The West Is Choked by Fear [Der Spiegel Editorial defends "the right to offend"]

Der Spiegel ^ | January 04, 2010 | Henryk M. Broder

[Tolik]

... It was like listening to the blind talk about art, the deaf about music or eunuchs discussing sex based on hearsay. Because with the exception of the left-wing Die Tageszeitung, the conservative Die Welt and the centrist Die Zeit, every German newspaper and magazine followed the advice of Green Party co-leader Claudia Roth, who said "de-escalation begins at home," and erred on the side of caution by not republishing the cartoons. Prominent German psychoanalyst advised: "The West should refrain from any provocations that produce feelings of debasement or humiliation." Of course, ... left open the question of whether "the West" should also refrain from the wearing of mini skirts, eating pork and the legalization of same-sex partnerships in order to avoid causing any feelings of debasement and humiliation in the Islamic world.

Had the Muhammed cartoons been reprinted by the whole German press, then newspaper readers could have seen for themselves how excessively harmless the 12 cartoons were and how bizarre and pointless the whole debate had become. Instead, the assessment was left to "experts" who had in past defended every criticism of the pope and the Church as well as every blasphemous piece of art in the name of freedom of opinion, but who, in the case of the Muhammad cartoons, suddenly held the view that one must take other people's religious feelings into consideration.

But that argument was clearly just an excuse, a way of excusing the fact they had been silenced by fear.

... Thus began the "de-escalation" that had been called for. The only problem is the other side isn't thinking about de-escalation.

... Islam may be the "religion of peace" in theory, but it looks different in practice.

 

[Tolik]

Please read the editorial at the link

[Tolik]

... A German-Turkish lawyer who lives in central Berlin recently had to go into hiding because she became the recipient of death threats after publishing a book. The tome doesn't include any caricatures of Muhammad. It's just the title that serves as a provocation: " Islam Needs a Sexual Revolution."

Here is that fascinating interview mentioned in the editorial above. Repressed sexuality as a petri dish of dysfunction. Sexual revolution as one of many aspects of Islam's reformation on "the path of change, just as any totalitarian system must do when it wants to become a democratic society".

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,654704,00.html

[Tolik]

Right to Offend More Important than Protecting the Offended

... Very few people showed a willingness to break ranks. Among them was comedian Rowan Atkinson ("Mr. Bean"), who in the context of a debate over British proposed incitement of religious hatred legislation, declared that "right to offend is far more important than any right not to be offended." And Somalia-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a secular Muslim woman then living in the Netherlands, responded with a manifesto that began with the words: "I am here to defend the right to offend."

But she was one of the few exceptions. Even the then-French president, Jacques Chirac, temporarily forgot that he represented the country of Sartre, Voltaire and Victor Hugo, and decreed that "anything that could offend the faith of others, especially religious beliefs, must be avoided."

Thus began the "de-escalation" that had been called for. The only problem is the other side isn't thinking about de-escalation. The fatwa against Salman Rushdie is still in effect, and the attempt to murder Kurt Westergaard last week wasn't the first attempt to carry out a death sentence for an instance in which no crime had been committed. Islam may be the "religion of peace" in theory, but it looks different in practice.

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[skeeter]

The Left will lead the people of the west right into the ovens.

Its way past time to shake these parasites off & begin behaving like we have societies and heritages worth defending.

[GWConservative]

I’m sicklof media pukes telling me we are all afraid, that we are in panic, etc. I am not afraid of anybody ... other than the FR moderator perhaps ;)

[Tolik]

As you can read, Henryk M. Broder (the author) is not afraid neither. But he makes a valid observation about the Western countries, a big part of US included. If I misunderstood who is your target (”media pukes”), my apologies.

[Dick Bachert]

Speaking of eunuchs and cabbages and things...

