At least one Canadian is willing to fight for free speech

[Josquin des Prez]

No. Freedom ends where the freedom of the other begins.

What if your freedom is limiting to "others"? Under shaira law, women do not deserve the same amount of freedom of men, which means western law is "offensive" to Muslim by default. What then, should we change our laws, or should they adapt to ours?

Further more, who's to say what's "offensive" and what isn't? If one individual complains about something, does that apply to the group as a whole? Does that mean that, because one Turk was offended by the team's logo it's offensive to ALL Turks?

[Josquin des Prez]

He thinks Christians are inherently superior people. That is what this is about.

No, that's not what this is about at all. The issue is enforced cultural egalitarianism based on political doctrine (that all cultures should be treated equal, even when they are not), instead then reason. The truth is that nobody cares when Christians are offended because we all know they aren't going to start a war over it. So at best, the issue becomes relevant only under fear of retaliation which is not only hypocritical but cowardly as well. Western powers aren't simply bending over backwards to foreign cultures out of niceness, they simply don't have the strength to resist folding against outside pressure.

Witnessing the type of groveling fools in charge of our nations is most enlightening:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhovRMCNcHU

[bwv 1080]

There are other more idiotic ones in the collection, such as heaven running out of virgins, etc.

So you would censor that one then? 

I find it equally odd that fundamentalist Christians believe they must help Israel in order for the Messiah to make a second showing, but they do. Racism makes for strange bedfellows.

That comment disrespected of the dignity of fundamentalist Christians by calling them racists.  We should have an extra-legal government commission to report you to.

[MishaK]

What if your freedom is limiting to "others"? Under shaira law, women do not deserve the same amount of freedom of men, which means western law is "offensive" to Muslim by default. What then, should we change our laws, or should they adapt to ours?

This is a red herring. Sharia law fundamentally denies the human dignity of women, homosexuals and many others. The whole point of individual freedoms of one person being limited by freedom from injury of another is only applicable to societies where all humans are treated as equals. The only reason why this cartoon issue is still being discussed is because there is a more or less open undercurrent of anti-Arab racist sentiment in many Western societies, and extreme right-wingers like Levant mobilze it for their purposes by feigning victimhood at the hands of the state, which allows them to portray themselves as selfless martyrs for Western freedoms and traditions. If Muslims had made such cartoons about Jews, Levant himself would be crying "anti-Semite" and suing left and right to have publication prevented. But he does not want to recognize that Muslims have the same right to protect themselves against racism and hate speech as Jews do.

Further more, who's to say what's "offensive" and what isn't? If one individual complains about something, does that apply to the group as a whole? Does that mean that, because one Turk was offended by the team's logo it's offensive to ALL Turks?

Once again, the issue is not what is "offensive" to someone. There is no statute in any OECD country that makes anything actionable just because someone is "offended". The question is whether the speech at issue is intended to degrade, intimidate, or incite violence or prejudicial action against a person or group of people based on their race, gender, age, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, etc.

[MishaK]

No, that's not what this is about at all. The issue is enforced cultural egalitarianism based on political doctrine (that all cultures should be treated equal, even when they are not), instead then reason.

You could put it that way, or I could be rude and say that you are a pathological racist who thinks that some people are born superior to others and that it is OK to treat people differentially based on that. You see, the problem with your view is that it assumes all people and cultures as finished products. Western culture and Christianity weren't put on this earth in their current state. They developed through many stages of more or less enlightened periods, many of them much more violent and vicious than anything the most violent Caliph has ever dreamt of (need I say Third Reich?). So treating any one group as inferior to another based upon a current snapshot of cultural development is hypocritical at best and downright inhumane. It denies the capacity of humans to develop and improve (or indeed to devolve into barbarity - something that Westerners like to forget). Finally, cultural norms are not fixed entities. They are matters of debate and contention and evolve over time. So judging every individual member of a particular culture by some mass-media filtered half baked understanding of that culture as propounded by the most rabid radicals who get the most airtime rises to the intelligence level of a turnip. Islam is as varied in practice and belief as Christianity with its many denominations and sub-denominations, cults and sects, heretics, non-believers etc. You can't proclaim the West's superiority based on the current temporary status quo, based on your ignorance of Islam's diversity and based on amnesia of the violence of the West.

