goes forum. The law is lagging behind and it does so as old style media laws are trying to be remodelled to fit new style media. Defamation gets tricky in this scenario. For example, does defamation occur at the point of upload or download when we are talking about electronic publishing? How much liability can be attributed to webmasters or bloggers that do not censor third party material? How anonymous are anonymous bloggers?

In terms of anonymous bloggers. This is an old debate and one that cyclically, at least, raises its head every now and then. Most of you reading this will know that I am not an anonymous blogger. The ugly mugshot you see in my profile is indeed me. Anonymous bloggers would also include those using pen names. I am for anonymous bloggers. My point on anonymous blogging relates to how anonymous you really are. I have learned that you can be truly anonymous if you are familiar with the technology and know what you're doing. For the rest of us not so techno-gadgety (amateurs) blogging using a pen name or just the title anonymous is probably not affording you the degree of anonymity that you think.

But back to freedom of speech. Are the questioning of people's sex lives or their preferences, whether it be sexual or political, or making disparaging remarks about specific individuals know or anonymous, or the threatening of physical violence off limits? Do people have a right to be offended?

I generally believe the trading of insults is an attempt to mark deficiencies in sound sustainable arguments. The insults are simply detracting from the arguments. Nevertheless, to each their own. However, when you start writing about particular people on your blog then I consider this to be an open invitation to the other party to comment. If the post is personal and disparaging of the other then I think you have an obligation to allow the targeted person to comment.

Defamation normally occurs where what is said is untrue, factually inaccurate. Does defamation occur on the Internet? Yes, there is case law to say that it does. In terms of precedent and interpretation of the prevailing laws this is still a much more fluid situation.

With great power comes great responsibility. The Internet provides us, the regular people, with a vast and wide forum. We have an obligation to exercise a degree of caution when wielding this power. After all, I am sure that I read somewhere that "the pen is mightier than the sword!"

Have a good weekend!

World Youth Day -- The Annoyance Provisions

Here is a copy of the relevant articles from the amendment regulation that many have claimed are an affront to civil liberties and free speech.

The actual regulation in full can be found here.

7 Control of conduct within World Youth Day declared areas
(1) An authorised person may direct a person within a World Youth
Day declared area to cease engaging in conduct that:
(a) is a risk to the safety of the person or others, or
(b) causes annoyance or inconvenience to participants in a
World Youth Day event, or
(c) obstructs a World Youth Day event.
(2) A person must not, without reasonable excuse, fail to comply
with a direction given to the person under subclause (1).
Maximum penalty: 50 penalty units.
(3) A person is not guilty of an offence under this clause unless it is
established that the authorised person warned the person that a
failure to comply with the direction is an offence.
(4) In this clause, authorised person means:
(a) a police officer, or
(b) a member of an SES unit (within the meaning of the State
Emergency Service Act 1989) or a member of the NSW
Rural Fire Service, but only if the member is authorised by
the Authority in writing for the purposes of this clause.

8 Request to undergo search as condition of entry to World Youth
Day declared areas
(1) For the purpose of promoting safety and security within a World
Youth Day declared area, a person’s entry to the World Youth
Day declared area (or any part of the area) is subject to the
condition that the person must comply with such of the following
requests as may be made of the person:
(a) a request by a search officer that the person undergo a
search conducted by electronic means (such as by passing
an electronic detection device over or in close proximity to
the person or by the person passing through a detection
device),
(b) a request by a search officer that the person allow a search
of articles in the person’s possession and identify articles
in the person’s possession,
(c) a request by a search officer that the person remove his or
her overcoat, coat or jacket or similar article of clothing
and any gloves, shoes and hat (or other headwear), and
allow an examination of those items,

(d) if the person enters in a vehicle or vessel—a request by a
search officer that the person open the vehicle or vessel, or
part of it, for inspection and allow the vehicle, vessel or
part to be searched.
(2) A search officer may exclude a person who refuses such a request
from entry to the World Youth Day declared area or part of the
area concerned. Reasonable force may be used to effect the
person’s exclusion.
(3) In this clause, search officer means:
(a) a police officer, or
(b) a member of an SES unit (within the meaning of the State
Emergency Service Act 1989) or a member of the NSW
Rural Fire Service, but only where the member is assisting
one or more police officers at a point of entry to a World
Youth Day declared area or part of such an area.

