Taking a radical right-wing position on the part of an outgroup is not "liberalism."

[True Blue Door]

It makes me sick to my stomach seeing some of the more foolish voices on the left twist themselves in ideological and moral knots whenever Islamic radicals murder someone for "insulting Islam" (aka, exercising their fundamental human rights to free speech and freedom of religion). There's no "yeahbut" on the subject - NONE.

Drawing a Muhammed cartoon is not a "provocation" even if it's intended to be one, anymore than a Jewish person breathing air in Europe in 1941 was a "provocation" of the Holocaust. Exercising a right is not a provocation of those who would deny that right. It's simply refusing their tyranny.

Right-wing psychopathy is the source of that tyranny, regardless of where in the world its roots are, what god or book or flag it uses as its cargo cult, and in what language it issues its terrorist threats. A person is not progressive, or reasonable, or enlightened for defending the monsters who terrorize and defame another culture from within, simply because it's another culture. And there is even less excuse for continuing such a delusional exo-Stockholm Syndrome when the terror of such lunatics impinges on your own society from without, erasing all doubt about what the phenomenon represents.

At best this viewpoint sees people from other cultures as mentally handicapped, and inherently incapable of exercising the same basic human morality as we demand from our own culture. Somehow the people exercising their rights are, in this twisted ideological fantasy world, like cruel wardens of a psychiatric hospital poking and prodding the madman until he finally explodes in violence, and thus it's the victims' fault when their peaceful act of religious protest is met with murder.

Well, people in other countries and religions are not children, and they are not insane. They are responsible for their own personal words and actions like everyone else, and the basic standards of moral behavior are not different for anyone with the slightest hint of a conscience. Decency is not relative. It's either there or it isn't, in a given individual heart.

A person who ends a life because someone offended them is an evil piece of shit with no place in human society that doesn't involve barbed wire and steel toilets. And a person who makes excuses for them, echoing their monstrous rhetoric and rationalizations, is a vile coward with no moral compass and the lowest possible opinion of human beings. An opinion no doubt formed by looking in the mirror, then inverted and superimposed on some foreign fetish object.

That's not liberalism - it's not even of the Left. It's the political version of a rape fantasy bought at the cost of other people's lives. It is the lowest, the absolute lowest right-wing perversion that has ever flimsily masqueraded as a progressive viewpoint.

[Ex Lurker]

1. This x infinity. Well said NT.

[gwheezie]

2. fundie religions attract lunatics

Its fucked up. Seriously.

[Scootaloo]

3. You know the only people killed were the suspects, right?

Whoever they were, 'cause, so far, we don't know.

[True Blue Door]

10. That's good to know. It wasn't clear earlier.

But even if the most recent case turns out to have been something else - some coincidence that had no political motivation - it still applies generally to what are far too common incidents around the world.

And we never seem to be without the handful of disgraceful commentators who always react to things like that by judging the victims and sympathizing with the perpetrators. It doesn't even make ideological sense, because these radicals don't espouse remotely left-wing rhetoric - it's not like they're making excuses for Marxists or whatever. These are atavistic, religious, savagely bigoted and oppressive people who seek a return to the 7th century.

The only motive for making excuses for them appears to be sheer, unfettered self-hatred of Western civilization. A kind of inward-directed bigotry that uses Western morals against themselves while validating any external psychosis willing to attack them.

[Scootaloo]

18. You know what bothers me?

That I'm going to keep seeing bullshit like your post, but not a word on a young man who was broken in three places by the police, for the crime of not committing a crime. I'm going to keep seeing your samuel huntington East vs. west garbage spewed across my screen in support of some of the worst minds cluttering America, but not a peep on the number of Muslims that are going to be killed by our drones, or by our very well-paid allies in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. I am going to see lots of hands furiously jacking off the shriveled dutch boy in geert Wilders' trousers, but not a single one of them will lift in anger over the brutalization of people who want nothing more than to be safe in their own cities - in the United States.

And you're going to look at the carnage and slaughter and abuse and brutality and hate and label it "western civilization", and call it the good guy, while using two morons in a car to define "THEM" as an existential threat, despite the fact that those two guys will have been dead for several days before you finally get too bored to continue.

[Kurska]

22. Tolerance and sympathy for religious madmen is acceptable because... police brutality?

Post of the year there Scoot.

[Scootaloo]

30. I don't recall saying it was acceptable.

Good to see you again, Kurska.

[Kurska]

62. You've vented more spleen at the OP than you have at the gunman.

Just an observation. You've been raining a torrent of abuse on the OP this entire thread. Not sure what "not-acceptable" is supposed to be in terms of condemnation when compared to that.

[Scootaloo]

73. Well, they failed and are now very dead.

On the other hand i have three posters here who are insisting that i am excusing the Dumbass Duo, when i am plainly doing no such thing. So, I hate to tell you, but i figure three people lying to my face in order to excuse their own bad arguments are in more immediate need of my "spleen" than two stiffs who just got bullets in theirs.

[Kurska]

74. I would usually view attempted murder as a more serious offense than disagreeing with me.

On this, I suppose we differ.

[Scootaloo]

75. By far. Which is why those two dudes are dead

That problem has been thoroughly addressed.

So, that solved, I'm looking at some clowns who are lying about me in order to support their bad arguments.

[True Blue Door]

29. There's a word for that kind of comment: "Yeahbutting."

Any event that is ideologically inconvenient, a certain type of mind "yeahbuts" it instead of just dealing responsibly and morally with it in an honest and rational way.

It's the most nakedly dishonest and contemptible way to change a subject you don't want to address to one you find more gratifying, and you're basically telling any victim who doesn't fit your agenda to get off the moral high ground you consider your inherent property. Fucking despicable is what it is.

Usually the most ludicrous and shameless "yeahbutters" around here are the paid Putin trolls, but there's plenty of room in the category for other forms of the problem.

I really wonder how long you personally could tolerate someone who treated you like that in your daily life - if every word out of your mouth was met by a "Yeahbut" by someone who wanted you to shut up and die because you remind them of someone they dislike.