The truth is that nobody cares when Christians are offended because we all know they aren't going to start a war over it. So at best, the issue becomes relevant only under fear of retaliation which is not only hypocritical but cowardly as well. 

Again, as explained above, the issue isn't whether someone is "offended" or not. The problem with the Nuremberg laws wasn't that they were "offensive" to Jews.

So you would censor that one then? 

We are talking about a civil action. The appropriate remedy are monetary damages and potentially an injuction. I don't know whether I would award relief in this case. I would have to look at the underlying statute more closely and the particular damage suffered by the plaintiff. The reporting on this case is far too uneven to provide sufficient information for an informed judgment. I will not play armchair judge here beyond untangling the misperceptions of legal doctrine and Western pluralism evidenced by yourself and others in this thread.

[Josquin des Prez]

This is a red herring. Sharia law fundamentally denies the human dignity of women, homosexuals and many others.

Being a Muslim equals abiding to Sharia law, which means that Islam is illegal under western law.

The only reason why this cartoon issue is still being discussed is because there is a more or less open undercurrent of anti-Arab racist sentiment in many Western societies

No, the only reason why this issue is still being discussed is because there is an open undercurrent of anti-western sentiment in many Islamic societies.

Once again, the issue is not what is "offensive" to someone. There is no statute in any OECD country that makes anything actionable just because someone is "offended".

Yes there is. It's called political correctness.

The question is whether the speech at issue is intended to degrade, intimidate, or incite violence or prejudicial action against a person or group of people based on their race, gender, age, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, etc.

Unless that person happens to be Christian, white, and male.

[bwv 1080]

We are talking about a civil action. The appropriate remedy are monetary damages and potentially an injuction. I don't know whether I would award relief in this case. I would have to look at the underlying statute more closely and the particular damage suffered by the plaintiff. The reporting on this case is far too uneven to provide sufficient information for an informed judgment. I will not play armchair judge here beyond untangling the misperceptions of legal doctrine and Western pluralism evidenced by yourself and others in this thread.

I will repeat the HL Mencken quote from the OP, and perhaps you can learn a little more about what is the real foundation of Western Culture and one reason why it is superior to all others, but of course Menken lacked proper faith in the wisdom of governmental and legal authorities (but I am sure had he seen the EU he would have changed his mind):

What do I primarily believe in, as a Puritan believes in Hell? I believe in liberty. And when I say liberty, I mean the thing in its widest imaginable sense - liberty up to the extreme limits of the feasible and the tolerable. I am against forbidding anybody to do anything, or say anything, or think anything, so long as it is at all possible to imagine a habitable world in which he would be free to do, say and think it. The burden of proof, as I see it, is always upon the lawmaker, the theologian, the right-thinker. He must prove his case doubly, triply, quadruply, and then he must start all over and prove it again. The eye through which I view him is watery and jaundiced. I do not pretend to be "just" to him - any more than a Christian pretends to be just to the Devil. He is the enemy of everything I admire and respect in this world - of everything that makes it various and amusing and charming. He impedes every honest search for the truth. He stands against every sort of good will and common decency. His ideal is that of an animal trainer, an archbishop, a major-general in the Army. I am against him until the last galoot's ashore.
This simple and childlike faith in the freedom and dignity of man - here, perhaps, stated with undue rhetoric - should be obvious, I should think, to every critic above the mental backwardness of a Federal judge. Nevertheless, very few of them, anatomizing my books, have ever showed any sign of detecting it...

For liberty, when one ascends to the levels where ideas swish by and men pursue Truth to grab her by the tail, is the first thing and the last thing. So long as it prevails the show is thrilling and stupendous; the moment it fails the show is a dull and dirty farce.

[MishaK]

Being a Muslim equals abiding to Sharia law, which means that Islam is illegal under western law.

