I apologize to you on behalf of 'Muslims'

[Q Classic]

Actually, I think it's all in the matter of delivery. Carlos Mencia says some pretty nasty things, which if, if said in a perfectly serious voice, would cause far more offense than he currently does.

As with every bit of bad news, it's in the delivery.

[Elok]

Oh for crying out loud...isn't this exactly the same type of thinking-with-the-testicles you Europeans condemned in us? I have already said I do not believe they should be legally restricted from depicting whatever they want. I just think it is irresponsible for some people (online and in other media) to keep making trouble that it's not in their power to fix.

And it isn't. News flash: there are over a billion Muslims on this planet. The crazy ones are perfectly intermingled with the sane ones. And most of them inhabit rather unaccomodating terrain. Mountains, deserts, and so on. Being religious fanatics, they don't give up easily either. The US has the best military on this Earth and we're stretched to the limit trying to subjugate Iraq (population: 23 million). Oh, and we still have some people in Afghanistan, which isn't exactly secure anyway.

Indonesia alone is one of the world's five largest countries in terms of population, and they're spread out over like a thousand small islands. Even if the entire EU banded together, which I doubt they will, they could not "shoot the bull." All you would do is get the Muslim world up in arms by killing large numbers of innocent people along with the theoretically guilty, and given the origin of the conflict, you'd have a hard time convincing all of them that "this isn't about religion." You cannot win this by fighting. It's just that simple.

So quit whining about your rights. Only God can protect your "rights," assuming He exists and is willing, and it appears He's sitting this one out. I'm not even advising you give them up, you're just going to have to learn that actions have consequences. The world is not a unified republic, it has no Bill of Rights, and if these people want to get nuts, you're not gonna stop them without a long and bloody fight (probably not with one either). Or you can talk it over sanely, which has some slim chance of success. If you can think of a third alternative, I'm all ears.

Che: I'm not saying these rioters are not responsible for their actions (that is a weakness in my analogy), just that, given their past behavior, the publishers should have foreseen that they would not all choose to air their grievances in a civilized manner. That pretty much leaves the ball in the Danish court until such time as we have the power to restrain the fanatics when they get violent.

[Pekka]

"So quit whining about your rights."

No I won't.

"Only God can protect your "rights," assuming He exists and is willing, and it appears He's sitting this one out."

And guns. It's the 'make me' scenario. Oh you can't TAKE my rights away with violence, when it can be met with? Too bad. I guess I get to keep my rights.

The ones who want to give up freedoms, go ahead. To say, well, some irresponsible people using their free speech is causing a conflict, you always need two to tango. And what is the provocation again? A cartoon, made by individuals, that have been apologized for.

YOu seem to think that we should all be quiet for the sake of peace. We should get along, this is true. But not if it means we have to give up freedoms. Those were fought over long time ago. And we get to keep them.

This is about other groups trying to impose their will on us in our own lands.

You never addressed the question if you think this is the last demand. And if we are to be pragmatic about it, we need to bend over and give more rights when ever some loud group appears, threatning with violence. If they are offended, we need to change our freedoms.

If you don't figure we need to change anything, then I don't know what YOU are crying about. All I see is apologist for free speech and free press. Don't like what they printed? Fine, many others didn't like it too. But that's the way it goes. This is not a world of 'who gets most offended gets to say the rules'.

This world, at the very last hand, works by who the strongest one at that moment is. So we get to keep the freedoms. When these radicals grow stronger, then we might loes those freedoms. Maybe I get to cry whne my head it chopped that I*m not really Scandinavian. You think they will be reasonable and listen to me?

Since when can you deal reasonably with unreasonable demands? You can't. So you don't.

[Az]

News flash: there are over a billion Muslims on this planet. The crazy ones are perfectly intermingled with the sane ones. And most of them inhabit rather unaccomodating terrain. Mountains, deserts, and so on. Being religious fanatics, they don't give up easily either. The US has the best military on this Earth and we're stretched to the limit trying to subjugate Iraq (population: 23 million). Oh, and we still have some people in Afghanistan, which isn't exactly secure anyway.

Indonesia alone is one of the world's five largest countries in terms of population, and they're spread out over like a thousand small islands. Even if the entire EU banded together, which I doubt they will, they could not "shoot the bull." All you would do is get the Muslim world up in arms by killing large numbers of innocent people along with the theoretically guilty, and given the origin of the conflict, you'd have a hard time convincing all of them that "this isn't about religion." You cannot win this by fighting. It's just that simple.

What. The. ****?

So now might makes right? Awesome.....

[BlackCat]

Elok: you forget one thing when you claim that us forces are stretched to the limits. It's the peacetime forces that are stretched.

If us and eourope enters warmode, then it doesn't matter how many people there are in indonesia.

Edit : I for sure DON'T want them to do such a thing !!!

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Az

News flash: there are over a billion Muslims on this planet. The crazy ones are perfectly intermingled with the sane ones. And most of them inhabit rather unaccomodating terrain. Mountains, deserts, and so on. Being religious fanatics, they don't give up easily either. The US has the best military on this Earth and we're stretched to the limit trying to subjugate Iraq (population: 23 million). Oh, and we still have some people in Afghanistan, which isn't exactly secure anyway.