You: "Nice day, neighbor!"

Them: "Yeahbut what about all the starving children in the world? You saying it's nice that children are starving, you evil monster!"

You: "Umm, no..."

Them: "Now you deny it? Just shut up, you liar."

You, next day: "I really don't want to bother you, so I'm really sorry, but could you maybe move your car out of my driveway?"

Them: "The guy who likes child starvation wants me to move my car, does he?"

You: "Look, I don't like child starvation. And it is my driveway."

Them: "Yeahbut there are more important things in the world than your stupid driveway! Selfish bastard!"

That's literally what you sound like. You're talking shit and spewing hate on autopilot.

[Scootaloo]

31. Not at all

"yeah-butting" is excusing the actions of these idiots. Despite your obvious wish that I would do so, I'm not.

I'm expressing disgust at how for the next week i'm going to see a lot of bullshit posts like the one of yours which I responded to. You know, "clash of civilizations," "Islam is the devil" 'hurgaburglargwargarbl!" and the like. While at the same time I am certain I will not see a fucking thing from you about people actually being butchered and brutalized.

it's not a "yeahbut," it's a lament at the lowbrow self-congratulatory nature of at least three day's worth of posts I'm going to have to step around on DU while trying to read about things that actually matter. And no, two yobs getting blown away in their botched attempt to blow someone else away isn't all that important, in the scheme of things.

[True Blue Door]

35. So you deny yeahbutting, then immediately yeahbut.

As for the innocent victims of US foreign policy, one could zoom out the context even further - far further than you find convenient - and ask why you're more concerned with those thousands than the millions who die via domestic tyrants and chaotic insurgencies.

Then you would of course mention that we support(ed) some of those tyrants, and cause(d) some of those insurgencies, not noticing that you're contradicting yourself: On the one hand saying we are to blame when tyrants are in control, then on the other saying we are also to blame if and when tyrants lose control and chaos ensues. In other words, everything that happens in the world is America's responsibility, but at the same time we are monsters if and when we ever attempt to exercise such responsibility.

It's the Blame America Game, and it's a pretty old one at this point - one that right-wingers always conveniently throw back in our faces when they are doing truly monstrous things, because people like you can't tell the difference between civilian casualties in wars fought in defense of life from atrocities committed in deliberate acts of conquest. There's no moral reasoning that can convince you of anything other than that we're the problem, and that puts your ideology squarely in the Yeahbut box.

You're just not going to accept that the problems of that region are far beyond the capabilities of this country to have caused, let alone to have fixed, and yet you find it convenient to blame us no matter what happens. So it causes you deep irritation when events deny you the moral high ground for a moment and you have to briefly step off your hypocritical high horse. Whatever the degree, there's a lot of the same type of thinking I talked about going on in your reasoning.

The way you judge this country is not proportional to facts, and not rooted in actual history. You start from the premise that we're the problem and then collect excuses.

Here's what I know: I can ruthlessly and mercilessly mock the dominant religious beliefs in this country, in public, in front of the people who hold those beliefs, and have zero fear. I can ruthlessly and mercilessly mock the dominant political beliefs in this country, in public, in front of people who hold those beliefs, and have zero fear. And none of that is true in any majority-Muslim country on Earth. Not one.

So when you react like this, it really makes me wonder what the hell you think you stand for. Do you think you stand for civilians in Islamic countries who would be (and routinely are) massacred by ISIS when we don't kill their militias first? Do horrors not exist for you if they don't happen with a US flag stamped on them? I just will never understand this kind of ideological viewpoint that treats people like they're not real - like the value of their lives is relative to an arbitrary agenda.

[Scootaloo]

43. Only if "yeahbut" is a meaningless neologism

And in your case, it seems to be - a "yeahbut" is apparently any reply that doesn't fall over itself applauding you.

I'm informing you that I find no worth or value in your posts on the subject, and that I am not looking forward to the next few days of seeing a bunch of other smug, self-congratulatory doofuses putting on their "i'm-not-a-bigot-but" hats and elevating a pair of dumbfucks who got themselves killed into a civilizational crisis.

[True Blue Door]

44. A "yeahbut" is what happens when bigotry is confronted by inconvenient reality.

We run into them all time from the right-wing, and as far as I'm concerned, all yeahbuts are right-wingers.

Anyone who uses ideology to value or devalue human lives rather than having an intrinsic moral compass rooted in empathy, reason, and accountability is someone who, in one way or another, only respects power.

You don't want to talk about the subject that the event logically raises, so you're going to dismiss it and talk about something else you find more convenient. You've made that abundantly clear, and openly express irritation that other human beings are responding to their own senses rather than to your agenda.

Well, I'm very sorry that the ideology existing only in your brain is not the central guiding principle of the cosmos. My deepest apologies that other people are autonomous beings rather than meat puppets acting out the political melodrama you've scripted in your imagination.

You could make actual arguments if your reaction had any rational basis, but since that's definitely not the case, I guess the only option is to complain that the world is failing to entertain you. Such a disappointment it must be that the Sun doesn't rise and set at your command.

[Scootaloo]

45. You realize you just typed five brief paragraphs of nothing, right?

I don't want to engage people who only "discover" ethical principles when they can use them as a mask for two minutes of hate against a target they know has no voice to counter their awful arguments on DU. Who will invariably - as in 100% without fail - utterly forget these principles once a new headline appears for them to chase.

Inconveniently for you, my response to you doesn't say what you want me to say - you want either applause or excuses. Instead you're getting eye-rolling, because I've seen this pattern before, and it's pretty fucking obnoxious. So by all means, keep thumping about the great glories of "western civilization" and the existential threat posed to it by two dipshits who got themselves killed at what was basically a convention of people whom you have 'liked" on Facebook. I'll just keep rolling my eyes nad having a laugh at your inability to process things that don't follow your script.

