Blasphemy in Denmark

[JoeMorgue]

Listen very carefully, because I'm sick of repeating myself and you clearly refusing to get it.

Listen we're getting a little heated here and that's not my intent. (And for what it's worth this is actually very interesting discussion.)

I do disagree with you but it not because I don't get it, it's just because I disagree. I understand the distinction you are making, I just see it a distinction without difference, fair?

I expanded my issues with the distinction in my last post. (Sorry thread got busy and we posted around each other a couple times)

 

[PhantomWolf]

And this hypothetical person would still be 100% morally inculpable in my book.

Well I'm glad the rest of the world doesn't seem to agree, even the SCotUS who has agreed that though finer in definition than elsewhere in the world, that the use of "Fighting words" i.e. words intended to try and make someone upset and fight, is not a form of protected speech.

It's not even close to the same thing.

You're hung up on the classic "You can't shout fire in a crowded theater" benchmark and you're applying it in places where it doesn't make sense and worse setting a precedent that allows other people to site it in places where it doesn't make sense, again making the "Look at what you made me do" culture more prevalent.

The reason you can't shout fire in a crowded theater when there is no fire is because getting out of the way of a fire is a logical action and a reasonable person (and I mean that in the legal sense) should be expected to know what results would come of this action. You should fire in a theater, everyone's going to try to get out of it.

You're trying to turn it into "You can't say anything if you know the outcome is going to be violent (the difference between inciting violence and saying something you know will cause violence is meaningless) and you share the blame." and that's not the same thing.

Let's say you walk into a theater and before the show starts someone stands up and yells "I'm gonna punch the guy sitting in front of me if anyone in here laughs during this movie." Now you've already stated that anyone who laughs, since this guy clearly stated he was going to do it, would share in the blame in the earlier "Triscuit" analogy (BTW I call dibs on Triscuit Analogy as a band name...). They would not. Because punching someone because someone laughed is not a reasonable act.

Killing people because someone drew a cartoon is not a reasonable act. So the people who drew the cartoon don't share the blame regardless of any other factor. It's not the same as... a Grandwizard of the KKK telling his members to go out and lynch black people. One is a direct order the other is a reaction to a stimulus.

You're not creating an environment free of incitement to violence, you're creating an environment where threats of violence stifle free speech, where the violent among us can hold our free speech hostage.

You are still totally hung up on it being connected to other people's reactions and actions

Can you tell me this, do you understand the difference between drawing a cartoon with the intent of making a political statement and drawing one to with the intent of trying to get someone angry enough to break stuff? If not, then there seems no point if continuing this.

 

[baron]

Can you tell me this, do you understand the difference between drawing a cartoon with the intent of making a political statement and drawing one to with the intent of trying to get someone angry enough to break stuff? If not, then there seems no point if continuing this.

That kind of illustrates the absurdity of your argument.

A fundamentalist Christian Nazi draws Ol' Mo purely to piss off Muslims, and Muslim violence ensues.

A liberal atheist draws Ol' Mo in an effort to stimulate a debate on free speech, and Muslim violence ensues.

By your own reasoning the former violence is to some lesser or greater extent excused because of the intent of the cartoonist, yet both violent incidents were predicated on the basis of the cartoon itself, not the motivations of the cartoonist. So you are making a moral distinction between two sets of identical people performing identical actions for identical reasons.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Can you tell me this, do you understand the difference between drawing a cartoon with the intent of making a political statement and drawing one to with the intent of trying to get someone angry enough to break stuff?

Yes. I just think the reasonableness of the reaction to the stimulus is more important.

You see the intent as the overriding, indeed sole factor, I see it as much more secondary.

I don't see the moral, or indeed even really the logical, distinction between doing something with the intent to cause violence and doing something you reasonably will know will cause violence and I see intent used in this context as distinctly different from say the difference between assault and assault with the intent to kill.

Let me see if I can give some context for how I'm framing this in my head.

Getting your ass out a burning theater is a reasonable reaction. If you hear someone scream "fire" in a crowded theater it's perfectly reasonable for your immediate reaction to be to get the hell out of there. The unreasonableness, and therefore where our moral concern should focused, lies in the person who shouted "fire" when there was no fire, not the person(s) who got the hell out of the theater because they thought there was a fire.

Firebombing a magazine publisher because they drew a cartoon of a Holy figure is not a reasonable reaction. The unreasonable lies with reaction to the act and our moral focus should shift accordingly.

That's where my moral distinction lies, not in the intent/knowledge distinction as it does with you because your distinction requires us to treat firebombing the magazine publisher as a reasonable act.

 

[PhantomWolf]

That kind of illustrates the absurdity of your argument.

A fundamentalist Christian Nazi draws Ol' Mo purely to piss off Muslims, and Muslim violence ensues.

A liberal atheist draws Ol' Mo in an effort to stimulate a debate on free speech, and Muslim violence ensues.

By your own reasoning the former violence is to some lesser or greater extent excused because of the intent of the cartoonist, yet both violent incidents were predicated on the basis of the cartoon itself, not the motivations of the cartoonist. So you are making a moral distinction between two sets of identical people performing identical actions for identical reasons.

