End result: an injured, vindicated free speaker; and a jailed, offended violent idiot. Also, the original speech and the court arguments during the assault trial (where the defence will try to argue on the basis of the offensive speech) will be informative to the general public. guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper
The price of freedom of speech is that someone can get offended enough to assault you as a result. Then you can win a court case for assault.
Or you can be dead. Or, as in the case of Rushdie's Norwegian publisher William Nygaard, who was gunned down on the street in Oslo, you can survive but the attacker gets away.
Are you fine with this type of situation? Because it sounds as though you are. The world's northernmost desert wind.
an injured, vindicated free speaker; and a jailed, offended violent idiot. Also, the original speech and the court arguments during the assault trial (where the defence will try to argue on the basis of the offensive speech) will be informative to the general public.
As to remedies, well, giving in to threats is certainly not going to help in the long run. In that regard (if in no other) it's good that Ayaan Hirsi Ali & co are working on a sequel to van Gogh's film, and that several European papers republished those cartoons. This communicates to potential attackers that their violence isn't going to work. The world's northernmost desert wind.
You're assuming that potential attackers are sane and rational. Odds are they won't be.
Migeru simply explained what happens, not what should happen.
His wording suggested that this is a fact of life we must accept, and even has a silver lining.
I disagree. It's a common mistake among the civilized to assume that violent scum aren't sane and rational. In a political context, they frighteningly often are.
Just to illustrate (since anecdotal evidence of course proves nothing) the attacker in the Nygaard case is believed to have been either a hitman or an Iranian government operative. His tracks disappeared at the Iranian embassy.
For that matter, the thug who stabbed Theo van Gogh is also jugded to be sane. Anna Lindh's killer, too. Both appear to have been politically motivated murders. The world's northernmost desert wind.
Both appear to have been politically motivated murders.
What motivated them?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Lindh
Theo van Gogh: Dutch filmmaker, stabbed and shot to death in 2004 by a Dutch radical Islamist with terrorist connections in retribution for a 10-minute film about suppression of women in Islam. On his body the killer appended a note which threatened Western governments, Jews, and the politician A. Hirshi Ali, on whose book the film was based.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_van_Gogh_%28film_director%29 The world's northernmost desert wind.
Now, how do you suggest Europe can prevent political assassinations from happening other than instituting some sort of thought police? guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper
Allegedly Olof Palme's was also a political assassination.
Probably, but that's never been resolved.
Now, how do you suggest Europe can prevent political assassinations from happening other than instituting some sort of thought police?
I have never said I believe it can be prevented outright. That would be pretty daft.
I have said that yielding to threats is not going to help. Rather it will encourage those making such threats.
Keeping known extremist factions under surveillance, as is being done all over Europe, is obviously also wise. The world's northernmost desert wind.
In modern épée fencing there is the possibility of a "double touch" with both fencers scoring a point on a simultaneous hit. One of the most renowned fencing masters (of the classical school) of the 20th century used to say "double touch: two dead idiots". guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper
In what world do you live in? Can you give one example when the violent learned that violence isn't going to work?
What you overlook is that the violent (and the culture warriors in the West, and the far-right in the West) also fight for domestic popularity and recruits, and the cartoons culture war gave them that in droves. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
In what world do you live in?
Third planet out from the Sun. And you?
Can you give one example when the violent learned that violence isn't going to work?
Yeah, this dude down the street, let me see where I have his telephone number. Come on, this is silly.
What you overlook is that the violent (and the culture warriors in the West, and the far-right in the West) also fight for domestic popularity and recruits, and the cartoons culture war gave them that in droves.
Give me some credit of intelligence, huh? How could I "overlook" that?
As I have said repeatedly, I don't approve of the original publication. However, given that it occurred and was whipped into a global campaign for editorial and diplomatic apologies as well as censorship, and where threats of violence abound against the newspapers and even countries involved, the solidarity is called for. Sure, deescalate whereever possible; sometimes it isn't. "If you pay the Dane-geld," an old saying goes, "you never get rid of the Dane."
That said, there are two sides to this republication question; my position is all-things-considered. Unlike the issue of whether freedom of speech is negotiable. The world's northernmost desert wind.
