I've just realised that due to incompetence in closing out a position on Betfair's SNP over/under 11.5 seat market I win £30 if the SNP go under and 50 whole pence if they go over.
I've just realised that due to incompetence in closing out a position on Betfair's SNP over/under 11.5 seat market I win £30 if the SNP go under and 50 whole pence if they go over.
A friend of mine, a lefty atheist, mixed race said this to me about the latest terrorism
"If we are going to allow cartoonists to continue to offend Muslims (which I am all in favour of) and expect Muslims to not be offended... then we are going to have to stop whinging about Page 3, homophobia, sexism, racism etc. etc...
I don't expect Muslims not to be offended. They can whinge all they like, as can everyone about everything. What I do expect is that these expressions are not made illegal.
And that people don't resort to violence or threats of violence in place of legal sanction. Cela va sans dire.
So another poll with a shrinking Labour lead. December's Lab surge c'est une mirage
I'm struggling to see where David H gets his "Con 30%" figure from. There were 32 polls with field-work end-dates between 1st Dec and Xmas. This is what we get:
twitter.com/Sunil_P2/status/553358370548490240
I think you aggregate all the YouGovs in Elbow, whereas I think David uses only the last few YouGovs of a month and uses the average of those.
Hmmm, each to his own I guess...
Well, just as a comparison, IIRC, the simple Tory average in all 32 polls is also roughly 32%.
EDIT - wait, let me check
Yes, the December aggregate Tory score using a simple average is 31.7%
Not sure illustrating fuel poverty with a picture of a woman in an incredibly thin top is a good idea. I mean, is it wrong to suggest people who are struggling to heat their homes sufficiently should just put another bloody jumper on? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30743471
F@#k. I'm turning into my dad.
We all turn into warped versions of our parents in time.
One of the big creators of this mess is that "race and religion" got lumped in together in the most revered St Tony laws, peace be upon him.
Rowan Atkinson put it well back in 2004:
There was, he said, a fundamental difference between race - already covered by legislation - and religion. "To criticise a person for their race is a manifestly irrational and ridiculous. But to criticise their religion - that is a right. That is a freedom. And a law that attempts to say you can criticise or ridicule ideas, as long as they are not religious ideas, is a very peculiar law indeed.
It's not surprising they get lumped together, because most Muslims no more choose their religion than people choose their skin colour. Tony Blair therefore concluded that special protection needed to be extended to incitement to hatred on the grounds of religion, in order to close "loopholes" in the existing legislation that forbade incitement to hatred on the grounds of race. Blair's view was logical - but wrong. It would be better to do away with *all* laws that criminalise something as nebulous as incitement to hatred. Such laws legitimise the argument that people have the right to be "comfortable", and therefore seek the banning of opinions they profoundly disagree with.
Most people's religion is based on their parent's - this is true of all religions. But it nonetheless a choice.
I do wonder if the Muslim -> Atheist "conversion" ratio is lower than for that of other faiths though.
In response to Antifrank: "Of course there's a problem. But the solution is not to alienate Muslims, but to get them fully involved with solving it. "
Before you can even begin to solve a problem you have to (a) accept that there is one; and (b) accurately describe it.
I'm not at all certain that all or enough Muslims do accept that there is a problem and/or if they do they seem to think it is with us rather than them. Until that changes we're going to be stuck.
(Even now, for instance, there were French Muslims on the news last night saying that the cartoonists had gone too far. With views such as those - however much they might have deplored the murders - we will get nowhere.)
And those Muslims who do - and who have sensible solutions, have - regrettably - rather been frozen out by the political elite here. Rather than listen to those like Majid Nawaz, for instance, the government has been listening to people like Tariq Ramadan who is a part of the problem.
A friend of mine, a lefty atheist, mixed race said this to me about the latest terrorism
"If we are going to allow cartoonists to continue to offend Muslims (which I am all in favour of) and expect Muslims to not be offended... then we are going to have to stop whinging about Page 3, homophobia, sexism, racism etc. etc...
I don't expect Muslims not to be offended. They can whinge all they like, as can everyone about everything. What I do expect is that these expressions are not made illegal.
And that people don't resort to violence or threats of violence in place of legal sanction. Cela va sans dire.
I would prefer to ask the question "Why do you find images of your OWN Prophet offensive?"
From the BBC livefeed: "French media say a hostage has been taken at the Jewish shop at Porte de Vincennes in Paris. There are suggestions that the gunman may be the one who shot dead a policewoman on Thursday. Police are now evacuating the area."
One of the big creators of this mess is that "race and religion" got lumped in together in the most revered St Tony laws, peace be upon him.
Rowan Atkinson put it well back in 2004:
There was, he said, a fundamental difference between race - already covered by legislation - and religion. "To criticise a person for their race is a manifestly irrational and ridiculous. But to criticise their religion - that is a right. That is a freedom. And a law that attempts to say you can criticise or ridicule ideas, as long as they are not religious ideas, is a very peculiar law indeed.
It's not surprising they get lumped together, because most Muslims no more choose their religion than people choose their skin colour. Tony Blair therefore concluded that special protection needed to be extended to incitement to hatred on the grounds of religion, in order to close "loopholes" in the existing legislation that forbade incitement to hatred on the grounds of race. Blair's view was logical - but wrong. It would be better to do away with *all* laws that criminalise something as nebulous as incitement to hatred. Such laws legitimise the argument that people have the right to be "comfortable", and therefore seek the banning of opinions they profoundly disagree with.
Most people's religion is based on their parent's - this is true of all religions. But it nonetheless a choice.
I do wonder if the Muslim -> Atheist "conversion" ratio is lower than for that of other faiths though.
My parents could just about cope with me marrying an infidel.
I suspect they wouldn't be able to cope with me becoming an agnostic/atheist.
One of the big creators of this mess is that "race and religion" got lumped in together in the most revered St Tony laws, peace be upon him.
Rowan Atkinson put it well back in 2004:
There was, he said, a fundamental difference between race - already covered by legislation - and religion. "To criticise a person for their race is a manifestly irrational and ridiculous. But to criticise their religion - that is a right. That is a freedom. And a law that attempts to say you can criticise or ridicule ideas, as long as they are not religious ideas, is a very peculiar law indeed.
To be honest, we could do worse than put the whole cast of Blackadder in charge of running the country. Yes, they're almost all dyed-in-the-wool Lefties, but they at least have the guts to stick their heads above the parapet and stand-up for our liberties. Unlike our current crop of politicians.
It's worth remembering that Parliament only succeeded in watering down the 'Incitement to Religious Hatred' Bill on the strength of a *single* vote. Had it passed in its original form, Christians would've been given strong grounds for banning 'The Life of Brian' and 'The Last Temptation of Christ'.
If the law had been passed in its original form, the Koran would have been banned given what it says about Jews.
One of the big creators of this mess is that "race and religion" got lumped in together in the most revered St Tony laws, peace be upon him.
Rowan Atkinson put it well back in 2004:
There was, he said, a fundamental difference between race - already covered by legislation - and religion. "To criticise a person for their race is a manifestly irrational and ridiculous. But to criticise their religion - that is a right. That is a freedom. And a law that attempts to say you can criticise or ridicule ideas, as long as they are not religious ideas, is a very peculiar law indeed.
It's not surprising they get lumped together, because most Muslims no more choose their religion than people choose their skin colour. Tony Blair therefore concluded that special protection needed to be extended to incitement to hatred on the grounds of religion, in order to close "loopholes" in the existing legislation that forbade incitement to hatred on the grounds of race. Blair's view was logical - but wrong. It would be better to do away with *all* laws that criminalise something as nebulous as incitement to hatred. Such laws legitimise the argument that people have the right to be "comfortable", and therefore seek the banning of opinions they profoundly disagree with.
Most people's religion is based on their parent's - this is true of all religions. But it nonetheless a choice.
I do wonder if the Muslim -> Atheist "conversion" ratio is lower than for that of other faiths though.
My parents could just about cope with me marrying an infidel.
I suspect they wouldn't be able to cope with me becoming an agnostic/atheist.
But (I have no idea if you have children) certainly would be comfortable with the idea for your kid(s).
Mr. Eagles, when you say they couldn't cope, what d'you mean exactly? Disapproval, family feud, ostracism etc?
Fair enough if you don't want to answer, I'm just curious (as the schoolgirl said to the bishop). Being an atheist from a religiously disinterested household this is some way outside of my experience.
One of the big creators of this mess is that "race and religion" got lumped in together in the most revered St Tony laws, peace be upon him.
Rowan Atkinson put it well back in 2004:
There was, he said, a fundamental difference between race - already covered by legislation - and religion. "To criticise a person for their race is a manifestly irrational and ridiculous. But to criticise their religion - that is a right. That is a freedom. And a law that attempts to say you can criticise or ridicule ideas, as long as they are not religious ideas, is a very peculiar law indeed.
To be honest, we could do worse than put the whole cast of Blackadder in charge of running the country. Yes, they're almost all dyed-in-the-wool Lefties, but they at least have the guts to stick their heads above the parapet and stand-up for our liberties. Unlike our current crop of politicians.