[True Blue Door]

46. I took the nothing that you're saying and ran with it.

I don't want to engage people who only "discover" ethical principles when they can use them as a mask

And there it is again, trying to rewrite the cosmos to fit in your little imaginary melodrama. My ethics haven't changed, and there is no basis for your attacks on me other than your reasons for all this crap: You don't want to talk about the subject logically raised by the event. Nor apparently are you willing to simply avoid conversations about it, because that would just make too much sense and be too productive.

Instead you have to dive-bomb this discussion with repeated, vehement claims of how much you think there's nothing to talk about, nothing to see here folks.

[img][/img]

So by all means, keep thumping about the great glories of "western civilization" and the existential threat posed to it by two dipshits who got themselves killed at what was basically a convention of people whom you have 'liked" on Facebook. I'll just keep rolling my eyes nad having a laugh at your inability to process things that don't follow your script.

None of that has any connection to what I've said, or to this subject, or to this planet. And you're actually bragging that your comments are a string of inchoate non sequiturs.

But thank you. You have proven to be a most informative case study, and a highly relevant demonstration for the topic.

[Scootaloo]

47. Nope. I simply find this "discussion" repetitious and obnoxious

Perhaps because I've been having it for over twelve years. It always follows the same pattern, and it does get rather tiresome.

Good for you, you really showed those three posters defending these morons who's boss, by not responding to them, and instead creating a self-aggrandizing bloviating OP that doesn't actually address the issue you claim it does. I'm sure that'll stop them in their tracks.

Meanwhile, I'm watching you say moronic stuff like the following:

These are atavistic, religious, savagely bigoted and oppressive people who seek a return to the 7th century.
...
unfettered self-hatred of Western civilization
...
inward-directed bigotry that uses Western morals against themselves while validating any external psychosis willing to attack them
...
That's literally what you sound like. You're talking shit and spewing hate on autopilot.
...
In other words, everything that happens in the world is America's responsibility, but at the same time we are monsters if and when we ever attempt to exercise such responsibility.
...
It's the Blame America Game
...
There's no moral reasoning that can convince you of anything other than that we're the problem
...
You're just not going to accept that the problems of that region are far beyond the capabilities of this country to have caused, let alone to have fixed, and yet you find it convenient to blame us no matter what happens.
...
So when you react like this, it really makes me wonder what the hell you think you stand for.
...
Do horrors not exist for you if they don't happen with a US flag stamped on them?
...

and what i see isn't a DU poster deeply concerned about freedom of speech. I see some dude who thinks townhall.com is a good place to harvest rhetorical points.

Nothing you've said to me is a response to my posts. You've ably rebutted points you really wish I had made (but didn't actually make) while basically calling me an anti-American terrorist lover, or whatever the fuck. And of course you managed to squeeze in some wild-eyed ranting about Muslim nations, apparently forgetting we're on the subject of a shooting in Texas.

All because you don't like having it pointed out that your over-wrought "concern for free speech" (unless the speaker happens to like Putin, for whatever reason, let's note) is wholly vacuous and dependent on whether or not you can use it as cover for spewing bile about people who can't answer you. That you are an intellectual coward who can't even muster up the spittle to respond to the people you claim your post is in response to, and can only respond to criticism by accusing the critic of "blame-America-First" and "self-hatred' and "sympathy for atrocity."

In fact, your entire source of "anger" here is simply that someone is responding to you in a manner that is not wholly congratulatory. You don't have the gumption to actually take on the people defending these shooters, you certainly don't have it in you to find some Muslims to express your "concerns" towards. Instead you want to have a completely friendly audience who will pat you on the back for saying some jargony bullshit with a dash of gish gallop.

[True Blue Door]

51. This is all projection, repeated immediately after I just said the same things to YOU:

...isn't a DU poster deeply concerned about freedom of speech.

Nothing you've said to me is a response to my posts. You've ably rebutted points you really wish I had made (but didn't actually make)...

You're parroting.

(unless the speaker happens to like Putin, for whatever reason, let's note)

"Happens to like Putin"...yeah, because that's something that happens among actual liberals on this planet. A fella happens to like Metallica, jelly donuts, and journalist-murdering, neighbor-invading tyrants who flood the internet with fake propaganda banter. You say to-may-to, I say 'All hail Glorious Leader Putin and his heroic crusade to cleanse the world of Western perversion.'

I guess that's a thing that happens in your universe - pro-Putinism among liberals - although I'm now more inclined to wonder if I was hasty in assuming this was a new category of Yeahbuttism rather than the same old one. I mean, they do tend to feverishly demonize the United States at every opportunity and try to change the subject whenever it's inconvenient for that agenda. It sounds a bit familiar now that I think of it. Or maybe they just learned that bullshit reading comments like yours, and figured it was an excellent way to disrupt meaningful political discussions.

That you are an intellectual coward who can't even muster up the spittle to respond to the people you claim your post is in response to, and can only respond to criticism by accusing the critic of "blame-America-First" and "self-hatred' and "sympathy for atrocity."

What "criticism"? All you did was dismiss the problem, dismiss all of its victims all over the world, and say we should all just shut up and talk about what you want to talk about instead because reality bores you.

You don't have the gumption to actually take on the people defending these shooters, you certainly don't have it in you to find some Muslims to express your "concerns" towards.

Because the subject has nothing to do with the vast majority of Muslims. Only people like you and others who politically fetishize them as a group think they have something to do with terrorism. They certainly have an interest in addressing the problem, since they are its principle victims, but it's despicable and ridiculous to wave around other people's identities as fetish objects and talismans to wave off arguments you can't defeat. No more smokescreens.

Stop making shit up, and stop changing the subject. If you believe this is a trivial matter, all you have to do to prove your sincerity is act like people act toward trivial matters - they move on.

Know how I respond when I think people making a big deal about nothing? I say, "You folks are making a big deal about nothing." Then I don't say anything else in that thread, because I actually have more important things to talk about. Because I actually believe what I say.

But you apparently don't. For some reason, it seems to be a matter of urgency that you change the subject of this thread when you're perfectly capable of just posting your own on the topic of your choice.

