When your fellow Muslims state quite clearly that they stand in opposition to freedom and democracy, you respond by calling their sincerity into question.

Now you question my sincerity in supporting freedom and democracy in the name of Islam - throwing out terms like fake morals and faux threats, in the same thread you clame to be the standard bearer for them

Perhaps it might help if you could distinguish between the "faux threats" and the real ones, and distinguinguish between the "fake morals", the cynical wishy washy values, and the real ones, it might be a little easier.

The issue I'm interested here is what is undermining freedoms here in the west. You think its people feeling intimidated to mock Muhammad, whereas I think its our "unity ticket" parliament rubber stamping dangerous laws to undermine some pretty basic rights.

A big part of the problem, which Karnal has touched on before in detail, is the modern distortion of our idea of freedom. Nowadays "freedom" seems to be all about who can be the most offensive and to witch-hunt those who inevitably complain about being offended. You will never see a 'draw Muhammad' competition that includes entrants that are not offensive caricatures of muslims. Thats because stunts like these insist on making the two terms "freedom" and "be offensive" as completely synonymous. I take what you no doubt see as a quaint view that true freedom of speech should be something that is responsible and constructive to public discussion. You will no doubt counter that offending muslims and teaching muslims to accept offense is just what is needed for healthy public discourse. But this is absurd if you think about it: humans are emotional creatures, and you are never going to be constructive if you deliberately set out to create an emotional response. But what can you do? Obviously the solution is not censorship or taking away people's rights to be offensive - the only point I can make here is that we have distorted the idea of what it means to have freedom of expression. So by all means offend away and stand up for your right to be offensive - and I will be the first to condemn any violent reactions to it. But don't pretend that such a discourse will do any good in terms of bringing about social harmony and healthy debate.

Perhaps all this wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't such a one-way discourse. Freeeedom lovers like you I mean - saying that the right to insult per se is the be-all and end-all of freedom, and that people who object to that must be ruthlessly attacked. Some understanding of the hurt people are feeling and why its so destructive wouldn't go astray, and it can be perfectly consistent with standing up for true freedom: I condemn those people who react violently to those Muhammad cartoons - but I also condemn those who deliberately set out to offend and look for a reaction. Believe it or not, you actually can condemn someone while at the same time accept their right to be offensive. You seem to take the view that condemning someone for a certain expression is a bit too close to comfort to calling for banning such expressions. It is not. And you also seem to take the view that a few violent incidents automatically makes any peaceful reaction by muslims as cynical and illegitimate. Thus you will go to all sorts of ridiculous contortions to dismiss a muslim protest against a brazen attack on freedom and democracy - as somehow a front for anti-freedom. As well as mock muslims who protest against actual proposed censorship. These are the incidents that you should be praising if you were consistent with your professed values. Instead you will always find a way to turn muslim activity into sinister activity.

No doubt you will have a lot to say in reply, but I do ask that you depart from your usual style of slicing up my post sentence by sentence and responding to each with 30 meaningless one line quips. Try and make a meaningful response that I can make sense of.

What???

I really did cover it all in my lengthy post yesterday. "faux threats" are extremely low level threats that are artificially built up as cynical exercises in opportunism - usually to create divisions for political purposes.

The threat of Islamic terrorism in Australia is one such threat. Boats are another. They are being exagerated beyond all recognition by a flailing government desperately in search of the 'dog whistle' vote.

"Fake morals" are exercises in double standards - again for cynical purposes. Its things like American leaders lecturing everyone

Was this not a way of expressing your scepticism towards my claim that the Bremer regime had no interest in setting up democracy in Iraq? If not, then great.

Karnal wrote on Aug 20^th, 2015 at 9:13pm:



karnal,

What is meaning of the word; 'pragmatic' ?


my dictionary is broken.      

20 something I think - in other words bugger all. Certainly not enough to justify the hysteria. We should be more concerned about the 100 or so women who die every year from domestic violence. I'll eagerly await the next 20-flag press address by the PM railing against the "death cult" of Australian husbands right?