News: Merkel to award prophet cartoonist

[Suffragette1]

Exactly. If someone wants to argue that the Holocaust was a hoax let them. It's called freedom of speech.

 

The Americans have the right attitude to it in the First Amendment to the US constitution:

 

"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."

 

I agree with you. Much as though I intensely dislike the whole concept of holocaust denial, I do not think that it should be made illegal, since when should we be censoring people's thoughts and views, no matter how unpalatable? Either you have freedom of speech or you don't; you can't have selective freedom of speech which is what happened under McCarthy. Furthermore, if we drive these people underground, their views cannot be challenged.

 

What must never be tolerated is incitement to racial hatred and violence.

[stackrock]

Why? How many average Brits go on marches about anything? A miniscule percentage

 

 

..and how do you relieve them of it?

 

as for the march, plenty of everyday people went on the anti war march over iraq, most of them will have never been on a march before or since. everyday run of the mill muslims could do that. the goodwill a muslim anti extreamist march would create, would be immense. at the moment i and almost all i speak to beleive that said muslims are behind closed doors pro extreamist.

 

as for the money, if the same effort was put into getting that as trying to create stability in iraq or afganistan, we would have it all.

i would buy all the poppyfields in afganistan and cover it in concrete, id buy it at what the farmer could earn out of the land over 100 years. oil money saudi needs sorting, the hyper rich over there need to know that if they keep funding this mass murder they will loose everything they have. and we as a people need to insist that our leaders stop putting a plaster over the problem and get to the roots.

[Suffragette1]

Why? How many average Brits go on marches about anything? A miniscule percentage

 

 

..and how do you relieve them of it?

 

I wonder what the percentages are. The last march that I went on was the anti-Iraq invasion one in 2003. I think the front end had arrived at Hyde Park before we even got moving at Gower Street. I've never been so cold in my entire life, it was bitter.

[flamingjimmy]

You mean things like elect our leaders and send our daughters to school?

 

Aye we should pack it in provoking them.

 

No. He doesn't mean things like that at all.

 

I didn't realise you were stupid enough to fall for the lie that 'they hate us for our freedom'. They don't give a crap that we elect our leaders and educate women. It's more that they don't like being bombed and invaded by us.

[boyfriday]

as for the march, plenty of everyday people went on the anti war march over iraq, most of them will have never been on a march before or since. everyday run of the mill muslims could do that. the goodwill a muslim anti extreamist march would create, would be immense. at the moment i and almost all i speak to beleive that said muslims are behind closed doors pro extreamist.

But not all everyday non Muslims do it, it's a small % that are that way inclined. If the same small % is evident in the Muslim community then given their much smaller number within the total population, you're talking about a pretty small number of people. The other thing you need is that Islamists, the ones you see shouting and screaming on the streets of Britain and abroad have a totally different mindest to the 'everyday Muslim', who generally has a conservative nature. But the fact remains organisations of Muslim leaders always denounce the activities of extremists, it's just that we dont want to listen or the news gatherers feel it won't increase their sales.

as for the money, if the same effort was put into getting that as trying to create stability in iraq or afganistan, we would have it all.

i would buy all the poppyfields in afganistan and cover it in concrete, id buy it at what the farmer could earn out of the land over 100 years.

..so that would put billions into the hands of the farm owners, how would that help ordinary Afghans?

oil money saudi needs sorting, the hyper rich over there need to know that if they keep funding this mass murder they will loose everything they have.

How so? The West needs their oil, it's a symbiotic commercial relationship, that supercedes religious and racial boundaries, dont be fooled by all this spouting of rhetoric by the likes of Blair & Bush.

and we as a people need to insist that our leaders stop putting a plaster over the problem and get to the roots.

But that's a nebulous statement, the West has interfered in the administrations of Middle Eastern countries for decades, I wonder what their view might be now if we hadn't given their extremists reasons to hate us?

[stackrock]

No. He doesn't mean things like that at all.

 

I didn't realise you were stupid enough to fall for the lie that 'they hate us for our freedom'. They don't give a crap that we elect our leaders and educate women. It's more that they don't like being bombed and invaded by us.

 

so they did not act the way the way they do now prior to the iraq war?

 

who is, 'they'?

 

 

[boyfriday]

I wonder what the percentages are. The last march that I went on was the anti-Iraq invasion one in 2003. I think the front end had arrived at Hyde Park before we even got moving at Gower Street. I've never been so cold in my entire life, it was bitter.

..I guess that was a march for very significant reasons, to encourage our government to reconsider the invasion. I remember the news coverage, maybe there were 100,000 there? And maybe there were Muslims amongst that number?

[Wildcat]

I agree with you. Much as though I intensely dislike the whole concept of holocaust denial, I do not think that it should be made illegal, since when should we be censoring people's thoughts and views, no matter how unpalatable? Either you have freedom of speech or you don't; you can't have selective freedom of speech which is what happened under McCarthy. Furthermore, if we drive these people underground, their views cannot be challenged.

 

What must never be tolerated is incitement to racial hatred and violence.

 

Freedom of speech is not and never has been an absolute.

 

With regard to holocaust denial if you look at the examples of people convicted of it, they have all been people that have made careers out of lying and promoting race hatred. In a sense there is no need for a specific law, it would be covered by race hatred laws anyway. But on the other hand the fact of the usage of the holocaust denial laws in europe being used with a light touch and only in exceptional circumstances also shows that making holocaust denial illegal does not worryingly restrict freedom of speech.

[boyfriday]

You mean things like elect our leaders and send our daughters to school?

 

Have a look at this clip from the BBC, about my new hero, Maj Geoffrey Langlands, who runs a school in Afghanistan that's fully supported by the local community, teaches girls and sends many of them to university.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8664333.stm

[Wildcat]

..I guess that was a march for very significant reasons, to encourage our government to reconsider the invasion. I remember the news coverage, maybe there were 100,000 there? And maybe there were Muslims amongst that number?

 

There were muslims the MCB\MAB had bussed in but not huge numbers, what was noticeable was that people were there from all walks of life. Pensioners, people in their service uniforms with badges, people that looked like they had never been on a protest before.

 

I think the usual estimates for numbers were around a million people. It was a protest that was more a static demonstration so far as I could tell, I don't think we even got to Gower street. After 3 hours of shuffling and going hardly anywhere we made our own way to Hyde Park for the pick up point because we would never have got to our coaches if we hadn't.