That is pathetic nonsense. You don't define what constitutes a Muslim. The Muslims do. And they vary in their definition as much as Christians vary about whether one should observe the Old Testament or follow the letter of every Papal bull. And even those who do in fact abide by Sharia law (FYI the proper preposition to follow "abide" is "by", not "to") disagree on what that Sharia means. You see, if you had even a modicum of understanding of Islam you would know that many of its rules and norms do not come from the Quran (the written word of Allah), but from the Hadith (the spoken word of Allah). The latter is an oral tradition, which - as oral traditions tend to be - is vastly inconsistent from one Muslim community to another. All that women's veil nonsense for example comes from the Hadith.

No, the only reason why this issue is still being discussed is because there is an open undercurrent of anti-western sentiment in many Islamic societies.

You could argue that you can't have one without the other. But if your statement were true, then Westerners of all political colors who aren't racists should likewise be on your side. But they aren't. There are those who see the cartoons as fundamentally racist and understand the Muslim outrage and those who don't see that because they openly or unconsciously consider Muslims inferior and see nothing wrong. Again, if the cartoons had been penned by Muslims and denigrated Jews instead, the anti-semitism of the case would be self-evident and we wouldn't be discussing this point at all.

Yes there is. It's called political correctness.

There is no statute that penalizes un-PC behavior based on its "offensiveness" to someone or another. Provide a link if you have evidence to the contrary.

Unless that person happens to be Christian, white, and male.

Have you examples of the untold sufferings of the white Christian male that these evil Western courts are so maliciously neglecting to remedy?

[MishaK]

I will repeat the HL Mencken quote from the OP, and perhaps you can learn a little more about what is the real foundation of Western Culture and one reason why it is superior to all others, but of course Menken lacked proper faith in the wisdom of governmental and legal authorities (but I am sure had he seen the EU he would have changed his mind):

Your (not surprising) adoration for Mencken notwithstanding, his views - being those of a turn of the century elitist and social darwinist - are highly irrelevant to the subject at hand.

[Josquin des Prez]

You could put it that way, or I could be rude and say that you are a pathological racist who thinks that some people are born superior to others and that it is OK to treat people differentially based on that.

I'm not sure how one could be racist towards a "religion", but you sure seem to like using that word a lot.

Frankly, if a person chooses to espouse a doctrine which condones illegal and immoral behavior then it's their fault for bringing about the enmity of others upon themselves. To blame the western citizen for it and cast blank accusations of "racism" is where bigotry really lies.

You see, the problem with your view is that it assumes all people and cultures as finished products.

Irrelevant. The issue is people and cultures as they are now.

So treating any one group as inferior to another based upon a current snapshot of cultural development is hypocritical at best and downright inhumane.

Except if we were talking about a people who condoned pedophilia we wouldn't have a problem arguing of the "inferiority" of such a group. Would that be inhumane as well?

It denies the capacity of humans to develop and improve

Muslims are free to develop and improve (or not) at their leisure, in their own nations. You seem to be forgetting the context of this discussion.

So judging every individual member of a particular culture by some mass-media filtered half baked understanding of that culture as propounded by the most rabid radicals who get the most airtime rises to the intelligence level of a turnip. Islam is as varied in practice and belief as Christianity with its many denominations and sub-denominations, cults and sects, heretics, non-believers etc. You can't proclaim the West's superiority based on the current temporary status quo, based on your ignorance of Islam's diversity and based on amnesia of the violence of the West.

Except Christians aren't prone to burn embassies, which means that Islam is not as varied as Christianity in it's practice and belief but has a greater  leaning towards extremism and violence, as of today (who cares about the past, it's gone). Further more, and more importantly, your are forgetting that western nations are no longer Christian nations. Who cares whether Islam is as bad as Christianity?. Our laws are formulated in a way that any Christian engaging in illegal activities (I.E., which hunting) will be prosecuted to the full extended of the law, but somehow Islam should be made except from this until they decide to evolve? Are you out of your mind?

[Josquin des Prez]

You don't define what constitutes a Muslim. The Muslims do.

Absolutely, but Muslim have chosen shaira law and shaira law it's illegal in western countries.

[bwv 1080]

but somehow Islam should be made except from this until they decide to evolve?

Plus the incredibly naive notion that it is under some imperative to evolve - like Western liberal culture is some sort of inevitable outcome

[MishaK]

I'm not sure how one could be racist towards a "religion", but you sure seem to like using that word a lot.

