[paraclete]

It seems it is time this charlie hembo thing had a thread of its own

The mayor of a dutch city has said what many of us are thinking, not PC but then it is time we stopped ducking the issues and ask whose country is it anyway?

Rotterdam mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb says if you don't like freedom, pack your bags

We have been tip toeing around muslims since 9/11 or before but it has to stop, they are offended, but they haven't stopped to realise, so are the rest of us. We are offended they don't like free speech. We are offended that our food has to be halel certified. We are offended by people who don't assimulate, who turn suburbs into ghettos, who make familiar places look like down town Beruit or Badghad, who abuse people in the streets, who fund terrorists, who tolerate terrorists in their midst

[tomder55]

Courageous . I hope all steps are taken to protect him. I don't want to see him paying the price like Theo Van Gogh did.

[paraclete]

Yes he is Tom and the best part he is a muslim, like some actually get the message, this place is better than where you come from

[tomder55]

In the United States today, Christians are expected to accept that the lives of Jesus and Mary and others are the property of artists and entertainers, not just the faithful, and that they can be rewritten (and, needless to say, frequently sexualized) for the sake of bestselling potboilers, transgressive plays, pseudo-histories, literary “experiments” and Very Important Cultural Events alike. Christians are used to having our sacred scripture challenged not only by academic scholarship, but all across the popular press, where the “discovery” of new scriptures allegedly proving this or that shocking thing about Jesus is a media standby during the Christmas and Easter seasons, along with various other creative exercises in the goading of believers. Christians are expected to accept that both our holiest figures and our earthly leaders will be represented in avant-garde art, not only unflatteringly or satirically, but using prophylactics, urine or excrement. And it’s fair to say, I think, that deliberate offense-giving is considerably more common around those Christian traditions that have historically been more marginal or outsider-ish in American culture — Catholicism, Mormonism, fundamentalist churches — than it is around the Protestantism that used to define the American mainstream … though that’s partially because that mainstream Protestantism has faded in influence and verve, and nobody wants to satirize the increasingly irrelevant….
So if you want to argue that Islam’s treatment at the hands of cartoonists and other critics deserves to be condemned, you need a stronger argument than, “self-censorship around people’s deeply-held religious beliefs is the normal Western way.” It simply isn’t; what’s being invoked here is a special kind of protection for Islamic sensibilities, not a universal rule.

Blasphemy Revisited - NYTimes.com

Unlike the Christians, Islam shoots back.

[tickle]

Pope Francis said Thursday that there are limits to freedom of expression, especially when it insults or ridicules someone's faith.

There are several canadian papers that will not print the cartoon that caused this disaster. I wonder why ?

[NeedKarma]

I-Am-Not-Hebdo

[tickle]

NK, you should have said that in french. You would have had them scrambling for the translator.

It seems it is time this charlie hembo thing had a thread of its own

Hedbo, I think you mean.

[NeedKarma]

J'ai manqué ma chance. :-)

[talaniman]

Terrorist win when you take the bad behavior of a small group or individual, and apply it to a whole group. It only took 4 guys in the case of France to get some of us to spout off about a whole religion. I would be with you if it was a larger number of the billion and a half muslims raising hell, but its NOT.

Further this mostly obscure artist was no Van Gogh, but all of a sudden he is a hot commodity? Give me a break. 95% of French muslims ignored his arse and still do.

We sit here in America and lament the shooting of schoolkids, and moviegoers without bringing any religious connotations into the conversation but a person of color always has his religion to blame. Any excuse to holler about what you hate for some folks. Does that and a glass of wine make you feel better?

Even elevating looney nut job criminals to terrorist status is STUPID, since its about the MONEY in the first place. But you just keep making it about another god other than yours, and feel secure in your own fake superiority.

[tomder55]

yeah and then the Dutch have woken up and went after jihadists who returned from the battle . Tal wake up . You lefties crack me up. All this defense of free speech . But you don't really believe it . When conservatives are scheduled to talk on campus you don't like free speech so much . When some guy makes a video that parodies Mohammed ,you arrest him. I have for years pointed out how the most disgusting depictions of Christianity is defended by you lefties as art . But when the Muslims get offended then the same western artists should self censor.

[talaniman]

There you go again, lumping me in with the ones you hate. You should know better by now. Or maybe you haven't noticed I prescribe no left or right to criminal nut jobs, or race, religion, or creed.

Actions are what speak the loudest, good or bad. The rest is just PC BS! There's really badly behaving humans, and some really good ones and all in between.

Good Luck rounding up all those Muslims, but you and Clete and the rest of the haters are free to waste your time.

[tomder55]

Further this mostly obscure artist was no Van Gogh

The Theo Van Gogh murder - Free Speech Martyr

Just saying .....

[talaniman]

Your terrorists fit the same mold as any criminal organization.

Just sayin'

[tomder55]

no they don't . They fit the mold of Islamic Jihadists . They did not murder for financial gain. They murdered in defense of their religion..... as preached to them by their clerics.

[talaniman]

They bought guns from gun dealers, like any criminals. The clerics are criminals, as is anyone who orders hits and murders, no different than skinheads who killed prosecutors and judges in Texas or dope dealers on the corner,or Al Capone.

I have to wonder how anyone believes what comes out of the mouth of a murderer. Jihad is the rally cry for crazies, because they know it scares you sh1tless, and distracts you from the purpose of getting what they want.

I mean a few guys with guns got you hyped up and hollering where one guy with a gun shooting an elementary school up didn't. That's a darn shame!

[tomder55]

he who must not be named.

[Wondergirl]

Is there something that can be gained by realizing so many of these Jihadists doing the killing are teen and maybe 20-something males?

FBI says Bolingbrook teen hoped to join ISIS - DailyHerald.com (from my neck of the woods)

and

Christopher Lee Cornell: The man who allegedly plotted to attack U.S. Capitol 'fulfilling the directives of violent jihadists' - The Washington Post

[paraclete]

How about those Belgians, a little proactive policing of returned jihadists so this points the way. When they go they don't come back, fight a jihad and loose your passport. These are illegal combatants too, is their room at Gitmo for some more stateless persons?

[talaniman]

How about those Belgians, a little proactive policing of returned jihadists so this points the way. When they go they don't come back, fight a jihad and loose your passport. These are illegal combatants too, is their room at Gitmo for some more stateless persons?

Thank you for proving my point! Let cops deal with these criminals.

[paraclete]

My point Tal is we have to be proactive in dealing with jihadists, not sit back and wait for them to commit mayhem, and that takes profiling of a sort to identify them. The last few days will have seen a number of jihadists dealt with beyond being watched. First definition of a jihadists, fought or wants to fight in a jihad or religious conflict. We should declare all jihad a criminal offense and deal with participants accordingly, a murder is a murder, and intent to participate in a jihad is intent to murder.