Paris Attack

[radon]

Re: Paris Attack

No, it's not okay to insult Christians

Sure it is. It is ok to insult anyone. There is no telling when someone will take offense. Sometimes it is impossible not to insult someone, either out of ignorance or out of the necessity to have an honest dialogue. But that's not what we're talking about here.

Let's be clear, they killed a bunch of people over a cartoon. Yes, that's right. A cartoon. How noble is that? There is no rationalizing it. It is a proper act of murder. The corollary is that these murders lack the sort of self restraint that separates humans from animals. Killing a cartoonist because they poke fun at people who treat women like cattle and believe in some superstitious hogwash has no justification.

[radon]

Re: Paris Attack

Especially against a broad, deep, and growing background of competing unassimilated, unfulfilled, and unhappy ethnic/ideological noise.

This is a huge and growing problem and not just in France. They will never be assimilated. Where does that leave the french? The aren't French and don't want to be. There is no liberty brotherhood equality here.

[vinoveri]

Re: Paris Attack

Sure it is. It is ok to insult anyone. There is no telling when someone will take offense. Sometimes it is impossible not to insult someone, either out of ignorance or out of the necessity to have an honest dialogue. But that's not what we're talking about here.

While it may be OK from a rational perspective in view of the circumstances, it is not OK legally if it amounts to slander or libel. Also, the current PTB don't agree with you; we have this new tyranny called "hate speech" legislation which basically wreaks havoc on dialogue and honesty (not too surprising for a world run on lies by narcissists and sociopaths). Still, the perps in Paris committed plain old cold blooded murder and should be prosecuted under the law which relates to that capital crime. The terror link is a bit of a stretch - unless we're going to start calling all extortion through intimidation "terror" (it may well be after all - when the local crime boss threatens your family unless you cooperate - hey that's terror - oh but responding to that wouldn't feed the defense industry and would limit the swag of the crooked police forces so who cares.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Paris Attack

Proudly Owned by Hedge Fund King Mr. Stephen Cohen of SAC Capital Advisors.


In the end, it's all shit in the worlds of high politics and high art. Artists like Ofili smear shit and sell it for millions, the politicians talk shit and sell it for millions, and we eat shit in large, malodorous helpings. For any connection with the events in Paris, political correctness, the moral courage of the Times, or the the alleged persecution of Christians, is shit too. Bull shit.

FRED, since the thread has moved from reporting and discussion on the on the tragic Paris event and has become a debate on political correctness, religion and morality, it seems destined for Political Abyss. Might we move it there now and tone down the noise before it gets too loud?

damien-hirst-skull .jpeg

Good choice of using Damien Hirst's "art".

But I think you chose the wrong "piece".

Apt perhaps, given the FIRE and Wall Street shark connection to a dead shark in a tank put together by a marketing and advertising icon.

But I think you would have been better off using Hirst's more aptly named(for this thread at least) For the Love of God, a gaudy diamond encrusted skull that didn't pass the sniff test.

That's Hirst giving his bedazzler skull the tongue above.

And much like the US Fed's T-Bills, was eventually "sold" to it's own sh!t "sandwich artist" creator...much like the US Fed.

The west frequently and consistently "insult" and "offend" Christians of all flavours, as well they should.

Irrational accusations/fears about President Obama being a muslim infiltrator is an echo of 55 years ago with irrational accusations/fears about President Kennedy being controlled by the pope.

Or how about more recently with the well regarded Telegraph's story about Mitt Romney's magic underpants?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/wom...underwear.html

No, it's not okay to insult Christians

Could we please have your critique of Andres Serrano's Piss Christ please?

Andres-Serrano-piss christ.jpeg

Catholic nun Wendy Beckett had a thoughtful, rational, and decidedly non-violent opinion on it.

[Woodsman]

Re: Paris Attack

Sure it is. It is ok to insult anyone. There is no telling when someone will take offense. Sometimes it is impossible not to insult someone, either out of ignorance or out of the necessity to have an honest dialogue. But that's not what we're talking about here.