Worst idea since someone said ‘yeah let’s take this suspiciously large wooden horse into Troy, statues are all the rage this season’.
A friend of mine, a lefty atheist, mixed race said this to me about the latest terrorism
"If we are going to allow cartoonists to continue to offend Muslims (which I am all in favour of) and expect Muslims to not be offended... then we are going to have to stop whinging about Page 3, homophobia, sexism, racism etc. etc...
You cannot be rabidly anti all these things (as I sometimes am) and then say "Oh chill out Abdul, it's only a bit of fun"
My Dad renounced Islam a long time ago He thinks it's utter nonsense Thinks it's holding his part of the world back and considers believers to be idiots for letting it rule their lives However, when the Danish cartoons came out a few years ago he was shocked and thought it was bang out of order We simply don't get what a big deal this is for Muslims..."
An atheist Muslim friend of mine said - at the time of the Danish cartoons - "can you imagine if the newspaper had run the kind of caricatures of Jewish people that Der Sturmer did? Would people have rushed to defend the newspaper for printing them and, would people have sympathetically tweeted cartoons of money grabbing jews?"
Obviously, the comparison is not exact. And it wouldn't justify murder (or any kind of violence) even if it was. But it did get me thinking.
It's worth remembering that Parliament only succeeded in watering down the 'Incitement to Religious Hatred' Bill on the strength of a *single* vote. Had it passed in its original form, Christians would've been given strong grounds for banning 'The Life of Brian' and 'The Last Temptation of Christ'.
If the law had been passed in its original form, the Koran would have been banned given what it says about Jews.
Old testament would surely have to be banned too
‘If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."
The "word of God" or the prevailing view of gays at the time - hmm...
@Sunil_Prasannan "I would prefer to ask the question "Why do you find images of your OWN Prophet offensive?"
It comes down to an interpretation of the scriptures. A similar, thing happened on the Scottish Islands, where the Reverend in the local "wee free" stopped a school nativity play because they were using a doll to represent the baby Jesus (idolatry?). Instead of listening to what the prophets and deities actually meant, religious leaders like to claim any interpretations for themselves to increase their power over others. Human frailty is as always at the root.
Mr. Price, you've probably already heard this, but there's an interesting theory about the horse. Poseidon was represented as a horse in statues. As well as being ruler of the sea, he was also called the Earthshaker, and responsible for earthquakes. Some think it's an allegory about the walls being damaged/destroyed by an earthquake, granting the Greeks victory, or at least a way into Troy.
One of the big creators of this mess is that "race and religion" got lumped in together in the most revered St Tony laws, peace be upon him.
Rowan Atkinson put it well back in 2004:
There was, he said, a fundamental difference between race - already covered by legislation - and religion. "To criticise a person for their race is a manifestly irrational and ridiculous. But to criticise their religion - that is a right. That is a freedom. And a law that attempts to say you can criticise or ridicule ideas, as long as they are not religious ideas, is a very peculiar law indeed.
To be honest, we could do worse than put the whole cast of Blackadder in charge of running the country. Yes, they're almost all dyed-in-the-wool Lefties, but they at least have the guts to stick their heads above the parapet and stand-up for our liberties. Unlike our current crop of politicians.
Worst idea since someone said ‘yeah let’s take this suspiciously large wooden horse into Troy, statues are all the rage this season’.
Baldrick, what begins "Come here" and ends in "Ow"?
Am I the only PBer who thinks a Lab majority is worth backing?
They can get a majority on 33%.
With Scotland as it is ?!
I'm sticking to my Labour minority view.
Even with that, if UKIP end up hitting the Tories disproportionately then the Tories are screwed.
On current polling we're not far off from a 2005 share of the vote for the Cons and Lab which resulted in a Lab majority of 60 odd
The amount of anti-Conservative tactical voting is far below where it was in 2005, and new Conservative MPs have two rounds of incumbency bonus to benefit from.
And, the bottom has fallen out of Scotland for Labour.
Don't kid yourself Sean. Anti-CON tactical voting this time will be substantially greater.
Mr. Price, you've probably already heard this, but there's an interesting theory about the horse. Poseidon was represented as a horse in statues. As well as being ruler of the sea, he was also called the Earthshaker, and responsible for earthquakes. Some think it's an allegory about the walls being damaged/destroyed by an earthquake, granting the Greeks victory, or at least a way into Troy.
I hadn't, thank you. I have many classically educated friends, but only a little rubs off.
Ukip no of MPs 1,2,3 dutched at 6-1,8-1,8-1 bring a return of 173.91%.I may also have a top-up single bet on 1 at 6-1,Clacton.
What does the 'dutched ' jargon mean?
Betting across different bookies to get a total book with an underround rather than an overround.
So what's an underround and an overround?
Overround is how much money the bookie would make on a balanced book (adding up the implied percentage chance of the odds offered on every outcome and subtracting 100% from it). Underround is the opposite - if the total implied odds from the bookie are less than 100% you have an underound), it shows how much the bookie would lose on a balanced book.
Quite often by picking the best odds across bookies you'll be able to put together a book with an underround an so guarantee yourself a profit on an event. And then your accounts will be shut down by the bookies as they aren't stupid and will spot you betting on only the very best odds very quickly.
If bookies offered 5/6 on a coin toss then they have a 9% overround. If they offered 6/5 then they would have a 9% underround.
Am I the only PBer who thinks a Lab majority is worth backing?
They can get a majority on 33%.
With Scotland as it is ?!
I'm sticking to my Labour minority view.
Even with that, if UKIP end up hitting the Tories disproportionately then the Tories are screwed.
On current polling we're not far off from a 2005 share of the vote for the Cons and Lab which resulted in a Lab majority of 60 odd
The amount of anti-Conservative tactical voting is far below where it was in 2005, and new Conservative MPs have two rounds of incumbency bonus to benefit from.
And, the bottom has fallen out of Scotland for Labour.
Don't kid yourself Sean. Anti-CON tactical voting this time will be substantially greater.
Sure, the LD's will hold up better than the polls. But why is Labour's support peeling off to Ukip & the Greens? In most seats the best 'tactical' anti-Con vote is for Labour.
One of the big creators of this mess is that "race and religion" got lumped in together in the most revered St Tony laws, peace be upon him.
Rowan Atkinson put it well back in 2004:
There was, he said, a fundamental difference between race - already covered by legislation - and religion. "To criticise a person for their race is a manifestly irrational and ridiculous. But to criticise their religion - that is a right. That is a freedom. And a law that attempts to say you can criticise or ridicule ideas, as long as they are not religious ideas, is a very peculiar law indeed.
To be honest, we could do worse than put the whole cast of Blackadder in charge of running the country. Yes, they're almost all dyed-in-the-wool Lefties, but they at least have the guts to stick their heads above the parapet and stand-up for our liberties. Unlike our current crop of politicians.
Voltaire: "If you want to know who has power over you, look at who or what you cannot criticise."
That is what this is about. Those who want us to stop criticising Islam or drawing Mohammed want to put themselves & their belief system beyond criticism and to have power over us. The offence - however real it may be (and there was a hell of a lot of deliberately manufactured outrage over the Danish cartoons) - is a means that end.
If living subject to Islamic law means so much to some people let them move to an Islamic country. But I want no sharia law and no Islamic blasphemy law here. C'est tout.
Mr. Eagles, when you say they couldn't cope, what d'you mean exactly? Disapproval, family feud, ostracism etc?
Fair enough if you don't want to answer, I'm just curious (as the schoolgirl said to the bishop). Being an atheist from a religiously disinterested household this is some way outside of my experience.
We had a brief falling out when I told them I wasn't going to have an arranged marriage but was in a relationship with a non Muslim.
Faith is important to my parents and they'd be upset if I publicly renounced my faith to the world. They'd still love me but I know it would hurt them a lot that they raised an apostate.
They are ok with the fact I go to the mosque only twice a year. Whereas as my father goes once a week.
Am I the only PBer who thinks a Lab majority is worth backing?
They can get a majority on 33%.
With Scotland as it is ?!
I'm sticking to my Labour minority view.
Even with that, if UKIP end up hitting the Tories disproportionately then the Tories are screwed.
On current polling we're not far off from a 2005 share of the vote for the Cons and Lab which resulted in a Lab majority of 60 odd
The amount of anti-Conservative tactical voting is far below where it was in 2005, and new Conservative MPs have two rounds of incumbency bonus to benefit from.
And, the bottom has fallen out of Scotland for Labour.
Don't kid yourself Sean. Anti-CON tactical voting this time will be substantially greater.
Yeah but
Labour aren't competitive in enough places where they need to be given Scotland in order to go for a majority - Nantwich and Crewe, Rochester and Strood, Staffordshire Moorlands etc...
Not really an issue for me, but I do wonder how it would go if I had a serious relationship with a religious person. Arguments about the wedding or christening or circumcision [for the children, ahem] are easy to foresee.
Miss Cyclefree, very good post.
Edited extra bit: and I'm going to steal your quote for Twitter.
It's worth remembering that Parliament only succeeded in watering down the 'Incitement to Religious Hatred' Bill on the strength of a *single* vote. Had it passed in its original form, Christians would've been given strong grounds for banning 'The Life of Brian' and 'The Last Temptation of Christ'.
