General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I do not condone killing ... [View all]DonCoquixote
(13,616 posts)Oofensive speech is not valuebale in and of itself, but it is needed because any and all crticism of religion is labeled bigotry by the clergy. Today, the image that they sued as the excuse is the image of Mohammed being killed by isis which is what started this) or the image of Mohammed weeping and saying "it hurts the be loved by idiots" (another Charlie toon).
Now let's put aside debating whether the fellow (peace be upon him) that expressly told his followers to pray for those who mocked him, who said "the ink of the scholar is worth more than the blood of the martyr", whose third wife was a Jew, and who expressly forbade killing women and children would have found himself being beheaded by Isis. Most prophets, were they to come back, woudl probably end up like Jesus in the the story "the grand inqusitor" where the inquistor tells Jesus he is a heretic. But all of that is not relevant, what is relevant is that when you make something beyond criticism, it will be an unrestricted path where it mows down everythingin it's way.
Now,in the modern day, we deify (and to some extent Disney-fy) Martin Luther King, but we all know in his day you had people say he just had no respect for the Southern Way of life. Even know, you have cranks like Morris Berman say that the South was right, and they play to supposedly liberal audiences. Does anything Charlie has done rise to a MLK speech, not likely, I personally think Mad magazine does better Satire, but you cannto surgically kill one type of speech without killing all, even if the onlyreason for that is because Clergy tend to ebnage in duplicity.
So no, I do nto have to tolerate intolerance, just like I do not have to buy anythign that supports hate. However, the minute the folks that kill, or for that matter, even try to sue offensive speechmakers get their way, they cannot, will not stop at just the people that offend. To paraphrase the world war II saying "First they came for the people I hated, then they came for people I did not care about, then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me."