Pope Opens Mouth; Inserts Foot

[Alex K]

Yes Brian like calling atheists all of those things. Incitement is a thing. Whoever does it.

I disagree about secularists. The ones I've heard have an agenda to deny the identity of theists. They want to remove the right to love God.

What? Who does that. That's silly.

[dyresand]

Yes Brian like calling atheists all of those things. Incitement is a thing. Whoever does it.

I disagree about secularists. The ones I've heard have an agenda to deny the identity of theists. They want to remove the right to love God.

Wat? Secularism is good... You are part of a majority in the country well lets just say religion already uses its power for bad already. I mean all religion needs to be equal or else everyone is going out into the streets with the banners of religion and killing each other and want to be the dominant religion.

[Napoléon]

Interesting. Well said.

It is interesting that he said he'd punch someone for an insult. Radical. Of all of the public figures he would be the last one I'd expect to challenge morality. Makes me think twice before questioning it. I'm putting aside my prejudice to think that. He said "it's natural", and it certainly is. If you had someone in your face winding you up to the extreme , your natural inbuilt reaction would out as a physical action. That's a fact. A result of verbal provocation is a physical reaction. People here fly off the handle verbally at provocation. They have no other choice. I like a good wind up, as you know. I've done it a lot IRL and I've pushed to the limit many times. I've never been punched in the mouth but I've had to back pedal furiously when my victim just didn't get the joke. I'm very anti violence, but I'm not naive enough to deny instinct.

Someone like the pope is supposed to be above this primitive instinctual response. That's the point. That's what makes it fucking stupid as shit that he'd even talk about a response like that. Shouldn't the pope's message be one of: "you shouldn't attack someone for saying something offensive", instead of "expect a punch if you say something offensive".

"Turn the other cheek"

Isn't that a Christian principle? Oh yeah: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turning_the_other_cheek

"Sticks and stones" comes to mind too, although even kids can comprehend that one.

Now you seem to be saying that a physical reaction equates to premeditated murder.

Not at all, but go on...

No it doesn't. For an act to be unfair and therefore illegal it would have to be unjust. If I deliberately verbally abused you to the extent that I knew you would be driven to retaliate having exhausted all other courses of action, could you then be abused of acting unfairly? What if I killed your family? Abused them? Do you draw the line anywhere? What would redress the balance for you?
Isn't that one reason that we have the justice system? To help prevent vigilantes?
We call these acts terrorism where clearly, to the perpetrators, they feel that they are at war with us. We justify war quite easily. What's the difference here? Is war never justified in your opinion?

This is just muddying the water on something that should be quite simple to work out IMO.

Bottom line: No matter what anyone says to you, you shouldn't ever be justified in physical violence towards them.

Talking about wars, and even terrorism in general, has way more factors involved than simply someone saying something and the other party being offended. Let's not start confusing things here.

There's a line that you can cross when you offend people. They can be pushed too far. If I know that what I say will cause a physical reaction in you (assuming that you didn't have the mental capacity to overcome your instinct) then I think I can fully expect that reaction.

You can expect it but that reaction is never justified. This is the point.

A magazine company can publish insulting images of the prophet mohammed. They can even expect to get their offices shot up as a result.

In what world do you live in, where that kind of reaction is justified.

Why do I get the impression you just want to excuse violence here. Quite blatantly this reaction is not justified, who gives a shit about lines being crossed, or saying the most offensive shit imaginable. There's a giant leap involved with responding in kind and responding with violence.

In all fairness I don't think you could be judged to be acting unreasonably. It would be my fault.

Seriously?

..


Seriously?


I'm sorry.

Are you actually suggesting here, that the people at Charlie Hebdo are responsible for getting themselves shot? That people like these terrorists can't be judged to have acted unreasonably?

I just want to clarify, because if you're suggesting that the people who say offensive shit, are in any way at fault when they get shot at, or have any physical response given to them at all, no matter how extreme, which is so obviously not a justified response, then we may as well end the discussion. I seriously don't have time for that.

I think a Muslim put it well when he said: everyone has the right to say whatever they like. They should also expect the consequences of what they say.

Nobody here disputes that.

On nobody's fucking planet however should the consequences be physical violence.

I'm totally against violence of any sort. I'm against war too.

You say that, but above you're saying it would be the fault of the person saying something offensive if they got physically attacked.

Just seems like total bullshit to say on one hand that you are against violence in all forms but then almost place fault at the victim of such violence if they say something offensive.

People can expect a response, but expecting one and justifying it are two different things.

I get the impression you want to justify it too.

If not, then why does it matter if someone should expect a violent response? The bottom line is it shouldn't fucking happen. Placing any kind of blame or responsibility on someone who's simply said something offensive is low IMHO if they then get beat up or shot at. Again, that's simply not a justified response. We live in the 'civilised' world.