If the law had been passed in its original form, the Koran would have been banned given what it says about Jews.
Old testament would surely have to be banned too
‘If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."
The "word of God" or the prevailing view of gays at the time - hmm...
Meanwhile in Greece....
I am longing for someone to make this point to a Muslim commentator. If offence is going to be made the measure of public debate, given how offensive to others many Islamic sayings are, Islam would likely find itself largely banned!
That is why it isn't and shouldn't be. All we ask of Muslims is that, if they are offended, they ignore or laugh or enter into debate.
But since the response has amost always been to seek to impose a law or threaten violence there can be no quarter given on this point.
As an aside, while I know polls say 36% of Muslims say they want to live under Sharia law, I wonder how many of these actually know what that means.
A while back @Sean_F and I were discussing weekly Muslim attendance at Mosques, and I dug up a charities commission report that listed average attendance by mosque. The numbers weren't exact, but for each of the UK's mosques it listed attendance as being in the 1-100 range, 100-250, 250-500, 500-1,000, and 1,000+. There were fewer than a dozen mosques with more than 1,000 average weekly attendance, and even if you assumed they averaged 10,000 people each, you still couldn't get more than 10% of Muslims going to Mosque every week. Given that weekly Mosque attendance doesn't even get you onto the bottom rung of Sharia compliance, it does make me wonder what proportion really want Sharia law.
As a comparison, if you asked most Christian members on this board, "would you like to live under Christian law", there would clearly be a majority that say yes. But all of those people would likely freak out if Christian law was defined as life in Calvin's Geneva.
Mr. Eagles, when you say they couldn't cope, what d'you mean exactly? Disapproval, family feud, ostracism etc?
Fair enough if you don't want to answer, I'm just curious (as the schoolgirl said to the bishop). Being an atheist from a religiously disinterested household this is some way outside of my experience.
We had a brief falling out when I told them I wasn't going to have an arranged marriage but was in a relationship with a non Muslim.
Faith is important to my parents and they'd be upset if I publicly renounced my faith to the world. They'd still love me but I know it would hurt them a lot.
They are ok with the fact I go to the mosque only twice a year. Whereas as my father goes once a week.
It is asking a lot of anyone to change the tenets of their belief system. Why should we expect a Muslim Enlightenment to take place in a generation when the Christian one took well over a century? What happens is that each subsequent generation has subtly (or in TSE's case - unsubtly :-) ) different views.
The concern must be that the process seems to have gone into reverse amongst some parts of the Muslim community, with the first generation immigrants seemingly being more tolerant than some of their offspring. We should all ask ourselves why. Perhaps it is as simple as the fact that immigrants are a self-selecting bunch in the first place. But I don't think that's the whole story.
Mr. Eagles, when you say they couldn't cope, what d'you mean exactly? Disapproval, family feud, ostracism etc?
Fair enough if you don't want to answer, I'm just curious (as the schoolgirl said to the bishop). Being an atheist from a religiously disinterested household this is some way outside of my experience.
We had a brief falling out when I told them I wasn't going to have an arranged marriage but was in a relationship with a non Muslim.
Faith is important to my parents and they'd be upset if I publicly renounced my faith to the world. They'd still love me but I know it would hurt them a lot that they raised an apostate.
They are ok with the fact I go to the mosque only twice a year. Whereas as my father goes once a week.
I'll put you down as "in the closet".
It's OK, I never told my parents I voted Lib Dem in the 2005 GE either.
Even now, for instance, there were French Muslims on the news last night saying that the cartoonists had gone too far. With views such as those - however much they might have deplored the murders - we will get nowhere.
What's wrong with holding the view that the cartoonists went too far?
A friend of mine, a lefty atheist, mixed race said this to me about the latest terrorism
"If we are going to allow cartoonists to continue to offend Muslims (which I am all in favour of) and expect Muslims to not be offended... then we are going to have to stop whinging about Page 3, homophobia, sexism, racism etc. etc...
You cannot be rabidly anti all these things (as I sometimes am) and then say "Oh chill out Abdul, it's only a bit of fun"
My Dad renounced Islam a long time ago He thinks it's utter nonsense Thinks it's holding his part of the world back and considers believers to be idiots for letting it rule their lives However, when the Danish cartoons came out a few years ago he was shocked and thought it was bang out of order We simply don't get what a big deal this is for Muslims..."
An atheist Muslim friend of mine said - at the time of the Danish cartoons - "can you imagine if the newspaper had run the kind of caricatures of Jewish people that Der Sturmer did? Would people have rushed to defend the newspaper for printing them and, would people have sympathetically tweeted cartoons of money grabbing jews?"
Obviously, the comparison is not exact. And it wouldn't justify murder (or any kind of violence) even if it was. But it did get me thinking.
If the newspaper printed anti-Semitic stereotypes as a statement of principle on the basis that such things were being effectively banned, then I would absolutely support them doing it. And if Jews around the world reacted by violent rioting and death threats, I would certainly be retweeting the images.
But let's be honest. Muslims aren't getting upset that (some of) the images are offensive. They're getting upset that we're showing Muhammad at all. They think we should abide by their religious law. That's nonsense. And it's utter appeasement that the BBC buys into it.
Geedo having a good pop at Burnham this morning as the only minister ever to to privatise an NHS hospital.
I'm waiting to hear Mr Nabavi's views on this ;p
He could also try the next geedo thread
"Diane Abbott – who was appointed a Shadow Health Minister by Ed Miliband – was moonlighting as ever on the BBC last night, and discussing her party leader’s toxic ‘weaponising the NHS’ quote. Ed has yet to deny he used the unfortunate turn of phrase, and dear old Diane went in with two left feet:
“The NHS has the power to harm Tory MPs. It is lethal because the public understand it. And it is actually now our best card.”
Remember how Andy Burnham sobbed and accused others of politicising the Mid-Staffs. Well this is how former members of his team discuss peoples lives as a political weapon…"
Hat tip Guido.
It's ok to politicise the NHS as long as it's only Labour doing it. To be honest that's the problem too many Politicians using as a a " political weapon" the majority of which sit on the left.
As an aside, while I know polls say 36% of Muslims say they want to live under Sharia law, I wonder how many of these actually know what that means.
A while back @Sean_F and I were discussing weekly Muslim attendance at Mosques, and I dug up a charities commission report that listed average attendance by mosque. The numbers weren't exact, but for each of the UK's mosques it listed attendance as being in the 1-100 range, 100-250, 250-500, 500-1,000, and 1,000+. There were fewer than a dozen mosques with more than 1,000 average weekly attendance, and even if you assumed they averaged 10,000 people each, you still couldn't get more than 10% of Muslims going to Mosque every week. Given that weekly Mosque attendance doesn't even get you onto the bottom rung of Sharia compliance, it does make me wonder what proportion really want Sharia law.
As a comparison, if you asked most Christian members on this board, "would you like to live under Christian law", there would clearly be a majority that say yes. But all of those people would likely freak out if Christian law was defined as life in Calvin's Geneva.
Geneva's cool, I was there in September. They even have a Hotel Warwick, Hotel d'Angleterre and a Jardin Anglais!
One of the big creators of this mess is that "race and religion" got lumped in together in the most revered St Tony laws, peace be upon him.
Rowan Atkinson put it well back in 2004:
There was, he said, a fundamental difference between race - already covered by legislation - and religion. "To criticise a person for their race is a manifestly irrational and ridiculous. But to criticise their religion - that is a right. That is a freedom. And a law that attempts to say you can criticise or ridicule ideas, as long as they are not religious ideas, is a very peculiar law indeed.
To be honest, we could do worse than put the whole cast of Blackadder in charge of running the country. Yes, they're almost all dyed-in-the-wool Lefties, but they at least have the guts to stick their heads above the parapet and stand-up for our liberties. Unlike our current crop of politicians.
Worst idea since someone said ‘yeah let’s take this suspiciously large wooden horse into Troy, statues are all the rage this season’.
Why? Rowan Atkinson led the campaign against the religious hatred bill back in 2006, almost single-handed. Stephen Fry is one of the few public figures who's had the balls to put his head above the parapet, publish the cartoons and call on the rest of our mainstream media to do likewise.
Tim McInnery has also defended the quality of writing of the 1970s ITV sitcoms, even though he accepts the content is unfashionable in the context of modern society. He was heavily criticised, but refused to withdraw. Miranda Richardson does her own thing, not that of her producers and agents. Hugh Laurie flies the flag. Tony Robinson is an old-fashioned Lefty, but I respect the fact he sticks to his guns.
I'm exaggerating only slightly when I say I think they'd make excellent leaders. But, then again, I'm not a tribalist.
Some things I think are more important than my 'team' getting elected,
Even now, for instance, there were French Muslims on the news last night saying that the cartoonists had gone too far. With views such as those - however much they might have deplored the murders - we will get nowhere.
What's wrong with holding the view that the cartoonists went too far?
When it is simultaneously held with the view "...and so the cartoons should not have been printed"
The deep end of the sea maybe. Its obviously a matter of degree.
The muslim community would be no problem at all if it were made aware of the fact that free speech and the rule of secular law in Britain is non-negotiable and always will be. And made aware in jesuitical repeat-after-me form from the age of five.