It's primarily racism against Arabs, who are associated with Islam and radical islam in particular. People here don't ususally think of Indonesians when they discuss Islam.

Frankly, if a person chooses to espouse a doctrine which condones illegal and immoral behavior then it's their fault for bringing about the enmity of others upon themselves. To blame the western citizen for it and cast blank accusations of "racism" is where bigotry really lies.

Again, religion isn't a single "doctrine" and Islam comes in many flavors. To apply your logic to a different case of prejudice: did the Jews perhaps bring  on the enmity of the Germans as well?

Irrelevant. The issue is people and cultures as they are now.

Most relevant indeed, as a matter of fact. Cultures and people don't come out of nowhere. You can't claim moral or cultural superiority if your culture is based on past genocide and other bouts of backwardness. There is no inherent pre-programmed reason why Islam (which was far more enlightened in the middle ages than Europe) should have developed to its current state. Many choices and historical circumstances affected those outcomes. Nor is there anything really that would prevent Western society today from devolving into the kind of barbarism it experienced not too long ago. Cultures aren't fixed entities and the practice of each culture's customs varies among individuals. Your blanket judgments are just not tenable.

Except if we were talking about a people who condoned pedophilia we wouldn't have a problem arguing of the "inferiority" of such a group. Would that be inhumane as well?

That example is beyond absurd. Straw man.

Muslims are free to develop and improve (or not) at their leisure, in their own nations. You seem to be forgetting the context of this discussion.

I don't recall seeing anything in any Western constitution that says that individual freedoms granted to ethnic Westerners do not apply to Muslims. Please provide a source for that assertion.

Except Christians aren't prone to burn embassies, which means that Islam is not as varied as Christianity in it's practice and belief but has a greater  leaning towards extremism and violence, as of today (who cares about the past, it's gone). Further more, and more importantly, your are forgetting that western nations are no longer Christian nations. Who cares whether Islam is as bad as Christianity?. Our laws are formulated in a way that any Christian engaging in illegal activities (I.E., which hunting) will be prosecuted to the full extended of the law, but somehow Islam should be made except from this until they decide to evolve? Are you out of your mind?

Your argument is self-contradictory. On the one hand you are saying Christians are less prone to collective violence (a demonstrably false assertion) than Muslims. On the other hand you say that there are in fact no Christian nations as the West is actually secularized. So how is Christianity superior then? I don't know from what you deduce that Muslims are particularly prone to arson. From the US Army's habit of setting Vietnamese villages on fire, to the Reichstag fire, to the self-immolation of the Waco sect, to the bombing of abortion clinics by pro-lifers, there is no shortage of examples of Western, Christian collective arson just from recent history alone. Mob psychology is the same, irrespective of religion. We have just been blessed with an unusally long run of relative prosperity and stability. Your last two sentences don't make any sense at all, apart from being ungrammatical. I have never advocated any exemption (that's the word you mean) of Muslims from the Western legal system allowing them to "evolve". I expect every member of a society to abide by that society's social contract. In the West, that will mean that for some conservative Muslims that will mean that they will have to tolerate the rest of society not living according to Muslim rules. But likewise that means that Muslims should not be exempted from protection offered by hate crime laws that are extended to all other members of society as well. Both should benefit and be subject to all protections and obligations of the law to their full extent (that's the other word you meant).

Absolutely, but Muslim have chosen shaira law and shaira law it's illegal in western countries.

It's Sharia not shaira, and it's apparent that you don't know the first thing about it. Before you further pontificate about Christianity's superiority, I expect evidence of your full compliance with the last five Papal bulls. 

Plus the incredibly naive notion that it is under some imperative to evolve - like Western liberal culture is some sort of inevitable outcome

A very naive notion indeed. Except that it is not held by any poster on this thread. If you had read what I wrote you would have noticed that I spoke about cultures not being fixed entities but being in a constant state of flux, of being able to evolve or devolve. Indeed, Western culture is not the product of a straight line of beneficial evolution itself either. It devolved quite dramatically as well at times, especially after the collapse of the Roman Empire or in the wake of the rise of Nazism and Communism, to name just the most obvious examples. There is no reason why it necessarily would have had to recover from those setbacks. It could have all tanked at any of those occasions. It is far more useful to look at the history of different cultures and look what worked and what didn't, what mistakes were made, what good decisions were made, what social norms were detrimental and which ones had positive effects and to adapt and learn, rather than insisting that one's own culture is inherently superior. No culture is pre-programmed for success or failure. It all depends on what people do with it.

