Boycotting Denmark
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- Junesun
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Turns out the 3 cartoons that Muslims found most offending (Mohammed as a pedophile demon, Mohammed with a pig's snout, a Muslim committing bestiality) were invented by the head representative of Muslims in Denmark and not published in the newspaper at all. That representative created a brochure for distribution in Arab countries about supposed disrespect for Islam in Denmark and included these 3 cartoons of his own invention along with the 12 actually printed ones. He'll be mighty glad his scheme worked so well. Last night the first people died because of this.
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Junesun wrote:Turns out the 3 cartoons that Muslims found most offending (Mohammed as a pedophile demon, Mohammed with a pig's snout, a Muslim committing bestiality) were invented by the head representative of Muslims in Denmark and not published in the newspaper at all. That representative created a brochure for distribution in Arab countries about supposed disrespect for Islam in Denmark and included these 3 cartoons of his own invention along with the 12 actually printed ones. He'll be mighty glad his scheme worked so well. Last night the first people died because of this.
This makes me very sad. Next thing you know, they could make up an incident like this with no base in truth and many people would blindly believe in it, starting riots without even searching for the truth.
This reminds me of a case of a Finnish artist, Teemu Mäki, slaughtering a cat and taping it on video film. Everybody had an opinion of that case, even though very few knew the whole truth of the matter. That a cat had been exterminated with an axe in the matter of 6 seconds, the accusation of cruelty only came from that the cat didn't die from the first strike since his aim was a bit off. While the whole video lasted about 30 minutes, if I remember correctly. The other parts of the video included scenes of war, famine, chickens kept in cages, views in a slaughterhouse... the point was to wake up the watcher into realizing how calmly, thoughtlessly, emotionlessly he or she lets all those acts of cruelty and the suffering of many slip through while feeling sympathy towards a single cat. That's our world.
And, Dee, you're right, we cannot understand. At least I cannot. Maybe there's nothing sacred anymore, not to us. That a picture could hurt a man who died 1400 years ago, or his followers. It's like those primitive people believing that if someone takes a photo of them, their soul is trapped in it.
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Dee wrote:It's just this thing with Europeans and Americans that makes them just don't care about anything, not defending their beliefs. I think that this is what Jihad is all about.
I didn't read the whole thread, because there are too many long posts, but this one really bothered me to read. I certainly care about defending my beliefs and I think the whole thread above is about exactly that - defending our beliefs. Beliefs in free speech, freedom of press, liberalism, etc. Not only believing in God or similar is a true belief.
Besides, many Europeans and even more Americans are quite religious, just not Muslim. But even when they are not, like me, we can still have strong beliefs. And I think most of the comments above are showing those.
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How do they defend their beliefs?
More than one person in this thread said that the christianity was attacked more than one time, and it is something that they "got used to", so it doesn't bother them anymore. Do you call that defending their beliefs?
Don't give me the free speech bullshit. You know what I think? Democracy is enforced on you. Yes, it is. They brainwashed you and made you think that democracy is the best lifestyle for you. And since democracy is enforced, therefore it's not really democracy.
Don't get me wrong, I am for democracy all the way, but when people start doing things in the name of democracy, then they are misusing their rights, and offending and harming others. Is that what we want from democracy? Certainley not.
You have a gift, use it right. Freedom of speech is not given to you so you can attack and offend others, it's given to you so you can actually make a point about something that's important, and perhaps changing the world's view about a particular thing.
It's really hard to try to convince you of this issue all by myself, even if I tried a million times. So, I made point clearly, and I hope that you understood what I said.
Democracy is a gift, don't waste it on pointless things like that. Be more objective.
More than one person in this thread said that the christianity was attacked more than one time, and it is something that they "got used to", so it doesn't bother them anymore. Do you call that defending their beliefs?
Don't give me the free speech bullshit. You know what I think? Democracy is enforced on you. Yes, it is. They brainwashed you and made you think that democracy is the best lifestyle for you. And since democracy is enforced, therefore it's not really democracy.
Don't get me wrong, I am for democracy all the way, but when people start doing things in the name of democracy, then they are misusing their rights, and offending and harming others. Is that what we want from democracy? Certainley not.
You have a gift, use it right. Freedom of speech is not given to you so you can attack and offend others, it's given to you so you can actually make a point about something that's important, and perhaps changing the world's view about a particular thing.
It's really hard to try to convince you of this issue all by myself, even if I tried a million times. So, I made point clearly, and I hope that you understood what I said.
Democracy is a gift, don't waste it on pointless things like that. Be more objective.
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I must say, though, that I am increasingly losing all sympathy for the idiot Danish prime minister, especially after his latest pontificating. So Denmark wants to go off and fight in Iraq; so Denmark now proclaims itself as standing firm as the bastion of the West. They are 5 million cow farmers, for heaven's sake.
Once one turns European "liberalism" into a sort of western triumphalism and strides forth to fight crusades, then soon there will be no liberal values left.
Once one turns European "liberalism" into a sort of western triumphalism and strides forth to fight crusades, then soon there will be no liberal values left.
