You may criticize any religion you like.

Adherents of that religion may criticize back.

That should not be hard to understand.

You get to talk. They get to talk.

Is that really difficult?

as many seem to feel on DU, what's the use? Why defend against stuff people are good with?

But people have different opinions, and have the right to express them.

because there are no standards. Thanks.

the ones they say are hate groups from the things they do.

You can ignore whatever you like - also a part of the free speech bargain.

Who are you asking to decide what is "appropriate" for you?

Now, in a forum such as DU, there are positions which are not welcome. DU is not an open forum.

Well stated. Unproven assertions don't get a free pass just because they're claimed to be divinely inspired.

i don't think those groups are about people who are critical or even make fun of religins and their prophets.

maybe you can try to figure out why someone like bill maher is not on their list .

and many other things far worse have been left.

DU is one website which already limits who can post. that doesn't stop others from starting their own sites and doing what they want.

With freedom of speech.

The point is: when you disagree with something that has been written, you use the techniques of discussion, public opinion, consciousness raising, diplomacy, and even protest to counter the wrong statements.

You don't kill people.

It's easy.

It's obvious you don't kill people for expression, but those organizations exist primarily to combat discriminatory expression.

They have the right to do that.

There are organizations which advocate for a right to have sex with minor children. There are organizations which advocate for racial discrimination, and organizations which advocate against it.

You can advocate for or against any damn thing you please, and so can everyone else.

This one struck a nerve with you...

Well golly, NAMBLA hasn't had a lot of success. The Ku Klux Klan gets mixed results here and there.

What "struck a nerve" is the painfully broken logic.

Groups like the NAACP are relatively effective at countering racism. Can anyone go stand on the street and say they don't like members of whatever race they don't like? Sure.

Even when it's their sacred cow is being slaughtered.

Wonder why it was locked.

So fucking weak...

splitting hairs will not lessen the fact that behind all this 'expression" are real bones broken and heads smashed. Granted, a civil authority should be able to pevent ANT of that, but you can ask trayvon martin and Michael Brown how that works.

In short, those organzations work because in addition to all the expression, there is a service they do, to help people who have been hit, hurt, harassed.

Amd as far as beign ok to blaspheme prophets, the fact is when you make it illegal to make fun of something, you silence any and all critics, as even the slighests critique will be labeled "bigotry" The Mide east is a sterlign example of this, with both sides of Jerusalem acting like persecuted victims, yet in the same breath explain why they are jsutified in killing children and blowing up things.

Not to prohibit it in any formal way (i.e., by laws that ban speech).

Or if you're really clever and edgy and smoke Gauloise cigarettes.

Do that and Western "progressives" will fall all over themselves for ya!

whether what someone is doing is right.

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

"What someone is doing is right" is right or wrong. There are too damn many finger waggers on both the Right and Left, IMO.

humorless cartoons released on a regular cycle?

Not I.

Taste or appropriateness is a different story and they don't have a right to not be criticized or mocked for their speech, but I will fight to the death to insure they have the right to be racist assholes.

Everybody has a right to be whatever form of asshole they want to be, just as I have a right to call them assholes for expressing their assholery.

Free speech includes hateful and offensive speech.

And I will always consider it a better thing for racist assholes to be public with their racist assholery rather than hiding in the shadows waiting to act on their racist assholery.

The single best thing the ACLU ever did was to defend the right of neo-Nazis to march in Skokie IL because they insured they would be public with their fucked up views rather than hiding in secret waiting to act on those views.

unable to spread their hatred to any great effect.

Germany has some experience with hate speech and its dangers.

You have forgotten the loophole in the German anti-Nazi law that has allowed for a younger generation to be recruited heavily into neo-Nazi movements.

Holocaust denial is not illegal in Germany, and through that loophole, gains are being made.

When you suppress speech, you make the suppressed speech desirable at some level.

I'll take free and open speech and my ability to criticize and mock hateful and offensive speech any day over any laws designed to remove hateful and offensive speech. Counter arguments are far more effective than suppression.

I'll take a 100% free market of ideas, thankyouverymuch.

I don't see why not.

I'm just curious why anyone would need or support them if the proper view is protection from defamation is unnecessary.

The entire point of freedom of speech is that conflicting points of view can be aired.