Let's be clear, they killed a bunch of people over a cartoon. Yes, that's right. A cartoon. How noble is that? There is no rationalizing it. It is a proper act of murder. The corollary is that these murders lack the sort of self restraint that separates humans from animals. Killing a cartoonist because they poke fun at people who treat women like cattle and believe in some superstitious hogwash has no justification.

Point conceded and amplified, as is the redirection.

[radon]

Re: Paris Attack

While it may be OK from a rational perspective in view of the circumstances, it is not OK legally if it amounts to slander or libel.

I suppose, but in the US this excludes fair comments, comments about public figures, true comments etc...

Also, the current PTB don't agree with you; we have this new tyranny called "hate speech" legislation which basically wreaks havoc on dialogue and honesty (not too surprising for a world run on lies by narcissists and sociopaths). Still, the perps in Paris committed plain old cold blooded murder and should be prosecuted under the law which relates to that capital crime. The terror link is a bit of a stretch - unless we're going to start calling all extortion through intimidation "terror" (it may well be after all - when the local crime boss threatens your family unless you cooperate - hey that's terror - oh but responding to that wouldn't feed the defense industry and would limit the swag of the crooked police forces so who cares.

I agree, an unfortunate state of affairs.

[Mega]

Re: Paris Attack

I grew up during the "Troubles" that lovely little war between the Orange man & the Green man.........both same sort of faith ish. My Mom a "Coward" by your standards worked for Liverpool city housing & it was an unwriten rule that NEVER should the Greenman be put into the Orangemans housing estate (or vice visa).

Having a large in flux of people escaping Northern Ireland & moving to Liverpool (hence why the IRA never bombed Liverpool) ment that we faced a REAL war on the streets of Liverpool. My Mom would talk to the people & quickly suss if they were "Orange" or "Green"..........the two sides were kept apart....

It mostly worked, now she could have taken a "Brave" desion, & mixed the two looking only at their housing needs......there are people alive today because she & her work mates were "Cowards"...

Mike

[Woodsman]

Re: Paris Attack

Good choice of using Damien Hirst's "art"... Catholic nun Wendy Beckett had a thoughtful, rational, and decidedly non-violent opinion on it.

Thank you. The sister still kicks ass and takes names. I remain ambivalent about the whole thing, artwise. Although I am willing to be convinced for far less than Hirst draws any given year.

Truth is, if you work as an artist for any length of time you come to the understanding that the very process of creating art, for me it's draftsmanship and drawing, is prima facie evidence that all art is false. The task of the artist is to lie convincingly and to make the viewer fall in love with the lie.

Insofar as the representational tradition is concerned, we are tasked with taking a flat, two-dimensional plane and through the physical act of dragging and smearing media manipulate lines, edges, spacial relationships and tones into something that looks "real" and whose quality is judged largely by its success in achieving its purported verisimilitude.

But all of it is fake, a trick and a dodge intended to convince you that you see something that really isn't there. I think you have to be an artist, or want to be and have tried, to understand that in a meaningful sense.

Once you understand it's tempting to take it to its logical end and in the case of Hirst and those like him, it has led to a highly profitable form of nihilism.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Paris Attack

This is a huge and growing problem and not just in France. They will never be assimilated. Where does that leave the french? The aren't French and don't want to be. There is no liberty brotherhood equality here.

I agree that it's a big and growing problem for some countries in Europe(some more so than other).

I disagree on the "will never be assimilated" part(I'll get to that later).

As far as the problem goes, it's another sharp example of the need for countries in Europe to pursue some deep introspection.

Liberal European media seems quick to criticize the problems of inequality/racism in the US and the decline of the American Dream, but seem to ignore the far starker inequality/racism and vast physical/cultural/"stake in the outcome" divide between indigenous French and immigrant cultures.

But for every story about the progressive French cultural/societal acceptance of Josephine Baker trumping the US by decades, there's quite a few stories about current Sensitive Urban Zones(Zones Urbaine Sensibles, ZUS), effectively "no go zones"

http://sig.ville.gouv.fr/Atlas/ZUS/

I was in France 7-8 months ago heading from Charles De Gaulle to Normandy with a stop in Paris coming and going.

I was quite careful in navigating to avoid areas like Seine-Saint-Denis, based on advice repeatedly given.