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Dee wrote:How do they defend their beliefs?
I was talking about liberalism and democracy, not christianity - and we are defending them by arguing against your point that the Danish government should do something about that newspaper. Because if they would, that would be seriously against my beliefs.
Dee wrote:Don't give me the free speech bullshit. You know what I think? Democracy is enforced on you. Yes, it is. They brainwashed you and made you think that democracy is the best lifestyle for you.
Yeah, quite opposite to any religion where everybody just out of nowhere suddenly decided to believe in it .....
Please come up with real arguments rather than telling me I'm 'brainwashed' or 'not objective' - those are not arguments but that's just telling me I'm wrong and you are right.
I think all religions brainwash people, but I'm not going to use that as an argument in a discussion like this. You shouldn't either. And yes, of course I believe in democracy because my parents, teachers, newspapers, politicians, etc. all do and tell me so. Much like how you came to believe in Islam.
Dee wrote:And since democracy is enforced, therefore it's not really democracy.
That's nonsense.
Dee wrote:You have a gift, use it right. Freedom of speech is not given to you so you can attack and offend others, it's given to you so you can actually make a point about something that's important, and perhaps changing the world's view about a particular thing.
Indeed. I'm not using my free speech to say anything bad about Islam. (Well, except for the brainwashing thing, perhaps, but that's against all religions

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The country leaders who urge people into hate, declare jihad... do they fight beside their people? Are they dying in the war for faith, are they getting stomped to death in the frontline of a demonstration? I don't think so. They merely spread propaganda and let others do the dirty work while they sit behind their desks in fine suits, drinking Coca Cola and not really caring what goes on outside.
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Dee wrote:*she sighs* Yes, they do... They really shouldn't be called muslims, just terrorists, because Islam spreads peace, not terrorism or war.
They give a bad image about Islam, and look what happened, everyone thinks that Islam is a relegion of war, as Scuba said.
This is so sad. Really, really sad.
Dee, while I understand that main-stream Islam is a religion of peace, when main-stream Muslims allow their religion to be hijacked by radicals, and stand back in seeming complacency while the radicals spread their ministry of terror around the world, and support the repressive governments that support these radicals, what else to you expect? Islamic extremism can only be quelled by people like you getting the courage to take back their religion.
Oh, and as a Christian, my religion doesn't call for me to defend it. In fact, it teaches me to "turn the other cheek." For you to think that I don't care because I don't actively protest anti-Christian messages in the media demonstrates that you know as little about Christianity as I know about Islam. Christians are taught to spread their faith by living it, not by fighting for it (the Crusades being just as evil as what the terrorists do).
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hallucinatingfarmer wrote:What I find more as disgusting as this cartoon is the sudden hatred for a whole nation, simply because of the printing in one of their newspapers - that's equally, if not more, shortsighted and ignorant as the cartoon itself. You cannot condem a whole nation for the opinion of the few
Very, very true. In fact I'd say that this boycott is harming everybody in Denmark except the people they're trying to harm. I know the names of quite a few Canadian newspapers, several American, maybe one British one... and now I know the name of Denmark's largest paper. Mission unaccomplished, middle-east, you just thrust them into the spotlight for a stupid cartoon.
rklenseth wrote:I'm sorry but we don't live Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Russia or present day China or even places like Saudi Arabia or Iran.
Oh, shit. This thread has officially been Goodwinned.

You have a gift, use it right. Freedom of speech is not given to you so you can attack and offend others, it's given to you so you can actually make a point about something that's important, and perhaps changing the world's view about a particular thing.
Sounds like somebody doesn't quite understand free speech. It's not, you're free to speak whatever you want to so long as it doesn't offend anybody, or it is a valid point, or anything. I can say whatever I want, even if it makes me look like an idiot. And that is free speech.
(o.o) <=== there is my charicature of Mohammed. Boycott Canada.
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Doug R. wrote:Dee, while I understand that main-stream Islam is a religion of peace, when main-stream Muslims allow their religion to be hijacked by radicals, and stand back in seeming complacency while the radicals spread their ministry of terror around the world, and support the repressive governments that support these radicals, what else to you expect? Islamic extremism can only be quelled by people like you getting the courage to take back their religion.
Doug, this happens in every religion, the one example I can think of is the settlements in Israel, it is a creation of the orthodox minority, not the secular majority.
And it's not necessarily something you can prevent. Extremism is a product of external influences. Let's take the Palestinian martyrs, for example. As an Israeli, I would like to think that my countries actions and policies were not the influence. But when someone lives in poverty, there are people who will take advantage of the poverty and point fingers to say that since the soldiers are there, they are the ones who cause it. It is very obvious to me why extremism exists, but one thing I have learned, is that as individuals we can't change how people think, so the only way to counter extremism, is make people try to understand both the center policy, and the radical policy, only once the people who are the followers see that the extremism doesn't accomplish anything, then we can topple the power structure of religious extremism.
The US is victim of religious extremism too....*he coughs* Pat Robertson *he coughs again as if to cover up and looks around to see if anyone noticed*
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