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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
I'm pro-rapist HK! Artists are exactly the same as rape victims! That's exactly what this conversation is about. Well done HK you have opened my EYES. These guys and their hateful ugly rhetoric are SO COOOL and we should admire how they've pushed the boundaries of decency and good taste. Because it's free speech, and that makes everything they say admirable. We should have thousands of cartoons just like this! That'll show those CAH-RAAAAAAZY muslims!

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When someone calls you on it, you throw up this tornado of denial and then go back to saying the same damn thing you said before.

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The point is that I believe these cartoonists, regardless of their aesthetic mis/judgments, are EVERY BIT AS BLAMELESS as any other victim of violence.

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And it goes without saying that I have no means or desire to force such an acknowledgment out of you.

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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
I'm saying I don't admire these artists because of the content of their work, and that I think they're jerks

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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
What is happening is that you think very poorly of me, and I think very poorly of you, and neither of us understand each other, and that is the way of things and nothing can be done about it.

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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Whatever Chris. You went after me just as bad.

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This is a lively debate, or so I thought... sorry if it seemed like I was bird-doggin' ya, really.
We can get intense here with our opinions, and some times we can take offense, none at all meant, milady.
In point of fact, you are one of my favourite posters here!

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:

So, yeah, in the face of the absurd brutality of the threats against the life of an artist, folks of good conscience are obliged to stand with them, regardless of the content of the art, on the principle that art in a free society is as close to sacrosanct as we secularists get.

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Originally posted by AgentRouka:
It is provocative art. It intentionally violates an existing taboo. There is nothing wrong with that. Personal tastes vary with regard to drawing a line between fascination and utter disgust at crass insensitivity, but even when my complete personal condemnation of content or form is achieved, there is still nothing wrong with provocative art. You just end up questioning the character of the creator. That is not the same as blaming them for any inappropriate reaction OR wishing them silenced.

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Originally posted by Niki2:
...from her first post, Byte stated:

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On the other hand, people who deliberately just rile Muslims up are basically the IRL equivalent of trolls, only their provocations tend to kill more people.

So I'm going to suggest maybe both sides are really dumb.

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First of all, the cartoonists have been victims of NO violence whatsoever. You can find it 'unjust' if you want to, but the fact is the cartoonist DID intend to provoke. They say it was satire, but they've been there before; their offices were attacked and burned last November for a much milder satire of Mohammed. Then yes, they were victims. Not this time. This time they've suffered nothing, others have. In the words of another, "To repeat the same stupidity, the same idiocy and the same calumnies, the same ignominy seems to be nearly psychotic action."

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Maybe these people are truly stupid. But anyone who'd had their offices attacked, and saw the violence that stupid video created, would have to be TRULY stupid not to know what the outcome of their provocation would be.

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How is this ANY different from telling young women to "not dress like whores" so as to avoid rape?

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Let's get rid of that one right now. In the first place, I didn't "tell" anyone to do anything.

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I expressed my opinion, so did Byte. Beyond that, the comparison to rape is totally irrelevant:

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"Gee, that was kinda stupid?" Like Treyvon Martin wearing a hoodie stupid or rape victim dressing slutty stupid?

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A woman running around in sexy clothes does so for reasons which have nothing to do with the possibility of being raped.

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Treyvon Martin wore a hoodie because it fit the weather. A cartoonist who does what they did in the face of uprisings over an anti-Islamist video does so with full knowledge of what may transpire; in fact, they DO it to provoke a response. There's a gigantic difference between someone choosing what they'll wear and someone deliberately doing something they KNOW could incite violence.

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What nobody here seems to be grasping is that Byte (and I, to an extent) are decrying what these idiots did, and stating that we think the cartoons were in extremely bad taste. Why exactly do we not have the right to condemn something we see as bad, then be accused of wanting to censor them? Isn't that not arguing against OUR right of free speech? NEITHER of us has called for censorship; we have expressed our opinion that the cartoonists knew what they were doing, so we think it was wrong of them to do it. What's wrong with that? Whatever words Byte chose to use, isn't it her right to use them? It's like you want to censor US, our opinions, when we've called for no censorship.

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I remember I mentioned self-censorship, but that's a whole different thing. I believe a responsible person, when deciding the subject of their cartoon, in the face of both their building having been burned down before, the current riots and deaths of innocent people, would constrain themselves against adding to the fire, choose another topic or at the very least not choose to create such offensive and gross depictions of a religious figure. Violent protests aside, it would be wrong to do that to any religious figure, out of respect for the reader, if nothing else.