I don't think a "white people's defense league" is necessary, but if some yoyo's want to form one to promote a positive view of white people, they can go say whatever floats their boat.

I don't think Justin Bieber's music is necessary. Others believe differently.

That jberryhill is doing a fine job explaining and defending the principle of free speech, and how it works in a free society. The only thing I'd like to add is the explicit notion that free speech is THE most important civil right in any truly democratic society. In fact, you can't have meaningful democracy without free speech. That's why it is so important.

My OP is simply a roundabout way of trying to gauge the depth of DU's almost anything is ok rhetoric. Maybe it was a fail. It will interesting to see how many will still walk the walk next time they feel offended.

Thicken the skin or get out of the religion business.

especially Christian religion, in fact people do it here all the time on DU yet I don't see anyone picking up a sub machine gun to
go after Skinner et al.

Why should the Muslim religion be an exception to the rule?

sure will be tough as all of us will be in arms way, but I think should apologise for using Skinner as an example in this
instance before the spin master comes along and redo my thoughts.

Why should everybody be bound by someone else's belief system.

What kind of power would you suggest these "organizations" have over people who defame any of these systems?

What if someone had a religion that found something defamatory in your religion, is it voting time or do we just pile believers into a Thunderdome and see who walks out?

There is the ADL, there's also the JDL, are they both equally valid as defamation fighters in your eyes?

It doesn't have any right to special treatment.

Sid

Breathtakingly so, actually.

The ADL or the SPLC don't abridge my speech in any way. Nobody from either group has ever threatened to kill anyone over their views.

I have the right to be an antiSemite, a racist, or a homophobe and make outrageous statements in support of said positions. Advocacy groups have an equal right to point out that I'm a complete fucknut for saying such things.

I don't understand why you think that accepting the right to offend means believing that nobody should counter offenses with their own arguments.

I WANT Neo-Nazis marching through Skokie, IL.

Because at the same time they march in public, I have every right to photograph the assholes and publicly criticize them on the internet where potentially tens of millions of people will know them, who they are, and just what kind of assholes they really are.

When they hide in the shadows, they plot violence without anybody noticing.

When they publicly proclaim their hatred, at least they gain notice and can be watched, if only by the SPLC.

Before you project anymore crap onto me let me explain my shitty OP. I hold the same views on free speech that you do. My question about the necessity of those organizations was an attempt to challenge or draw out those who claim to unequivocally uphold the right, but may talk out the other side of their mouths when the shoe is on the other foot. It was a miscalculation that anyone would get it. Not my first, or last I'm sure. Dig?

ideas should be left to compete for space/air time and over time, the ideas that are best argued should win out. The ADL can present an argument that two different acts are anti-Semitic and I as an individual can listen to those arguments and decide if none, one or both of the acts are in fact anti-Semitic.

But the ADL and CAIR aren't going out and shooting people. They are presenting arguments about why a particular act is or isn't okay. And I'm free to ignore them if I don't find their argument persuasive. They may say that such and such an act shouldn't have a place in public discourse, and in some instances they may even have the ability to force somebody to at least publicly alter a stance due to their pressure. But the fact that they aren't shooting people means that if somebody is willing to pay a public price in terms of reputation etc, they can go on doing things that annoy the ADL or CAIR.

should we be allowed to do that when they point to Leviticus in the bible where it says gays are worthy of death and use that as justification for their bigotry, should that be off limits to criticize because it is somebody's precious religion? or is it just the criticism of the islamic fascists that hang us homos by the neck from cranes in Iran that troubles you so?

Seriously, you really don't have much of an argument here. Where did you get the notion that the ADL and such groups are mandatory?

and the fact that few religious people ever object to that suggests to me a vast and unrelenting hypocrisy. I had the impression that defamation was virtually a sacred rite in most religions. It comes streaming out of houses of worship constantly.

We have a local harvest festival once per year. Every year someone carries the sign, "Repent or go to hell."

And fucking the message all the time

Paganism faded from the world scene. Have you ever wondered why?

We should keep our mouths shut when we think beliefs are false, misleading and dangerous. To do otherwise is to defame, and I think you think that's a bad thing.

But if ANYBODY makes fun of my Flying Spaghetti Monster icon, there will be hell to pay !

People can defame. Others can attack/work/defend against defamation.