An apt analogy may be "women who wear low cut tops are asking to be raped". We know this is obviously wrong. People who say that are fucking douches. What's the difference between this and free speech/violence? "People who say offensive shit are asking for a slap". I can't see much of a difference between the two tbh. If the pope were to say the other there would be outrage, people would be sticking up for women's rights and placing blame entirely on the rapists, not attributing blame on the woman for what she wears. With free speech however people place blame on the person saying offensive stuff, and almost absolve any from the person committing violence.

Am I the only one who sees how fucked up this is?

A woman can wear what she wants and shouldn't expect to be raped because of that.

A woman can also say what she likes, but if she goes too far she can expect to be blasted by an AK-47...

[dyresand]

New pope sucks. He shouldn't be discouraging freedom of speech.
He should be telling people just because some one is poking fun or saying your faith is stupid
don't be crazy and hurt people just turn the other cheek.

[Esquilax]

We're all guilty of bias at some point. Censorship can be good. As I said above.. I know my limits, and judge yours.

Of course we can all be biased; that's why the mod team has the quorum system. None of us can act alone, thus our individual biases cannot come out in our mod actions. It takes six of us to ban anyone; are you saying that six people, examining these cases individually, from multiple contexts and viewpoints, cannot figure out whether there is a legitimate case for a ban, rather than just an attempt at censorship?

What's particularly frustrating about this is that I can go back through all the mod reports and see how many times the sentiment "what he's saying is offensive, but we can't ban due to that," appears from each and every member of the mod team, and so I actually have some evidentiary basis for my position on this issue. Meanwhile, you have no basis at all, no way of knowing how we operate or the content of our decisions, and yet you see fit to lob accusations and then act all surprised that we take them seriously.

[fr0d0]

Yes Brian like calling atheists all of those things. Incitement is a thing. Whoever does it.

I disagree about secularists. The ones I've heard have an agenda to deny the identity of theists. They want to remove the right to love God.

Wat? Secularism is good... You are part of a majority in the country well lets just say religion already uses its power for bad already. I mean all religion needs to be equal or else everyone is going out into the streets with the banners of religion and killing each other and want to be the dominant religion.

Say what? I live in the UK. Belief is a minority not a majority position. My brand stand at about 6%according to the stats.

Religion is used for bad, that's a given. I'm actually anti religion too.
Secularism seems to be pro religious freedom, just against any world view used in governance of a country. That's exactly what I want. How about you?

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are you saying that six people, examining these cases individually, from multiple contexts and viewpoints, cannot figure out whether there is a legitimate case for a ban, rather than just an attempt at censorship?

What's particularly frustrating about this is that I can go back through all the mod reports and see how many times the sentiment "what he's saying is offensive, but we can't ban due to that," appears from each and every member of the mod team, and so I actually have some evidentiary basis for my position on this issue. Meanwhile, you have no basis at all, no way of knowing how we operate or the content of our decisions, and yet you see fit to lob accusations and then act all surprised that we take them seriously.

A group of individuals will reach consensus spanning their opinion. A democracy it isn't. Infallible it isn't either.

Sometimes staff have acted in isolation. Maybe not on your watch. Non staff aren't privy to the processes so can't know if they're being carried out fairly or not. I believe you try to be fair.

Some staff often express their dislike of certain members. We're expected to trust that those prejudices don't carry over into staff discussions.

It's bad enough when rule enforcers act in full view. As your deliberations are private you must allow for question. In my opinion, if you want to appear to be fair, you should answer criticism calmly and with reassurance. Anything else doesn't help anyone. You want to silence any criticism? How do you think that looks?

[Minimalist]

Non Sequitur, today.

[Cyberman]

Sometimes staff have acted in isolation. Maybe not on your watch. Non staff aren't privy to the processes so can't know if they're being carried out fairly or not. I believe you try to be fair.

Then you have no basis for making these assertions. On the other hand, everything we do, every single Staff action, is logged and archived - and I'm not talking about the ban announcement thread either. Whereas you've cited one example of improper behaviour but conveniently haven't supplied any information useful to checking it.

Put another way, it's like that moment in the Dover trial when Michael Behe said there was nothing in any literature explaining the bacterial flagellum, whereupon about a dozen large volumes were dropped onto the table and he was asked "what about these?"

[Minimalist]

And he said "those don't count."

[Ryantology]

No one is ever forced to retaliate. However, laws are set out differently to our high morals. There is such a thing as mitigating circumstances where you you can be judged less severely if you are provoked. Do you disagree with this law? How much? Would you like to see it abolished?

If the provocation is is in the form of words that do not constitute a direct or implied threat of danger or harm to others, then there are simply no mitigating factors to consider here. Under any other circumstances, physical violence is disproportionate retribution.

Charlie Hebdo did not provoke a violent response.