Either in this thread or elsewhere I've read the word "silo" being used. I think that accurately depicts what is happening in some parts of France and elsewhere in Europe.

Unassimilated cultural/ideological silos are a recipe for long-term disaster.

We've seen it happen in the past regarding governance(and the lack of it) in recent immigrant cohort communities.

It leads to illicit networks that fill the governance void, funded by illegal activity.

Adding to the ethnic divide is an ideological divide with a broad and deep web of connections back to failed/failing states that provides opportunity for safe harbor training, support, command, and control for not just ethnic illicit network activity, but ideological.

Personally, I think assimilation is essential as well as possible, in the majority of cases.

I can personally vouch for a number of practicing muslims who I have worked quite closely(interpreters) with and have emigrated to western countries due to their service.

Is it possible that I'm wrong? Certainly.

But I reckon it's pretty unlikely, especially in light of the comprehensive support(over a year) they have all received in arriving, acclimatizing, and fully integrating.

The worst anecdotal immigration/integration stories I've heard recently have been from Swedes.

Maybe a country's immigration policies worth considering might be Switzerland's.

They seem to have a reasonable number of refugees per head of population(for the wealthy, white west at least), but don't seem to have the ethnic/ideological silos/ghettos.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Paris Attack

there are people alive today because she & her work mates were "Cowards"...

Mike

There's a gigantic gulf between being alive and living free.

You yourself have posted frequently about those who are merely alive and no longer living free having voluntarily sold themselves into debt slavery.

[Mn_Mark]

Re: Paris Attack

I am genuinely curious to hear from a liberal how many more Europeans have to be killed/injured by muslims in European countries before they will consider the possibility that Islam is simply not compatible with Western civilization.

I don't think another 1,000 deaths would do it. The 3,000 dead on 9/11 plus all of those killed in the last 40 years in all of the various muslim atrocities, from dumping wheelchair-bound Leon Klinghoffer into the sea, to murdering the Israeli athletes at the Olympics, to murdering hundreds of schoolchildren in the Beslan massacre, to the kidnappings and beheadings, the subway attack in Spain, the attacks in Britain, including beheading a soldier on the streets of the city, to this latest atrocity...none of that seems to have impressed on liberals that maybe the Islamic belief system simply can't be allowed into the West without these kinds of events, because the religion commands devout believers to conquer the whole world for Islam.

Would 10,000 more Europeans deaths make you reconsider?
100,000?
If the muslims managed to murder 500,000 in some major weapons-of-mass-destruction attack, would that make you finally concede that Islam is incompatible?

Or is there no number, no limit to the atrocities and deaths you would have us continue to suffer, because you would find it a greater sin to be "intolerant" against non-Europeans, even those with a death cult ideology like this, than to continue to see our fellow citizens die?

How many more have to die? How many more decades of this? What is it going to take for you to give up the platitudes about tolerance and wake up to reality?

[Mega]

Re: Paris Attack

The 1st "Trick" is staying alive, as for Islam well they never bothered me.......i work with some very bright people who moved to England not that many years ago. They do not have an agenda, plenty of Chris-t-en churches where they come from...pently of Jews as well.....

I note that tonight all the cartoon guys are coming out with their "Hummor"......i note that they attack the Gunmen, but er......not the Profit or the book.........looks to me like "message receved & understood".

Mike

[astonas]

Re: Paris Attack

Maybe Germany's position regarding Scientology is rational, logical, and worth considering for expansion to include other religions, namely Islam?

Well, the French are certainly closer to that than we are. Unlike the U.S., France is officially a secular state, which bans religious displays in official settings. No doubt that is part of the reason that militants have more strife there than in other places.

But one real problem with your suggestion is that the question of which religions to ban can never be made on objective logical grounds. (Germany, for example, doesn't really try.) Epistemologically, all religions are identical, in that they claim truth not through falsifiable experimental evidence, but rather faith in a cannon of belief, with ancillary evidence acquired experientially. Every religion thus claims to be the true one. So there simply can never be a justifiable legal separation drawn between religions. A key insight of the U.S.'s founding fathers was that one should therefore not try.