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They also painted a huge target right over France, by the way, which was forced to close embassies and schools in about 20 countries on Friday, as a precaution, and boost security in some locations, including its embassies, with police vehicles parked outside the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo late Tuesday. My question was, given they knew there would be SOME negative result from their actions, including possibly violence to innocent people: Was it worth it?

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There is no cause and effect relationship there

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I just do not get the determination to insist on this. The "magazine" (I use the term loosely) had previous experiences with what happened when they depicted Mohammed in a negative fashion. They knew depiction of Mohammed angered Muslims. They knew there were riots going on worldwide and people dying over a video depicting Mohammed in an ugly fashion. The only way you can say there was no cause and effect, again, is to believe they were so utterly stupid that previous experience and knowledge of current events were nonexistent. They knew what they were doing and they knew it would bring about SOME kind of ugly "effect". How can you be blind to that?

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And from her first post, Byte says, right there, that the cartoonists' "provocations...kill...people." I don't know how much clearer she could be that the cartoonists share blame for the violence.

Cartoonists should not be threatened, should not be attacked--end of story.

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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Since none of you want to listen to me or understand what I'm actually saying...

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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Maybe if there were less hatred, I'd be less angry myself.

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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
I just want to be judgmental and hate everyone including stupid riots and stupid artists and most especially myself, over there in the corner and not bother anyone, is that too much to ask?

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Originally posted by chrisisall:

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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Maybe if there were less hatred, I'd be less angry myself.

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Negative emotions breed like wildfire. If you can find safe emotional ground, the burns can become manageable....
If that makes any sense.

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Originally posted by Niki2:
We're in agreement on all but ONE single thing, Cav. I think it's horrendous; I think the protesters are 99.9999% to blame for what they did; I think everyone has the right to say/write whatever they want; I think censorship is wrong. The only single thing we disagree with is that the cartoonists knew they were fanning the fires and what they did would make matters worse, which to me makes them bear the other 1%. That is our only point of contention.

I get all the things you said, and disagree that I am "telling" anyone what to do; I repeat: I'm expressing my own opinions, nothing more.

And trying, once again, to help people understand the societal differences which are largely the CAUSE of the riots:

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if you live under threat of violence, you are a victim of violence

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That's one of the main points, in my opinion. Those in the Middle East countries we're discussing DO live under the threat of violence, every day, and ARE the victims of violence--and the mentality that comes with it. I spent too much time trying to explain myself and didn't make my point clearly enough; if we're ever going to deal with these people we NEED to understand the vast differences between their society--which has existed for thousands of years--and ours, which is relatively new and begun on a totally different concept than theirs. I've seen it; I've lived it; it's a world we can't possibly hope to understand unless we've been there. That's why, in my mind, it's too simplistic to say anyone should be able to say anything with no repercussions. The REALITY is different when it comes to societies like that.

It's wrong; it's 100% wrong; and it has to change. And it will. How long that will take, I don't know, but asking people to come ahead 2000 years in fifty, or even a hundred, and then blaming them because they don't "get" the way it SHOULD be is unrealistic. Ergo, doing things specifically to stir them up is wrong, too, in my opinion. It doesn't help; it doesn't change anything; it doesn't allow any kind of communication. And communication is what we NEED. The cartoons do exactly the opposite.

I agreed with someone back there that I think it would be GREAT if everyone everywhere wore t-shirts with pictures of Mohammed on them. They can't kill everyone, and mabye it would be a first step to bridging the GIGANTIC understanding gap between our two cultures. Even better would be t-shirts with Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, etc., all portrayed in a positive fashion. They NEED to understand, they NEED to change...but we also need to understand, and not just condemn outright in our own, pardon my bluntness, blind insistence that everything should be our way: NOW, with no exceptions.

Am I making any sense? We can agree to disagree that the cartoonists knew what they were doing and did it to be deliberately provocative, and that if they did, they bear SOME responsibility for the results. Other than that, we are mostly in agreement. What I should have been shooting for, instead of repeating myself trying to be clear why I believe what I do, was shoot for a better understanding of the situation.

While I was in Afghanistan, there was the story of an American woman who went to a party in a strapless gown and took a ghadi (their form of taxi--a horse-drawn cart kind of thing). She arrived with a knife in her back. It was horrible, it was wrong, but it was what it was. For better or worse, until things change that's the reality.

And we're not that much better. However wrong it is--and it's terribly wrong--a Black man wearing a hoodie and a woman dressing sexually CAN result in terrible things. So for all our "civilization", we share some of the same attitudes. Violent protests happen here, too. There is little, if any, similarity to hundreds of people rioting, but for all our supposedly more civilized attitudes, the urge still exists in some. And we're a young country, with none of the enormous baggage they carry.

Things take time; meanwhile there are far better ways to bridge the communications gap than those cartoons, which further nothing.