[Shrunk]

That isn't the issue. There are constant debates on academic campuses questioning the merits of any and all religious faiths. But you don't see Muslim groups petitioning to close down philosophy departments. That isn't the issue. The issue is whether or not a line is crossed when you publish cartoons that specifically seek to portray one group of people as inferior, violent and stupid, based upon their choice of religion. If those cartoons had been mocking black people, we wouldn't even be debating the issue, because the racism would be self-evident. It is akin to libel on a grand scale to call all Muslims suicide-bombers just because of the acts of a few.

I'm not sure if you've seen the cartoons.  I have, and I must admit most of them were pretty poorly drawn and not that funny (If people were protesting based on aesthetic objections, I might be more sympathetic.  Just joking.)  However, I don't see anything libellous in them.  The main reason for the protests against them was that Islam prohibits any visual depiction of Muhammad.  Which is fine if Muslims choose to follow that rule, but they shouldn't assume everyone else is bound to obey it.  We also seem to be forgetting that a hundred people were actually killed in the protests over these cartoons. 

That is what the right-wingers want you to think is happening. But in fact we are just applying the same rules to everyone. If you can't go around publishing anti-Semitic pamphlets, you equally cannot go around publishing pamphlets that say that all Muslims are evil.

I think the distinction to be drawn here is between criticizing an ideology, and actually inciting hatred against an identifiable group of people.  I don't see how these cartoons fall into the latter category.  In fact, I highly doubt that most of the protestors had ever even seen the cartoons.  Still, I can't pretend the distinction is an unambiguous one.

I realize this issue is a complex one.  The publication of the cartoons was clearly a deliberate provocation (although they likely got a bit more than they bargained for).  Here is how the Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that originally published the cartoons, introduced them:

The modern, secular society is rejected by some Muslims. They demand a special position, insisting on special consideration of their own religious feelings. It is incompatible with contemporary democracy and freedom of speech, where you must be ready to put up with insults, mockery and ridicule. It is certainly not always attractive and nice to look at, and it does not mean that religious feelings should be made fun of at any price, but that is of minor importance in the present context. [...] we are on our way to a slippery slope where no-one can tell how the self-censorship will end. That is why Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten has invited members of the Danish editorial cartoonists union to draw Muhammad as they see him.

Don't think I'm blind to the undercurrent of xenophobia in that passage.  And I'm very uneasy supporting a right-wing zealot like Levant.  Still, the fact remains that we are talking about an ideology that, in some of its forms, has condoned mass murder, the prosecution of rape victims for "adultery", the subjugation of women, and other atrocities.  Such an ideology, in fact any ideology, cannot expect to exempt itself from scrutiny and criticism, in the guise of fostering the same tolerance it denies others.

And it's not as if the provocation was one-sided.  The furor over the cartoons did not erupt until months after their publication, deliberately whipped up by a group of imams who had circulated a dossier that appended several other images that were not part of the original. If the Muslim community was concerned about being wrongly portrayed as a bunch of blood thirsty terrorists, going around burning down embassies and murdering nuns was probably not the best way to make their point.

[Josquin des Prez]

It's primarily racism against Arabs, who are associated with Islam and radical islam in particular. People here don't ususally think of Indonesians when they discuss Islam.

Nonsense. It's just more convenient to label people as "racist" because it's easier to rely on name calling rather then actually argue on a certain issue, particularly when that issue (multiculturalisms) happens to be the special darling of leftist partisan ideology.

You don't think such behavior as this may garner a bit of animosity from the average Londoner, many of which did not ask to coexist alongside a culture as diametrically alien as that of Islam? And for what, because of a couple of satirical cartoons?:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_kyNIevsIs

Would you classify those as moderate Muslims? And if not, should we question why the British authorities are doing nothing about those obvious extremists? Remember, this isn't happening in some random middle eastern country, this is right smack into a major western city. And you are telling me that the threat of Islam is merely a fabrication of right-wing politicians to steal votes for their campaign when minor provocations result in such stupendous display of anger and violence?

