Mohammed Cartoon question

[Stuart Mackey]

I suppose the test is this: would those who support publishing the Muhammed cartoons on a free press basis equally support cartoons ridiculing gays, women or blacks? If the answer is no, then the debate is really about the right to ridicule religious beliefs, rather than fundamental free speech.

Linky dink

Well, what do you, dear reader, think?
I think that this question is something of a strawman, but its bound to be brought up at somepoint.

Keep in mind that Wishart seems to be a right wing christian and something of a conspiracy crackpot.

[Darth Wong]

I suppose the test is this: would those who support publishing the Muhammed cartoons on a free press basis equally support cartoons ridiculing gays, women or blacks? If the answer is no, then the debate is really about the right to ridicule religious beliefs, rather than fundamental free speech.

Linky dink

Well, what do you, dear reader, think?
I think that this question is something of a strawman, but its bound to be brought up at somepoint.

Keep in mind that Wishart seems to be a right wing christian and something of a conspiracy crackpot.

To ironically borrow a tired old phrase from the religious assholes themselves, religion is a choice. It can't be equated to race or gender or even sexual orientation. Besides, this cartoon doesn't mock Muslims; it mocks Mohammed. It's more like asking if people would react the same way to a cartoon making fun of Nelson Mandela or Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and I'd say it's a fair bet that many such cartoons have been made which did precisely that.

[Patrick Degan]

By way of question-begging: since depicting the Prophet has been forbidden since the seventh century, and presumably no righteous Muslim has ever done so in all that time, and there are no Mohammed portraits from previous centuries, then how can these people be so certain they're seeing offensive Mohammed cartoons in the first place?

[dworkin]

Mr Wishart has obviously forgotten Footrot Flats, Billy T James and McPhail and Gadsby*. Racial, gender and sexual stereotypes are very common in NZ comedy and satire.

*Pre-PC iconic kiwi humour.

Of course he isn't really worried about Muslim satire. He's just wants people not making fun of his flavour of sky-pixie.

[Stuart Mackey]

Mr Wishart has obviously forgotten Footrot Flats, Billy T James and McPhail and Gadsby*. Racial, gender and sexual stereotypes are very common in NZ comedy and satire.

*Pre-PC iconic kiwi humour.

Of course he isn't really worried about Muslim satire. He's just wants people not making fun of his flavour of sky-pixie.

Well I do seem to remeber Wishart spouting that the army was a potential threat to democracy because there is no such thing as the Royal New Zealand Army {he seemed to forget that there are numerous Royal, or royal connected, New Zealand Regiments of one kind or another}.
I find that rationality and logic is not always his strong suit.

[Tiriol]

By way of question-begging: since depicting the Prophet has been forbidden since the seventh century, and presumably no righteous Muslim has ever done so in all that time, and there are no Mohammed portraits from previous centuries, then how can these people be so certain they're seeing offensive Mohammed cartoons in the first place?

Nice.

By the way, I came to the conclusion that although those cartoons would most likely not be published in Finland (poor taste and all that), there is no actual law against it. We do have a law against blasphemy/sacrilege (which one meant that someone is mocking God/deity/deities?), but since Muslims themselves clearly emphasize that Mohammed is not their God, they couldn't use that law to sue the newspapers that published the cartoons ("there is no other God than Allah" and all that) unless they want to openly admit that they are heretics and consider Mohammed to also be a God.

[NecronLord]

By way of question-begging: since depicting the Prophet has been forbidden since the seventh century, and presumably no righteous Muslim has ever done so in all that time, and there are no Mohammed portraits from previous centuries, then how can these people be so certain they're seeing offensive Mohammed cartoons in the first place?

Muslims have disgarded that command now and then. A few good ones here.

[Pezzoni]

There are millions of people called Mohammed... How do they know the cartoons were refering to the Mohammed?

[Raxmei]

Aren't cartoons ridiculing gays, women and blacks already commonplace? I don't particularly mind.

[Darth Wong]

Wishart has obviously never watched South Park, which is one of Comedy Central's most popular shows and which pretty much blows his argument so far out of the water that it achieves escape velocity. What a moron.

I own the first three seasons of South Park on DVD and it pokes fun at everyone (yes, including my own ethnicity). And by interesting coincidence, who are the people who do protest South Park and think it shouldn't be on the air in this country? Oh yes, fundies. Christian fundies instead of Islamic fundies, but fundies all the same. See the trend?

[Sriad]

What a trivial question. Voltaire answered that one a couple hundred years ago.

[Sriad]

PS: LOL in my callous heart at

It is true that Islam is a false religion, in the sense that it is not internally consistent and doesn't stack up to the kind of microscope that Christianity is routinely subjected to.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I don't know how it is in the "Land of the Free", but in the UK, we can quite openly mock gays, blacks or religious icons because we seem to all possess a sense of humour.