So one cannot simply ban or restrict Islam without simultaneously banning Christianity, and for that matter the Flying Spaghetti Monster. They are fundamentally equivalent.

However, one can indeed ban actions, especially those that extend beyond the boundaries of faith itself, such as the imposition of a faith's principles on others who have not voluntarily joined, and chosen to remain, in a faith.

This would not only include the attackers in Paris, but it would also apply to things like advocating the death penalty for apostates, infant genital mutilation, "honor" killings, and various forms of subjugation of women. It would also be supported (perhaps even arguably required) by existing international law (covered by the UN's International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights):

The Committee observes that the freedom to 'have or to adopt' a religion or belief necessarily entails the freedom to choose a religion or belief, including the right to replace one's current religion or belief with another or to adopt atheistic views ... Article 18.2^[8] bars coercion that would impair the right to have or adopt a religion or belief, including the use of threat of physical force or penal sanctions to compel believers or non-believers to adhere to their religious beliefs and congregations, to recant their religion or belief or to convert.^[9]

Converting this into an enforceable domestic law would effectively mean a ban on fundamentalist Islam. Several of the Hadiths, for example, explicitly require the death penalty for apostasy, and verbally denying any principle of a Hadith is itself considered apostasy, so a requirement to officially denounce such violence would not be considered acceptable for a Muslim fundamentalist. It would effectively attach a capital crime to them (to be administered by their own community) for choosing to join the western nation.

Of course, any legal formulation strict enough to be effective would also necessarily ban other non-consentual religious acts: infant male circumcision, the raising of children as adherents to a religion before the age of consent, and perhaps even unwelcome evangelism.

There are certainly secularists who would very much like to lead the western world down this path. I'm not sure the people as a whole are ready to follow them yet.

[radon]

Re: Paris Attack

All well and good until the pendulum swings back and silences the silencers with the same tool.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Paris Attack

Well, the French are certainly closer to that than we are. Unlike the U.S., France is officially a secular state, which bans religious displays in official settings. No doubt that is part of the reason that militants have more strife there than in other places.

But one real problem with your suggestion is that the question of which religions to ban can never be made on objective logical grounds. (Germany, for example, doesn't really try.) Epistemologically, all religions are identical, in that they claim truth not through falsifiable experimental evidence, but rather faith in a cannon of belief, with ancillary evidence acquired experientially. Every religion thus claims to be the true one. So there simply can never be a justifiable legal separation drawn between religions. A key insight of the U.S.'s founding fathers was that one should therefore not try.

So one cannot simply ban or restrict Islam without simultaneously banning Christianity, and for that matter the Flying Spaghetti Monster. They are fundamentally equivalent.

However, one can indeed ban actions, especially those that extend beyond the boundaries of faith itself, such as the imposition of a faith's principles on others who have not voluntarily joined, and chosen to remain, in a faith.

This would not only include the attackers in Paris, but it would also apply to things like advocating the death penalty for apostates, infant genital mutilation, "honor" killings, and various forms of subjugation of women. It would also be supported (perhaps even arguably required) by existing international law (covered by the UN's International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights):



Converting this into an enforceable domestic law would effectively mean a ban on fundamentalist Islam. Several of the Hadiths, for example, explicitly require the death penalty for apostasy, and verbally denying any principle of a Hadith is itself considered apostasy, so a requirement to officially denounce such violence would not be considered acceptable for a Muslim fundamentalist. It would effectively attach a capital crime to them (to be administered by their own community) for choosing to join the western nation.

Of course, any legal formulation strict enough to be effective would also necessarily ban other non-consentual religious acts: infant male circumcision, the raising of children as adherents to a religion before the age of consent, and perhaps even unwelcome evangelism.

There are certainly secularists who would very much like to lead the western world down this path. I'm not sure the people as a whole are ready to follow them yet.

Cheers for that Astonas.

Isn't a belief system largely(or at least partially) banned in Germany in the form of nazism?

I recall the very early days of Amazon.com as well as the subsidiary Amazon.de when first set up in Regensburg back in 97/98, we ran into grief a few times(making the press) regarding certain books banned for sale in Germany, that were available from/in/to other markets.

Would that not be banning thoughts rather than just banning actions?