Indonesia alone is one of the world's five largest countries in terms of population, and they're spread out over like a thousand small islands. Even if the entire EU banded together, which I doubt they will, they could not "shoot the bull." All you would do is get the Muslim world up in arms by killing large numbers of innocent people along with the theoretically guilty, and given the origin of the conflict, you'd have a hard time convincing all of them that "this isn't about religion." You cannot win this by fighting. It's just that simple.

What. The. ****?

So now might makes right? Awesome.....

*WHOOSH* (ie, what he said went completely over your head)

[Pekka]

Also we should remember, still, because many of us are obviously getting provoked by all of this even if we don't admit it, is that the fact remains, there are 1.4 BILLION muslims out there. What have we seen so far, hundreds of thousands getting angry, and MOST of those are still loud but peaceful. Let's not forget that. Only TINY bunch of that crowd is actually ready to do something about it. Yes, still can cause lots of damage but those be the facts.

The REST of the population is still very quiet, might be offended many of them, but I claim they still do understand what happens in here and how things just go. How many muslims there are in Europe alone? Millions. If they would be truly pissed off, we would see it turning into something VERY ugly and soon. However, they are more moderate, more in tune with our society, maybe pissed off, but using the same methods of protesting like we do, writing about it on the internet etc.

That's an undeniable fact. Think about it, 1.4 billion. What we now see is something very small. Fortunately. And most of the loud voices are maybe wannabe revolutionarists, wanting to be the big boss. You know you run a tight society, you're the top dog, but still you have no say in real world politics. Think if you could gain a levarage in there, you'd have a direct power line right there, I think this is about power, I see few people making power plays, trying to gain more, and the rest of the protestors are sucked in. I bet they wouldn't care too much, but they've been told they've been insulted extremely harshly. This is my theory. I don't know if it's true.

But just here to say, that I still have faith in the moderate communities that outnumber by far anything else. But they don't make too big of waves, I guess they just want to live like normal people and if they would make waves, they might be in direct confrontation with the extreme side of the groups, and it would be very dangerous.

[Az]

No, it didn't. What does the fact that there are those millions of muslims who get offended have to do with my freedom to bash their religion, and their prophet? Why can't I "win this by fighting"? in fact, what on earth am I winning, exactly?

[Thorn]

Eventually people will see that the time for diplomacy has ended with these.... "fanatics"...... that in order for Western Civilization to survive Euro's and America must act against these barbarians in the severest manner! Crusaderism may not have been a bad idea after all.

[BlackCat]

Thorn, why don't you crawl back under that stone you slippered out from ?

[Thorn]

Give it a few years, and a few more atrocities on their part, see if you change your tune.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Az
No, it didn't. What does the fact that there are those millions of muslims who get offended have to do with my freedom to bash their religion, and their prophet? Why can't I "win this by fighting"? in fact, what on earth am I winning, exactly?

You've missed it again.

What he said was that the moderate Muslims are embedded with the crazies, so if you go to "shoot the bull" (ie, kill the crazy ones) you will kill innocents as well as the guilty. You can't win by PHYSICALLY fighting.

[Thorn]

I say let the martians have at 'em, too bad the martians aren't into that war thing much anymore.... perhaps they should build an embassy in Syria.

[Az]

You've missed it again.

What he said was that the moderate Muslims are embedded with the crazies, so if you go to "shoot the bull" (ie, kill the crazy ones) you will kill innocents as well as the guilty. You can't win by PHYSICALLY fighting.

You don't have to shoot all the crazy people. Just the ones attacking you physically. That's very possible. And if you physically fight, you can win as well, btw. but that's a different question.

[Elok]

Well, how do you propose to stop them, Az? Just withdraw all Western embassies from the countries in question, refuse to allow any traffic between their countries and ours? Anything less and you'll continue to expose yourself to danger from terrorist strikes, and that solution will itself provoke a war anyway. You can't pick the monsters out from the midst of the sane ones, you can't keep the lot of them from interacting with you, and you can't just wipe them all out. Well, you can, but not without trampling all over the values you ostensibly defend and causing ten times the terrorism problem you started with.

"Right" or not, you can't save yourself by direct confrontation. I'm just saying, this minuteman imagery you guys are pulling out is laughable. The American Revolution had the whole Atlantic Ocean between the freedom fighters and their enemies, and they were fighting a relatively conventional war too.

They also had more of a reason for fighting; how many taxes and unfair laws do the governments of Indonesia, Pakistan, etc. impose on you? None. They just have a bunch of citizens that are turning unruly, and they don't have the political influence or the power to suppress those citizens' resentment. Trying to do so becomes more and more precarious by the day. Egypt and Indonesia have both expressed acceptance of our/your apologies, but they note that their people are still upset, and there's not much they can do about it.

Trying to reason with them ("them" being the sane contingent of Muslims and their governments, not bin Laden and company) is the only remaining (workable) option. I don't think it's impossible; the average member of the Muslim world is human, just like us, and probably just wants a fair shot at life and to be treated with respect. Due to a combination of factors none of us really understands, including but not limited to manipulative leaders and media, poverty and corruption, bad blood between our cultures (started by the CRUSADES, Thorn), and good ol' crazy George W. Bush, some of them are convinced, like us, that there's no way out but to fight.

Their attitude is, at bottom, not much more irrational than that of the jingoistic Republicans here in the USA. You're approaching the attitude yourselves, it seems. Just keep demonizing them, convince yourselves that there is nothing for it but to beat them into submission. And try to forget that such things are easier said than done.