As it is, we had the ludicrous sight last night on QT of leading politicians teaching the audience about free speech as if it was a bunch of junior school kids for whom the concept was totally alien.
And for many it is totally alien, as Anjem Choudhry shows us. The powers that be have never tried to teach it, because of multiculturalism.
The fault for what is happening lies at the feet of those in power for the last two decades. Political Power. Cultural Power. Administrative power. Legal Power.
UKIP have long said the multiculturalism would be the death of Britain. Everyone laughed and mocked and said we were nutters. Who's laughing now?
Even now, for instance, there were French Muslims on the news last night saying that the cartoonists had gone too far. With views such as those - however much they might have deplored the murders - we will get nowhere.
What's wrong with holding the view that the cartoonists went too far?
When it is simultaneously held with the view "...and so the cartoons should not have been printed"
That's a different issue. I wouldnt want to live in a country where we're not supposed to disagree with anything a cartoonist might produce (sorry Marf!).
One of the big creators of this mess is that "race and religion" got lumped in together in the most revered St Tony laws, peace be upon him.
Rowan Atkinson put it well back in 2004:
There was, he said, a fundamental difference between race - already covered by legislation - and religion. "To criticise a person for their race is a manifestly irrational and ridiculous. But to criticise their religion - that is a right. That is a freedom. And a law that attempts to say you can criticise or ridicule ideas, as long as they are not religious ideas, is a very peculiar law indeed.
To be honest, we could do worse than put the whole cast of Blackadder in charge of running the country. Yes, they're almost all dyed-in-the-wool Lefties, but they at least have the guts to stick their heads above the parapet and stand-up for our liberties. Unlike our current crop of politicians.
Worst idea since someone said ‘yeah let’s take this suspiciously large wooden horse into Troy, statues are all the rage this season’.
Why? Rowan Atkinson led the campaign against the religious hatred bill back in 2006, almost single-handed. Stephen Fry is one of the few public figures who's had the balls to put his head above the parapet, publish the cartoons and call on the rest of our mainstream media to do likewise.
Tim McInnery has also defended the quality of writing of the 1970s ITV sitcoms, even though he accepts the content is unfashionable in the context of modern society. He was heavily criticised, but refused to withdraw. Miranda Richardson does her own thing, not that of her producers and agents. Hugh Laurie flies the flag. Tony Robinson is an old-fashioned Lefty, but I respect the fact he sticks to his guns.
I'm exaggerating only slightly when I say I think they'd make excellent leaders. But, then again, I'm not a tribalist.
Some things I think are more important than my 'team' getting elected,
Sorry, I was just quoting Blackadder back at you. I agree that most of the Blackadder cast are stand-up characters, so to speak.
But as for the capital flight from the UK on the Blackadder Party's election, I couldn't be more petrified if a wild Rhinoceros had just come home from a hard day at the swamp and found me wearing his pyjamas, smoking his cigars and in bed with his wife."
The deep end of the sea maybe. Its obviously a matter of degree.
The muslim community would be no problem at all if it were made aware of the fact that free speech and the rule of secular law in Britain is non-negotiable and always will be. And made aware in jesuitical repeat-after-me form from the age of five.
As it is, we had the ludicrous sight last night on QT of leading politicians teaching the audience about free speech as if it was a bunch of junior school kids for whom the concept was totally alien.
And for many it is totally alien, as Anjem Choudhry shows us. The powers that be have never tried to teach it, because of multiculturalism.
The fault for what is happening lies at the feet of those in power for the last two decades. Political Power. Cultural Power. Administrative power. Legal Power.
UKIP have long said the multiculturalism would be the death of Britain. Everyone laughed and mocked and said we were nutters. Who's laughing now?
Reminds me of the old Bob Monkhouse gag - everyone laughed when I said I wanted to be a comedian ... well they're not laughing now.
I can't remember when I last actually visited a Hindu temple, whether here or back in Mother India. It was probably Neasden back in 2011.
Even my brother and new sister-in-law got married, not in a temple, but in a concert-type hall just outside Calicut back in the summer.
I see myself as an atheist, though as per a discussion here with Sean T several months ago, as a scientist, I am deeply intrigued by the "neurochemical" model of religious experience, where certain compounds (including mostly - shall we say - "dodgy" ones!), or even certain kinds of metabolic stress, can physically alter your state of mind such that you do encounter other "entities" that you otherwise do not see or hear under normal conditions.
Not that I have ever dabbled in such - ah - "experiments" myself, mind!
' The debate about the limits of free speech is an old one, which we need now as much as ever. It is complex but I am clear where I stand - with the actor Rowan Atkinson, who once said “to criticise a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous. But to criticize their religion, that is a freedom, a right.” Nor, as he explained, is it a frivolous right, a licence to “gob off” but rather that “the freedom to criticise ideas, any ideas, even if they are sincerely held beliefs, is one of the fundamental freedoms of society.” '
No wheedling. No cowardly horseshit about true free speech being "responsible" Good for him.
Mr. Eagles, when you say they couldn't cope, what d'you mean exactly? Disapproval, family feud, ostracism etc?
Fair enough if you don't want to answer, I'm just curious (as the schoolgirl said to the bishop). Being an atheist from a religiously disinterested household this is some way outside of my experience.
We had a brief falling out when I told them I wasn't going to have an arranged marriage but was in a relationship with a non Muslim.
Faith is important to my parents and they'd be upset if I publicly renounced my faith to the world. They'd still love me but I know it would hurt them a lot.
They are ok with the fact I go to the mosque only twice a year. Whereas as my father goes once a week.
It is asking a lot of anyone to change the tenets of their belief system. Why should we expect a Muslim Enlightenment to take place in a generation when the Christian one took well over a century? What happens is that each subsequent generation has subtly (or in TSE's case - unsubtly :-) ) different views.
The concern must be that the process seems to have gone into reverse amongst some parts of the Muslim community, with the first generation immigrants seemingly being more tolerant than some of their offspring. We should all ask ourselves why. Perhaps it is as simple as the fact that immigrants are a self-selecting bunch in the first place. But I don't think that's the whole story.
No offence taken.
I alluded to it to the other day.
My Grandfather was very grateful to this country, whatever things that irked him (mostly to do with drunks) he focussed on the positives rather than any negatives that came from living in the UK.
I've always known had I grown up in Pakistan and not England my life wouldn't be as brilliant as it is today.
I think that's something some that my generation of immigrant stock don't appreciate.
I think it less to do with race or religion and more with class.
My Grandparents came to this country to work in the NHS and were surrounded by the English middle classes, and consequently I was a part of the middle classes from the moment I was born.
Some of the current generation that have issues, are the offspring of the generation that came to this country to do manual labour, and their offspring are stuck in that working class cycle, where unemployment is high and prospects aren't good, those as countless examples in human history have shown are the best recruiting tools for extremists.
Even now, for instance, there were French Muslims on the news last night saying that the cartoonists had gone too far. With views such as those - however much they might have deplored the murders - we will get nowhere.
What's wrong with holding the view that the cartoonists went too far?
Nothing wrong with that at all but neither should it justify nor does it excuse the execution of people and police officers in cold blood.
@MikeK The UK has always had "multiculturalism", except for those brief periods of persecution and murder when those at the top decided it shouldn't be so.
One of the big creators of this mess is that "race and religion" got lumped in together in the most revered St Tony laws, peace be upon him.
Rowan Atkinson put it well back in 2004:
There was, he said, a fundamental difference between race - already covered by legislation - and religion. "To criticise a person for their race is a manifestly irrational and ridiculous. But to criticise their religion - that is a right. That is a freedom. And a law that attempts to say you can criticise or ridicule ideas, as long as they are not religious ideas, is a very peculiar law indeed.
To be honest, we could do worse than put the whole cast of Blackadder in charge of running the country. Yes, they're almost all dyed-in-the-wool Lefties, but they at least have the guts to stick their heads above the parapet and stand-up for our liberties. Unlike our current crop of politicians.
Voltaire: "If you want to know who has power over you, look at who or what you cannot criticise."
That is what this is about. Those who want us to stop criticising Islam or drawing Mohammed want to put themselves & their belief system beyond criticism and to have power over us. The offence - however real it may be (and there was a hell of a lot of deliberately manufactured outrage over the Danish cartoons) - is a means that end.
If living subject to Islamic law means so much to some people let them move to an Islamic country. But I want no sharia law and no Islamic blasphemy law here. C'est tout.
Your posts have been excellent on this subject; I wish I had your eloquence.
Churchill: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
So much of this just comes down to that. If we had the courage to defend our right to free speech but not only refusing to self-censor, but also continuing to publish controversial satirical cartoons in future, then I think two things could happen:
(1) We'd successfully entrench free speech, and; (2) We might actually win sufficient moral respect amongst the more conservative parts of the Muslim community that we actually start to change *values* within in the long-run, thus ultimately removing the problem.
It starts with courage, it leads to respect, and it ends with changing the world. It's called leadership
Even now, for instance, there were French Muslims on the news last night saying that the cartoonists had gone too far. With views such as those - however much they might have deplored the murders - we will get nowhere.