Happy Reading! By the way the cartoon can be found here.

Turkish Transsexual On Trial

I must confess that I did not know that Turkey even tolerated transsexuals let alone that a transsexual could become a star! I am a life-long learner and I try and learn something new everyday!

Bulent Ersoy is a singer of Turkish classical music and is one of Turkey's most popular singers. She enjoyed fame as both an actor and a singer before her sex change operation in 1981 and this fame and success has continued post-operation.

However, Ersoy has run afoul of Turkish authorities not for her status but rather for having the gumption to criticise Turkish policy with regard to the 23-year old fight against the Kurdish separatist movement. The campaign against the Kurds has already claimed some 37,000 lives. Ersoy's crime was to suggest on Turkish television that if she had a son then there would be no way that she would allow him to go off and fight the Kurds. This statement was the premise for the arrest and trial. If found guilty then Ersoy is liable for a 3-year prison term.

The actual charge is "alienating the public from military service". The prosecution contends that every Turk is born a soldier and that comments about the military are not protected by any free speech provisions.

Turkey has compulsory military service and every man over the age of 18 is required to sign up for anywhere between 6 and 15 months.

Islamo-fascism

I have been spending too much time surfing the Internet and simply not enough time doing the work I am supposed to be doing! Perhaps it is time to change course and become a professional blogger...a sort of sell my soul to the blog devil and commercialize everything that I do and try and make a few bucks off my blog. Although, having a quick look at my stats it is not likely to be a very profitable venture!

But anyways. In my Internet travels I have come across plenty of stuff which has piqued my interest including some stuff on Islamo-fascism. It is a term I had heard in the past but had not really paid much attention to, but perhaps I should have been paying more attention to it, maybe we all should be paying more attention to it!

The definition:

Islamofascism is a controversial neologism suggesting an association of the ideological or operational characteristics of certain modern Islamist movements with European fascist movements of the early 20th century, neofascist movements, or totalitarianism. The word is included in the New Oxford American Dictionary, defining it as "a controversial term equating some modern Islamic movements with the European fascist movements of the early twentieth century". Critics of the term argue that associating the religion of Islam with fascism is offensive and inaccurate.

The thing that I see as being important here is a sort of "how will this play out?" particularly when the positions adopted seem to be diametrically opposed at and on almost all levels.

The simple argument for reform in Islam as I see it, or at least understand it, revolves around the position that the Qur'an is a gift from Allah, it has been recorded exactly in the manner that it was given to the Prophet Muhammad, and in essence this is the undistorted and perfect words of God, so why tamper with perfection.

In contrast and the flip side of this argument, and equally valid, is that the modern world is placing new demands on Islam to modernize its teachings in order to reflect modern society. These demands are being met with strong and vigorous resistance which is not always peaceful and non-violent. Simply, the Muslim societies that developed some 1400 years ago were vastly different to those that we encounter today.

Who will win this argument? That is the $64 question! But I do not see this being a rational, peaceful, and accommodating debate for the hearts and minds of Muslims throughout the world.

To be sure what inspired this post is my interest in religion, peace, co-existence, and harmony, plus having just read through, in part at least the site of Muslims Against Sharia and their blog. The cynical part of my brain fully understands that conflict and controversy is good for business but it is not good for people! It is especially not good for those people who live in conflict zones. It is also not good for those people willing to stand up and speak their minds irrespective of whether they are courting controversy for some other reason or hold legitimate beliefs in the positions that they advocate. The picture is something I pulled off the Muslims Against Sharia site.

As I have posted many times we as people need to enter into dialogue to address those issues that divide us, but ultimately there must be action to put "right" those things that the dialogue highlights as being in need of some correction.

Anything Goes - The Last Supper Revisited!

The Internet is truly a place where anything goes and the boundaries of freedom of speech and good taste are often pushed to the extreme and perhaps regularly crossed.

However, as I was reading a story about a sketch that depicts the Last Supper as a homosexual orgy, which I might add was part of an exhibition being hosted by a Catholic Church in Austria in celebration of one of Austria's finest painters, Alfred Hrdlicka.