[Joe]

I don't know how it is in the "Land of the Free", but in the UK, we can quite openly mock gays, blacks or religious icons because we seem to all possess a sense of humour.

Was that quip really necessary? Are there any posters here who feel some pressing need to say something bad about the UK whenever the topic comes up?

In any case, the US has Chappelle's Show, which certainly does racial humor more fearlessly than any British show I've seen, and it was the best-selling TV DVD on record.

[Darth Wong]

In any case, the US has Chappelle's Show, which certainly does racial humor more fearlessly than any British show I've seen, and it was the best-selling TV DVD on record.

The problem with Chapelle's Show is that racial humour is the only thing it does.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Was that quip really necessary? Are there any posters here who feel some pressing need to say something bad about the UK whenever the topic comes up?

Go right ahead, I have a sense of humour, you uncultured colonial filth, you.

In any case, the US has Chappelle's Show, which certainly does racial humor more fearlessly than any British show I've seen, and it was the best-selling TV DVD on record.

Though I have never seen his show, I know that a lot (over 90%) of UK TV never even gets shown in the US. There's plenty of racially motivated humour here in all media forms, and we have animated shows that rival South Park too. We don't, however, have the number of prudes that seem prevalent in the US, hence my comment.

[Darth Wong]

Was that quip really necessary? Are there any posters here who feel some pressing need to say something bad about the (US) whenever the topic comes up?

Well, you did have federal-level hearings about a one-second nipple exposure during a Super Bowl halftime show. How is it any less absurd for the federal government to crack down on something like that, as opposed to a blasphemous cartoon?

If the Danish government treated blasphemous cartoons as seriously as the American government treats one second of nipple exposure on TV, they would have immediately held emergency federal-level hearings and levied heavy fines on the newspaper in question.

[Joe]

Listen, I'm not here to defend the more idiotic aspects of American media and politics, I just don't like the fact that Valdy has to shoehorn some sneering quip about the "land of the free" or whatever into every damn thread.

[Joe]

In any case, the US has Chappelle's Show, which certainly does racial humor more fearlessly than any British show I've seen, and it was the best-selling TV DVD on record.

The problem with Chapelle's Show is that racial humour is the only thing it does.

That's not exactly true; it's true that most episodes will have a racial sketch, but a heavy chunk of the sketches he does are not really racial humor - the infamous Rick James sketch is no more racial humor than making fun of any white celebrity would be.

But even if he did do racial humor exclusively, so what? The post-PC approach he takes to his comedy serves to bring traditional stereotypes about race out into the open and expose them for how ridiculous they actually are rather than perpetuate them.

[Darth Wong]

Listen, I'm not here to defend the more idiotic aspects of American media and politics, I just don't like the fact that Valdy has to shoehorn some sneering quip about the "land of the free" or whatever into every damn thread.

I don't know if he does it in every thread, but in this particular case there is a deep and abiding hypocrisy in all of the Bush Administration apologists (not saying that you're one of them, mind you) who defended the "people shouldn't have to be exposed to that" mentality during NippleGate but who suddenly turned into free-expression advocates when Muslims started using the exact same logic.

[Joe]

Well, as it turns out, the Bush administration and I would imagine many of its apologists have indeed stated of the cartoons that more or less, "people shouldn't be exposed to that," so perhaps there is no hypocrisy in that case. They're consistently against free expression.

[Darth Wong]

Well, as it turns out, the Bush administration and I would imagine many of its apologists have indeed stated of the cartoons that more or less, "people shouldn't be exposed to that," so perhaps there is no hypocrisy in that case. They're consistently against free expression.

In the case of NippleGate, they backed up this sentiment with heavy fines and expanded regulatory powers for the FCC. Unless they oppose the Denmark position that they apologize but should not interfere, they're hypocrites.

But even if [Dave Chapelle] did do racial humor exclusively, so what?

That comment was directed to the entertainment value of the show, not any call to silence him.

[Phillip Hone]

Censorship sucks. Bigots will go away and or hide under the rock they crawled out from if they can't abuse people physically. Look what happend to the Klan...


Though, you obviously can't slander some one. S### like "Fire him! He's a negro!" needs to be illegal.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Listen, I'm not here to defend the more idiotic aspects of American media and politics, I just don't like the fact that Valdy has to shoehorn some sneering quip about the "land of the free" or whatever into every damn thread.

I only do that in the threads that, strangely, deal with the concept of freedom being limited in the US. Since there are a damn sight more of those threads here than there are on any other nation, save now for this Islam clusterfuck, it's pretty obvious the quip will be common, not just from me.

As it stands, the latest hypocrisy from the Bush Admin. over this cartoon incident isn't going down well on many other boards I know. It just smacks of double standards and redundant appeasement that won't be remembered when it comes down to the next US related incident in an Arab country.

If it makes you feel any better, I'll discontinue the "Land of the Free" quip in an ironic sense.

[Joe]

Eh, I was sort of just venting. Don't feel like you have to do anything.