IMPACT OF HOMOSEXUALITY, FEMINISM AND PC ON THE WEST

I believe it was the EARLY Romans who prohibited several classes of people from holding public office: Those of illegitimate birth (bastards), eunuchs and homosexuals. (That unfortunately changed leading up to the fall.)

While these children had no choice in the matter, bastards were prohibited because, having no sense of their family past or history, they could not be trusted to operate for the good of the culture based on its history or traditions.

Eunuchs (castrated males) and homosexuals because they could not and/or would not sire children and would, therefore, most likely have no abiding interest in preserving the culture for future generations.

While there are a number of exceptions, I’ll let YOU tell me what sort of folks we have in public office HERE today.

It appears that America has employed technology to compress into slightly over 240 years what it took the Romans over 2,000 to achieve — total and utter cultural collapse.

I believe the Romans would also have put radical feminists in that group – had they permitted radical feminism at the time. Wisely, they did not. More on that a bit later.

While channel-surfing recently, I stopped for a moment on an Animal Planet show featuring two lesbian roommates. And, no, they were NOT in the bedroom. As I watched, I began pondering the question of the growing impact of homosexuals and radical feminists on our culture.

None of these thoughts are original to me and all have been written about and discussed ad nauseam. This little rant is really an exercise in catharsis.

At the individual level, I have personally known a few homosexuals and, in general, have found them to be quiet, respectful and intelligent. Again, there are exceptions – such as the moron from California (where else?) cited below — but I haven’t personally met them and hope I don’t as there would be serious trouble between us.

Having said that, I fear that the homosexual – and the recent politically correct fervor to further legitimize that lifestyle – has done irreparable harm to our NATIONAL life and what remains of what many of us still call Western European Culture. When that impact is coupled with the rise of radical feminism (you’ll be pleased to know that the EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT is again being disinterred), the product is a result from which the West may never recover.

Allow me to explain:

The physiological fact is that homosexuals normally do not reproduce. The current population replacement rate – the rate necessary to maintain the current native born population level — for the United States is somewhere north of 2 children per couple. Homosexuals usually don’t HAVE kids. Add the radical feminist impact – which holds that motherhood is some form of slavery and has driven many women to seek “fulfillment” OUTSIDE the home — and the current birth rate here is disturbingly FAR BELOW 2.1 per couple.

The other side of the demographic coin is that the virtually unrestrained immigration policies of past administrations have brought a huge influx of people from cultures radically different from that which existed here prior to the advent of PC, diversity, tolerance and all the other names by which many now call these self, nation and culture identity destroying behaviors.

Add the millions and millions of illegals who are now placing such a physical and economic burden on the healthcare and school systems that natural born citizens are being taxed to death and/or cannot, themselves, get the services to which they would otherwise be entitled. It’s a recipe for chaos.

And the politicians – who hope these new welfare recipients will support their perpetual reelection — turn a blind eye.

And as these groups agitate and campaign for THEIR particular flavor of diversity and tolerance, they also give added traction to virtually EVERY OTHER flavor. As they change millions of minds and cause others to reconsider long-standing and time-tested value systems, they are turning our world upside down.

The effect of these factors is that the America in which many of us older folks grew up is disappearing at an alarming rate. As the nation many of us came to love – and donned uniforms to defend – drifts toward some sort of Balkanized
despotism, large segments of these new arrivals – who know little and care even less of the traditions, values and history of this place and even refuse to learn the common tongue — separate themselves into ghetto-like enclaves where outsiders are often not welcomed unless they’re spending money. We run the very serious risk of repeating the experiences of the former Yugoslavia from which some of my people came.

Speaking of whom, my great-great grandparents waited for years then stood in long lines at Ellis Island to be deloused, interrogated and told they had to learn English and our history and traditions and pass a test – something the Hispanics and radical Muslim terrorists strolling across the border with Mexico don’ t have to do.

The Clinton administration – well known for its tolerance of the gay lifestyle – published some statistics in connection with AIDS that startled many. Of course, the PC then rearing its ugly head prohibited all but the brave from commenting on any of that.