Again, religion isn't a single "doctrine" and Islam comes in many flavors. To apply your logic to a different case of prejudice: did the Jews perhaps bring  on the enmity of the Germans as well?

Another flawed argument. Your implication that distrust towards Islam is motivated by prejudice rather then reason hasn't been argued properly, and your attempt to associate such distrust with Nazi ideology is a direct ad hominem. Besides, not all Germans were Nazi, and i find it quite amusing that you seem to have no trouble making sweeping statements about westerners (particularly about all the atrocities we committed while exempting Islam from a similar historical reproach) while trying to defend Muslims from similar generalizations.

There is no inherent pre-programmed reason why Islam (which was far more enlightened in the middle ages than Europe) should have developed to its current state. Many choices and historical circumstances affected those outcomes. Nor is there anything really that would prevent Western society today from devolving into the kind of barbarism it experienced not too long ago. Cultures aren't fixed entities and the practice of each culture's customs varies among individuals. Your blanket judgments are just not tenable.

My blanket judgments pertains current cultures as they are today so my argument is very well tenable to the issue at hand. After all, we are not discussing the merits of western civilization vs. Islam and their comparative history, but whether this compulsive lenience towards Muslim immigrants based on political ideology is wise and whether western enmity towards them is justified or not. Mind you that it's not the Muslims that i'm attacking here. They have their own reasons to act the way they do and it's their prerogative to protect their own interests (in the end, what do they care about our culture?), my quarrel is against those "other" westerners who would have us capitulate rather then risk laying a finger on some "minority" to protect our interests on the chance it might lead to another Third Reich.

That example is beyond absurd. Straw man.

While your example of "prejudice" was not absurd? Do i smell a double standard here?

I don't recall seeing anything in any Western constitution that says that individual freedoms granted to ethnic Westerners do not apply to Muslims.

To the contrary. Muslims have more freedoms then Westerners in that they are free to engage in illicit activities (like for instance their extremely sexist marital customs) which would land anybody else in jail.

Your argument is self-contradictory. On the one hand you are saying Christians are less prone to collective violence (a demonstrably false assertion) than Muslims. On the other hand you say that there are in fact no Christian nations as the West is actually secularized. So how is Christianity superior then?

1) How is the fact that Christians are less prone to collective violence "demonstrably false"? Just compare Christian leaders with Muslim ones and see if you notice a difference in aptitude and belief. Even assuming that individual assessment is impossible to determine for every observant member of either religion the divergent teachings between their respective leadership is defacto proof there is a difference in terms of general bigotry between them.

2) Nobody is arguing about the superiority of either. Since i'm not religious, i couldn't possibly care less. I reckon though that you seem to enjoy the word "superior" just as much as you enjoy calling people "racist"

Of course, the idea we cannot criticize Islam on account of the fact that "it is as varied in practice and belief as Christianity" is simply not tenable. For one, Christianity is far from being beyond reproach in itself and your argument doesn't amount to much of a justification. We had to fight tooth and nails to rid our society from religious rule and all of a sudden you are justifying religion against religion. Second of all, merely because we aren't exactly beyond reproach doesn't mean criticism cannot be raised. Even assuming that Islam isn't the violent monster the "media" would like us to believe (not that we haven't been directly attacked or anything, but hey, we were asking for it!), it's a simple fact that their moral compass is different from ours and from their point of view we are the immoral ones. Obviously, you are not going to resolve such differences unless you point out they have no other choice but to submit to western law and western morality if they want to live with us.

I don't know from what you deduce that Muslims are particularly prone to arson. From the US Army's habit of setting Vietnamese villages on fire, to the Reichstag fire, to the self-immolation of the Waco sect, to the bombing of abortion clinics by pro-lifers, there is no shortage of examples of Western, Christian collective arson just from recent history alone. Mob psychology is the same, irrespective of religion.

But my argument is not towards Islam (i actually must confess a bit of admiration towards them. Unlike most emasculated westerners, they at least can put up a fight when they feel their culture is under attack, perceived or not, and lo, nobody among their own ranks making a fuss about it!), but towards those who think they can impose their ideological experiments upon everybody else then rely on slander when the people don't like it.