I did my best, now I'm going to TRY to bail on this issue, 'cuz I don't think there's communication happening, just a set mentality and condemnation.

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have been a hate apologist in this thread.

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Maybe you don't really mean it when you say you hate people. Maybe you just really, really, really, I mean REALLY, disapprove of their actions and wish real hard that they wouldn't do whatever; but you would NEVER wish them harm and would get absolutely ZERO satisfaction were things to go badly for them. But you can hardly call something like that "hate," can you?

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:

The source of violence and abuse is the abuser. Never the victim. Never. As soon as murder is on the table, the victim is in no position to make things worse. The victim in no way brought murder into the conversation. That's all on the killer. You're making the worst kind of false equivalence when you compare tasteless cartoonists and homocidal maniacs who kill over "blasphemy." You and the killers are both dehumanizing the cartoonist if you're gonna sit there and tell me these drawings are in any way the cause of riots and murder.

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:

Whether or not, or to what degree our individual will is free at any given moment still doesn't imply that one person's violent actions are caused by the non-violent behavior of another person.

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that violence is a daily way of life over there; that religion rules to an extent of which we cannot conceive; that there are those who know exactly how to manipulate to achieve the outcome they want.

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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
And we're back to how this compares to blaming the rape victim.

Let's break this down.

The argument (simplified) that has so INFLAMED me is this: "these artists are comparable to rape victims/ victims of abuse. If I blame the artists for having a role in increased middle eastern violence, it is like saying that rape victims asked for it."

Up to now I have refused to address this, not because I can't refute it, but because it is, simply, a very flawed argument. Before I dismissed this the first time around I called it a red herring, an ad hominem, and a false analogy. The false analogy is the most logically egregious part of this (and related to the red-herring), so I'll address that.

The biggest problem is the central premise, "these artists are comparable to rape victims/ victims of abuse." The comparison made is that the artists have provoked Muslim violence against them the same way a rape victim provokes an attack by wearing skimpy clothing, or the way a child provokes a parents wrath by violating arbitrary rules. Which is to say, not at all, for the rape victim or child, the violence is entirely the fault of the attacker.

First of all. While after some consideration I'm willing to concede that some of the artists are victims or have been in the past, I also say that we have to evaluate each artist/Muslim incident on a case by case - sometimes nothing happens to the artists.

Secondly, the girl in her skimpy outfit and the child have a reasonable expectation that their actions should not result in a horrible random attack on their person. However, when the artists made these cartoons, and when the guy overdubbed his movie to be anti-Islam, this was done with an expressed purpose: to show that some Muslims are violent.

Mission accomplished.

But this second part defeats the argument - neither the rape victim nor the abused child intends to be attacked. When Trevon Martin walks down the street in a hoodie, ideally he should not have reason to suppose he might be shot by George Zimmerman.

In this case, the artists wanted more attacks, and possibly even attacks on themselves, to make a point. You call it courageous - perhaps it is, but it is also misguided. And because of that we can't argue that the artists had no role in the outcome of these events. They may be victims, depending on how personally the backlash affected them, but they certainly aren't innocent in this, and wanted a specific negative outcome.

It's a rather manipulative tactic, very close to a frame up or the wounded gazelle gambit, and if you see other people doing it in other situations, if I were you, I'd seriously question their likeability or motives. Just because someone else is guilty of something doesn't mean that anything that gets them in trouble for it is entirely moral or honest.

In short this argument simply does not WORK. It does not inspire me to re-examine some double standard I have or some such, rather it insinuates that, in your words, believing as I do is immoral, possibly cowardly, pro-rapist, pro-abuse, etc., and that I do not understand the implications of fear, anger, and/or violence. If I have seemed unreasonable, it is because of this. As for blaming the victim. While blaming a victim might be insensitive, it is not in itself necessarily illogical or immoral, if the victim in question had a role in their own problems, or if they have a role in some greater misfortune at play.

I do hold these artists somewhat accountable for what has happened, and I think their choices reflect poorly on their character. I do not like them, I think they're foolish, and reactionary and inflammatory, and they have questionable taste (rather similar to the violent groups they have set themselves against). And again, this still has no bearing on what I think anyone "deserves," and it also doesn't suggest that I think they should stop their art or self-censor. It only affects my opinion on them.

In any case, it's actually pretty offensive to keep implying pro-rape anything. But of course, this isn't an argument about how little respect you're showing me, so I imagine you'll just keep doing it. But I thought I'd try to at least explain why logically I object to the reasoning here.