The CDC statistics showed that 85% of all AIDS/HIV cases are
1. Active, non-monogamous homosexuals,
(the largest subset)
2. Heterosexuals and bisexuals who have had sex with group 1 and
3. IV drug abusers who share needles.
(Kinda gives new meaning to Romans 6:23, doesn’t it?)
The remaining 15% are those who have contracted AIDS via other,
non-sexual/non-drug means SUCH AS TRANSFUSIONS OF TAINTED BLOOD (which one homosexual “leader” on the West Coast URGED his fellow homosexuals to CONTINUE to attempt to contaminate in order to involve the straight community in the push to increase federal funding for AIDS research).

So, with the population replacement rate practically down to zero, we have some “leaders” of the homosexual community – who do nothing to help raise that rate – encouraging their members to make ill or kill those of us who have and/or are having and raising kids here.

I find it fascinating that many members of the homosexual community and the radical feminists are on the front line of the assault on traditional values and seek to replace them with more tolerance, diversity and other politically correct nonsense. They have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

While their activities have produced short-term benefits for them, that diversity, tolerance and egalitarianism have also opened the door to the idea that no culture is “better” than any other. Obama – apparently having confused Chicago with America — spent days recently apologizing to everyone he met for our defective, decadent and corrupt culture.

And that has brought to our shores a formerly foreign culture, the more radical elements of which are breeding at a rate well in excess of the rate among the indigenous LEGAL and NATURAL BORN population.

And, just as it already has in Great Britain and continental Europe, with those increasing numbers will come increased political and social power.

And with that will surely come a foreign theology and law system.

And that foreign theology – that’d be Islam— and law system – that’d be Sharia — DOES NOT TOLERATE HOMOSEXUALITY and regards WOMEN AS CHATTEL WHO HAVE NO PERSONAL RIGHTS LET ALONE THE SORT OF FREEDOM TO WHICH THE FEMINISTS ARE ACCUSTOMED.

The bottom line, gays and ladies? You will either fall under the sword (put to death for you government school folk) or confined to the house unless your “man” – who will beat you periodically – wants to take you out, in which case you will be garbed from head to toe. And, only HE can drive the car.

Here’s a short video clip of the reward your PC destruction of traditional American values will bring you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlyeT1MBEzE

A number of years ago, a writer posited that there was a “War Against Boys” within and without the government school system. He opined that little boys were being psychologically and emotionally emasculated by millions of female teachers and others in the America of John Wayne.

We have now entered the era of the feminized “metrosexual” (one now occupies the White House) where boys are discouraged – often prohibited — from playing games with toy plastic guns, rubber knives or other weapons. Feminists, if it hadn’t been for millions of young men with REAL guns venturing forth from time-to-time to face down very rough folks with designs on this country – and YOU — your freedom (albeit shrinking thanks largely to our having become the Metrosexual States of America) to promulgate your radical worldview would not exist.

So there you have it.

I’d urge you to think about these things while there MIGHT still be time to alter course.

PS: I had to get this out of my system BEFORE the new, improved congress passes the pending legislation making it a crime to post ANYTHING on the web that could in any way cause ANYONE emotional distress. Would it matter that it was factual? Nope! While it’s probable that the Supremes will rule it a violation of the First Amendment, I’d rather not squander my kids’ small inheritance on lawyers bringing the case.

Dick Bachert
5/6/2009

[LearsFool]

A “right to offend”??

There is no more a “right to offend” than there is a “right to shoot people”.

If I must shoot someone in order to defend my life or someone else’s, or if we must shoot a convicted murderer in order to avenge the taking of life, such shooting is incidental to the defense of the inalienable, God-given right to life, not the exercise of a “right to shoot people”.