What's wrong with holding the view that the cartoonists went too far?
Nothing wrong with that at all but it should not justify nor does it excuse the execution of people and a police officers in cold blood.
I would have hoped that goes without saying (well, on pbc if not everywhere in the world).
Mr. Eagles, when you say they couldn't cope, what d'you mean exactly? Disapproval, family feud, ostracism etc?
Fair enough if you don't want to answer, I'm just curious (as the schoolgirl said to the bishop). Being an atheist from a religiously disinterested household this is some way outside of my experience.
We had a brief falling out when I told them I wasn't going to have an arranged marriage but was in a relationship with a non Muslim.
Faith is important to my parents and they'd be upset if I publicly renounced my faith to the world. They'd still love me but I know it would hurt them a lot.
They are ok with the fact I go to the mosque only twice a year. Whereas as my father goes once a week.
It is asking a lot of anyone to change the tenets of their belief system. Why should we expect a Muslim Enlightenment to take place in a generation when the Christian one took well over a century? What happens is that each subsequent generation has subtly (or in TSE's case - unsubtly :-) ) different views.
The concern must be that the process seems to have gone into reverse amongst some parts of the Muslim community, with the first generation immigrants seemingly being more tolerant than some of their offspring. We should all ask ourselves why. Perhaps it is as simple as the fact that immigrants are a self-selecting bunch in the first place. But I don't think that's the whole story.
No offence taken.
I alluded to it to the other day.
My Grandfather was very grateful to this country, whatever things that irked him (mostly to do with drunks) he focussed on the positives rather than any negatives that came from living in the UK.
I've always known had I grown up in Pakistan and not England my life wouldn't be as brilliant as it is today.
I think that's something some that my generation of immigrant stock don't appreciate.
I think it less to do with race or religion and more with class.
My Grandparents came to this country to work in the NHS and were surrounded by the English middle classes, and consequently I was a part of the middle classes from the moment I was born.
Some of the current generation that have issues, are the offspring of the generation that came to this country to do manual labour, and their offspring are stuck in that working class cycle, where unemployment is high and prospects aren't good, those as countless examples in human history are the best recruiting tools for extremists.
What's wrong with holding the view that the cartoonists went too far?
Nothing, except 'too far' is too vague. do you mean
1. insulted too many muslims 2. insulted muslims too deeply 3. incited christians to rise up and kill muslims 4 ????
Thats a pretty poor riposte. Nitpicking like that invites the definition of 'too vague' Its perfectly OK to hold any views about these poor cartoonists and their work. Some of them might be quite derogatory. But it is I would have thought self evident that holding these views is not consistent with wanting them dead. So why would you want to deny that or challenge such views? What is driving your strange illogical opinion on this matter
@MikeK The UK has always had "multiculturalism", except for those brief periods of persecution and murder when those at the top decided it shouldn't be so.
Even now, for instance, there were French Muslims on the news last night saying that the cartoonists had gone too far. With views such as those - however much they might have deplored the murders - we will get nowhere.
What's wrong with holding the view that the cartoonists went too far?
Muslims may have a taboo against depicting Mohammed. But the rest of us don't. So any depiction by us of Mohammed is absolutely fine, regardless of whether it's a piece of art or a scathing cartoon.
Saying that it went too far is tantamount to saying that non-Muslims should comply with Muslim taboos.
It's like saying that because Muslims think of dogs as unclean none of the rest of us can keep them as pets. Or because they don't eat pork, we shouldn't either. Or because they think women should wear the veil all women should.
It's not getting the point which is that their religion (or any religion) is not entitled to respect. What we respect is the fact that people have a right to believe in whatever religion they want - not that we respect what they choose to believe. And that while people are free to follow a religion they are not free to impose it on others.
Even now, for instance, there were French Muslims on the news last night saying that the cartoonists had gone too far. With views such as those - however much they might have deplored the murders - we will get nowhere.
What's wrong with holding the view that the cartoonists went too far?
When it is simultaneously held with the view "...and so the cartoons should not have been printed"
That's a different issue. I wouldnt want to live in a country where we're not supposed to disagree with anything a cartoonist might produce (sorry Marf!).
Just because you disagree with a cartoon (or a written article for that matter) doesn't mean you think it shouldn't have been published. Polly Toynbee writes a lot of crap I disagree with, but of course she should publish it - she's expressing her own views and should carry on doing so.
Even now, for instance, there were French Muslims on the news last night saying that the cartoonists had gone too far. With views such as those - however much they might have deplored the murders - we will get nowhere.
What's wrong with holding the view that the cartoonists went too far?
Muslims may have a taboo against depicting Mohammed. But the rest of us don't. So any depiction by us of Mohammed is absolutely fine, regardless of whether it's a piece of art or a scathing cartoon.
Saying that it went too far is tantamount to saying that non-Muslims should comply with Muslim taboos.
It's like saying that because Muslims think of dogs as unclean none of the rest of us can keep them as pets. Or because they don't eat pork, we shouldn't either. Or because they think women should wear the veil all women should.
It's not getting the point which is that their religion (or any religion) is not entitled to respect. What we respect is the fact that people have a right to believe in whatever religion they want - not that we respect what they choose to believe. And that while people are free to follow a religion they are not free to impose it on others.
On Wednesday, somebody on Twitter posted what she reckoned was an OTTOMAN depiction of the Prophet from something like the 16th century.
Even now, for instance, there were French Muslims on the news last night saying that the cartoonists had gone too far. With views such as those - however much they might have deplored the murders - we will get nowhere.
What's wrong with holding the view that the cartoonists went too far?
In and of itself there is nothing wrong with holding that opinion; it is after all your right to hold whatever opinion you like about it.
Civil society functions quite well with people holding disagreeable opinions without making those opinions illegal to express (or it used to anyway).
What is absolutely not fine is expressing your opinion of the views and expressions held by others by means of violence; this is anathema to civil society.
Cyclefree has talked a lot of sense recently on the subject.
@Cyclefree Religion, like government is about controlling the way people think, ostensibly for the benefit of all. The problem is that it seldom works out that way, as those in power get greedy for more.
One of the big creators of this mess is that "race and religion" got lumped in together in the most revered St Tony laws, peace be upon him.
Rowan Atkinson put it well back in 2004:
There was, he said, a fundamental difference between race - already covered by legislation - and religion. "To criticise a person for their race is a manifestly irrational and ridiculous. But to criticise their religion - that is a right. That is a freedom. And a law that attempts to say you can criticise or ridicule ideas, as long as they are not religious ideas, is a very peculiar law indeed.
To be honest, we could do worse than put the whole cast of Blackadder in charge of running the country. Yes, they're almost all dyed-in-the-wool Lefties, but they at least have the guts to stick their heads above the parapet and stand-up for our liberties. Unlike our current crop of politicians.
Voltaire: "If you want to know who has power over you, look at who or what you cannot criticise."
That is what this is about. Those who want us to stop criticising Islam or drawing Mohammed want to put themselves & their belief system beyond criticism and to have power over us. The offence - however real it may be (and there was a hell of a lot of deliberately manufactured outrage over the Danish cartoons) - is a means that end.
If living subject to Islamic law means so much to some people let them move to an Islamic country. But I want no sharia law and no Islamic blasphemy law here. C'est tout.
Well quite. David Cameron clearly does have power over us, yet he is regularly pictured with a condom over his head. That's a superior system to believe in.
' The debate about the limits of free speech is an old one, which we need now as much as ever. It is complex but I am clear where I stand - with the actor Rowan Atkinson, who once said “to criticise a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous. But to criticize their religion, that is a freedom, a right.” Nor, as he explained, is it a frivolous right, a licence to “gob off” but rather that “the freedom to criticise ideas, any ideas, even if they are sincerely held beliefs, is one of the fundamental freedoms of society.” '
No wheedling. No cowardly horseshit about true free speech being "responsible" Good for him.
Agreed. His response to this so far has been beyond reproach and is a credit to his party.
' The debate about the limits of free speech is an old one, which we need now as much as ever. It is complex but I am clear where I stand - with the actor Rowan Atkinson, who once said “to criticise a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous. But to criticize their religion, that is a freedom, a right.” Nor, as he explained, is it a frivolous right, a licence to “gob off” but rather that “the freedom to criticise ideas, any ideas, even if they are sincerely held beliefs, is one of the fundamental freedoms of society.” '
No wheedling. No cowardly horseshit about true free speech being "responsible" Good for him.
Good for him; much better than Cameron and the woeful inanities he uttered. Clegg actually has a chance to potentially rehabilitate himself here in the eyes of voters, through the leadership he's so far demonstrated on this issue.
I'm now finding it hard to think how I wouldn't vote for him if I lived in Sheffield Hallam. But his liberal repeals need to go much further.
' The debate about the limits of free speech is an old one, which we need now as much as ever. It is complex but I am clear where I stand - with the actor Rowan Atkinson, who once said “to criticise a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous. But to criticize their religion, that is a freedom, a right.” Nor, as he explained, is it a frivolous right, a licence to “gob off” but rather that “the freedom to criticise ideas, any ideas, even if they are sincerely held beliefs, is one of the fundamental freedoms of society.” '
No wheedling. No cowardly horseshit about true free speech being "responsible" Good for him.