Besides, as i already said, the fact many westerners aren't beyond reproach doesn't mean Muslims aren't worst. Mob psychology may be the same regardless of culture or religion, but there is no reason to believe nurture does not have an effect and there is no reason to assume one culture or religion isn't more violent then another. In the end, modern Europe is a lot nicer then it was under papal rule, and it's only because Islam is on a position of inferiority towards other nations that we have never experienced the full extended of their arsonist tendencies.

We have just been blessed with an unusally long run of relative prosperity and stability. Your last two sentences don't make any sense at all, apart from being ungrammatical. I have never advocated any exemption (that's the word you mean) of Muslims from the Western legal system allowing them to "evolve". I expect every member of a society to abide by that society's social contract.

By conceding that Muslims haven't had the time to "evolve" you have pretty much confirmed that they are in need of evolving in the first place, which means their presence in Europe has to be handled as a special case, prone to particular concessions, the most visible of which is the compulsory shielding of their religious believes by deeming criticism towards those believes an act of intolerance, confusing the blasphemous indignation of the Muslim community as a cry for ethnic injury and intolerance waged towards them.

Meanwhile, Christians can take the worst type of abuses and nobody is allowed to raise an eyebrow:

http://students.washington.edu/greenbam/humor/images/blasphemous_christ_painting.jpg

But likewise that means that Muslims should not be exempted from protection offered by hate crime laws that are extended to all other members of society as well. Both should benefit and be subject to all protections and obligations of the law to their full extent (that's the other word you meant).

Yes but in the case of Muslims blasphemy is considered a hate crime.

A very naive notion indeed. Except that it is not held by any poster on this thread. If you had read what I wrote you would have noticed that I spoke about cultures not being fixed entities but being in a constant state of flux, of being able to evolve or devolve. Indeed, Western culture is not the product of a straight line of beneficial evolution itself either. It devolved quite dramatically as well at times, especially after the collapse of the Roman Empire or in the wake of the rise of Nazism and Communism, to name just the most obvious examples. There is no reason why it necessarily would have had to recover from those setbacks. It could have all tanked at any of those occasions. It is far more useful to look at the history of different cultures and look what worked and what didn't, what mistakes were made, what good decisions were made, what social norms were detrimental and which ones had positive effects and to adapt and learn, rather than insisting that one's own culture is inherently superior. No culture is pre-programmed for success or failure. It all depends on what people do with it.

Of course, you fail to mention that what "worked" and what "didn't" in the past differs according to political affiliation. 

Either way, care to mention historical cases where multiculturalism worked for the benefit and prosperity of a particular nation, kingdom or civilization?

[Lilas Pastia]

Nonsense. It's just more convenient to label people as "racist" because it's easier to rely on name calling rather then actually argue on a certain issue, particularly when that issue (multiculturalisms) happens to be the special darling of leftist partisan ideology.

By painting things black and white, you also paint yourself in a tiny corner. Should I deduce that "rightist partisan ideology" - to use your terminology -  is against multiculturalism? What are you afraid of?

[Shrunk]

Just realized there is another point to be made in my post above.

If anything, the imam's who produced the Akkari-Laban dossier provide a much stronger argument for justifiable limits on freedom of speech than the original Danish cartoons do.  The dossier deliberately and knowingly misrepresented the facts.  It implied that the cartoons were produced in a government-run newspaper and included images, much more blatantly offensive than the actual cartoons, without clarifying that these were added by the imans and not published in any newspaper.  Some of them had nothing to with Islam at all (a photo of a participant in a French pig-calling contest was misrepresented as depicting Muhammed as a pig).  The result of this deceptive document was the creation of an international furor, as the imans intended, and the deaths of a hundred people.  Yet to my knowledge no legal actions have been brought against the producers of the dossier.

[Florestan]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_kyNIevsIs

Frightening, indeed. Charles Martel, don Juan de Austria and Jan Sobieski must be rolling in their graves.

[MishaK]

I'm not sure if you've seen the cartoons.  I have, and I must admit most of them were pretty poorly drawn and not that funny (If people were protesting based on aesthetic objections, I might be more sympathetic.  Just joking.)  However, I don't see anything libellous in them. 