This thread is not specifically about the shooting in Texas (read the damn OP), it's about a general phenomenon of Islamic radicals murdering people for "insulting Islam," and the nutjobs masquerading as liberals who make excuses for it. You don't want to talk about that, but you're not content to let anyone else do so either. So I say again, your participation has been most informative and enlightening, but you are now simply repeating yourself.

[Scootaloo]

54. No, it's actual quotes from your posts, where you squawk like Joseph Farah

"Happens to like Putin"...yeah, because that's something that happens among actual liberals on this planet. A fella happens to like Metallica, jelly donuts, and journalist-murdering, neighbor-invading tyrants who flood the internet with fake propaganda banter. You say to-may-to, I say 'All hail Glorious Leader Putin and his heroic crusade to cleanse the world of Western perversion.'

First off, anyone who actually likes metallica has already proven they make poor decisions in life, so it might not be unlikely that htey actually like Putin. The point is, you want them silenced. I'm puzzled how this jives with your proclaimed fierce support of freedom of speech. if often seems as if many DU'ers only suddenly become concerned with and hypoeractively supportive of "free speech" when it's specifically hate speech against Muslims,

I mean you know, journalists are being corralled in Baltimore, and beaten by police if they dare leave the bullpen... Whistleblowers face prosecution from corporations and the government with next to no protections. At least a few media outlets are essentially mouthpieces of a seated political party. Are you seriously going to tell me that the greatest threat to freedom of speech is two dudes currently shelved in a morgue? 'Cause that looks like the direction you've decided to go on this one.

I guess that's a thing that happens in your universe - pro-Putinism among liberals

I didn't actually mention liberals, TBD. You know, just like i didn't excuse the shooters, or "blame america first' or any of hte other cockamamie stuff you've imagined thus far.

I mean, they do tend to feverishly demonize the United States at every opportunity and try to change the subject whenever it's inconvenient for that agenda. It sounds a bit familiar now that I think of it.

There must be a lot of krylon in that tube sock. The subject is that I find your thoughtless self-backslapping over what a brave truth-speaker you are to the awful hordes of DU to be fucking sad and stupid. I'm not sure where you're getting this gibberish about "feverishly demonizing the United States," but I think it's a little funny that you're trying to accuse me of changign the subject, while you seem unable to even find one.

What "criticism"? All you did was dismiss the problem, dismiss all of its victims all over the world, and say we should all just shut up and talk about what you want to talk about instead because reality bores you.

Well, for starters, we're talking about Garland, Texas. Like I said, find a fucking subject before you start yelping about someone "trying to change it."

Second, my criticism is that you, like so many others, are going to be vastly more outraged over a foiled attempt by two morons to attack a hate speech rally, than you are with people actually being slaughtered and brutalized. That you are far more interested in pumping yourself as soem great champion of the first amendment, even as you happily ignore actual violations of it. That you are going to be filled with more anger at two crackpot Muslims doing this, than you are with lots of innocent Muslims being blown apart on your dime.

I suppose it's more of a meta criticism than a personal one, because as i've noted, it's kind of 'same shit different day." You know, like how a thread about an ATM being stolen during the riots in Baltimore is still churning around o nthe frint page, but not a single one about Freddie gray? It's kind of how DU works, and it leaves a gross taste in my mouth.

Because the subject has nothing to do with the vast majority of Muslims. Only people like you and others who politically fetishize them as a group think they have something to do with terrorism.

You just got done howling about the evils of Muslim nations, you know. You're standing arm in arm with people who literally advocate indiscriminate killing of Muslims for being Muslim, you realize? You know, that rhetoric that you will defend to the death their right to express? Further, even if you actually draw a distinction, many, many on DU really don't bother. And due to the overwhelming amount of islamophobia on DU, what few msulims pop in rarely stay. Which means there are few 'inside" voices to coutner it.

And those of us who do make the effort get bullshit like what you garbled out:

sheer, unfettered self-hatred of Western civilization. A kind of inward-directed bigotry that uses Western morals against themselves

Which I will bet could be found word-for-word on Gellar's blog.

If you believe this is a trivial matter, all you have to do to prove your sincerity is act like people act toward trivial matters - they move on.

or i could keep expressing my freedom of speech to inform you that i find your wild-eyed, pulpit-pounding nonsense to be fairly loathsome and irritating. Once again, it seems your tolerance of freedom of speech only goes so far as things tou agree with - like hate speech.

Know how I respond when I think people making a big deal about nothing? I say, "You folks are making a big deal about nothing."

Actually it seems like you make obsessively long, rant-filled OP's.

This thread is not specifically about the shooting in Texas (read the damn OP), it's about a general phenomenon of Islamic radicals murdering people for "insulting Islam," and the nutjobs masquerading as liberals who make excuses for it. You don't want to talk about that, but you're not content to let anyone else do so either. So I say again, your participation has been most informative and enlightening, but you are now simply repeating yourself.

I have to repeat myself, because you keep insisting that I have said things I didn't actually say.

I would suggest addressing the nutjobs in question, rather than making a disjointed ranty OP that serves merely as a way to collect backslaps while making your "I'm-not-a-bigot" arguments about "western civilization" and "deranged animals' and whatnot.

But to accomplish that you would have the correctly identify the nutjobs, a task that you seem poorly-suited for. After all, you've spent all this time screaming at me and accusing me of "supportign atrocity" simply becuase i found your existentialist, civilizational doomsday rhetoric to be tiresome, repetitive, and drawn from some fairly awful sources. You could have spent that time actually tackling the problem you see,

Have a delightful day, with your continued support for censorship of opinions you dis agree with, you freedom of speech champion, you.

[True Blue Door]

58. What's that childhood game where you just randomly insert words into sentences?

You seem to be playing that game, only you're inserting an entire alternate universe into a conversation.

The point is, you want them silenced. I'm puzzled how this jives with your proclaimed fierce support of freedom of speech.