Good for him; much better than Cameron and the woeful inanities he uttered. Clegg actually has a chance to potentially rehabilitate himself here in the eyes of voters, through the leadership he's so far demonstrated on this issue.
I'm now finding it hard to think how I wouldn't vote for him if I lived in Sheffield Hallam. But his liberal repeals need to go much further.
Shall we arrange a vote swap.
I vote Lib Dem in Sheffield Hallam, and you vote Tory in your seat?
' The debate about the limits of free speech is an old one, which we need now as much as ever. It is complex but I am clear where I stand - with the actor Rowan Atkinson, who once said “to criticise a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous. But to criticize their religion, that is a freedom, a right.” Nor, as he explained, is it a frivolous right, a licence to “gob off” but rather that “the freedom to criticise ideas, any ideas, even if they are sincerely held beliefs, is one of the fundamental freedoms of society.” '
No wheedling. No cowardly horseshit about true free speech being "responsible" Good for him.
Agreed. His response to this so far has been beyond reproach and is a credit to his party.
Thirded. What I found astonishing yesterday was this clip that popped up on Twitter from QT back when Rushdie was given a knighthood. I must have missed it at the time. Shirley Williams was a disgrace to the word Liberal.
' The debate about the limits of free speech is an old one, which we need now as much as ever. It is complex but I am clear where I stand - with the actor Rowan Atkinson, who once said “to criticise a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous. But to criticize their religion, that is a freedom, a right.” Nor, as he explained, is it a frivolous right, a licence to “gob off” but rather that “the freedom to criticise ideas, any ideas, even if they are sincerely held beliefs, is one of the fundamental freedoms of society.” '
No wheedling. No cowardly horseshit about true free speech being "responsible" Good for him.
Good for him; much better than Cameron and the woeful inanities he uttered. Clegg actually has a chance to potentially rehabilitate himself here in the eyes of voters, through the leadership he's so far demonstrated on this issue.
I'm now finding it hard to think how I wouldn't vote for him if I lived in Sheffield Hallam. But his liberal repeals need to go much further.
Shall we arrange a vote swap.
I vote Lib Dem in Sheffield Hallam, and you vote Tory in your seat?
Hey! I thought you were vote swapping with me!
I vote Tory in Ilford North, if you vote Tory in Hallam?
' The debate about the limits of free speech is an old one, which we need now as much as ever. It is complex but I am clear where I stand - with the actor Rowan Atkinson, who once said “to criticise a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous. But to criticize their religion, that is a freedom, a right.” Nor, as he explained, is it a frivolous right, a licence to “gob off” but rather that “the freedom to criticise ideas, any ideas, even if they are sincerely held beliefs, is one of the fundamental freedoms of society.” '
No wheedling. No cowardly horseshit about true free speech being "responsible" Good for him.
Agreed. His response to this so far has been beyond reproach and is a credit to his party.
If only he had shown his muscular liberalism when it came to GCHQ, sharing of health records, EAW etc.
' The debate about the limits of free speech is an old one, which we need now as much as ever. It is complex but I am clear where I stand - with the actor Rowan Atkinson, who once said “to criticise a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous. But to criticize their religion, that is a freedom, a right.” Nor, as he explained, is it a frivolous right, a licence to “gob off” but rather that “the freedom to criticise ideas, any ideas, even if they are sincerely held beliefs, is one of the fundamental freedoms of society.” '
No wheedling. No cowardly horseshit about true free speech being "responsible" Good for him.
Good for him; much better than Cameron and the woeful inanities he uttered. Clegg actually has a chance to potentially rehabilitate himself here in the eyes of voters, through the leadership he's so far demonstrated on this issue.
I'm now finding it hard to think how I wouldn't vote for him if I lived in Sheffield Hallam. But his liberal repeals need to go much further.
Shall we arrange a vote swap.
I vote Lib Dem in Sheffield Hallam, and you vote Tory in your seat?
Hey! I thought you were vote swapping with me!
I vote Tory in Ilford North, if you vote Tory in Hallam?
''Agreed. His response to this so far has been beyond reproach and is a credit to his party.''
B8llocks. If you look back through Clegg's career you will probably find as many po faced multi culti pronouncements and 'shut up you wacist' comments as any other member of the elite.
' The debate about the limits of free speech is an old one, which we need now as much as ever. It is complex but I am clear where I stand - with the actor Rowan Atkinson, who once said “to criticise a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous. But to criticize their religion, that is a freedom, a right.” Nor, as he explained, is it a frivolous right, a licence to “gob off” but rather that “the freedom to criticise ideas, any ideas, even if they are sincerely held beliefs, is one of the fundamental freedoms of society.” '
No wheedling. No cowardly horseshit about true free speech being "responsible" Good for him.
Good for him; much better than Cameron and the woeful inanities he uttered. Clegg actually has a chance to potentially rehabilitate himself here in the eyes of voters, through the leadership he's so far demonstrated on this issue.
I'm now finding it hard to think how I wouldn't vote for him if I lived in Sheffield Hallam. But his liberal repeals need to go much further.
Yes: Clegg has been very good. I'm glad that I shall be voting for Majid Nawaz in my constituency because he too has been good on this.
Shirley Williams, Roy Hattersley, Germaine Greer - all of them disgraced themselves over the Rushdie affair. Christopher Hitchens was very good on this in his autobiography. He saw it as a touchstone issue on the question of freedom. And he was right. It was. And in Britain we woefully failed the test. And it is one reason why now we do not have enough TSEs and too many Anjem Choudhrys.
Even now, for instance, there were French Muslims on the news last night saying that the cartoonists had gone too far. With views such as those - however much they might have deplored the murders - we will get nowhere.
What's wrong with holding the view that the cartoonists went too far?
Nothing wrong with that at all but it should not justify nor does it excuse the execution of people and a police officers in cold blood.
I would have hoped that goes without saying (well, on pbc if not everywhere in the world).
Well then the cartoonists did not go to far then? Or if they did as mentioned and if that is considered to be the case then as a consequence they were executed for it . As was pointed out down thread, reactions always tend to be threats or outright violence. I think that's what I would actually describe as " going to far" rather than a cartoonist with a coloured pencil.
"What's wrong with holding the view that the cartoonists went too far?"
I myself am not a fan of 'Jerry Springer: The Musical', the novel 'American Psycho', or the X-rated comics of S. Clay Wilson -- in all cases, I personally find the sheer obnoxiousness can overwhelm the valid satirical points made. But nevertheless, the works don't libel or endanger any individual, which is to say their creators should be free to make (and make a profit from) them, regardless of my dislike.
What's wrong with holding the view that the cartoonists went too far?
Nothing, except 'too far' is too vague. do you mean
1. insulted too many muslims 2. insulted muslims too deeply 3. incited christians to rise up and kill muslims 4 ????
Thats a pretty poor riposte. Nitpicking like that invites the definition of 'too vague' Its perfectly OK to hold any views about these poor cartoonists and their work. Some of them might be quite derogatory. But it is I would have thought self evident that holding these views is not consistent with wanting them dead. So why would you want to deny that or challenge such views? What is driving your strange illogical opinion on this matter
People wish preachers, or politicians, or cartoonists, or authors, or husbands were dead all the time. It's human nature, however disagreeable it might be. The day we're persecuting people for thought-crimes will be a sad one indeed.
Thankfully, following through on such dark thoughts is vanishingly rare.
The deep end of the sea maybe. Its obviously a matter of degree.
The muslim community would be no problem at all if it were made aware of the fact that free speech and the rule of secular law in Britain is non-negotiable and always will be. And made aware in jesuitical repeat-after-me form from the age of five.
As it is, we had the ludicrous sight last night on QT of leading politicians teaching the audience about free speech as if it was a bunch of junior school kids for whom the concept was totally alien.
And for many it is totally alien, as Anjem Choudhry shows us. The powers that be have never tried to teach it, because of multiculturalism.
The fault for what is happening lies at the feet of those in power for the last two decades. Political Power. Cultural Power. Administrative power. Legal Power.
UKIP have long said the multiculturalism would be the death of Britain. Everyone laughed and mocked and said we were nutters. Who's laughing now?
You are being very selective. The tories were never in support of multiculturalism, which I take to mean keeping cultures separate - facilitating a lack of integration. Cameron argued against it several years ago. The other bigger question is - what has 'multiculturalism' as promoted by the left got to do with this? France pursues a strong secular culture, its left wing seem as much in favour of this as anyone. Leaders of the muslim religion in this country have said quite plainly that these killings are unjustified on any grounds and certainly not on the grounds of insulting the muslim religion or its prophet.
Even now, for instance, there were French Muslims on the news last night saying that the cartoonists had gone too far. With views such as those - however much they might have deplored the murders - we will get nowhere.
What's wrong with holding the view that the cartoonists went too far?
Because you either have free speech or you dont. Countries that take free speech seriously have things like this:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Even now, for instance, there were French Muslims on the news last night saying that the cartoonists had gone too far. With views such as those - however much they might have deplored the murders - we will get nowhere.
What's wrong with holding the view that the cartoonists went too far?
