Much controversy was recently sparked due to the first ever annual “Draw Muhammad Day”, taking place earlier this week on the 20th. The organisers of the day set out their intentions in a Facebook group which rapidly gained popularity, stating; “We simply want to show the extremists that threaten to harm people because of their Muhammad depictions that we’re not afraid of them.” Readers will remember the 2005 Muhammad cartoon controversy, which enraged Muslims all over the world, resulting in multiple Danish embassies being torched, and at least 100 people being killed in the chaos that ensued. Similar protests emerged more recently when the television cartoon South Park broadcast an episode with another depiction of the prophet.
Draw Muhammad Day has been different, however, because the Pakistani high court has now ruled that Facebook, Wikipedia, Youtube, and a total of 450 other websites be banned due of their “blasphemous content” stemming from thousands of depictions of their prophet uploaded by both popular internet content producers and anonymous ones alike. Old debates about censorship and freedom of expression have resurfaced once again in response to this, and there are very interesting observations to be made of every side of the argument.
The BBC article reporting the story displays outstanding bias even when their existing liberal bias is taken into account. A “selection” of reader comments are published at the end of the article, with a total of 6 of the comments are in support of the censorship and 3 who are against it. All of the first 4 comments supportive of Pakistan’s decision, and they include platitudes such as “When my religion is insulted, it is me who is insulted. I can live without Facebook but I definitely cannot live in humiliation.” And “For Muslims, directly insulting the sacred is beyond petty ‘freedom of speech’[my emphasis] privileges we mortals have. In the West, people think arrogantly that they are free to say anything without limits whatsoever, no matter how ridiculous or insulting.” The 3 comments in support of free speech contain similarly facile arguments, focussing on their how they personally are affected by the website bans, lamenting a life without the joys of facebook, rather than giving the many penetrating arguments in favour of free speech on a larger scale.
I find the situation of a media outlet like the BBC praising censorship to be genuinely funny however, for the obvious reason. Only a liberal could side with his natural enemy, the enemy who, given the chance, would have no qualms about shutting down the BBC altogether and replacing it with a far more “holy” alternative. The BBC’s bias is nothing new though, and it should come as a shock to no one. People will read and believe the dangerous message it gives out, but how would that be different from any other day in the life of the liberal media? Instead, let us focus on the real debate which is occurring here, namely, the one between freedom of speech and expression versus censorship. Due to the distinct lack of any arguments of substance being given by mainstream sources, I feel personally obligated to give freedom of speech the defence it rightly deserves, which I will proceed to do now.
The 19th century philosopher J S Mill has, in my opinion, put across by far the best defences of freedom of speech in his influential work On Liberty. The book is a true masterpiece of modern western political thought, written by a genius who is remembered today as one of the major philosophical giants. In On Liberty he gives four discreet arguments, but for our purposes here we can combine the latter two. The first point is the “infallibility argument”, and it states that if anyone makes the decision to stop another person from saying or otherwise expressing an opinion because they deem it to be better left unsaid, the censor assumes a position of infallibility. What is meant by this is that the censor might as well have said “my opinion on this matter is certainly correct, and thus I am able to make the decision about which opinion is correct on your behalf.” If there was any doubt in the censors mind of whether he is right, he would be being willingly ignorant to silence all dissenting opinions, clearly a bad decision. The idea that he is infallible is absurd too, because no human is infallible – it’s conceivable that even an extremely well respected theory could be wrong, and for this reason we should never prevent the opposition from expressing their views.
Mill’s second argument points out that categorising statements as “true” and “false” is far too simplistic. Almost all arguments will have some parts which are true and some parts which are false, and it makes sense that, as people in the pursuit of truth, we should listen to all of the partly true and partly false statements that people want to make, and then use our own judgement to extract the truths and discard the falsehoods, in order to synthesise a larger understanding of the world. Even the most objectionable opinions are likely to contain some iota of useful truth which can be recognised, and for Mill it’s worth having to put up with the expense of listening to lots of false beliefs, because the consequence is that we never miss any true ones.