Again, incorrect, the reaction is judged according tho the actions taken, not to the intend of the provocation. The intent of the creator only goes towards the creator, not to those that respond. Those that response are judged by their own intend and actions. If the responses were identical then they should be judged identically, regardless of the intent of the provocation. Though having said that, they might be able to make a case that when provocation is the intent, that it is greater than when it is not intended, so that might mitigate the punishment more, but that would be up to the Judge to decide in each case. If the level of provocation was deemed equal then mitigation should be too.

 

[baron]

Again, incorrect, the reaction is judged according tho the actions taken, not to the intend of the provocation. The intent of the creator only goes towards the creator, not to those that respond. Those that response are judged by their own intend and actions. If the responses were identical then they should be judged identically, regardless of the intent of the provocation. Though having said that, they might be able to make a case that when provocation is the intent, that it is greater than when it is not intended, so that might mitigate the punishment more, but that would be up to the Judge to decide in each case. If the level of provocation was deemed equal then mitigation should be too.

Ah, now we're getting somewhere. Then you agree that if I burn the Koran with the intention of dynamically highlighting an area where I see free expression being suppressed, and stimulating debate about free speech and religion in general, that any violent or threatening reaction is not only completely unwarranted, but is to be condemned unreservedly?

 

[PhantomWolf]

Yes. I just think the reasonableness of the reaction to the stimulus is more important.

You see the intent as the overriding, indeed sole factor, I see it as much more secondary.

This is because you want to include the reaction, but to me the reaction is irrelevant. Let's take you example in the previous post. A guy comes into the theatre and threatens to punch out the guy next to him is anyone laughs.

Now three rows forward we have a couple of wags that don't actually like the threatened guy, and believing the threat is serious they deliberately laugh so as to get him punched out. How would this really that different to them punching out the guy themselves, or hiring someone to punch him out? To me there is virtually no difference. They took a deliberate action believing that it was going to cause a crime to happen. Now again to me, it is irrelevant to this part whether the guy actually gets punched out of not, that is separate. If the beating doesn't occur, they still tried to make it happen, just as if they had hired a hitman who then reneged on the deal.

I don't see the moral, or indeed even really the logical, distinction between doing something with the intent to cause violence and doing something you reasonably will know will cause violence and I see intent used in this context as distinctly different from say the difference between assault and assault with the intent to kill.

If you know that violence of going to happen and you deliberately go ahead anyways, I'd say you are skirting the gray edges of intent.

Let me see if I can give some context for how I'm framing this in my head.

Getting your ass out a burning theater is a reasonable reaction. If you hear someone scream "fire" in a crowded theater it's perfectly reasonable for your immediate reaction to be to get the hell out of there. The unreasonableness, and therefore where our moral concern should focused, lies in the person who shouted "fire" when there was no fire, not the person(s) who got the hell out of the theater because they thought there was a fire.

Firebombing a magazine publisher because they drew a cartoon of a Holy figure is not a reasonable reaction. The unreasonable lies with reaction to the act and our moral focus should shift accordingly.

That's where my moral distinction lies, not in the intent/knowledge distinction as it does with you because your distinction requires us to treat firebombing the magazine publisher as a reasonable act.

To me you are sort of getting different things confused. For example, you can legitimately tell fire in a crowded threatre is there actually is a fire.

To me we can divorce the reaction from the action. If I run into a our threatre and yell fire knowing there is none, then I intend to make people run and panic, so if they get hurt, it's because of my actions and intent and that intent makes it criminal. It doesn't matter if running and panicking is a reasonable response of not.

If I run into a our threatre and yell fire knowing there really is one, then I intend to make people get out and away from the fire, so if they get hurt, it's still because of my actions but without the intent to have them hurt themselves, it's not criminal. Again it doesn't matter if running and panicking is a reasonable response of not.


Try this example. I just got turned down for a bank loan extension and yelled at the bank manager that some day he'd get his. As I'm walking out robbers enter and take the bank manager hostage telling everyone that if anyone tries anything the manager is a dead man. I'm still mad at him and decide I want him dead, so I jump up and made a mock run at the robbers resulting in the leader keeping his world and decorating the wall of the bank with the Manager's brains.

a) Do you believe that I was responsible for the manager's death?
b) Should I be punished for it?

To me, I might as well have pulled the trigger myself. I used the robber as a weapon to kill the bank manager.

Can you see the difference between this example, and another in with a security guard believing they are just bluffing tries to intervene and gets the manager killed?

 

[PhantomWolf]

Ah, now we're getting somewhere. Then you agree that if I burn the Koran with the intention of dynamically highlighting an area where I see free expression being suppressed, and stimulating debate about free speech and religion in general, that any violent or threatening reaction is not only completely unwarranted, but is to be condemned unreservedly?

If the intent is to highlight a political expression and not to try and get those Muslims to go on a riot, then yes. Though I'd also add, that even if you intention was to get those Muslims riled up that any violent or threatening reaction is also completely unwarranted, but should to be condemned unreservedly, along with the deliberate actions with the intent of causing that violent or threatening reaction.

 

[luchog]

For christians the best analogy would be the wine and bread of the sacrament, which religious christians believe becomes the literal blood and flesh of Jesus. (It always seems strange to non-christians this canabalistic element of christianity.) One does not just throw left overs in the bin or down the sink.

Erm, no. That only applies to one sect of Christianity, and not universally even there. As far as the rest of us are concerned, they're just wine and bread, and the symbolic act is what matters, not the substances themselves.