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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
The biggest problem is the central premise, "these artists are comparable to rape victims/ victims of abuse." The comparison made is that the artists have provoked Muslim violence against them the same way a rape victim provokes an attack by wearing skimpy clothing, or the way a child provokes a parents wrath by violating arbitrary rules. Which is to say, not at all, for the rape victim or child, the violence is entirely the fault of the attacker.

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No matter what the subject of the argument, when somebody threatens physical violence, the ostensible subject of the conversation has been lost. Now the subject is survival, and when well-intentioned folk then point at the victim and say, "reckless" or "foolish" they're missing the point and undermining pretty much everything they prolly stand for. Whether they realize it or not, they're saying the responsibility for keeping the peace falls on the likely victim curtailing his/her behavior in anticipation of the abuse.

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Secondly, the girl in her skimpy outfit and the child have a reasonable expectation that their actions should not result in a horrible random attack on their person.

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However, when the artists made these cartoons, and when the guy overdubbed his movie to be anti-Islam, this was done with an expressed purpose: to show that some Muslims are violent.

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But this second part defeats the argument - neither the rape victim nor the abused child intends to be attacked.

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In this case, the artists wanted more attacks, and possibly even attacks on themselves, to make a point.

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You call it courageous - perhaps it is, but it is also misguided. And because of that we can't argue that the artists had no role in the outcome of these events. They may be victims, depending on how personally the backlash affected them, but they certainly aren't innocent in this, and wanted a specific negative outcome.

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While it's true that this violence wouldn't have happened if the protestors weren't willing, it's also true true that they're willing because of violence the west has done to them. In this view, these cartoons are just the proverbial last straw, the spark to the tinder fire, they're an escalation in an already on-going and volatile conflict, as opposed to a single self-contained instance where we can immediately spot the aggressors.

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While blaming a victim might be insensitive, it is not in itself necessarily illogical or immoral, if the victim in question had a role in their own problems, or if they have a role in some greater misfortune at play.

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In any case, it's actually pretty offensive to keep implying pro-rape anything.

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But of course, this isn't an argument about how little respect you're showing me, so I imagine you'll just keep doing it. But I thought I'd try to at least explain why logically I object to the reasoning here.

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If you really thought that way, WHY would you continue this discussion with me?

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"reckless" or "foolish" they're missing the point and undermining pretty much everything they prolly stand for. Whether they realize it or not, they're saying the responsibility for keeping the peace falls on the likely victim curtailing his/her behavior in anticipation of the abuse.

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"While blaming a victim might be insensitive, it is not in itself necessarily illogical or immoral, if the victim in question had a role in their own problems, or if they have a role in some greater misfortune at play."

Totally specious. And moving the goal post. And making the cartoonist responsible for what western governments have done is guilt by association at best.

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No mere act of free speech or offence SHOULD ever result in violence

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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
A guy walks into a bad neighborhood waving around a lottery ticket. That's a pretty dumb thing to do. By your reasoning, it remains dumb up until the very moment the guy gets robbed, at which moment he is no longer a freethinking human who did something dumb, but is merely an unconscious object of our pity. No other opinions are permissible.

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Besides, I don't care if you judge the cartoonists as stupid or brilliant or sexual deviants or whatever crosses your brain pan, none of that was my point--

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And it's galling to see you do that and then turn around and claim SOMEONE ELSE made you the subject of this thread.

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You somehow think your violence (something you think is no big deal) doesn't count as violence (something that you are very vocal in opposing). It's no big deal that you hit someone because of something they said. You said it yourself: violence is "yet another form of free speech." I'm sure you have a "rule of thumb" that tells you where your "protected violence" ends and real violent violence begins.

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force and incitement so you can let 'er rip when you get the itch. That's not good news, Byte.

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Originally posted by canttakesky:
But at the same time, I think the rape analogy was not truly applicable, because there was no violence between the "provokers" and the perpetrators. It is more like Kid#1 saying something mean to Kid#2, who goes on to beat up Kid#3. A good analogy of this situation has to include the dynamics of provocation and displacement both.

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Originally posted by canttakesky:
I thought Byte's position was very clear. She just got frustrated because it seemed to her like people were misunderstanding her on purpose, ascribing free-speech objections to her that she never said.

I understand what HK is saying, about how violence has different roots than the stimuli that provoked it. But at the same time, I think the rape analogy was not truly applicable, because there was no violence between the "provokers" and the perpetrators. It is more like Kid#1 saying something mean to Kid#2, who goes on to beat up Kid#3. A good analogy of this situation has to include the dynamics of provocation and displacement both.

Yes, people who commit violence are 100% responsible for their actions. But we can't pretend that words don't have power, and that sometimes, speech very much contributes to violence as well. Doesn't mean I support curtailing speech by law, but that we need to use some common sense in understanding words have power.

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