The final point made is known as the “dead dogma” argument. Without the freedom to criticise and examine our beliefs, they become a kind of dead dogma; a perfect illustration of this can be seen in the Christian faith. It’s written explicitly in the Bible that “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” Yet history shows us that most rich Christians seem to ignore this point, which Mill believes is because without doctrines like it being contantly challenged by sceptics, its true implications are lost and it simply becomes a mindless sentence, prone to repetition yet having lost its persuasive thrust. Even truly beneficial dogmas can become “dead” too, provided no one challenges their validity. For Mill, just professing to believe the truth isn’t enough, one has to really see why it is true and the implications its truth has, the only way to ensure this being to give critics the freedom of speech to get a proper debate going, so all parties involved have an understanding of why what they believe is right or wrong.
There have been responses to these arguments, none of which are particularly compelling, and although it would be nice to go into them in detail here, for the sake length I will omit them. I’ll perhaps address these at a later time, but for now those that are interested in pursuing this topic further they can find them elsewhere online without too much trouble.
The Pakistani high court’s decision to ban these large areas of the internet gives ample evidence of their ignorance. It’s the philosophical equivalent of putting your fingers in your ears and singing “La la la la la” at the slightest criticism. But of course, it wasn’t just the high court which agreed with the banning of this “blasphemous content”, because at each occasion over the last decade where depictions of Muhammad have reached popularity, Muslims the world over have taken to the streets in protest in their tens of thousands. These are the same extremist Muslims that we are told by liberals are “only a minority” of worldwide Muslim population, yet I can guarantee you now that the majority of worldwide Muslims do support the ridiculous censorship of other people’s harmless opinions, even when these people have nothing to do with them or their religion. The flag burning which the Muhammad pictures provoked was perhaps the most hypocritical of all their actions, for it was an act done with the sole purpose of causing offence, the same kind of offence they are rabidly claiming should be banned.
Indeed, how must the majority of Muslims see the western world? We know that they feel perfectly justified in reacting with outrage when one of two of our non-Muslim citizens want to draw a picture of their prophet, we know they feel that they’re perfectly justified in dictating how the whole world should act, so I’d imagine not only are they unable to see the flaws in their reasoning, but they also take us for limp-wristed fools who will cave in under the slightest pressure. In the past this has undoubtedly been true, the Danish cartoons were pulled from a number of news sources, the South Park episode was heavily censored after the TV stations got cold feet, but the difference between those past occasions and Draw Muhammad Day is written in the very nature of the internet it was celebrated on. You can’t burn the internet like you can burn a book – no matter how much outrage you stir up, when you put the plug back in, the pictures will still be there. This is the victory for free speech which has been won by the people who were ready to say enough is enough, and I hope that they will keep on pushing in the future, in other such mediums which are both inescapable and impossible to censor effectively.
But don’t be fooled into thinking this is all going on in a far away country. In Europe in particular, Muslims are a demographic which are rapidly replacing the native whites; the Arabs have extremely high birth-rates (anywhere between 3 and 8 children in the average family), compared to whites, who are themselves declining in numbers. As the Muslim population increases, decisions like the one made by Pakistan will be more and more likely to be enacted in Europe also, with the rioting and terrorist attacks we’ve seen in the Middle East happening much closer to home if there is any white resistance. The west’s success has peaked, and its gradual decline brought about by multiracialism and multiculturalism can be clearly seen to anyone who will open their eyes to the facts.
Of course, there will also be people who say that drawing pictures of Muhammad will never make Muslims any less anti-western than they already are. And I agree. But this isn’t about trying to have a reasonable discussion with them, that avenue has already been exhausted. It’s about freedom of speech – that “petty” pillar of western society which I will never forsake in the name of some ridiculous notion of ‘not causing offence’ to the very people who despise us.
I would like to censor Hollywood. In some ways I think the muslims have it at least half right. The media and those who control can insulting their political adversaries to the point where honorable men in the past would call them out for a duel, except the msm instead of insulting one person, insults an entire culture or people. Where I don’t agree with the muslims is they are trying to play censor in a land not their own.
I’m all for the right to draw caricatures of Muhammed, but let’s face it: probably none of the people who make a big deal out of the Muhammed cartoons thing have a problem throwing people in prison for questioning the Holocaust or criticizing other aspects of Jewish power. How many of these “defenders of free speech” have also spoken out about the Heretical Two? Answer: none.