Muslims may have a taboo against depicting Mohammed. But the rest of us don't. So any depiction by us of Mohammed is absolutely fine, regardless of whether it's a piece of art or a scathing cartoon.
Saying that it went too far is tantamount to saying that non-Muslims should comply with Muslim taboos.
It's like saying that because Muslims think of dogs as unclean none of the rest of us can keep them as pets. Or because they don't eat pork, we shouldn't either. Or because they think women should wear the veil all women should.
It's not getting the point which is that their religion (or any religion) is not entitled to respect. What we respect is the fact that people have a right to believe in whatever religion they want - not that we respect what they choose to believe. And that while people are free to follow a religion they are not free to impose it on others.
On Wednesday, somebody on Twitter posted what she reckoned was an OTTOMAN depiction of the Prophet from something like the 16th century.
There was at one time quite a lot of Islamic art depicting Mohammed:
As a fairly Calvinistic guy myself, I do understand the risks of idolatry, but this is a subtle temptation by the devil.
Statues/icons etc being foci of worship slip easily into worshipping the object itself. One of many reasons Catholicism is not to my taste. However, Islam seems to put the cart before the horse here. The risk is of worshipping a false god, yet the arcane liturgy of how a Koran may be handled (never on the floor, never burnt, always placed above other books etc) and of how Mohammed is referred to (peace be upon him etc) is equally idolatrous.
The sin of idolatry is in the mind of the worshipper, not in the object/picture.
' The debate about the limits of free speech is an old one, which we need now as much as ever. It is complex but I am clear where I stand - with the actor Rowan Atkinson, who once said “to criticise a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous. But to criticize their religion, that is a freedom, a right.” Nor, as he explained, is it a frivolous right, a licence to “gob off” but rather that “the freedom to criticise ideas, any ideas, even if they are sincerely held beliefs, is one of the fundamental freedoms of society.” '
No wheedling. No cowardly horseshit about true free speech being "responsible" Good for him.
Good for him; much better than Cameron and the woeful inanities he uttered. Clegg actually has a chance to potentially rehabilitate himself here in the eyes of voters, through the leadership he's so far demonstrated on this issue.
I'm now finding it hard to think how I wouldn't vote for him if I lived in Sheffield Hallam. But his liberal repeals need to go much further.
Shall we arrange a vote swap.
I vote Lib Dem in Sheffield Hallam, and you vote Tory in your seat?
Hey! I thought you were vote swapping with me!
I vote Tory in Ilford North, if you vote Tory in Hallam?
Yeah, I can do that.
Yours is more of marginal than Mr Royale's seat.
My seat is the 6th or 7th safest Conservative seat in the country. James Arbuthnot (who's standing down this year) got over 60% of the vote in 2010.
If he were standing again, I'd find it very hard not to vote for him as he's extremely sound on defence; the issue I actively left the Conservatives over in 2010.
Even now, for instance, there were French Muslims on the news last night saying that the cartoonists had gone too far. With views such as those - however much they might have deplored the murders - we will get nowhere.
What's wrong with holding the view that the cartoonists went too far?
Because you either have free speech or you dont. Countries that take free speech seriously have things like this:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
anyone else is playing around.
Your point is not relevant. I (as an example) can hold any view I like, I can enthuse or deplore these cartoons. None of which prevents me from agreeing they have a right to be published. I can indeed agree with their point but think it is badly made. I can agree it is satire, but just bad satire. Am I required to think like you or anyone when it comes to critical analysis? Why must you link such critical analysis with the defence of free speech?
' The debate about the limits of free speech is an old one, which we need now as much as ever. It is complex but I am clear where I stand - with the actor Rowan Atkinson, who once said “to criticise a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous. But to criticize their religion, that is a freedom, a right.” Nor, as he explained, is it a frivolous right, a licence to “gob off” but rather that “the freedom to criticise ideas, any ideas, even if they are sincerely held beliefs, is one of the fundamental freedoms of society.” '
No wheedling. No cowardly horseshit about true free speech being "responsible" Good for him.
Agreed. His response to this so far has been beyond reproach and is a credit to his party.
If only he had shown his muscular liberalism when it came to GCHQ, sharing of health records, EAW etc.
I think the point is everyone's response to this has been beyond reproach. Well - if you exclude Farage with his usual dog whistle.
Comments
https://beamagazine.wordpress.com/2012/12/23/best-buys-for-under-50p/
And that people don't resort to violence or threats of violence in place of legal sanction. Cela va sans dire.
Compared with the ELBOW figure of 32.0%
As I said before, Take your pick
I agree about the jumper too...
I do wonder if the Muslim -> Atheist "conversion" ratio is lower than for that of other faiths though.
Before you can even begin to solve a problem you have to (a) accept that there is one; and (b) accurately describe it.
I'm not at all certain that all or enough Muslims do accept that there is a problem and/or if they do they seem to think it is with us rather than them. Until that changes we're going to be stuck.
(Even now, for instance, there were French Muslims on the news last night saying that the cartoonists had gone too far. With views such as those - however much they might have deplored the murders - we will get nowhere.)
And those Muslims who do - and who have sensible solutions, have - regrettably - rather been frozen out by the political elite here. Rather than listen to those like Majid Nawaz, for instance, the government has been listening to people like Tariq Ramadan who is a part of the problem.
"French media say a hostage has been taken at the Jewish shop at Porte de Vincennes in Paris. There are suggestions that the gunman may be the one who shot dead a policewoman on Thursday. Police are now evacuating the area."
I suspect they wouldn't be able to cope with me becoming an agnostic/atheist.
Fair enough if you don't want to answer, I'm just curious (as the schoolgirl said to the bishop). Being an atheist from a religiously disinterested household this is some way outside of my experience.
Free speech for me but not for thee.
Obviously, the comparison is not exact. And it wouldn't justify murder (or any kind of violence) even if it was. But it did get me thinking.
‘If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."
The "word of God" or the prevailing view of gays at the time - hmm...
Meanwhile in Greece....
"I would prefer to ask the question "Why do you find images of your OWN Prophet offensive?"
It comes down to an interpretation of the scriptures.
A similar, thing happened on the Scottish Islands, where the Reverend in the local "wee free" stopped a school nativity play because they were using a doll to represent the baby Jesus (idolatry?).
Instead of listening to what the prophets and deities actually meant, religious leaders like to claim any interpretations for themselves to increase their power over others.
Human frailty is as always at the root.
Quite often by picking the best odds across bookies you'll be able to put together a book with an underround an so guarantee yourself a profit on an event. And then your accounts will be shut down by the bookies as they aren't stupid and will spot you betting on only the very best odds very quickly.
If bookies offered 5/6 on a coin toss then they have a 9% overround. If they offered 6/5 then they would have a 9% underround.
It seems once I left the education system I started learning much more easily
That is what this is about. Those who want us to stop criticising Islam or drawing Mohammed want to put themselves & their belief system beyond criticism and to have power over us. The offence - however real it may be (and there was a hell of a lot of deliberately manufactured outrage over the Danish cartoons) - is a means that end.
If living subject to Islamic law means so much to some people let them move to an Islamic country. But I want no sharia law and no Islamic blasphemy law here. C'est tout.
Will Ferrell @Ferrellsnotes · 20h 20 hours ago
The government is basically bisexual. They f*ck everybody.
(Note this Twitter account is not the real Will Ferrell!)
Faith is important to my parents and they'd be upset if I publicly renounced my faith to the world. They'd still love me but I know it would hurt them a lot that they raised an apostate.
They are ok with the fact I go to the mosque only twice a year. Whereas as my father goes once a week.
Labour aren't competitive in enough places where they need to be given Scotland in order to go for a majority - Nantwich and Crewe, Rochester and Strood, Staffordshire Moorlands etc...
Not really an issue for me, but I do wonder how it would go if I had a serious relationship with a religious person. Arguments about the wedding or christening or circumcision [for the children, ahem] are easy to foresee.
Miss Cyclefree, very good post.
Edited extra bit: and I'm going to steal your quote for Twitter.
That is why it isn't and shouldn't be. All we ask of Muslims is that, if they are offended, they ignore or laugh or enter into debate.
But since the response has amost always been to seek to impose a law or threaten violence there can be no quarter given on this point.
A while back @Sean_F and I were discussing weekly Muslim attendance at Mosques, and I dug up a charities commission report that listed average attendance by mosque. The numbers weren't exact, but for each of the UK's mosques it listed attendance as being in the 1-100 range, 100-250, 250-500, 500-1,000, and 1,000+. There were fewer than a dozen mosques with more than 1,000 average weekly attendance, and even if you assumed they averaged 10,000 people each, you still couldn't get more than 10% of Muslims going to Mosque every week. Given that weekly Mosque attendance doesn't even get you onto the bottom rung of Sharia compliance, it does make me wonder what proportion really want Sharia law.
As a comparison, if you asked most Christian members on this board, "would you like to live under Christian law", there would clearly be a majority that say yes. But all of those people would likely freak out if Christian law was defined as life in Calvin's Geneva.