If Vladimir Putin wants to spread his psychotic views he can write a damn book like Hitler did, not hijack the whole damn internet with armies of paid trolls flooding fake comments to spew lies 24/7 like the bastard love child of the Ministry of Truth and Nyarlathotep. That's a far bigger danger to freedom than the long odds you'll accidentally happen upon one of the five actual liberals in the world who support Putin and make them feel unwelcome.

if often seems as if many DU'ers only suddenly become concerned with and hypoeractively supportive of "free speech" when it's specifically hate speech against Muslims

I see nothing of the sort, and furthermore, seeing resistance to terrorism as an attack on Muslims is some pretty nasty crypto-bigotry. Is that how you see them - in the acts of the radicals who bully and tyrannize them? That's like going into a cancer ward and not being able to distinguish the patients from their tumors. No wonder you think supporting Vladimir Putin is a real thing.

I mean you know, journalists are being corralled in Baltimore, and beaten by police if they dare leave the bullpen... Whistleblowers face prosecution from corporations and the government

And you have the ability to post your own threads about those subjects and every other deliberate distraction you can namedrop, but instead you're here trying to stop others from talking about people being murdered for "offending Islam." That, and the psychopathic rationalizations of same, is the subject of this thread.

You know, just like i didn't excuse the shooters, or "blame america first' or any of hte other cockamamie stuff you've imagined thus far.

So your very first post here wasn't to dismiss the entire subject by noting the lack of civilian deaths in Texas, even though the OP doesn't directly mention the recent incident? Your very next post after that wasn't a laundry list of "Yeahbut" accusations against the United States that you apparently felt somehow meant we shouldn't be discussing this subject? You haven't spent the whole time obsessively trying to change the subject and demonizing everyone who won't play your game?

Well, for starters, we're talking about Garland, Texas.

You are talking about Garland, Texas. The OP is talking about people being murdered for "insulting Islam," which happens all over the world, and the demented perverts who respond to those incidents by blaming the victims.

And for some apparently compelling reason, you don't want anyone talking about that - so desperately, in fact, that instead of just posting new threads about all those other issues you say we should talk about instead, you're still here, trying to drown out the subject with an endless spew of evasions and lies.

Second, my criticism is that you, like so many others, are going to be vastly more outraged...

Yeahbut, yeahbut, yeahbut...more evasions, subject changes, and lies. The subject is still the moral perversion of people who blame the victims of Islamic terrorist attacks.

You just got done howling about the evils of Muslim nations, you know.

You mean, stating the fact that Muslims are oppressed by the people you don't want me criticizing, and advocating for their religious freedom - which apparently also infuriates you? Yeah, I just got done doing my job as a liberal in a discussion on a liberal website, and you're doing the exact opposite. So that raises a deeper question: Why do you post on DU if you despise the people here, and the values we represent? Why do you even think it appropriate to do so?

And due to the overwhelming amount of islamophobia on DU

If people tripping all over themselves to be inclusive, and drowning everything they say on the subject in caveats and Sensitivity Training language to avoid giving offense to anyone who isn't determined to find it...if that is "overwhelming Islamophobia" in your eyes, the problem is yours. If you see "overwhelming Islamophobia" among a bunch of left-wing liberals, your views are beyond extreme. And the question remains why you think it appropriate to participate in a forum whose population you demonize as corrupt bigots.

or i could keep expressing my freedom of speech to inform you that i find your wild-eyed, pulpit-pounding nonsense to be fairly loathsome and irritating.

Repeatedly, without meaningful variation. Also known as...

[img][/img]

[PeaceNikki]

59. Mad Libs!!

[True Blue Door]

60. Ahhhh, yeah that's the one.

[PeaceNikki]

61. Seems like an ODDLY appropriate name, no?

[True Blue Door]

63. Yes, indeed.

Though I still dispute that people who fit the description in the OP are liberals at all, even prior to losing their marbles.

A liberal doesn't moralize by fetish. We don't point to some random object or status and say that's the North Star, and all that serves that is Good, and all that detracts from it is Evil, or vice-versa. That's fundamentally a right-wing thing.

I think the people in question wear liberal rhetoric as clothing. As a moral skinsuit, like Buffalo Bill in The Silence of The Lambs.

A liberal has empathy for the Other while a conservative condemns the Other and deifies the Ingroup. So someone who condemns the Ingroup and deifies the Other is simply a conservative turned inside out, and they "wear" liberalism when convenient because it's more tolerant than the other side is. But the fundamental values are all right-wing: Power, violence, compulsive lying to validate bigotry, all that toxic shit.

[Yorktown]

83. That post of yours IS a Gish gallop

Serving you a bit of your own medicine.

Except that I am to the point.

[SunSeeker]

20. The attackers shot an unarmed security guard.

The fact the the guy lived and the attackers didn't doesn't make what the attackers did ok.

Those journalists and political cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo weren't as lucky.

[Scootaloo]

21. I love how you immediately try to make like I said it was okay

Second, you're trying to link this with Charlie Hebdo. It's not. For beginners, we know who did Charlie Hebdo. For another, a lot of people were killed there. That was not the case here. Your conflation of the two is hysterical and ignorant.

[SunSeeker]

26. You ignore that the attackers shot someone.

The difference in body counts does not make what the attackers in Dallas did something we should not condemn.

[Scootaloo]

32. I do not think a calf wound is worthy of an existential "clash of civilizations" rant.

Your mileage obviously varies.

Maybe it's because I've taken a calf wound. They're a bitch, and hurt like hell to be sure, but it's not exactly civilizational in scale.

[SunSeeker]

72. A bullet to the leg is worth at least a rant.

Just because these nutbag ISIS supporters' bullet managed to only find an unarmed man's ankle as opposed to a vital organ, it is still worth a rant on a discussion board. And it's also a crime.

These dumbasses let these right wingers bait them, instead of simply protesting in front of the meeting. Rather than pointing out what the right wingers were doing was hate speech, these idiots literally became supporting characters in an anti-Muslim propaganda stunt--and got themselves killed in the process.