So, this is not a debate over free speech (which neither side in the debate actually supports), but a debate over whether or not we grant Muslims the same right to never be offended that we grant to Jews (that free speech does not include the right to offend Jews is unquestioned).
“But this isn’t about trying to have a reasonable discussion with them, that avenue has already been exhausted.”
Really? With a billion people you have nothing to say and no issues in common? Wow.
“It’s about freedom of speech – that “petty” pillar of western society which I will never forsake in the name of some ridiculous notion of ‘not causing offence’ to the very people who despise us.”
I don’t call for burning down Christian churches because to do so would cause unnecessary offense. Insulting a persons religion for what they believe is not a political argument or even a cultural one, but an absolutely politically useless tactic to achieving our goals, with Muslims or without them.
‘Everybody draw Muhammad” day was an intentionally constructed operation to inflame relations between Islam and westerners, and the regions of the Middle-East and ‘the West’ on a greater scale. The current world power retains its psychotic intention of creating a conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims. The first step was radicalising a portion of the Muslim population (in the first place a preventative measure against Soviet expansion) toppling selected governments, and then subsequently introducing these radicals into the west via multicultural society. Multiculturalism, which was intended to fail, may simply be the vessel that promotes of inter-regional strife.
This attack is just another example of Zionist-Correctness (Political correctness has been surpassed at this point as a useful tool since the establishment has little use for it now [its body is slower to react and we will see ‘liberals’ utilise it for some time more]) where is acceptable to criticise without good cause anyone who opposes the financial-internationalist hegemony that is being created by world Jewry & Co. Islam being a viable alternative way of life (almost by itself in this respect) with its own ecosystem on the periphery of the West remains a serious threat from their perspective in that it actively opposes their mechanisations and encroachments, thus it is being singled out for destruction (especially under the inflated charges of ‘terrorism’/resistance).
Of course since many Westerners believe that the Muslims are ‘out to get them’ it will be hard for them to awaken to the facts of what is actually happening, namely that Muslims are being used as an other-group (as Westerners falsely existing as an other-group to Muslims), an unreal enemy, which they are to fight against while never awakening to the real instigators. Meanwhile both sides are controlled, monitored, robbed and killed off en masse.
Isn’t it odd that any group one wishes to look at thing the Jews and Group X are hell-bent on destroying them? It shouldn’t be. The Jews worst fear it that all groups will come upon them all at once. This is why they never treat one group badly all of the time, they seek to use the assorted groups to their own advantage and it seems they are DECADES ahead of ‘the gentile’ in anticipating their moves. They not only anticipate the move in opinion, but help to steer the momentum when the gentile does finally act, and in such a way that he inevitably harms himself and leaves the powers in a even more favourable position. ‘Nationalists’ treat the banning of veils in Europe as some sort of victory, how wrong they are, they fall for the same manipulations again and again.
Multi-ethnic society will be the beginnings of wider conflict if we are not careful, yet we must overcome our differences (even if for a time, perhaps trying to instil a more lasting understanding) and take measures against our common foe, otherwise we will most certainly fall. I am not confident of our prospects in fighting a two front conflict on any level (1. Global cabal 2. Islam and/or 3. Other world power/s). Only the most unaware believe this ‘draw Muhammad’ incident is about ‘freedom of expression’ or some other nonsense.
This has happened with the full blessing of the established power, Jewry being hugely complicit, and could have be halted in a moment if they wished it to. But Zionist-Correctness demands that any opposition be placed on the cross. Just imagine if there was a “Question the holocaust day”? The brakes would be applied immediately along with the most severe repercussions to those responsible. It’s happening yet again and the useful idiots on both sides are caving into stupidity as usual.
An interesting post Mr. Milton, however, we must always be cognisant of Mill’s caveats, must importantly that ‘liberty’ is not suitable, as a governing philosophy, for all mankind.
Mill asserts that for such tribes unsuited for representative government…
In essence Mill’s liberty, he realises, is limited to his own then homogeneous Anglo-Saxon society and its diaspora.
http://www.constitution.org/jsm/rep_gov.htm
Andrew Yoeman:
You say…
Really? With a billion people you have nothing to say and no issues in common?
