OFF: Freeedom of Speech

[trev]

..and ...
it seems to me that the hatred of the west felt by the fundamentalist
islamic arabs is more to do with jealousy of our technological and social
superiority. this is being expressed by them by these religious excuses. i
have been looking into the historical reasons why there is not a single arab
state capable of manufacturing a car or an aircraft (apart from oman where
there is an aircraft being made by western companies). there are many
reasons, but the one which really seemed relevant is the fact that their
right-wing facistic mullahs and pashas or whatever their title was, actually
banned the printing press for 200 years thus preventing the extrapolation of
technological ideas in the east - until it was too late.
we in the west used to be in a similar state but during the past 400 years
or so, the humanistic "lefty" elements in our society have, by their blood
sweat toil and tears, raised up our level of governmental and legal ethics
so that now we rightly look upon the ethical and social outlook of the
fundamentalist arab world as being disgustingly medieval.
no wonder our hackles are raised by these fanatics when we have shed so much
blood and effort, for so long, to achieve "freedom of speech".
i am glad to see in the recent news that the more civilised elements of
islam are at last speaking up.  terrorism is a fearful weapon which is aimed
at you and me and our families and loved ones. it works because it uses
"stealth". the only people who can unshield this "stealth weapon" are the
more intelligent, psychologically balanced, and educated elements of islam
because they alone are in a position to pinpoint the killers.
i mean...bush isn't much better, if at all, but he won't be in power
forever.

trev
----- Original Message -----
From: "trev" <judge48 at HOTMAIL.COM>
To: <BOC-L at LISTSERV.ISPNETINC.NET>
Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2006 11:29 AM
Subject: Re: OFF: Freeedom of Speech


> so when i described the destruction of parliament by rampaging skinhead
> hordes in the fantasy song "skinheads in leningrad", if a rampaging horde
> had actually attacked parliament, mistaking my fantasy for a literal
> exhortation, i would have been banged up???
> if this was a possibility, half the writers in the country would be in the
> nick for threatening maggie thatchers well-being. she was, as you know,
> actually attacked by the ira bombers in brighton.
> how can you prove whether there was intent or not? i dont think you can.
> there might have been real intent at the time of writing when artistic
> passions were  up but which would have not lasted after the work was
> finished and published. this was the case with "skinheads". when iwrote
> it,
> the exhortation to violence was real to me, but as i generally condone non
> violence whenever possible, in hindsight it was not.
> ooer
>
> trev
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "M Holmes" <fofp at HOLYROOD.ED.AC.UK>
> To: <BOC-L at LISTSERV.ISPNETINC.NET>
> Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2006 10:41 AM
> Subject: Re: OFF: Freeedom of Speech
>
>
>> trev writes:
>>
>>> to confuse matters, how about introducing artistic license into the
>>> debate?
>>> there might be a predictable consequence sparked off by a work of art
>>> which
>>> inflames passions to act upon it's message.
>>
>> Such as the "Piss Christ" exhibit or even Hawkwind producing "Right to
>> Decide"?
>>
>> It's only a problem if someone is inspired to do something illegal and
>> then only if the artist can be regarded as inciting them to have done
>> so.
>>
>> Thus someone saying "Let's burn all the infidels!" is problematic
>> exercise of free speech because it could be reasonable to expect that
>> where there are multiple halfwits listening, one of them might take
>> these words as inspiration. Someone doing so as a result of a cartoon is
>> less obviously forseeable as a predictable response.
>>
>> Let's say the BNP published a cartoon of what the Ku Klux Klan would
>> have called a lynching though. If someone acted on that, a jury might
>> convict under such a "reasonable man could forsee" law.
>>
>> It's the fact that there will always be borderline cases that means
>> these things have to be left to a jury to decide.
>>
>> FoFP
>>
>