Similarly, if we offend our enemy in the course of defending ourselves from his assaults, such offense is incidental to the defense of ourselves, our nation, our heritage and way of life. THIS is our right, not some lily-livered “right to offend” manufactured by those whose careers consist of offending people!

We in the West have perverted liberty into license, and forgotten the entire purpose of freedom. Now the resulting societal rot has eaten so far that we’re reaping the consequences. And the best semblance of manliness we can muster is a whiny, schoolgirlish “right to offend”? From a debate starring “Mr. Bean”, no less?

If I were a muslim soldier, peering through the battle lines, watching British soldiers engage in slap-fights like this, I’d start cleaning up my uniform in preparation for the imminent victory parade.

Your pings are generally well worth reading and pondering, Tolik. But IMHO, this one belongs not under “Nailed It”, but under “Bungling It”. :-(

[GOPJ]

One more example of thin-skinned Muslims. They expect us to over look nutty killers but draw a cartoon about them and they are 'oh so wounded'. If Muslims want acceptance they need to quit defending the indefensible.

Muslim women need to quit carrying the morality for the religion - really there isn't enough sexual purity in the world to wash away people who are willing to blow off (literally) a young man's penis in order to kill a bunch of American civilians.

Do YOU hear me worst case?

NO AMOUNT OF SEXUAL PURITY or shame or any of the other kinky Muslim ways washes away killing people for drawing cartoons or DARING to disagree with the control freaks who run the religion.

Muslims need to get real...

And worst case - you need to talk this out - not hope someone puts a fatwa on me for daring to speak truth.

[LearsFool]

Well said!

[Tolik]

Hey, you are correct on so many points, BUT:

The editorial is from Germany. While, I am sure, the author is perfectly familiar with our definition of rights, they don’t have it in the same way. Which was our advantage for the 200+ years.

I read it as a rebellion of the best of them, Mr. Bean included, against fetishism of “not offending anybody”. Especially that it’s not really not offending ANYBODY (they are perfectly brave to offend everybody else), but a very specific group: those Muslim that violently riot against being called violent.

This editorial is more in defense of a traditional Western right (regardless of how it specifically put into the law in each country) of freedom of speech. So, if you are talking about the feckless parts of the West then yes, I agree with your definition of “Bungling It”, but the author himself nailed it right.

[usurper]

I’m sicklof media pukes telling me we are all afraid, that we are in panic, etc. I am not afraid of anybody.

I am more than willing to accommodate anyone seeking their 72 virgins. Come one come all, form a line and get ready for paradise.

[worst-case scenario]

I’m a bit confused as to why you responded to me in this thread, since I hadn’t been involved in it/ Unless it’s because you’re planning to include me in every “Muslims are bad” thread, just to illustrate your point.

I refuse to tar all Muslims with the same brush, anymore than I would tar all Christians or Hindus or Buddhists. “Muslims need to get real..” There are actually many, many secular and liberal Muslims, but nobody has gotten around to writing about them in the US. And they are actually speaking out without fears of fatwa from the nutcases. And yes, there are murderous and insane Muslims. I just don’t agree with you that simply being a Muslim makes you murderous and insane.

Many, many Muslims speak out against the terrorist insanity: http://www.seculardemocracy.org/

“And worst case - you need to talk this out - not hope someone puts a fatwa on me for daring to speak truth.”

I’m always happy to talk things out if there is a space for open-minded discussion instead of getting a close-minded and derisive lecture. Otherwise, I will save my breath to cool my broth.

No one hopes that you have a “fatwa” put on you. How would that even occur, since there are no identifying markers on your membership here? So no need for you to worry about that.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Thanks for the new tagline... :)

[Misterioso]

Many, many Muslims speak out against the terrorist insanity.

Better they should speak out against the Koran.

[Citizen Tom Paine]

This is a concrete manifestation of the fact that Western Civilization is in one of the stages of deterioration which occured to most major civilizations. See Toynbee's “A Study of History”.

[Cacique]

btt