Specifics please? What, precisely do you have in common with the average person in say, Afghanistan?
Jake,
Can we include Iran, Lebanon, and Turkey as predominantly Muslim countries with whose citizens we may have discussions, if we so choose?
“All of the first 4 comments…include platitudes such as ‘When my religion is insulted, it is me who is insulted. I can live without Facebook but I definitely cannot live in humiliation.’”
The time may come when we will need to re-examine our support for unlimited freedom of speech, especially when it encourages and empowers the slurs, stereotypes, and hate caricatures against us so frequently encountered in urban-coastal discourse. Practical freedom of speech is not something we possess in this society whether it is a legal matter or not. And in many ways, freedom of speech has been turned so much against us that it has silenced our best minds.
Actually, I’d like to see some European Americans go peacefully Muslim on the major defamers of the diverse white American peoples. This campaign of defamation has been going on a long time. A Jewish historian named Heinrich Graetz laid out a campaign of defamation against the German peoples and religion in 1868 for all to see.
Graetz launched a propaganda campaign of “scourging” and “flogging” the majority demographic in his home country (Germany) in 1868, as well as a parallel propaganda campaign “to shatter Christianity.” Yes, inflammatory and hateful words can damage peoples and religions.
http://www.resistingdefamation.org/sub/g29.htm
There are several freedoms that may outrank freedom of speech when it comes to defamation against the diverse white American peoples. I have in mind the freedom of assembly, the freedom to own private property, and others. Freedom of assembly is probably the single most important freedom we need at this time.
Let’s not forget that tribalization renders universalism nugatory — and whether we know it or not, tribalization is something we must have to survive.
What I was trying to say, Jay. Whites are in many far too tolerant of free speech when it comes to choking down slurs against themselves, their ancestors, their history, their culture, which all translates into the self-hate we find in our people today.
Daniel Larison had a good, extended discussion of why the piety and sincerity and content of Muslim beliefs are the basic problem and that these occasional explosions of hate and thin-skinedness by them are just as symptom:
“Muslims may be pious according to their religion, and most of them may be decent and honourable people, insofar as their religion allows them to be, and they may be good traditionalists in their tradition, all of which may have some real virtue (just as any truths Muslims do know are the workings of Truth Himself among them). However, much that constitutes their religious piety is either insufficient for piety as Christians would understand it or in error. Their doctrine is manifestly false. Muslims qua Muslims must adhere to a belief in a crude, fatalistic deity who does not call all to salvation but who misguides and punishes whom he will. Liberum arbitrium or autexousia as our tradition understands the concept of free will was ultimately rejected by orthodox Islamic theology. Synergy between man and God as the Orthodox Church understands it does not exist in Islamic thought. This has and would have to have a deadening, corrosive effect on the spirits of the people who receive such a teaching.
“I cannot say that I hate Muslims (I hate and repudiate the falsehoods to which they submit themselves), and the few Muslims I have met personally fit the description of generally decent and upright people. But pointing up the decency of ordinary Muslims should only redouble opposition to Islam–these are human beings who deserve better, in a spiritual sense, than what they have received from their ancestors. I feel generally sorry for the hundreds of millions of people who groan under the oppression of an offensive cult that has mostly robbed the parts of the world it has inhabited of their cultural and spiritual treasures and suppressed even the appropriate exercise of reason in search of religious understanding. On the whole, the Islamic world has contributed to art, literature and architecture when it has in spite of its religion, and not really because of anything inherent or derived from the revelation itself. For those who understand reason as a means with which to glorify God and to understand what and why we believe, the Islamic marginalisation of reason in its own theological reflection and “exegesis” is a travesty of the created potential of man’s religious life. All of these may not be the reasons why others find Islam and Muslims offensive, but they form the core reasons for my definite and determined opposition.
“Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn once make an interesting observation in the concluding pages of Leftism Revisited, which referred to the exceedingly simple creeds, the Enlightenment and Islam, that rapidly took hold in large parts of the world very quickly. He noted their crude simplicity as evidence of their falsity and the actually anti-intellectual nature of both creeds. What the shahadah and “Sapere aude!” lack in sophistication they make up for in the ease with which they can be accepted as the trite slogans that they are. By comparison, the long, slow elaboration of the fullness of Christian doctrine over several centuries pointed to the profundity and richness of the tradition, both as matter of intellectual reflection and as a matter of truth.”
Great article, but I would like to point out that the “threats” against South Park were a publicity stunt. The “threat” was made by a group called “Revolution Muslim” founded by an American Jew named Joseph Cohen.
Cohen goes to Israel to attend “rabbi school” then comes back to New York, where he grew a beard, put a towel on his head, and started calling himself “Yousef al-Khattab” and declaring himself a Muslim waging “jihad” against America and The Jews. When the raghead shot up the troops at Fort Hood, he declared his support, and the Jewish Defense League protested at his home. He used to hang around New York mosques “recruiting for jihad” while the hapless Muslims were told by cops they couldn’t stop him – due to free speech of course!
He was a favorite of the Jewish media of course, and as far as I know only FOX actually mentioned that he was really a Jew.
I’m not creative to make this stuff up myself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_Muslim
Andrew Yeoman:
I think my comment that “that avenue has already been exhausted” is entirely accurate – have you ever been in a debate with a Muslim? I’ve participated in many, and without exception the Muslims portray themselves as entirely closed-minded on any issue to do with their religion, culture, and extant beliefs. This is what I meant when I said that, simply that I have tried and failed enough times to know that rationality is unlikely to work with these people, and thus I see actions like “Draw Muhammad Day” as justified.
In response to your second comment, you’ve missed my point again. My intention here isn’t to argue against Islam, it’s to defend the notion of free speech.
About half way through this video they expose Joseph Cohen:
Veni Vedi Dixi,
Did you see this story today:
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/spy-talk/2010/05/cia_group_had_wacky_ideas_to_d.html
“During planning for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the CIA’s Iraq Operations Group kicked around a number of ideas for discrediting Saddam Hussein in the eyes of his people.
One was to create a video purporting to show the Iraqi dictator having sex with a teenage boy, according to two former CIA officials familiar with the project. ”
“The agency actually did make a video purporting to show Osama bin Laden and his cronies sitting around a campfire swigging bottles of liquor and savoring their conquests with boys, one of the former CIA officers recalled, chuckling at the memory. The actors were drawn from “some of us darker-skinned employees,” he said.”
Godan,
I think you are on to something. If Whites were as militant and uncompromising as the Muslims, willing to burn things down and riot when our interests are threatened, we would be in a vastly better position. The Muslims wish to protect their culture and religion, and will do what is necessary to achieve this. It is not only admirable but extremely adaptive behavior. If they maintain this attitude, their culture and religion will survive long past the death of the West. The old Christians were much the same, they would have had no problem tarring and feathering, beating or even burning at the stake in older times those who blasphemed. This ensured that Christianity grew and prospered for many centuries. Now that much of the religion has become old, decrepit and weak, and cannot/will not defend itself, it is dying. The Muslims and other radicals show us what is necessary to survive: extremism. It reminds me of an old speech that “extremism in defense of liberty is no vice”, except we would want to replace “liberty” with “race and culture”.
They also tried to link this phony group to the putative Times Square Bomber:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/7668606/Times-Square-car-bomb-police-investigate-South-Park-link.html
Bernard, quite interesting – remember the first South Park movie? Saddam as a homo gay-married to Satan? It was just in time for one of Clinton’s Iraq bombing.
South Park is such overt Jew propaganda – since their very first cartoon Spirit of Xmas, I’m surprised how little it’s commented on.
James Edwards of the Political Cesspool mentions a new show on Comedy Central called “JC” mocking Jesus Christ, but you’ll never see them doing that to Islam. They claim it’s because of the possibility of Muslim violence, but in the US at least, does anyone really believe that?
To liberals, free speech is really hate speech, unless it’s them talking.
South Park is such overt Jew propaganda – since their very first cartoon Spirit of Xmas, I’m surprised how little it’s commented on.
And yet the so-called CONservatives just love that show.