[muriel_volestrangler]

50. Linking the two is emminently reasonable and justified

Gunmen in a western country turn up at a place connected with cartoons of Muhammad and start shooting.

"a lot of people were killed there. That was not the case here."

Yeah, that's why the post you are calling 'hysterical and ignorant' said "those journalists and political cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo weren't as lucky." They made the same point as you. When they make it, you think it's 'hysterical and ignorant'. Does that apply to you?

I certainly find the crap you're throwing around in this thread :

'hysterical and ignorant', 'bullshit like your post', 'your samuel huntington East vs. west garbage spewed across my screen', 'I am going to see lots of hands furiously jacking off the shriveled dutch boy in geert Wilders' trousers', 'i'm going to see a lot of bullshit posts like the one of yours which I responded to', 'the lowbrow self-congratulatory nature of at least three day's worth of posts I'm going to have to step around', 'a bunch of other smug, self-congratulatory doofuses', 'I don't want to engage people who only "discover" ethical principles when they can use them as a mask for two minutes of hate', 'I'm watching you say moronic stuff like the following'

to be empty, meaningless shouting at DU that it's just not as goddamn special and ethical as you are, and that poor you is going to have to decide what to read on DU in the next few days. You have spent this thread saying how much you hate what is written on DU.

You sound, to be brief, hysterical and ignorant.

[Scootaloo]

53. Really? I was aiming for tired and fed-up

because yeah, I see this same shit every time, always from the same crowd of people, always with the same sad, saggy arguments.

"This is just like X!"

No, it's not.

"You're making excuses!"

No, you just wish i were becuase it's convenient for your non-argument.

"You hate America!"

is that you, mr. cheney?

"These people are subhuman barbarians who hate everythign and eat babies while raping kittens hargblargargl!"

No, they're not. At worst, they're short-sighted morons with impulse control problems. Dehumanization doesn't help anything.

"They want to go back to the 7th century!"

How the fuck would they tweet their plans to go get their asses blown away, then? no, Daesh and its myopic buddies has no desire to go to the 7th century. They want a 21st-century variety of hellhole, with all the perks of modern gadgets and doodads.

"I care deeply about the first amendment!"

You only say as much when you're trying to defend hate speech though. It's a little weird.

"If you disagree with me then you are supporting the terrorists!"

Mr. Bush? Does Cheney know you're on the internet past your bedtime? naughty!

So on and so forth. It's rote, it's predictable, and after well over a decade of the same old shit fro mthe smae old people with the smae old hatreds, I'm just a little tired of it, and not looking forward to seeing DU cramemd full of it.

[treestar]

55. Who killed them?

did the cops do something right for once?

[Scootaloo]

57. My understanding is that it was the police, yeah

[okaawhatever]

4. K & R nt

[JaneyVee]

5. So who won the contest?

[Scootaloo]

6. Everyone attending. This was their jackpot.

[beam me up scottie]

13. +1

They didn't deserve to get shot at, not sure that wasn't their goal.

[jeff47]

68. +1

Geller's support was running out of steam. This will ramp it right back up.

[linuxman]

41. not sure.

It should definitely go to whoever drew the chalk outlines out front.

[hifiguy]

70. Gellar. Just the way she intended to.

Any publicity is good publicity, so thinks the whackjob right.

[JDPriestly]

7. Thank you. Thank you.

[freshwest]

8. Good rant there. n/t

[pnwmom]

9. Thank you. It is also not "liberalism" to accept misogyny in certain other foreign cultures

that we would never consider acceptable in our own.

It is odd that some people who would never defend anti-gay bigotry in another culture have no trouble accepting bigotry against women, as expressed in rules for dress, travel, employment, property, etc.

[True Blue Door]

12. Very important points. Either we believe in our own values or we don't.

For some people I guess it's just sort of a game or a joke, and they think the "rules" are different elsewhere.

I really hate nihilists. Especially ones who masquerade on our side of the spectrum.

[sabrina 1]

15. It's even more odd that our Government, which speaks for us, has so many allies whose cultures

practice misogyny and homophobia to the point where they consider women and gays to be criminals simply for being who they are or trying to be.

The list is long. And it is rare to see Liberals, especially when Democrats are in power, speak out against those policies of consorting with, financing and supporting such backward nations.

Which is in my view, extremely hypocritical.

I do not support this government's support of Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Uganda or any of the other anti women, anti gay nations we currently call our allies.

[pnwmom]

17. Some have been speaking out for decades.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_Rights_Are_Human_Rights

"Women's Rights Are Human Rights" is a term used in the women's rights movement and is the name of a speech given by Hillary Rodham Clinton, at the time the First Lady of the United States, on September 5, 1995, at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing.[1]

Speech[edit]
In Clinton's 1995 speech, she argued very forcefully against practices that abused women around the world and in the People's Republic of China itself.[2] She targeted governments and organizations as well as individual females, as she opined that the issues facing women and girls are often either ignored or "silenced" and thus go unresolved.[3] Elements brought up in the speech include dowry deaths and China's one-child policy.[2]

Clinton declared that "that it is no longer acceptable to discuss women's rights as separate from human rights".[2] Delegates from over 180 countries heard her say: "If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights, once and for all."[4]

In making the speech, Clinton both internal administration pressure and external Chinese pressure to soften her remarks.[5][4] The speech is considered to be influential in the women's rights movement and in 2013 Clinton led a review of how women's rights have changed since her 1995 speech.[6]

[bettyellen]

79. Hillary Clinton agrees with you!

[romanic]

81. Great point.

.

[Warpy]

11. I don't believe in absolutes, sorry

Majority Islamic countries generally have various degrees of laws against blasphemy, mostly by common consent. They take offending the dominant religion as seriously as did the Christians in Europe until very recently, say 350 years ago. Do I agree with such laws? Hell no, but it's not my country and I'm all too aware of Christian history.

Having such people think they can come here and kill people they find blasphemous or merely insulting is a whole different thing. Our laws are very different and visitors here need to respect the differences as much as prudent visitors to Islamic countries should respect their laws. Not doing so in either case will result in a lot of unpleasantness, and it should.