I have seen them and I agree they are pathetic. But libel isn't the issue. I mentioned that as an analogy of another situation where free speech is limited for good reason.

The main reason for the protests against them was that Islam prohibits any visual depiction of Muhammad.  Which is fine if Muslims choose to follow that rule, but they shouldn't assume everyone else is bound to obey it.  

No, that isn't the issue. We aren't talking here about a depiction of Muhammad in an artistic context, the way Jesus is depicted on artworks. We are talking about Muhammad being depicted as a suicide bomber and suggesting that all Muslims are inherently suicidal. It is a denigration and a misrepresentation of Islam for the purpose of putting down all Muslims. That is the issue and you can see it in the complaint, even if the media coverage of the case is rather shoddy. Depicting Muhammad as such isn't the issue. That doesn't violate anyone's human rights. That being said, I'm not sure I would find in the plaintiff's favor in this case either way. The cartoons are bad and stupid, OK. But whether they rise to an actionable offense is questionable. Again, information on this case is scant (except from the self-serving attention seekers from the right, which should be dismissed for their obvious bias). So there is little point in getting all riled up about this.

I think the distinction to be drawn here is between criticizing an ideology, and actually inciting hatred against an identifiable group of people.  I don't see how these cartoons fall into the latter category.  In fact, I highly doubt that most of the protestors had ever even seen the cartoons.  Still, I can't pretend the distinction is an unambiguous one.

Indeed it isn't. The problem is that the ideology in question (radical, militant Wahhabist Islam) uses the symbols of all of Islam, even though it doesn't represent all of Islam and even though most Muslims don't agree with it. So you can't just mock the symbols of radical Wahhabism without simultaneously denigrating all the other non-wahhabist peaceful practicioners of Islam.

And it's not as if the provocation was one-sided.  The furor over the cartoons did not erupt until months after their publication, deliberately whipped up by a group of imams who had circulated a dossier that appended several other images that were not part of the original. If the Muslim community was concerned about being wrongly portrayed as a bunch of blood thirsty terrorists, going around burning down embassies and murdering nuns was probably not the best way to make their point.

Again, the same applies as above. The Muslim community is very fragmented. On the one hand that makes it the richly diverse culture that it is. On the other hand it means there is no official spokesperson and anyone can make claims on behalf of the entire Ummah. You can't therefore speak of the acts you mention as acts of the Muslim community as a whole. There is no pope here telling his flock how to behave. Lots of small actors take things into their hands to stir up controversy or violence that they think suits their personal causes. It has little to do with Islam itself. The religion is merely a tool for political ends.

Just realized there is another point to be made in my post above.

If anything, the imam's who produced the Akkari-Laban dossier provide a much stronger argument for justifiable limits on freedom of speech than the original Danish cartoons do.  The dossier deliberately and knowingly misrepresented the facts.  It implied that the cartoons were produced in a government-run newspaper and included images, much more blatantly offensive than the actual cartoons, without clarifying that these were added by the imans and not published in any newspaper.  Some of them had nothing to with Islam at all (a photo of a participant in a French pig-calling contest was misrepresented as depicting Muhammed as a pig).  The result of this deceptive document was the creation of an international furor, as the imans intended, and the deaths of a hundred people.  Yet to my knowledge no legal actions have been brought against the producers of the dossier.

Again, these guys weren't elected by anyone of significance. They do not speak for all Muslims. They unquestionably have their own agenda, just like Levant does. I am not sure what legal actions you think one could bring against them and on what grounds.

[Hector]

Absolutely, but Muslim have chosen shaira law and shaira law it's illegal in western countries.

Irrespective of O Mench's arguments against your prejudices I would be interested to know what you understand by Sharia Law and whether you know any muslims.

Your descriptions do not fit with those of the muslims I know but may be in line with some of the minority of extremists that have confused some in the West to take an Islamophobic stance.

I'll remind you, yet again, that the term 'political correctness' was invented by the political right-wing peeved that attitudes had changed to an extent that they could no longer, with impunity, be derogatory or racist to ethnic minorities or take a sexist stance against women.