Nah, I know nothing about art or about one of Austria's finest painters but I do have to say trying to find the painting in question has proved way more difficult than I thought it might have been but persistence pays and I have located the sketch (above) and I have found a video of it here...

Not to be deterred though my travels led me to another depiction of the Last Supper that has a very definite S & M theme happening and it is just so Village People. This is the second picture!

The point of this post is not to offend (although it probably will) and it is not to make any pronouncement on what freedom of speech or expression means. Hopefully, the post will highlight that something does not have to breach the boundaries of free speech to offend. I am certain that if Indonesian Catholics were offended by the depiction of Soeharto and his children in the Last Supper scene then these two pictures are truly going to test the limits.

Nevertheless, the point is this; if the Indonesian government is going to block and prohibit access to the film Fitna because it is likely to upset the apple cart of harmony and public order in Indonesia then surely pictures of this kind have that same potential and should be banned (sad that I am advocating for my own banning)...

I guess what I am asking you to do is this, and that is ask yourselves these questions?

1. Is art, even where it offends, a legitimate expression of free speech and freedom of expression?

2. Who should decide what I look at as a consenting adult, the government or me?

There are probably many more questions that I could pose here but I will let you, my readers (some of whom I might have offended -- my apologies for any offence but not for the post) throw questions back at me...You already know from my previous postings that I am into constructive debate on topics that matter.

An Interesting Thought

For those of you who want to say objectionable, offensive, and downright rude things to each other or to me, and also to those of you that thinking banning and prohibiting access to whole swathes of information and data on the Internet is a fair and proportional response to what is considered a pretty poor excuse for a film, then this is what I have for you to consider...

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

-- Voltaire

Happy blogging!

More on Fitna...

The Dutch government is making all of the right moves in trying to appease the dismay that Geert Wilders' film ever managed to get released. As an aside here, one should never underestimate the power of the Internet. If you have an agenda and an Internet connection you can find yourself an audience without any trouble at all. Mobile phones with cameras and video capabilities mean that the budding film maker in all of us has a chance to find a forum for expression!

The point though of this post is to explore in very little detail the calls by Muslim leaders in Indonesia for the Dutch government to take legal action against Wilders for the film which is described as being anti-Islam. The film is anti-Islam and that is the point of the film. The question of whether free speech has limits, is an interesting one, and the simple answer here is; yes! But just because a section of the community, in this case the world's followers of Islam, feel that the film is offensive still does not mean that there has automatically been a breach of the limits to free speech.

I am not an expert of Dutch law however on face value these are some of the problems that litigation may encounter in the prosecution of Wilders. I must confess here that I still have not watched the film, so what is said from here is based on a more general idea of film content overall.

If it is true that the film contains recorded images of actual events and the selected Suras of the Al-Qu'ran that are inserted are accurate translations of those Suras, then the obvious issue is whether putting images and words together in a particular way is a breach of the limits of freedom of speech? It is clear that it may be a propaganda call or whatever but my question would be does the film call for any explicit violence to be directed back to Islam? If the film incites violence then this might not be a free speech issue but a much more mundane criminal matter. Any additional commentary aside from the images and the various Suras might indeed take the film to a level where it breaches the prevailing Dutch laws and regulations.

However, the fact that the Dutch have yet to make a pronouncement about whether there has been a prosecutable offence committed suggests that it might be a little more difficult than just drawing up an indictment and running with that alone.

However, another interesting point will relate to what happens if the Dutch cannot find a suitable provision under which to pursue Wilders in the legal sense. If he has broken no Dutch laws then what is the response to be? Are calls for Wilders to be killed representative of tolerance for divergent opinions even where those opinions are offensive? Also interesting is the question of whether these Muslim leaders in Indonesia are overplaying their respective hands?

If you demand that the Dutch take action against Wilders for his film (which by most accounts is of relatively poor quality and where most people understand that Wilders has an agenda here so much so that it is being reported that Dutch TV stations won't air it) is the Indonesia Muslim community also committing to a position of upholding the law in Indonesia and demanding the same standard of their own government when it comes to objectionable or offensive films and commentary from Indonesian citizens?