Personally, I'd be pleased if all the desert religions would disappear, I find them all divisive and damaging. That is not likely to happen, so my job is to accommodate them as far as I can. That doesn't stretch to tolerating Christians who bomb women's clinics or who try to pass discriminatory laws and it doesn't stretch to Muslims who think they have the right to kill anyone who offends their religious scruples.

I'm left with the Steven Weinberg quote, "With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." I resent the hell out of pussyfooting around bad behavior and outright criminality because god, not in my country with its secular government.

That's really where the line is.

[pnwmom]

14. The Christians who did that were WRONG and that doesn't excuse the people who do it now.

And the OP's example was about a murder that took place in a non-Muslim country, so your point supporting their right to blasphemy laws "by common consent" doesn't apply.

[LiberalAndProud]

16. Mostly by consent.

Except for those who are executed for dissent (read blasphemy). Ugh, Warpy. I'm not one for moral absolutes, but surely morality is not as fluid as you would have it.

Just, ick.

[Warpy]

19. The dissidents generally know what they're up against

I would rather they voted with their feet and maybe come here but they love their countries and try to change them from the inside, often with disastrous results.

No, I don't like it but that's the way it is and I have no control over it. Neither do you. We can only control the criminal behavior of the especially rabid ones who come here to act out their religious scruples.

[LiberalAndProud]

24. There is a difference between having no power to change a thing

and being powerlessly tolerant. I rail against the cultural envelope argument that liberal christians use to justify biblical atrocities, and I rail against cultural envelope arguments to excuse unjust and atrocious customs and practices in our modern world.

[Warpy]

71. Fine, go do it in THEIR countries.

I dare you.

[True Blue Door]

23. They have those laws by "common consent" because challenging them

is taken as a violation of them. That's fucking Orwellian, and practically Confederate to rationalize someone else's lack of freedom as an act of freedom by its victims while enjoying your own freedom from a safe distance.

Do I agree with such laws? Hell no, but it's not my country and I'm all too aware of Christian history.

A people cannot consent to depriving themselves and all future generations of consent. That is not a moral possibility. It is not possible to justify any state other than a democracy with functioning and enforced freedom of political speech. And it is not possible to be a liberal and believe otherwise. That viewpoint is at best libertarian.

Personally, I'd be pleased if all the desert religions would disappear, I find them all divisive and damaging.

True, the desert has not exactly been a wellspring of reason and human solidarity. Not even in the United States. It seems that when there's not enough water, life becomes something other than it should be, and human life inevitably takes its cues from nature no matter how we resist.

I hope that once solar-powered seawater desalination and piping is economically practical, the Middle Eastern countries terraform their deserts, and slowly social change follows. Maybe when we get going with our own such systems in the Western US, and they end up extending into Arizona and so on, some of our own crazies will chill the fuck out.

[Kurska]

25. +1 EOM

[AgingAmerican]

27. The RW kooks who sponsored this, 'Art Exhibit"

Probably believed they would spark a war by doing this, like Timothy McVeigh.

[LiberalAndProud]

33. Or maybe they just wanted to

hasten Armageddon.

Will no one rid me of these turbulent theists?

[True Blue Door]

34. Yeah, probably. They're assholes, but they're within their rights.

And every time militants kill someone somewhere over "insulting Islam," I feel more and more a desire to insult Islam myself just to maintain the right to do so.

But the desire is moderated by awareness that the threat is exaggerated, at least in this country. Nonetheless, I fully support Europeans who feel it's imperative to maintain the right by exercising it, except for the ones who are clearly just looking for an excuse to fuck with immigrants.

I have no problem whatsoever with what these Texas assholes were doing though. We as liberals should be offending them constantly like that too, and we'd be a more advanced country if we were willing to push their buttons on subjects like abortion and guns instead of cowering in fear of their violence. Their desire to protest Islam merely works toward the benefit of secularism anyway, both at home and abroad.

[AgingAmerican]

36. It's amazing

...what invading countries on false pretenses, murdering millions of men, women and children, and stealing their natural resources will do some people's mindset!

How dare they!

[AgingAmerican]

38. Note the sarcasm tag

nt

[True Blue Door]

39. Ah, sorry. The syntax is very confusing.

The remark would be sarcastic whether you meant it or not, so the sarcasm tag leaves the meaning unclear.

In other words, someone who means to rationalize terrorism would make the sarcastic remark you wrote, and they might then put a sarcasm tag just to be obvious. But you meant it to cancel the entire statement, not to indicate the sarcasm that's already evident within it.

Optimal syntax would have to be something like this:

(It's amazing ...what invading countries on false pretenses, murdering millions of men, women and children, and stealing their natural resources will do some people's mindset!

How dare they!

)

And that's not clear at all, just more logical. Again, sorry for misunderstanding.

[AgingAmerican]

40. There is no rationalizing terrorism, especially religious terrorism

But there is context

[True Blue Door]

42. There's an interesting allegory about desert sand.

Sand perpetuates itself. It gets blown by the wind against rocks, and slowly erodes them, creating more sand. The sand is blown around, colliding and grinding against itself, eroding further, and becomes dust and eventually nothing but particles, but always an irritant and a problem for living things.

Walking on sand sucks, it gets into everything where it's not wanted, and it serves no purpose other than to make life as miserable as itself. Its only process is to break things down, to erode along fracture points, to cloud and choke things that need to breathe.

Very little grows in sand, but it's very easy for things to die in it.

That is the context of Islamic fanaticism, and a direct metaphor for it.

[AgingAmerican]

66. My point being

...our (the USA) actions have made Islamic Fanaticism a lot worse.

We need to get OUT of the middle east, and stay out.

[True Blue Door]

67. We will. The world will be completely off of fossil fuels by mid-century.

Saudi Arabia will still be rich from all the money it accumulated, but not in a way that other countries have to give a shit about it. Ditto the entire rest of the region.