The modern rise and intense militancy of ‘Pan-Islamism’ was entirely predicted almost 100 years ago by the pro-White racialist Lothrop Stoddard in his book THE NEW WORLD OF ISLAM – http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028561300
Why would I want to debate a Muslim? The idea is nonsensical. I agree with Muslims on the issues of Israel and the Western interference in Muslim countries. On both global issues we are in total agreement. Do you plan on debating a Muslim on the merits of their religion? Not only is that silly but counterproductive: religions don’t have to fit in the Western context to exist and it is better that they do not exist within the confines of the West so that they have less chance of being corrupted.
Jake,
Like the average Afghani I want American soldiers out of Afghanistan and an end to Israel. What is so obtuse about this?
I really don’t think you are thinking through the full consequence of your words. Muslims are not the friends of Western civilization but Islamophobia plays right into the hands of the Zionists.
Andrew,
Like the average Afghani I want American soldiers out of Afghanistan and an end to Israel.
Jews have the same natural and god-given right to secure a homeland that every other tribe has, right? If not Israel, where? While I try to maintain a principled apathy toward Middle Eastern politics, I can’t help but feel that a two state solution which allows Israel to exist would be the most equitable arrangement for both Israelis and Palestinians.
Muslims are not the friends of Western civilization but Islamophobia plays right into the hands of the Zionists.
I find it quite natural and easy to be both Islamophobic and Judaeophobic at the same time. Judaeophobic. I like the ring of that, and I believe it frames the issue in a manner that brings self-defense and a simple wish to avoid Jews to the forefront. I’ll have to mull this over some more, but I think I might have just found a better word to describe my attitude than anti-Semitic.
Matt Parrott: I would be much more relaxed about a Jewish state if they had no nuclear weapons or bio-weapons labs.
I don’t like the word “judeophobic” for the same reason I don’t like the word “homophobic”. A phobia is an unreasonable fear, a neurosis, which is why “homophobic” was coined. Those who do not care for homosexuals, or Jews, are thereby stigmatized as somehow mentally defective, which makes homophiliacs and Judeophiles models of mental health that all self-respecting people should aspire to become.
I still think that “White man” has a lot of milage left in it. Call yourself a White man, and all the usual suspects will read you loud and clear.
In essence Mill’s liberty, he realises, is limited to his own then homogeneous Anglo-Saxon society and its diaspora.
Oh yeah, obviously.
I don’t fear any religious creed. That doesn’t mean I’m ignorant of the roles various religious adherents interact with each other. My political cause is secular and my religious beliefs are private. I can’t think of a more suitable way to derail a political movements than blaming people for their religious views. No more Calvinist-style persecutions, please.
I suspect that the people on both sides of this debate are mere puppets. I can’t speak to the details but Fionn’s comments really get to the heart of the matter. Is this really a free speech issue? Or is this merely one more side effect of two alien cultures unecessarily being pitted against one another by third party actors? Was a drawing of Muhammad any less blasphemous fifty or even fifteen years ago? Islam and the West are allowing themselves to be a mantis and a centipede at the bottom of an eight year old boy’s glass jar.
[i]test[/i]
[I] test again [/I]
Anyway, failed tests apart, I agree with Matt: even Jews have a right to a homeland and let’s not otherwise worry about the M.E.
Could somebody please re-post a link to a page with basic html (bold, italics etc)?
Matt Parrott: I would be much more relaxed about a Jewish state if they had no nuclear weapons or bio-weapons labs.
Right. This is what Israel is all about of course (as well as other things, like an “intelligence agency” capable of carrying out false flags, and a save haven for Jewish criminals from other countries, etc.), not a “homeland for the Jewish people”, since obviously most Jews have no intention of relocating there.
Also, Israel’s long term existence is predicated upon unending US and German tribute.
“Anti-Jihad” material, Muhammad cartoon contests, and all the rest should not be considered pro-White material. This stuff is designed by Jews to serve two purposes:
1) Provide a “safe” outlet for White frustration with the current state of affairs, by giving Whites who might otherwise turn to WN an easy punching bag to wail on.
2) Provide support for wars against Muslims, which drain our resources for the benefit of Israel.