The concern must be that the process seems to have gone into reverse amongst some parts of the Muslim community, with the first generation immigrants seemingly being more tolerant than some of their offspring. We should all ask ourselves why. Perhaps it is as simple as the fact that immigrants are a self-selecting bunch in the first place. But I don't think that's the whole story.
It's OK, I never told my parents I voted Lib Dem in the 2005 GE either.
http://www.vox.com/2015/1/8/7514439/charlie-hebdo-russia-cia
Well, if you are Russian......
But let's be honest. Muslims aren't getting upset that (some of) the images are offensive. They're getting upset that we're showing Muhammad at all. They think we should abide by their religious law. That's nonsense. And it's utter appeasement that the BBC buys into it.
"Diane Abbott – who was appointed a Shadow Health Minister by Ed Miliband – was moonlighting as ever on the BBC last night, and discussing her party leader’s toxic ‘weaponising the NHS’ quote. Ed has yet to deny he used the unfortunate turn of phrase, and dear old Diane went in with two left feet:
“The NHS has the power to harm Tory MPs. It is lethal because the public understand it. And it is actually now our best card.”
Remember how Andy Burnham sobbed and accused others of politicising the Mid-Staffs. Well this is how former members of his team discuss peoples lives as a political weapon…"
Hat tip Guido.
It's ok to politicise the NHS as long as it's only Labour doing it. To be honest that's the problem too many Politicians using as a a " political weapon" the majority of which sit on the left.
Tim McInnery has also defended the quality of writing of the 1970s ITV sitcoms, even though he accepts the content is unfashionable in the context of modern society. He was heavily criticised, but refused to withdraw. Miranda Richardson does her own thing, not that of her producers and agents. Hugh Laurie flies the flag. Tony Robinson is an old-fashioned Lefty, but I respect the fact he sticks to his guns.
I'm exaggerating only slightly when I say I think they'd make excellent leaders. But, then again, I'm not a tribalist.
Some things I think are more important than my 'team' getting elected,
But as for the capital flight from the UK on the Blackadder Party's election, I couldn't be more petrified if a wild Rhinoceros had just come home from a hard day at the swamp and found me wearing his pyjamas, smoking his cigars and in bed with his wife."
Nothing, except 'too far' is too vague. do you mean
1. insulted too many muslims
2. insulted muslims too deeply
3. incited christians to rise up and kill muslims
4 ????
Even my brother and new sister-in-law got married, not in a temple, but in a concert-type hall just outside Calicut back in the summer.
I see myself as an atheist, though as per a discussion here with Sean T several months ago, as a scientist, I am deeply intrigued by the "neurochemical" model of religious experience, where certain compounds (including mostly - shall we say - "dodgy" ones!), or even certain kinds of metabolic stress, can physically alter your state of mind such that you do encounter other "entities" that you otherwise do not see or hear under normal conditions.
Not that I have ever dabbled in such - ah - "experiments" myself, mind!
http://www.rickstrassman.com/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11334000/We-must-always-be-free-to-criticise-ideas-like-Islam.html
' The debate about the limits of free speech is an old one, which we need now as much as ever. It is complex but I am clear where I stand - with the actor Rowan Atkinson, who once said “to criticise a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous. But to criticize their religion, that is a freedom, a right.” Nor, as he explained, is it a frivolous right, a licence to “gob off” but rather that “the freedom to criticise ideas, any ideas, even if they are sincerely held beliefs, is one of the fundamental freedoms of society.” '
No wheedling. No cowardly horseshit about true free speech being "responsible"
Good for him.
I alluded to it to the other day.
My Grandfather was very grateful to this country, whatever things that irked him (mostly to do with drunks) he focussed on the positives rather than any negatives that came from living in the UK.
I've always known had I grown up in Pakistan and not England my life wouldn't be as brilliant as it is today.
I think that's something some that my generation of immigrant stock don't appreciate.
I think it less to do with race or religion and more with class.
My Grandparents came to this country to work in the NHS and were surrounded by the English middle classes, and consequently I was a part of the middle classes from the moment I was born.
Some of the current generation that have issues, are the offspring of the generation that came to this country to do manual labour, and their offspring are stuck in that working class cycle, where unemployment is high and prospects aren't good, those as countless examples in human history have shown are the best recruiting tools for extremists.
Nothing wrong with that at all but neither should it justify nor does it excuse the execution of people and police officers in cold blood.
The UK has always had "multiculturalism", except for those brief periods of persecution and murder when those at the top decided it shouldn't be so.
Churchill: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
So much of this just comes down to that. If we had the courage to defend our right to free speech but not only refusing to self-censor, but also continuing to publish controversial satirical cartoons in future, then I think two things could happen:
(1) We'd successfully entrench free speech, and;
(2) We might actually win sufficient moral respect amongst the more conservative parts of the Muslim community that we actually start to change *values* within in the long-run, thus ultimately removing the problem.
It starts with courage, it leads to respect, and it ends with changing the world. It's called leadership
What would have happened if Winston Churchill converted to Islam, as his family feared.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/11314580/Sir-Winston-Churchill-s-family-feared-he-might-convert-to-Islam.html
Would have confused the far right like Britain First for starters.
It really is beyond annoying.
Nitpicking like that invites the definition of 'too vague'
Its perfectly OK to hold any views about these poor cartoonists and their work. Some of them might be quite derogatory. But it is I would have thought self evident that holding these views is not consistent with wanting them dead. So why would you want to deny that or challenge such views? What is driving your strange illogical opinion on this matter
Saying that it went too far is tantamount to saying that non-Muslims should comply with Muslim taboos.
It's like saying that because Muslims think of dogs as unclean none of the rest of us can keep them as pets. Or because they don't eat pork, we shouldn't either. Or because they think women should wear the veil all women should.
It's not getting the point which is that their religion (or any religion) is not entitled to respect. What we respect is the fact that people have a right to believe in whatever religion they want - not that we respect what they choose to believe. And that while people are free to follow a religion they are not free to impose it on others.
Civil society functions quite well with people holding disagreeable opinions without making those opinions illegal to express (or it used to anyway).
What is absolutely not fine is expressing your opinion of the views and expressions held by others by means of violence; this is anathema to civil society.
Cyclefree has talked a lot of sense recently on the subject.
Religion, like government is about controlling the way people think, ostensibly for the benefit of all.
The problem is that it seldom works out that way, as those in power get greedy for more.
Indeed. Dickens' excoriating descriptions of life in the Victorian Madrassas are amongst his best writing.
Wordsworth's 'Tintern mosque' is amongst his finest poems.
One of the weaknesses of Jane Austen's novels for me is that the protagonists never go for a curry.
I'm now finding it hard to think how I wouldn't vote for him if I lived in Sheffield Hallam. But his liberal repeals need to go much further.
5 people hostage at least one injured and 2 killed at Kosher grocery
I vote Lib Dem in Sheffield Hallam, and you vote Tory in your seat?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEVA4EAP_S0
I vote Tory in Ilford North, if you vote Tory in Hallam?
Yours is more of marginal than Mr Royale's seat.
B8llocks. If you look back through Clegg's career you will probably find as many po faced multi culti pronouncements and 'shut up you wacist' comments as any other member of the elite.
Shirley Williams, Roy Hattersley, Germaine Greer - all of them disgraced themselves over the Rushdie affair. Christopher Hitchens was very good on this in his autobiography. He saw it as a touchstone issue on the question of freedom. And he was right. It was. And in Britain we woefully failed the test. And it is one reason why now we do not have enough TSEs and too many Anjem Choudhrys.
Clegg's wish to criticise islam is entirely new found, entirely opportunistic and entirely bogus.
I myself am not a fan of 'Jerry Springer: The Musical', the novel 'American Psycho', or the X-rated comics of S. Clay Wilson -- in all cases, I personally find the sheer obnoxiousness can overwhelm the valid satirical points made. But nevertheless, the works don't libel or endanger any individual, which is to say their creators should be free to make (and make a profit from) them, regardless of my dislike.
RT @rob_hyde: Just when you think the UK has hit Peak Bastard you see something like this. Well played,@JamesTCobbler pic.twitter.com/Y3XVyFiFkw
Thankfully, following through on such dark thoughts is vanishingly rare.
http://facesofmohammed.ip0.eu/
As a fairly Calvinistic guy myself, I do understand the risks of idolatry, but this is a subtle temptation by the devil.
Statues/icons etc being foci of worship slip easily into worshipping the object itself. One of many reasons Catholicism is not to my taste. However, Islam seems to put the cart before the horse here. The risk is of worshipping a false god, yet the arcane liturgy of how a Koran may be handled (never on the floor, never burnt, always placed above other books etc) and of how Mohammed is referred to (peace be upon him etc) is equally idolatrous.
The sin of idolatry is in the mind of the worshipper, not in the object/picture.
If he were standing again, I'd find it very hard not to vote for him as he's extremely sound on defence; the issue I actively left the Conservatives over in 2010.
Your point is not relevant. I (as an example) can hold any view I like, I can enthuse or deplore these cartoons. None of which prevents me from agreeing they have a right to be published. I can indeed agree with their point but think it is badly made. I can agree it is satire, but just bad satire. Am I required to think like you or anyone when it comes to critical analysis?
Why must you link such critical analysis with the defence of free speech?