On the other hand, the collapse of the regional economies means those thousands of people swarming over the Mediterranean might grow to millions and lead to a Fortress Europe. Could get nasty.

[geek tragedy]

48. Except McVeigh killed people. Lots of them.

The closest analogs to McVeigh here are the two terrorists who thankfully were the only ones killed.

[SunSeeker]

28. K & R

[sufrommich]

49. Very well said.

[PeaceNikki]

52. amen.

[treestar]

56. No one is excusing these gunmen

No one at all.

[fadedrose]

64. True, but

there's always a but - we have gotten over using a lot of offensive names - dago, honkey (slovanic), redskins, spics, n......, and a whole bunch of nastiness aimed toward southerners - marrying your sister, sex with the dog, etc., do you think it's okay to bring this garbage back because of freedom of speech?

In time, people with common sense will not want to hurt Moslems by insulting their Prophet. I hope the time passes quickly before the accusations against ALL of them turns them all into radicals and it would be our own fault for taking the side of the free speech defenders no matter how hurtful the free speech may be to some..

[Kurska]

65. Would you be okay with the same thing "Not hurting Christians by insulting Jesus"

With the most radical and dangerous Christians deciding with rifles what "insulting jesus" means? You'd be cool if that was the societal mandate? That we must treat all religions prophets as holy even if we don't believe in them?

Personally I find that idea far more offensive than a cartoon. You're essentially stripping atheists of their right to be atheist, they have to be de fact religious and reverent of religious icons, if they don't believe in them.

[fadedrose]

76. I'm close to being an athiest

am an agnostic. Don't believe in any religion, but there are people I care for who do believe Jesus was god, and all that stuff, both Catholics and Protestants, and out of respect for them I restrain myself from insulting the spirits they pray to. Doesn't hurt my right to say it's all made up but why hurt their feelings?

[True Blue Door]

69. There's a massive difference between calling someone a racial slur

and simply choosing not to observe someone else's religious taboos.

Granted, most of the images drawn at an event sponsored by those assholes would probably be deliberately racist and bigoted. But said assholes wouldn't be doing it if the other assholes weren't threatening to kill them if they did.

And that oppositional element of the "Doing whatever you're told not to do under threat" is something I understand profoundly. Call it what you will, but when someone tells me not to do something that is my right, and threatens me, I passionately desire to not only do that thing, but to go well beyond it and rub their faces in it. I know it's idiotic, but it's one of the roots of my liberal values - the absolute contempt for bullies.

If the Texas people were just being dicks for the sake of it, insulting a minority religion just because, and people of the religion responded peacefully and assertively, then I would see the Texans as the bullies for being hateful even if only symbolically. But their response to credible threats of murder was drawing pictures, so I have to begrudgingly call that element of their behavior (cartooning) a valid moral stand regardless of its core motives.

In time, people with common sense will not want to hurt Moslems by insulting their Prophet. I hope the time passes quickly before the accusations against ALL of them turns them all into radicals and it would be our own fault for taking the side of the free speech defenders no matter how hurtful the free speech may be to some..

This is a secular country with Constitutional freedom of religion. We as a whole nation are more than willing to defend it to the death against anyone who would change that by force, foreign or domestic, on behalf of extremist religious tyranny. Short of that, anyone who chooses to respond to threats against Muhammed cartoonists by becoming one, has a right to do so and a right to defend and be defended. There is no right to not be offended. Not on anyone's part. Not in a free society.

The fact that many foreign Muslims are so sensitive to this (American Muslims seem much better at handling it) is because Muslim countries punish it as a crime, and plenty of them punish it with death. If they come to a country where that is not the case, they have to adapt. We are not here to adapt to the undemocratic, illiberal ideologies they fled to get here. Either someone is on board with the basic tenets of liberal democracy or they are not, and if they are not, that person needs to leave and return to a country where their views are practiced.

Free speech is not a custom of this country, it is this country. So there will be no accommodations on this point: Everyone who wants to will draw Muhammed, as respectfully or as grotesquely as they please, and those offended by it may protest and speak their own piece, draw their own caricatures, hold their own peaceful events, and that's it. That's what happens in a freedom-loving society, and that's the only state of affairs we will tolerate. American Muslims seem to be okay with that in general, even though it irks them. They can irk the cartoonists right back in similar form. There are plenty of buttons to push to piss off a Texas Republican.

[Doctor_J]

77. where are the leftists cheering for murder?

It makes me sick to see the lengths the hippie punchers will go to

[Yorktown]

78. ++ thread. There is no excuse for physical attacks on people criticizing an ideology.

Islam is an ideology. One that calls for the murder of blasphemers and adulterers.

If one can't criticize that, let's all convert to wahhabism and be done with it.

Oh, and let's not forget to stone witches to death.

[rollin74]

80. thank you

when you respond to a non-violent act with violence then you just became far worse than whatever you were reacting to

being offended doesn't give one the right to assault or kill someone

[booley]

82. Why can't I be against both again?

Sorry

The people at this event were trying provoke a response.

And they got one what they wanted. And no they didn't care if anyone not involved may have been shot.

Your Jew in Europe analogy is flawed. This is more like yelling the n word around a black neighborhood. It's trying to gets violent response. Eventually you will get someone who will take the bait. Because the propaganda is so much more important then the consequences.

That doesn't' mean the response is justified. IF someone is trying to bait you, that doesn't' automatically resolve you or responsibility for not being mature enough to not respond.

Sorry but this was bunch of assholes trying to provoke other assholes who in turn got shot by the assholes they wanted to shoot

I really don't' have much sympathy for anyone in that scenario. Both parties would have been just fine is innocent people had been shot. Just one side was more ok with doing the actual firing.

It's not even a liberal thing for me. I am just tired of awful human beings trying to draw the rest of us into their awfulness.

Ok it is a little about liberalism since as a liberal, I think rights are supposed to be used responsibly, not just to troll people. IF this had been cyber bullying we wouldn't just brush it off as "they have a first amendment right"