[speechlesstx]

I'm not the one that keeps insisting Islam is a "religion of peace." I do blame Jones for provoking Muslims and giving my faith a black eye in the process. But I blame the Mullahs for stirring the pot leading to murder and destruction... much of which I'm sure was Muslim on Muslim violence. I doubt if any Baptist shopkeepers stores were burned down.

[excon]

I do blame Jones for provoking Muslims and giving my faith a black eye in the process.

Hello again, Steve:

I'm a strange fellow, I guess. I don't blame Christians because you've got a few kooks, any more than I blame Islam for its kooks.

excon

[speechlesstx]

Dude, I said "I blame the Mullahs for stirring the pot leading to murder and destruction." I didn't indict all of Islam.

[paraclete]

I agree with you but I have to say these fellows couldn't exist as they do without the support of the masses. Ex needs to realise that in all religions the power exists with the leadership because the people accept them, not the other way around

[tomder55]

Nope . Either they have lived that way ,indoctrinated for generations, ignorant of any other way ;or they are whipped into submission and live in terror under the jack-boot.

[paraclete]

Don't be a fool Tom if people can realise a secular leader is a despot they can realise the same about a religious leader, it just takes a little longer. Eventually Iran will realise their religious leaders are despots and the same is true of the rest of Islam

[speechlesstx]

Mark Steyn in a must read:

A Difference of Degree
April 2, 2011 10:47 A.M.
By Mark Steyn

Seems like old times. The great columnist Andrew Bolt made some mildly pointed observations about prominent and strikingly pasty-faced Australians choosing to identify as “aborigines”, and found himself hauled into court by the thought police:

I never thought I’d have an opportunity to see a real-life heresy trial in 21st-century Australia, but that’s exactly what’s been going on this week in Melbourne’s Federal Court.

Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt has been dragged before a judge and accused of thought crimes against the high church of political correctness. He’s being prosecuted and persecuted for the lese-majesty of challenging the cult of victimhood that dominates racial discourse in Australia.

The plaintiffs in this case claim to be aggrieved by several Bolt newspaper columns that cast doubt upon the authenticity of their Aboriginality. And while I’m sure their feelings of umbrage are quite genuine, I’m equally certain they are ultimately irrelevant.

But they’re not. In Canada, I too committed the crime of “offending” certain approved identity groups. And there is no defense to that: Truth, facts, evidence are all irrelevant. If someone’s “offended”, that’s that: You’re guilty. And increasingly, in Canada, Australia, Britain, the Netherlands, France, Austria, Scandinavia, the human right not to be offended trumps all.

This is disastrous. It puts free societies on the same continuum as the ululating savages of Mazar e-Sharif. They were also “offended” – by some no-name pastor on the other side of the planet burning a book. The Taliban’s idea of due process is less protracted than the Australians’, but operates on the same basic principle – that the right not to be offended is sacred.

As some of us said over the free-speech wars in Canada, if a multicultural society is not to descend from soft totalitarianism into naked thuggery, its citizens need to grow thicker skins: We need not sensitivity training, but insensitivity training. Instead, the Euro-Aussie-Canadian model thinks things will all work out if only we tiptoe ever more daintily on multiculti eggshells. Or as The Daily Caller’s Mike Riggs tweets:

What are you willing to stop doing to avoid offending violent religious zealots?

What core liberties are you willing to trade for a quiet life? Because however much of the baggage you toss out the balloon, it will never be enough. Short of punitive military measures we’re not willing to take, there’s not a lot we can do about baying Afghan mobs hot for decapitating people because someone expressed an opinion. But we could at least put some clear blue water between our legal inheritance and theirs by not dragging people into Australian, Dutch, Austrian and Danish courts for the same “crime”.

PS “Death To America, Death To Obama.” As Powerline remarks, that middle name may not be quite as magical as the President believes.

[smoothy]

Mark Steyn in a must read:

That's a good article... I'm offended by Pushy Muslims... as well as Jehovah witnesses and Welfare recipients... I wonder if I can except my entitled justice anytime soon. Or we can expect more of the type of justice that one expects in a Muslim majority nation where unless you are a Muslim then you are guilty of NOT being one and can expect whatever they decide to dish out.

And its already clear... if you practice Celibrating Christmas you are persecuted... and if you burn a Bible or a flag... its celebrated as your right... but if you burn a Koran, your life is threatened and you are badmouthed in the press by the lefties.