An example would be are these individuals also prepared to come out and criticize Abu Bakar Bashir when he calls for all the khaffirs to be beaten because they are nothing more than maggots, worms, and snakes?

Just a thought about law enforcement in general! But my point is that if Bashir is to have a right to exercise his freedom of speech even where a good section of the broader community and perhaps the world's community of people who fall into the khaffir section find the call and the associated description objectionable and offensive, then why is the same standard not applied across the board. Is this simply a case of wanting your cake and eating it too? Or a case of the pot calling the kettle black? or what is good for the goose also having to be good for the gander as well?

What strikes me is the similarities here between the idea of anything that questions the fundamentals of a religion or religious practices is written off as being anti-whatever and suppressed rather than people engaging in constructive and active debate about the merits of the various and relevant positions. If Wilders film is as poorly constructed as it has been alleged then I am certain the Muslim community could counter the Wilders film with one that is designed to set the record straight as the Muslim communities sees it. The similarities here relate to claims that certain positions are anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, anti-whatever...

The idea of suppressing debate and writing things off as simply being anti-something seems to belittle human intelligence and the free will and ability to decide for ourselves what is right and wrong!

Hypothetically, if a Muslim was to put together a film that questioned the underpinnings of Christianity and highlighted Christianity's penchant for violence from the pre-Crusade days until the present and this film was then released concurrently in Holland and Indonesia would we be having the same freedom of speech debates?

My apologies for the long and winding nature of this post...

A Thought for Friday

Fear of serious injury alone cannot justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burned women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.

-- Louis D. Brandeis (1856 - 1941)
Supreme Court Justice of the United States
(from Whitney v. California)

God Hates Australia

It is important to learn something everyday. Today I learned that God hates Australia!



I have written about the Westboro Baptist Church in passing when I wrote my post about the passing of Heath Ledger. This little flyer is something they published at the time when they were jumping up and down claiming that God had already started to visit his wrath on Australia and had started with Heath Ledger. It appears that Ledger's crime against God was to portray a homosexual cowboy in Brokeback Mountain. I guess this means that the Christian God really is a vengeful God!




Generally, I try and be understanding of all, even the far Christian right, but this supposed Church is so far right that I do not think they are in cooee distance. Besides, I just do not see that rational argument is an option here. Look, how do you argue a rational point of view with a Church whose website address is www.godhatesfags.com? Afterall, these are the same religious zealots (I must admit other words came to mind other than zealot) that protest at the funerals of returned service men and women in the US.




Apparently, God is killing America's young men and women in Afghanistan and Iraq as punishment for moving away from the pure teachings of God. It appears that in particular God sends down his wrath against anyone or any country that tolerates homosexuality.

The above just goes to show that there is no one religion that has a monopoly on fundamentalist teachings and interpretations. Even ones that seem to cross the line to vilification and hate speech in some pundits books!




At least Australia can now move on from the "where the bloody hell are ya?" tourism campaign and onto one such as this: "Come and visit the most corrupt and decadent place on the planet" or "hurry to visit the most corrupt and decadent place on earth before the wrath of God takes it all away!" I would imagine that if the Westboro Baptist Church is right then Australia will not have a lot of time to capitalize on this pre-wrath destruction so Tourism Australia better "get the party started", to borrow a line from Pink!




This is a good test for those who clamour to protect free speech and those who seek to limit free speech. The flip side of free speech is the freedom to ridicule, to insult, to belittle, and to mock, among others! The question though is when does this apparent freedom to ridicule and insult cross the "line in the sand" to vilification or other criminal speech?




I am a big believer in free speech but an equally big believer that if one wants to enjoy the freedoms of speech then they must respect that this is not an absolute or unlimited freedom and be responsible for the words they utter!




I am sure that the members of the Westboro Baptist Church believe whole-heartedly what they preach and most, if not all, would be prepared to go to jail for their beliefs. Ahhhh, such is the power of religion and faith in God!




But no matter what the Westboro Baptist Church thinks -- I am proud to be an Australian and will remain proud right to the end whenever that may be! So, Westboro Baptist Church -- you lose!