[paraclete]

Well speechless you are digging in a can of worms. You speak about Victoria, they have some strange laws there and local Pastor Danny Niliah fell foul of them and there was a well cited long running court case over the vilification of muslims because the pastor spoke of his personal experiences in India and Saudi Arabia, As to aboriginals in various parts of the world, they need to be protected from the great big world. In Australia an aboriginal is any person who declares himself to be an aboriginal, not something you would do without reason as it places you on the bottom rung of society, and so any challenge to that status would be seen as a personal attack

[paraclete]

As if what has been already said is not enough the vilification fight in Victoria is about to get a new leg
MP Bernie Finn lands the Liberal Party in race row | News.com.au

[tomder55]

As to aboriginals in various parts of the world, they need to be protected from the great big world.

Got to love the benevolence of the Aussie.

[paraclete]

Well it's true Tom and it is exactly what we were doing long ago when we declared them to be fauna, protected along with the Koalas and the Emus. It sure beats raising an army and killing them for their land, which I hear is the solution employed on the other side of the big pond. However the do gooders also from a similar place said you can't do that and so what do we have now. A subculture of disadvantage and grief because they can't fit those aspirations. They die earlier because they smoke and drink more and we are somehow supposed to infringe their liberty to do so, so that we can raise their life expectancy and impose our life style and life expectancy upon them. It is like whistling the wind so yes we are benevolent but it changes nothing

[speechlesstx]

They die earlier because they smoke and drink more and we are somehow supposed to infringe their liberty to do so, so that we can raise their life expectancy and impose our life style and life expectancy upon them.

They just need casinos.

[paraclete]

Just what Australia needs is more gambling. You have just demonstrated how american solutions are not needed here because you have no understanding of our society.

Tom they don't know how to run anything just spend. All they would do is put their dole cheques through the slots as they do now, just another excuse to drink, smoke, etc and sit on their blessed native rights. We have what might be called casinos over there in every town. We call them clubs, they are highly organised local businesses

[smoothy]

Tom they don't know how to run anything just spend. All they would do is put their dole cheques thru the slots as they do now, just another excuse to drink, smoke, etc and sit on their blessed native rights.

Sounds a lot like what happens on the reservations here.

[paraclete]

Yes smoothy pretty much. Human nature is the same everywhere

[speechlesstx]

just what Australia needs is more gambling. You have just demonstrated how american solutions are not needed here because you have no understanding of our society.

You just demonstrated you have no sense of humor. I don't give a rat's you know what how you solve your societal ills, but opposition to the thought police and the right not to be offended isn't a uniquely American value.

[paraclete]

I didn't know you had opposition to the thought police over there, is it an inderground movement?

[speechlesstx]

I didn't know you had opposition to the thought police over there, is it an inderground movement?

No, it's very public. In fact, Steyn is still addressing the issue.

The Right to Offend
By Mark Steyn

When I wrote over the weekend about the trial of Australia’s most prominent columnist for expressing his opinions, I did not expect it to be quite so immediately relevant to the United States. But perhaps what’s most disturbing about Lindsey Graham’s dismal defense of his inclinations to censorship is the lack of even the slightest attempt to underpin his position with any kind of principle. He all but literally wraps himself in the flag, and, once you pry him out of the folds of Old Glory, what you’re left with is a member of the governing class far too comfortable with the idea that he and his colleagues should determine the bounds of public discourse.

I’m sick of that. I’m sick of it in Canada, sick of it in Britain, in Australia, in Europe, and I’m now sick of it in America — in part because, as Senator Graham has demonstrated in his fatuous defense, guys like him aren’t smart enough to set the rules for what the rest of us are allowed to think. In his column in The Australian, James Allan usefully reminds us of what it’s like to live in a world where Grahamesque types presume to regulate individual expression in the cause of identity-group harmony. I like his conclusion:

The only valuable sort of freedom of speech is the sort that allows people to do or to say what others find wrong-headed, offensive, distasteful and intolerant.

Being free to say and do what everyone else wants you to say and do is not a liberty or freedom you will ever have to fight for; it will make little difference to anything . . .

I think any good, well-functioning democracy requires its citizens to man up and grow a thick skin. If you’re offended, tell us why the speaker is wrong. Don’t ask for a court-ordered apology and some two-bit declaration.

I’ll take my chances with blowhard pastors, drearily “transgressive” artists, and flag-burning provocateurs. I’m far more worried about a blundering clod like Graham presuming to protect us from them.

[tomder55]

in part because, as Senator Graham has demonstrated in his fatuous defense, guys like him aren't smart enough to set the rules for what the rest of us are allowed to think.

That's an understatement . Graham is this side of a turnip. That's the same clod who complained about the 'loud people' during the immigration debate .